Reason to Buy Travel Insurance

I've never purchased any, but I may reconsider if I ever make plans to fly somewhere for vacation!

No posts=I've been gone

If you've been following my twitter, you know I've been gone for a while. We had a good time seeing friends and family, a little mechanical drama, but when everything is said and done, I have to say there's no place like home.

It's hard to read that GPS. I reset all the numbers before we left. The total miles driven in two weeks is 3087.3 miles. I know that's no record, but it sure did feel like one!

Saddleback Conference, Day 4

The final day of the conference was compressed since it more or less ended mid-day with a beach gathering and bonfire at Huntington Beach later that evening. I don't know how well it was attended, and as you would expect on the last day, the attendance began to dwindle as many had to catch flights home.

Emily and I went to Alva Copeland's "Transforming Singers into Outstanding Servants." It was outstanding. Some tidbits from her talk:

• When auditioning vocalists, the first question she asks is, "Did you come to serve?" If you came to sing, this is the wrong ministry!
• We're looking for servants who can sing, not people who are looking to be seen.
• Just like the disciples, sitting around looking at each other wondering "which one is the greatest?" instead striving for
• servant leadership: group of people submitting to each other to achieve something they could not do alone
• The platform is not for personal affirmation--the cross is for that.
• No level of importance is attached to an assignment.
• Nurture the "glad we can be doing something" spirit in the team. Don't ask them to make sacrifices you aren't willing to make.
• Do not allow the pursuit of excellence to foster or fuel a performance mentality (Quest for perfection). Excellence is more about discipline and sacrifice to give something that was costly to you.
• Set aside personal gain, abandon personal agenda.

After her session we went and got a burger at the famous "In N Out Burger" fast food chain. And yes, it was a good burger. I checked out of my hotel room and went back to campus where I explored their new "Refinery" building which is supposed to become their youth hangout facility. The building comes complete with skateboarding ramps,

a little place to buy food and chat with your friends,

an incomplete amphitheater,

a basketball court (behind the windows),

a nice view from the outside stairs going to the 2nd floor

and a game room.

From there, I wandered into the in-progress Deliriou5? concert. I wasn't too interested in hearing them, but I recorded part of their video word-feeding ideas which I thought was clever.

Finally, I met up with The Chapel gang one last time at Laguna Beach where we stood around for a while and tried to figure out where to have dinner.

They left for SNA and I hung out for a while and got some sun-setting pictures before heading off to LAX.

My flight was a 11:55pm departure to Atlanta. It was a four hour flight and I ended up in Atlanta at about 7:00am. I did not sleep well. I think I maybe got a total of two and a half hours. I was real conscientious of the guy next to me for some reason. Anyway, I slept more on the plane on the way from ATL to RDU. I don't remember the take off and when I woke up we were beginning our descent.

It was a great conference--it has been a treat to get to go there because you are surrounded by people just like you. My plea again will be for members of my staff and members of our volunteer team to be able to take it in together. There will be infinitely more musical benefit for us as a ministry and staff than yet another trip to NAB.

SoCal adventure, Day 3

Today we had a busy day. We have visited three churches and taken in five services in a little over 24 hours! It has been great to see how various churches "do church" and hear how other churches experience similar positive and negative issues from a musical and technical standpoint as we do at Providence.

We started our morning back at Saddleback where I went to the gospel style "Praise" service and Kenton attended the high octane "Overdrive" service. In the Praise service, they covered a couple of the Israel Houghton songs. Here is a little snippet of the service:



One of my disappointments about being away from home this weekend is that I was going to miss Joel and Sonia's version of "When I Think About the Lord." Well, I was fortunate to hear it covered congregationally at this service. A great sound!

A couple of quick observations.

• There were a total of four songs in the opening.
  
• Buddy Owen's sermon included some worship time at the end so I'm betting they did that today as well (we didn't stay for the whole thing).
  
• They had another B-3 in this venue.
  
• It appeared that the sermon was the 4:30 service from Saturday was the one they used in the outside venues all day.
• The "welcoming pastor" spent a good deal of time inviting the congregation to thank-by-applause the members of the band and the vocal team and the choir, some specifically by name. I don't know if that was the norm.
• Saddleback does a good job of welcoming people coming onto their sprawling campus.
• It was interesting that with the venues spread out across campus, when the music your venue was done, you could often hear and feel the pulsating music from another venue.
• Across the campus the venues focused on a theme, but did not necessarily contain the same songs. Each venue leader appeared to be allowed, maybe even encouraged to plan a service that matched the overarching weekend theme in the language of its venue.
  

After our time at Saddleback for the 9:00 services, we took off for Mariner's Church to take in their 11:00 service. This seems like a nice church. The whole courtyard area is set up for kids. Not sure if this picture shows all the beach balls and toys out in the lawn area, but I wanted to run out there and play.


The music was led by a band, song leader playing acoustic guitar, electric, bass, drums, keyboard, violin, and two female singers. The song selection featured a couple of hymn reworkings for band (Great is Thy Faithfulness and one other well-known one that I've forgotten), along with You Are Holy (Prince of Peace), and Heart of Worship.


The presentation looked nice, the worship leader was a little elementary-school singing some of his instructions which felt weird to me for some reason, but seemed likable and enthusiastic. The pastor's name is Kenton, which Kenton seemed to think was cool.

This was the church's version of laying hands on people during a dedicatory prayer for their VBS teachers for the week.


They must do it often because people didn't need much instruction on what to do. I just thought it was interesting. There was an overflow area we discovered that was pretty full, multiple flat screens carrying the service. I don't know what to say about the 45 minutes we spent there. It seems like a nice church--I don't know what I was expecting, but from a musical standpoint, from an engaging standpoint, it was kind of underwhelming. Of course, I had just come from a high-energy gospel style service to a small-sound presentation, but still, I was hoping for a little more on the musical side.

After this service we ran up to Dodger Stadium where we sat and watched the Indians play the Dodgers. The bad news was it was 94 degrees. The good news is our seats were in the shade from the overhang of the section above us. The bad news is, the Indians lost the game. The good news is, they won the series. The final score was 4-3. Paul Byrd was rocky in the first inning and gave up all four runs before the first out was made. The team never recovered.


I think Casey grounded out on this at bat, but a run still scored.

After the game, we drove a couple miles up the road to the 6:00 service at Mosaic Church. This church was in downtown L.A. It meets in a nightclub known as the Mayan Theater.


Erwin McManus is the pastor. I'm glad we went. It was an interesting experience. The church at this location (they have others spread around town) is geared for the 20-something crowd. They began a series today called "Practical Wisdom" from the first seven verses of Proverbs 1.

Here's what the room looks like. I captured this before the service started.




This band was led by a guy singer playing electric guitar, a female singer who also played Sleigh Bells and Orchestra bells. The drummer played "shieldless," and there was a bass player as well as a rhodes/moog-mod player and an electric violin player.


I think the mix was the best one we heard all day. The guy and girl sounded great and there was a third girl that played the piano (solo) and sang at the end. Also very good.

The songs were not familiar to me. Some seemed original, only on one song did I get a sense of the congregation singing along like they really knew it.

From the moment the doors opened (about 15 minutes before 6:00), a gal was sitting on a little side stage, evidently oblivious to the room. She was creating a thing in photoshop or pagemaker that was projected from her laptop onto an over sized tee-shirt "screen." She finished with it about three quarters of the way through the service (in the middle of the sermon), got up and inconspicuously walked away. No one said anything about her, or about it, pointed it out, etc. Just kinda happened.


McManus was great. After teaching a little bit on Proverbs 1:7, he decided to dispense wisdom by taking specific "what should I do in this situation" questions from the "community" with the help of people on roving microphones. He handled it really well.


This has been a really long day. Kenton has been sawing logs over here since 10:00. We look forward to seeing the rest of the Chapel crew arriving tomorrow.

SoCal adventure, Day 2

As a YMCA member, I am entitled to take my local Y card to another community greater than, say 50 miles than where I normally live and use it to get in to another Y where ever I may be visiting. I found close to where I am staying, however, a 24Hour fitness center and discovered that they had a free 7-day pass online. So I printed it out and brought it with me.

Turns out they really only want you to use the free seven day pass thing if you're a local resident. I get it, but "Mark" was kind and decided to give me the pass anyway so I can come in and use the gym over the next several days at no charge--even though I will never be joining that gym.

The place is very impressive. In total square footage, (I believe he said 60,000) larger than the Y I'm used to, and layed out differently. It is a huge rectangle with an upper mezzanine level. There's the group fitness aerobic class behind a glass wall so everyone who comes in can watch, a "pro shop" where you can buy your vitamins and protein shakes, a ton of treadmills, eliptical stuff, and a cycling class room. There's also a basketball court, lap swim lanes, and a spacious weight area, full of all sorts of great machines.

The place was packed and that was probably because it was Saturday morning, but I still had no trouble getting to the equipment I needed for a good shoulder work out. One weird thing, when I got up stairs to the weight area, I saw a sign that said something like "Towels are mandatory, sweat is optional." OK, I thought, where do I get a towel?

I went to the front desk and asked an indifferent employee about this and she told me I had to buy one for $3.25 or bring one from home. Well, since I was already THERE, I decided to just buy one. No complimentary towel service? Weird.

After the workout, I got a sandwich and some guys came in to get some food in this car. I have no idea what it is, but it was very cool!


Kenton changed his plans and came in on a train to the Irvine station, just five minutes from where I'm staying. That worked out real well and it's been great to catch up.

We went to two services at Saddleback. The first, at 4:30, was what they called their "Classic" service and was led by Rick Muchow, a band, a trio, and an orchestra.


The message was great, about Paul and Silas in jail from Acts 16, and was given by Buddy Owens. I have to say, if you go expecting Rick Warren and you get Buddy Owens instead, that's not so bad. He did a great job.


We had planned on going to the "Elevation" service, but found out it was a singles service. It was in a different venue, at 6:30. Despite being married, we decided to sit in the service for the music set and then left once the same sermon we just saw started.

Aside from one song (Selah's I bless your name), the whole worship set was different, but the thematic content was the same. The band was pretty good--your average church band (though I have to say the band at the "classic" service didn't exactly knock my socks off--and I realize I'm being hyper-critical of the pianist who had a hard time with time. Don't we all? The drummer was very solid and in two slow songs, a cut time song and a slow 6/8 held everyone together). Anyway, I'm glad we went to the venue. It was well-equipped. Oh, and both venues had a B-3! How cool is that!?

After the services, we grabbed something to eat and decided to go see Indiana Jones. Let me save you the time. Don't see it.

SoCal adventure, Day 1

I enjoy traveling from east to west. And I don't mean from Capital to Glenwood, I mean from Raleigh to SoCal. The thing about leaving early is that even though you spend what feels like most of the day traveling, once you arrive, you still have plenty of time to do things because of the three hour time change. In my case, I arrived so early, I almost had too much time.

I decided to go spy out some famous streets in North LA, in an area known as Hollywood. Maybe you've heard of it.

I got a couple of pictures of the famous Hollywood(land) sign, but this may have been my best angle.



After spending some time finding a place to park, I stepped out of my rental car (which, by the way, is a red Mustang--truthfully, I don't really care for it) and found myself at Hollywood and Vine in the midst of the "Walk of Fame." I took a few pictures of the stars with names I recognized.














One of the more interesting things about this to me was that this was in an area full of regular stores. Below is a picture of a line of stars along Hollywood Blvd next to a tire store. But this is just a downtown area. The stars continue around Sunset Blvd and several of the connecting streets adjacent to a CVS, a Borders, an auto repair shop, a McDonalds, etc.



Another feature of this area are the homeless people. This caught me off guard as you had a surreal mixture of touresty people like me, taking pictures of the side walk, regular people scurrying from place to place to either shop or go to work, and homeless people asking for change. The whole juxtaposition was not at all what I expected.

The whole reason I hung out in this area of town (not specifically to see the sidewalk, I can assure you) is because I had arranged to meet my cousin, professor Joe at a restaurant. He is teaching at USC in San Bernardino, and teaches mostly Children's Literature. It sounds like he's enjoying it. We had a great time talking about families, interests, and life stories. I was surprised at how similar our interests in understanding things are, but with specialties in different disciplines.

We had decided to meet at Taix French Restaurant on Sunset Blvd. in part because I thought I might go to see the Dodgers play the Indians. We were SO CLOSE to the stadium, but we didn't finish up until after the game started (we were chatting nearly three hours) and I was beat up, having gotten up at 3:50 that morning.



I had about an hour drive down to Orange County where I am staying. It was fun to listen to the legendary Vin Scully call the CLE/LAD game on the radio. He's been their broadcaster since 1950. Once I got back I stayed up a bit, finished the game, discovered I had a full-sized refrigerator, sink, dishwasher, microwave and two stove top burners in my room (it's a Candlewood Suites hotel) so I went and got some food before I went to bed.

Saddleback Worship Conference

I am looking forward to attending my third worship conference at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, CA. I can't believe it will be my third time going. I originally did not make plans to attend this year because I just went last year. But once I found out my buddies from Akron were going, I decided it was too hard passing up hanging out with them again.

I am leaving RDU Friday morning at 6:00AM. Day one is a personal day, looking forward to visiting with my cousin. I hope to update this blog with my experiences as I attend several services in Orange County and Los Angeles churches over the weekend. Follow me here, on Facebook, Youtube, and of course on Twitter as I constantly update my status with the events and workshops I hope to attend.

If you do anything in church music, either as a staffer at a church or as a volunteer, at a small church or a large church, this is a great conference and I hope you can attend it some time!

This conference looks to be well-connected with my buddy Rich Kirkpatrick already setting up the official worship conference blog. The conference site is here, the macro schedule here, and you can download the individual workshops we have to choose from here.

Philly Cheese Steak

If you've ever spent any time in the Philadelphia area, you probably have picked up on a local food tradition that is unique to that region: The Cheese Steak Sandwich. Now, before you object, let me just set the record straight on this issue. You will walk into national chain restaurants such as Subway, or Applebee's, and you will see a menu item that they call a Philly Cheese Steak or something like that. But be warned. It is not a Philly Cheese Steak Sandwich.

The formula is not complex, nor are the ingredients scarce, yet for some reason, folks outside of a, say, 60 mile radius of South Street have no idea what they're doing. What you need is a roll. Just the right kind of roll too, not hard, not too soft. Locals claim the secret to making the rolls just right is found in the Philly water. (or "wuter") as it often comes out.

Next you need thinly sliced beef, onions, tomato sauce, mushrooms* (these are optional, of course) and let's please not forget the CHEESE. This is where so many others falter. You cannot forget the cheese. And it must be melted. Not little squares or triangles neatly lined up on the side of the bread.

Why am I investing a post on this glorious food item? First, because every time I go visit my parents in West Chester, I make certain to get one. Second, I the last time I was there, I was so excited about indulging I took a picture of it. For you.

Now I don't know what is worse, really, the fact that I took a picture of a sloppy (but very delicious!) Cheese Steak Sandwich before I ate it or that I ate the whole thing on the day after Thanksgiving. As if I hadn't had enough food to eat already that weekend. Thanks dad for being easy to convince that I need proper nourishment!

*This is the pizza steak variety found with mushrooms and tomato sauce. Mmmmm....

Summer update

I feel like I owe someone a blog post. Truth is, I have so many things I could post about, I don't know where to start. Maybe I'll do the Gary Underwood bullet points to get caught up and go from there.

• We recently returned from a long trip. First a drive to Iowa, where we spent time with Janet's family, here sister in the Waterloo area and her folks 45 minutes away on "the farm." While we were there we celebrated Lindsey's 6th birthday and the Chezik's 50th wedding anniversary. We had a great time!
• We stopped in at the National Farm Toy Museum. An interesting slice of Americana.
• I got to go to a worship conference at Saddleback Church in Orange County, CA. it was great! more on that some other time.
• I visited the Y a couple of times while in CA. I like the Y in Raleigh better.
• On the first night in the OC I skipped early registration and went to an Angels baseball game. They played KC who swept them in the three game series.
• It's humorous to me that in CA, the highways are all qualified by the locals with "the." It's not "take 405 to exit 106," it's "take the 405 to exit 106." I'm gonna start referring to 440 and 540 as "the 440" and "the 540" and see if it catches on.
• At church, I feel like we could do a lot of things better, but I also feel like we do things as well as most churches. I'm mostly referring to music and tech here.
  
• I had the largest pork tenderloin sandwich I had ever eaten at this fair, in IA.
• The Mississippi River begins in Itasca State Park, Minnesota, and flows south 2,350 miles, to the Gulf of Mexico. I learned this at the National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium, in Dubuque, IA.
• I have become a fan of Hampton Inns.
• Before our trip, we had to spend about $860 in our van, plus get it inspected.
• While returning to Iowa from CA, via DFW, I missed my connecting flight and had to sleep overnight in Ft. Worth. I hooked up with a couple of dangerous characters:
  
  
  
  
• Over the course of many hours of driving, one of the ways I entertained myself was to "read" by audiobook Crime and Punishment. I'm about 1/3 through it.
• Man, was it hard to go to work this morning. The services went well, but it was a lot of work! God works in spite of us.
  

Hilton Head

Not that I'm a world traveler or anything, but we were given an opportunity--a gift, really-- to spend a few days with some friends in a place we'd never been near a place we really enjoy and just couldn't say "no." Thanks to Dale and HB, we were able to spend a few days last week relaxing on the beach, riding bikes, eating, watching the kids in the pool, eating some more (shrimp on the grill--who'd ever thought that could be so good?), and just enjoying being away as a family. A very nice time away with some great friends.

I don't know why, but for some reason the palm trees give me a quintessential vibe of South Carolina.

And I decided I needed to add this picture. There were people there, of course, but the island was not very busy in early May and we had the beaches mostly to ourselves. Lots of people out for strolls, sitting in the sun, not necessarily in the water, though it wasn't bad!

Caesar's Palace - Celine Dion

Celine Dion is not exactly at the top of my list of "singers I push the scan button in my car and hope to hear." Still, she's got pipes and I do like some of her songs. Somehow, DB knows people. I don't ask, he just does. he got us in for a private tour of Caesar's Palace where Celine does her show. The tour was a technical one. It was given by the front of house guy and I think a staging director. This was a very enlightening tour. I enjoyed it very much. What I enjoyed the most was when at the end they played a couple of cuts from her DVD they'll be releasing this fall. They cranked up the system, displayed the unmixed, and unedited show on the big stage screen and I could hardly stand it. The sound was amazing. A 5.1 room with truly enveloping sound. Five million dollars worth of sound system had better sound that good! It did. Her voice was strictly mixed to the center while everything else was left/right/sub and rear channels mostly for delay and fx. We got to see the show later that night. It was very enjoyable. She holds nothing back, and gives it her all. I took a lot of pictures on the tour and I thought I'd share them along with a few comments.

Here's the huge poster outside the theater.


Here's the front of house position. It's a digital board, of course, and it is linked to a Pro Tools rig where sound effects and other tracks are mixed with the live performance. Plus they record many but not all of the shows. This is useful for new musicians and substitute dancers to learn the material without a rehearsal.


Up the stairs and off of stage left is the monitor mixing area. The rack unit in the back is all for Celine's voice. It travels with her. If she sings at the Grammy's or something, it goes with her to keep her sound consistent. It is entirely analog. Behind it is the wireless director. Yes, wireless director. I wasn't allowed to take pictures of that, they don't want the frequencies getting out!


This is a shot of the stage and front of the house seats from just around the corner of the monitor desk.


A picture of the house from the "cheap seats." I believe they cost around $75/show. You can see the Front of House position. We got to sit in the row behind it for the show that night. Those seats were a little more than $75!


Another picture, showing the hight of the room. It seats just over 4000 people. They consistently put over 95% capacity in each night.


Now, walking around the back, here is the a spot and the area where the director and light controls sit.


This is the directors spot. Nothing to fancy but the funny thing about this, and the reason I took the picture is the monitor on the left. It is a static stage view that has sharpie outlines on the screen. The rectangles show where the trap doors on the stage are. This way, they know not to open it until it is clear of a stray dancer.


Now we're on the catwalks. Access to a lot of interesting stuff. Here we're above the stage looking down at the front. We're 90+ feet up!


And another view of the grid. It took a minute for me to feel secure walking around up there!


Up above the stage now, this is a swing that is lowered from way above the stage during a show. There are three of them and three girls descend from the ceiling in the middle of the song, come all the way down to the floor and start swinging. Then they're pulled back up by the end of the song. I'm pretty sure I couldn't do it.


Now we're up a level above the previous pictures. It's dark up here so these pictures aren't the best. What you're seeing is a web of cables that run all the curains and props that open, close, move across the stage, etc. The are attached to....


...these motors. I think they said there were forty of them on each side of the stage.


If you have an event at Caesar's and you want to broadcast or record it, here's where you come and plug in. We're down under the stage now. To our right are load-in doors. The problem is, they made the loading dock too small and obstructed so no one can use these hookups.


And here's the Green Room. It is set up differently for Celine than for Elton John, who does Monday/Tuesday shows, and different again for someone else who may come in. Jerry Seinfeld was coming in soon after we were there. Now THAT would have been fun.


Of course, the Green Room isn't so green...


The door next to the green room houses the brains of the digital FOH board and this Pro Tools recording rig. They record 84 channels. Notice the modified G5 at the bottom.


This is an area back stage where the dancers can practice. Not a lot of room, but they make the best of it. They have exercies and warm up equipment in there too.


What we're looking at here are special effects areas. Not that interesting below stage, but here you can see where stairs and a tree are "stored" before they are "launched" up onto stage.


It's hard to see, but we're under the stage looking at the front seats from the bass player's position. The bass player can view the stage only through the mesh in the steps. In fact, the drummer, guitar players, and keyboard players all play under the stage. They are revealed in the show via a back light so that the audience can see them vaguely through the mesh.

One interesting thing is that the players under the stage cannot see the piano player/conductor, so they're fed his image on a closed-circuit TV. Each player can also tap a switch with his foot and talk with the director or any other musician if there is a problem.


They use "real" drums and electronic drums.


It's hard to tell what this is, but this is an aux perc stage that is cabled to the ceiling. It comes down from above stage during the show, some one plays on it, then it returns back above.


And finally, the hats, with "Dion" labeled in the middle.