Spent a lot of time catching up on things at the office as well as getting prepared for another round of billing fun that starts next week.

Ate lunch with Bill, Rod, Tom and Mike at the “Sushi Boat”. This was my first time there. There’s a moat of water around the sushi bar with boats linked together in it. On each are different selections of sushi on small plates. You just pick a plate of what you want and that’s it. You can also ask the chef for anything you need. I did a bunch of that. They didn’t have smoked salmon so I had the regular salmon instead. It was good. Also had crab in addition to a tempura shrimp roll. Didn’t care for the shrimp that much. Ate a few plate-fulls but spent only a fraction of what I would have at Edo’s. I still like the selection at Edo’s better. Plus, I know most of the people there. I’ll hit the Sushi Boat occasionally when I don’t feel the need for a big meal.

After work, I stopped at home to eat some diiner then headed over to Dave and Dana’s for Jeremy and Alison’s tool and gadget thing. (lots of and’s in that sentence) It was well attended. I had about a good a time as most guys do at these functions. Luckily, most of my friends were there so we just hung out and chatted. Came home and drummed a little. Time for bed now as I’ve got a long weekend ahead hanging out south of Memphis with Kyle and Jeff at the Womens Pro Billiards tournament. Should be a good time I hope.

Gonna miss the Crosspoint folks Sunday. A big thanks to Jeremy for covering drumming duties for me. You da man. He and Slightly-lighter E will keep it tight for the crowd I’m sure.

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I actually had a NORMAL day at the office today! It was refreshing to do my regular job for once. Stayed pretty busy most of the day but it wasn’t that tedious report crap. Ate lunch at the Chinese buffet with the usual Thursday crew. Me, Wayne, Ralph, Ellis, and Tom were there. The hostess there hooked me up with a huge plate of roasted pork since the buffet was out. That was awesome. She actually brought me TOO much so I felt bad about wasting what I couldn’t finish. I was sleepy for an hour or so after I got back to my desk but I survived.

Apparently Jordan found a link to our bLogs and is now “in” on the happenings in our lives. Now she’ll see the complications we have in our own lives.
Called the Burns on the way home and ended up making dinner plans. I offered to go eat someplace cheap since I had a big lunch but they ended up picking Ruby Tuesday’s. I had one of the appetizers as my dinner while they ate really good. Walked off our meal in Office Depot and the bookstore. I headed home and did some drumming. Got some new magazines in the mail the other day so I guess I’ll do a little reading this evening.

On another note - Mardi Gras is over. Put your tube top back on please.

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If you’re not laughing when you read the above title then you obviously need me to send you an audio file.

Very busy day at the office as I FINALLY FINISHED THAT %&^#*&@ SERVER REPORT. Sheesh! What a pain that was. That pretty much burned up the entire workday. Bill and I had lunch at Edo’s. My food was delicious as usual. Bill had something funny happen though. On one of his trays there was what looked like noodles and a leaf of some sort. Looked like a big mint leaf if you ask me. Anyway, the hostess there - an older Japanese lady, saw that he had left them (there were two) uneaten. She indicated that they were meant to be eaten and they weren’t just for decoration. She picked up Bill’s chopsticks, wrapped the noodles in the leaf, dipped it in the wasabi and held it up to Bill’s mouth while cupping her hand underneath like you would if you were feeding a child. It all happened so fast the only thing he could do was open his mouth to eat it! It turned out to be good, but the whole even was hilarious to see in person. I didn’t have time to get my phone out to take a picture but it was definitely a Kodak moment.

Drove home in some increasingly crappy weather and ate some dinner. I was drumming when I got a call from Kev that they were going out to eat after practice. I was pretty much resigned to staying home but I decided that I just need to get out more. I joined them and Donny for dessert. Kyle showed up as well. We all fed our faces then parted ways.

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Picked up a ‘tater for dinner and came home. After I finished eating, Eric, Kyle and Kevin came over and we jammed for a couple of hours. Brought back memories of band practice my house. Very loud. Everyone played some smokin’ riffs. It was nice just to get together with no agenda and just PLAY. Going to wind things down now and relax a bit before settling into bed.

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Still working on server reports today so that’s kept me at 100% utilization. I did take some time out to attend some conference calls and also to write an email commending the employees of one of the subcontractors I use. They’re all happy about that. Maybe they’ll get a raise or a bat on the back for that.

Rick - a drummer buddy of mine up in Boston I mentioned the other day, got new heads although they weren’t what I reccommended and now the sound of his kit has suffered. He was insanely funny when he described his situation. He’s all freaked out that he can’t get his drums sounding right. Poor guy. He’s working on a solution though.

I’ll post more later. Got to get back to work.

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Sunday was a great day. Beautiful weather out! Slightly gloomy on the inside as it took a little while for the band to get into the groove and set to roll. Eventually we got it all together and we were ready. Everything went off without a hitch. Andy stepped in and did a presentation on Gideons since Dave was out of commission recovering from his surgery. Suprisingly, the presentation went well - very polished and professional.

Ate lunch with the Burns (suprised?) at Red Lobster and also made some progress with someone I was interested in there. Hopefully, her schedule will allow her to join us at the Guad tonight although it was kind of short notice on my part. Whatever the case, I got my foot in the door for something in the future - always a good thing.

Me, The Morgans and Kyle headed to Cullman to check out my buddy Jeff and some of his friends playing at a church down there. After we arrived, we found out there were TWO “Seventh Street Baptist” churches there. We were of course at the wrong one. We needed to go to the “Seventh Street Baptist” church on HWY 157. SUP WIF DAT?!?! We got to the right one about 10 minutes later and were greeted by a gravel parking lot and an awesome worship center. Got us some good seats on the 2nd row then I went and found Jeff. Met up with them in the cafeteria briefly then made my way back to my seat and joined back up with rest. Introduced Jeff to everyone and then he took his place as the other filed out on stage. Great performance! They played a lot of the songs we had, some in different arrangements. It was different hearing the tunes with the addition of piano, string, horn and choir sections. I was very blessed. When they were done, we went up on stage and everyone got to meet people. We all met Craig Nelson - bassist for Amy Grant & Vince Gill, as well as Dave Cleveland - studio guitarist, and Wendy met the singer from the NYC Metroplitan Opera. Helped load equipment back on the bus then took more pictures. The bus was super-fly too!

End result was that we all had a great time, met new friends, Eric has a line on some private bass instruction… wish Kevin & Stacey could have made it. They would have enjoyed it too. Jack & Pam also.

Going to relax a bit before the Guad. I had a tiring day at the office staring at my report. It’s still not done. Tomorrow hopefully.

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A good, but busy day in the office. I finally got that %@&*!# bill completed. Working on the server report now. Had lunch with Bill at Edo’s. The place was packed but my buddy at the sushi bar moved our orders to the front so I actually received my sushi before my kitchen order. Very nice.

Spent the afternoon on reports while Bill shopped furiously for a new video card. Me and some of our co-workers had been talking about the games we had been playing on our PC’s and he was getting left out. His PC is a little behind.. okay, a LOT behind the curve. He got the clearance from his wife to get a new video card. Needless to say, there were a lot of shopping noises from his side of the office.

I did some shopping as well - Kyle was heading up to Nashville so I called my girl at Fork’s Drum Closet up there and paid for some small items that Kyly would pick up for me while he was in town (thanks dude!). It’s very convenient as he usually goes up there once every two weeks and is in the vicinity of the shop. Fork’s is a great place. If you’re a percussionist, they have EVERYTHING. Everyone that works there is a drummer. Great people and customer service.

Original dinner plans changed so did the usual - went to the Burns. Brought over a few things and we feasted on king crab legs, steamed and baked. We had TOO much though. Ended up bringing several legs across the street to Dana’s. That stuff’s too expensive to waste. Hope she enjoyed it. After dinner, Kevin helped me mount up some track-style lighting in his bonus room. After straining our necks and backs, we got it installed. The new look is great! It’s nice to be able to point the lights just where you need it. Kev just needs a little more storage space to put some of his stuff in then he’ll be set.

Ended up looking at some picture albums I brought over to catch them up on the history of the man called J-Mo. Also looked at a lot of their old pictures. Pictures of Kevin when he was skinny and Stacey when she was hot… LOL!!! Just kiddin Stacey. I’m sure I’ll receive a well deserved beating for that comment.

Shifting gears, it looks like Eric and Kevin are on-board with the additonal practice. That’s awesome! I really think we can use the additional time to tighten up the instrumental parts of our worship songs and also get some time to develop our secular music skills as well without the time constraints we have on Wednesdays.

Just got a phone call from my buddy Rick up in Boston. He was calling for some advice on new heads for his drums. He’s a cool guy. I wish more of my drumming buddies lived closer. In Nashville there’s Jeff, Carl, Chester and Johnny. And up north there’s Rick. Jeremy’s around down here but since he has other “responsibilities”, we don’t get to hang out as often. Such is life.

Time to make some breakfast.

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Had the same thing to work on today that I was working on yesterday. Nuff’ said on that.

It LOOKED beautiful outside. I didn’t get to enjoy it because I was inside instead. No matter though, I worked my hiney off but still didn’t get finished. The rest of the day wasn’t too spectacular although I will note that I had no interaction with the Burns clan today, in person at least. Ate lunch and dinner at home for a change.

Took a much needed break from the PC and watched Friends. Then, I spent about an hour on the drums. I’ve got to figure out how to integrate more of the drumming styles I’ve picked up in my worship playing. I probably could add some spice to my worship playing if we practiced more as a band together. I know some of the band really wants to get better - tighter & more musical. But we have to be realistic in our expectaions of what 90 mins or so week can get us. The bottom line is that we need to practice more not only individually, but as a band. Right now is an opportune time to take advantage of our relatively “light” church duties (for lack of a better term). Back in the day, Sundays were spent in Sunday school, morning worship, evening worship, discipleship one evening of the week and “something” on Wednesday night. There was also visitation if you wanted to participate in that. Heck, even back in our days at the hotel we spent hours on Sunday with just the logistics of getting TO and then BACK from the place. Now that we’ve been blessed with our own place, we’ve slacked off pretty much doing the minimum we need to get by. And that’s just it, I don’t want to just “get by”. I want us… I want ME to be the best I can be where I am serving. Granted I have significantly less responsibilities than most of my friends (except for my Asian brother.. LOL) and can make time but think about it. We can make time to do whatever we want to do. To make this non-specific (don’t want to offend any sensitive people) if you had a passion for fishing, I don’t care how busy you are - you’ll do what it takes to MAKE time for the water. I remember back when I got caught up in bowling. I bowled almost every chance I had. Dave and I even bowled on our lunch break sometimes!

Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not a problem if you don’t have the same desire to spend time on the band as I do. I’m just pointing out things about myself that might just get you to think about things differently as well. This is not an “I’m more committed than you” issue at all. It’s me simply stating my mind and the direction I would like to go.

Ah, but I digress.

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Wendy, I did NOT realize you had been blogging for over 3 months. Sorry for my “oversight”.
Brian - looks like you’ve remained faithful to the blogging community, I re-added you to my link list.

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Worked from home today on a customer bill - spent most of the morning and part of the afternoon on it. Now I’m just waiting to get the data back, a draft bill, to review and approve to send to the customer. I’ve got a little more to go on it then I’ll be through. Hope to get it sent ot sometime tomorrow morning. Next up will be the server managment report. That’ll be fun.

Ate 2 meals with the Burns today. I think we’re almost related now.

Band practice went without a hitch. As we played our first song, I realized my toms and ME were too far forward and I was all up on my kick pedal. It made playing the kick fast - difficult. So… I’m sure I sounded like I was lacking rhythm that first time around. I tried to make some quick adjustments and eventually got things better situated. Note to self… check the position of all my gear before I start next time.

I’m kinda tired so I guess I might call it an early night.

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