holiday round-up

the past 2 weeks have been a whirlwind. a warm, fuzzy, crazy, wonderful whirlwind. here are some highlights:

• after lots of work, we have our 22-month niece, Shannon, saying "unk-john" (that's me), and "jodi" (still working on the "aunt" part).
• we discovered that our PA friend Kylee Jo is already "speaking in tongues" with her boyfriend....
• our nephew, Luke, does pretty well on a bed of nails (see pic below).
  

• my sister and her family are finally moving back into their home in Columbus. due to a house fire in JUNE, the four of them have been in a little town home/apartment for 6 months!
• Bob Evans only has childrens' menus *sometimes*. their non-smoking section is kinda... smoky. they still make a mean biscuit - but you have to request them several times - and you have to ask for butter a few more times.
• ken and chris and me commiserated about the state of the Church and our lives.
• Gary S. Jackson is still Gary.
• Wes and Diana got married... FINALLY (that was the word of the day).
• hope still feels like home!

oblivious action figures

yeah, yeah, it's been a while.

after my own sister told me I really needed to update my blog, and others said they thought the "refresh" on their browser was malfunctioning, I've decided to break my silence.

phoenix, new castle, columbus, raleigh - I'm now at my 4th holiday destination within an 8-day period.

while you reel in the ecstasy of my new blog post, check out the new action figures website! it kills me that we're going to miss their CD release next week. we've only been waiting for the CD to be done since before the dawn of man.

for example, I listened to the action figures "rough mixes" to keep me awake on my drive up to propose to Jodi... that was 8 months before we were married... and we got married 3 1/2 years ago.

new pics and other news coming sooner or later.

the beautiful effect is...

...one way to explain the holy spirit's work on our souls
...another excuse to use the word 'beauty'
...getting a perma-grin when you pass a cooing baby
...satire?
...tongue in cheek?
...what you make of it
...what happens when you make art with titles like "american beauty", "life is beautiful", "a beautiful mind", "the beautiful letdown", "beautiful day"... the list goes on
...a testament to the overuse of said word
...finally here
...the name of my new album
...available now.

violated

what you're looking at is the remains of my car stereo. this morning, as I finished my ER shift at 5am, I walked out to my vehicle, turned off the car alarm (which was still blinking, reassuring me of a "secure" vehicle), and looked right into my 4Runner through the shattered driver's side window. someone had just been burglin' my truck!

our hospital security said they had just ridden by my vehicle about 10 minutes earlier and everything looked fine. there was really nothing of any value inside... besides the radio. the vandals pretty much only made off with the face plate (which I'm sure was well worth their time and effort). but in the process, they mangled the rest of my radio.

so here I sit (already awake at 10am after getting home at 6am). thinking about how to squeeze car stereo/window repair into my already busy schedule this week. and about how I'm going to get all that glass out of my car!

two more thoughts. (1) I still have yet to figure how to get crowder out from inside this faceless box; and (2) maybe a new car radio with input for an ipod would make me feel better?

funny video

this kid reminds me of people in goldsboro, NC. for those of you who haven't lived in the south, the word he keeps saying is "fixin" - but in the deep south, they say "fit'n."

thanks to ashdown for the link.

11.19.05 - club ark (and star wars)

we were blessed to play at club ark again this weekend. mad props to Myron and the club ark crew for being so hospitable! i'd totally forgotten how rad the smoke machine and lighting were at club ark. sorry no pictures lately - i keep forgetting to charge the digital camera.

carl deese (bass player in my band) opened up the show with an acoustic set of originals. love that loop-delay thing dude! "my boooooooooo...."

for those of you who don't know, I have an unhealthy pre-occupation with lightsabers, star wars, and the like. while jodi was out of town this weekend, I fell asleep and woke up several times to our new DVD of episode III. it was pretty much playing around the clock. and, if you'll recall, I also had a Star Wars birthday party last month.

our dear friend, Paul Deluca is aware of this. he knows me well, and he's heard me carry on about this fascination of mine. so you can understand my dismay when I realized, as we were in the middle of our set, that people were playing a Star Wars game on Xbox! Paul and I had been playing Xbox earlier that night. Paul was the one who walked over to all the games to pick which ones we played - these included Mike Tyson boxing, some Nascar race game, and Tiger Woods golf - they did NOT include anything resembling Star Wars.

understandably, I was very upset with Paul and am now trying to forgive and forget. just like I did when he tried to burn our house down with a bag of microwave popcorn....

11.17.05 - the Rock, ASU

tonight we were spoiled with a group of students hungry for worship. they asked us to do a whole service of singing and communion. the Holy Spirit was in the house, and the Rock definitely showed up to get some. good vibes all around - the Rock rocks!

with all the delays of our new CD coming out, we've lied to this group the most. every time, it's been like "we'll have the new CD next time we come." and next time we arrive empty handed again! wish we'd taken some pictures - but maybe next time?

business = busy-ness

here's what my last few days looked like:

wednesday: had band practice 4-6pm, then worked 7pm to 5am at the hospital.
thursday: practiced 4-6pm, then worked 7pm to 5am.
friday: band practice 4-6, then 2nd band practice 6-7:30, then gigged on ASU campus 8:30-10pm... then worked midnight to 7am!
saturday: slept about 3 hours, then had band practice noon to 2pm. tried to nap... but couldn't. then rolled to the crash competition by 6:30.
sunday: up by 6am to play drums at crosspointe.
sunday afternoon: nap time!

no towels! need sleepy!

11.12.05 - crash competition semi-finals

we did a 3-song set at the semi-finals of the crash competition (local battle of the bands-type deal). only by some Grace and a large number of votes from our sweet fans did we squeak into the final round by nabbing the wild card spot.

carlsbad... no really, he's a pretty bad dude.

kurt (aka the gimp), wahba, and josh's arm. note the custom kick drum head with wahba headphones. watch out, Warrant!

11.11.05 - faithful city @ ASU

kurt, tim and I did an outdoor acoustic cafe with the very cool Faithful City ministries. they are an all Asian/Indian-American student ministry with such sweet, kind folks. we were a little chilly (for Arizona), but good vibes all around....

tim hitting the dumbek and djembe.

the beast (between me and tim) makes us a quartet.