So instead of actually spending money on these right now, I figured I would just talk about some albums I sure wish I could afford, but can’t. Enjoy!
Posts Tagged Music
Beach Camp ’09 – Sunday
Jun 23
Beach camp has begun and day 1 is done. Driving from from Laurens to Garden City was long, but not too bad. We only had one unexpected detour, but it didn’t offset our schedule too much. Upon arrival, load in was a piece of cake! The only hitch we had was an ant nest we discovered in one of our loudspeakers. That was messy, but Philip got it cleaned up pretty well. This was probably the most problem and glitch free set up I’ve had in a while, so praise God for that!
After load in, we went to get a bite to eat before running through the night’s set. Well, it turns out there are approximately zero fast food places in Garden City. After driving a while, we did find a Wendy’s and had our dinner there. We have some really good food to look forward to this week, but we were on our on for Sunday.
When we returned at about 7:15, we started practicing for the night. The meeting starting at 8:30, so we thought we would have until about 8:10-8:15 to warm up and rehearse the songs. Turns out we were wrong. We actually had until about 7:45 before campers began to stream into the building and we had to clear the stage. This made us a little apprehensive since we were trying a lot of new things that night.
All credit to God, we ended up being reasonably well prepared for the night and God was good in allowing us to give acceptable praise to Him. The first couple of songs went a little south musically due to tuning issues, but that was only a big deal in the bands eyes. Overall the first worship meeting was a great success! Great music, great drama, and a great message straight from the Word
After the meeting we added a sub to the sound system(Sweet!) and had a rehearsal time for Monday morning(which you’ll hear about later, but went really well).
Please keep the band and me in your prayers as we continue to learn how to lead these students in worship to our King. Also be in prayer for Tony as he teaches us this week.
Whew… today has been one incredibly busy day!
Work at Jobscope is always a huge part of the day, and today was particularly busy. The project I’m working on is beginning to wrap up. So now I’m in the process of getting all of the infrastructure in place to release it to the world. This mostly involves sending emails to lots of other people, waiting for replies, training others on how to use the software, etc.. Fun stuff! I will then probably spend most of next week working on another project before I head off for the summer. There are no fewer than 4 other web projects that I have to work on on the side. Realistically, probably none of them will even get started before I start my stretch of summer that I’ve been preparing so hard for, but there are one or two I would like to at least make some progress on before leaving. We’ll see how it goes.
I got a call from a girl in Russia today that made me smile. Though, it also kicked my brain into gear about preparing more for Ethiopia. I ended up making what will probably be my largest Wal-Mart run for the trip. At least I hope so, because the stuff I seem to need has a very high price density. Meaning I walk away with only a little bit of stuff and and lot out of my bank account. God had been very gracious, though, in continuing to provide support.
Tonight, I began gathering bags for Ethiopia and even began to put stuff in them! Packing for Ethiopia will be quite interesting because, in less than two weeks, I will have to pack a bag to go to Garden City for a week of leading worship, come home Friday afternoon, empty that bag hurriedly do laundry, and then repack that bag to leave early Saturday morning for Ethiopia. So it’s pretty important that I go ahead and get my packing organized now, and planning this far ahead doesn’t come natural to me.
Everything else for Ethiopia seems to be in order. I have all the medicine I’ll need for stomach bugs and Malaria prevention, I have a travel guitar on the way for some good ‘ole Jesus music, all my immunizations are good to go, and I’m all paid up on my trip expenses! Praise God for all of that! Now it’s just time to go.
Before going to Ethiopia, as mentioned before, I’ll be leading worship for a week in Garden City for a high school retreat. I’m incredibly excited about it, but nervous and anxious at the same time. Keeping God’s glory at the forefront of my mind and heart is always a challenge when I’m preparing to get on a stage anywhere and have a microphone put at my face, but it’s even more tempting to try and take that glory for myself when the camps become so large and the musical talent you work with is so good. It has been an incredibly frustration journey preparing for this camp, and that hasn’t been that much fun. In a lot of ways, though, I have to still pray for God to keep me frustrated and on my toes, because it’s in those times of frustration that I can’t find comfort in myself. I have to turn everything over to God and let him provide for everything. When I can get that right, it’s such a great and encouraging feeling. I just need to work on getting that right more often.
Please be praying for Beach Camp, that the band would work well together during our rehearsal this Saturday, that we would keep the weight of what it means to lead worship on our hearts, and the God’s glory would be our primary objective; and for Ethiopia, that the support would come in for those who still need it, for God to be preparing those in Ethiopia that we will meet and share our lives with, and that God would be preparing the team for the work cut out for us, most importantly that we would trust God to be the strength and comfort in doing that work.
So I finally got me new keyboard today, only to learn that it requires a power adapter that it neither came with nor do I have… bummer.
I’m still very excited about it though. For the past several years, I’ve been using a cheapo consumer keyboard for all of my recording stuff. While it did its job, it left me desiring more about 56.2% of the time. I had to keep it, though, because, at the time, I thought I would need to shell out something like $1000 to get a keyboard on the level I wanted. Recently, however, I’ve started to use Reason to do some offline synth magic. Reason is an amazing piece of software in itself, but on top of that, it had been pointed out to me that I could use it in realtime as a synth engine. The problem was my little consumer keyboard didn’t do so well live because the keys are light as a feather and there was about a half second delay between pressing a key and the sound coming. Plus the thing only had 61 keys. Now, with this awesome piece of fake ivory, I have 88 weighted keys of pure bliss. It doesn’t make any sound on its own(that’s why it’s so affordable), but hook it up to my computer, and the options are limitless. I also think I know how to exterminate the audio latency, but I can’t test it until I get my power adapter. So, it’s off to Wal-mart in a little while to find me a power source so I can start making some sweet tunes.
Thursday Wrap-Up
Jul 31
So yeah… It’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything. Not that nothing has happened. I just kind of forgot this blog was here. While I don’t have any single substantial thing to write about, I will do a little summary of my life for the past couple of weeks.
1) Music, Music & more music – Not that it’s a bad thing, but I have been flooded with band things lately. All things musical for me are about to converge, and when they do, it could mean trouble. Serious trouble. I have another contemporary service at my church on Aug. 10th, and the band hasn’t really been practicing. This is partly because various members have been to all kinds of various places, but it’s also because I didn’t realize how close the 10th really is. We had a fast and furious practice tonight, though, and it went pretty well. I also woke up the beast that is the Clemson Crusade praise band this week. It is a wild and unruly creature. It will be very interesting to see what God has in store for it in the next few weeks. Please be praying. To top everything off, the Micah Lee Band booked its first two events under that name this week. That is a great cause for celebration. There will likely be more on this later.
2) I learned that I should never have priced an iPhone and its corresponding plan. Why? Because I found out that I can afford one. No one should ever be forced with a decision like this. Cool device or saved money. It was never a choice before, because I never could afford one. Why, oh why?!?!
3) I have a new pet! All summer long, I’ve had this plant on my desk at work. It’s pretty cool, living in a glass bowl, it only requires water, so you can see all of the roots growing the the Di-Hydrogen Monoxide. Last Thursday, I decided that fish would make a nice addition to the plant. So I now have a Betta living in the bowl with the plant. He is pretty much awesome. I wish I had a picture to show you. It’s neat watching this gorgeous, colorful fish swimming around(and he is a very active fish) the roots of the plant, often attacking his reflection on the side of the bowl.
4) I’m fairly certain that I had something else I wanted to mentioned, but I have forgotten what it is. Oh well…
I think that about wraps it up.
edit:
5) I remembered it! – I’m finally going on vacation. This Saturday, I’ll be leaving Laurens for the first time this summer to head to the beach with all of the extended family. This is always a glorious event. I absolutely, positively cannot wait.
