This was the scene on the street in front of my home about 11:00 PM last Friday night. Evidently, my neighbor’s home two doors down from me had caught fire. There were five fire trucks, an ambulance and a fire department supervisor vehicle on location. Eventually, they got the fire out and went on their way.

My doorbell rings at 4:00 AM - just a few hours later. It’s my next door neighbor. It’s like deja vu with the same scene all over again. Apparently, the fire rekindled somehow and flames were shooting skyward from the home that was burning earlier. This fire was MUCH larger than the initial blaze. This time, fire personnel stayed around for several hours with the last vehicle pulling away around 9′ish that morning.

From what I gathered, no one was injured in either fire. Now it’s time to hope that they’ve got good insurance.

In other news, I’ve been under the weather ALL weekend long. Friday, I had that funky “I think I’m getting sick” feeling going the whole day. I thought I’d just take it easy Friday and get in bed early to catch up on some rest. I got out briefly on Saturday to run a few errands but came on home when that didn’t help me feel better. I was supposed to go to a friend’s birthday party Saturday evening but ended up missing it as I was feeling pretty crappy still. I prayed that I would at least be able to make it through Sunday morning for church then be able to rest in the afternoon. Luckily, that was the case. I did feel rough most of the morning, but I was functional. I tell you what, playing drums while you have a headache is NOT something I would recommend! Thankfully, all went well for the most part and I survived.

I did venture out again - this time for some juice and soup and then to pick up take out from Red Lobster as I was starving for something good and didn’t have the energy to cook. Now, I was just full but still felt like crap. Much like this morning. Going to continue to rest as I think I may be on the upswing now. I sure hope so. Being sick sucks.

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August 11, 2002 - We’re having our first “preview” service at our first public location: the banquet room in the Country Inn and Suites downtown. This is normally an empty room except for chairs with only a white board hanging on the wall. Everything else we brought here in a rented truck. We also had to be mindful of our volume since we were in a hotel.

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October 21, 2001 - Dave is standing in the den of his parent’s home talking to makings of the eventual Crosspoint crowd. This is actually a few months into the process with more people. Not too long before this, meetings were in an even smaller space with fewer people. It’s not very often you get a chance to be on the starting end of a church. I think the most common experience is to go into an already “established” church and join up. Here, I’ve had the opportunity to see things grow over the past few years. It’s been a learning experience with plenty of bumps and bruises along the way much like as a child grows up. You skin your knee up every now and then - spray some Bactine on it, and keep on going.

It’s all a part of growing up.

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The temperatures again soared past 100 today. I had to shoot photos of a building over in Huntsville today so my goal was to knock that out as early as possible before it got too hot. I made it there at 10. It starts getting hot at 7:30. Parts of me were sweating that I didn’t know could sweat. Lesa was along with me and was going through the same thing. We had some funny conversations as a result but I’ll keep that offline. I’ll just say that I was glad to have had some extra napkins in the car.

Saw my niece today - she and my sis stopped by my place while I was there for lunch. Olivia can sit up by herself now. She’s makin’ all kinds of racket too. She’s on the verge of some words though I think. That will be exciting.

My friend Jeanette is off to Puerto Rico for a few days. Hope she has a good time getting away from it all. I joined her and some of her family at Big Spring Park last Monday evening for the concerts in the park series they have over there. Well attended - I’d guess 600+ folks there if not more. Weather was fantastic that night.

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What you’re seeing here is where I spend a good bit of time every Sunday morning not only playing, but setting it up and taking it down. Almost have it down to a science now, so it’s not as big of an operation as it first was.

Unfortunately, this morning we just didn’t have our act together. No train wrecks by any means, but things didn’t go as smoothly as they could have. As a worship team, we have a specific order we do things because other “teams” have things they are doing too and they depend on us doing or being someplace at a certain time for things to go well. We’re not so rigid that we have no flexibility, but with only one hour to all do our thing, there’s not much slack for anything that goes wrong. We had a bump right at the beginning and then another at the point we were supposed to go off stage. It was awkward, but oh well - a monster didn’t eat us and no animals were harmed in the process.

In the midst of all this, I did get to add a new item to my drums - a Roland SPD-20. It’s in the bottom right of the photo. Each of those square is programmable for different sounds so I can add more texture to the music if it calls for it. Additionally, I can use “triggers” attached to my acoustic drums so that when I strike them, a sound from the Roland comes through the PA. I started off triggering my kick drum today. That worked like a champ. My hope is that when I switch to my “regular” drums (I’m using my ’spensive ultra-fly Pearl Masterworks for a few weeks) I can get the same slamming kick sound from that drumset as well. Today’s experiment was a success. No problems whatsoever with that rig.

If you click on the photo, you’ll be taken to my Flickr page where there are a few more shots from today.

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Last Sunday was our first “official” public service at the Regal Cinemas since we moved there in early June. This photo taken as we were running through the music and projector slides to make sure things there were correct and in sync. From the left it’s Jerry on keys, Brent our bassist, Kevin, me, Amber (36 mos. pregnant), Will and then Jack in the shadows to the right. Attendance was very good - our highest yet so far. Overall, everything went off without a hitch. That’s always nice.

We get to do it again this Sunday at 10 AM.

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And you know what? It doesn’t feel any different. That’s a good thing I’m sure. My birthday today coincided with the “official” launch of my church at our new movie theater location. As such, today and the week leading up to it has been extremely busy. In the middle of all this, one of my dear friends underwent some surgery this week that left her feeling pretty lousy for a few days. It was nice to have the opportunity to take care of someone that I think a lot of. My friend Brad out in Austin, TX also had some medical procedures done that left him feeling under the weather also. From talking with his wife Lauren, he should be on the mend now and feeling much better. Hopefully, he’s since checked out of the hospital and is resting at home. Both my friends are having tissue samples that were taken during their respective procedures sent off for analysis. Hopefully, the outcome in both cases will be the ones considered “good news”.

We hit 100+ several times the last couple of days. At least we’ve been spared the humidity for the most part making it hot, but not sweltering. A/C in the house and car have been working overtime, but have done the job… for the most part. It was a hot time at my place Wednesday evening as we had band practice here with one of the biggest groups yet in anticipation of today’s program. Besides myself, it was: Amber, Will, Brent, Kevin, Jack, Jerry, Jared and Leah. Aggravating things was that the portion of my house where things are set up is on the side the sun shines on late in the day so it was hard to stay cool. Despite all that, practice went well. Mainly, we had to go over the Linkin Park song “What I’ve Done” to make sure we all had our parts down.

I made the special effort to swap out the drums I use on Sunday’s for the “good” kit I normally keep at home. Aside from their striking looks, they sound completely amazing in comparison to other drums. They are truly a pleasure to play. I think I’m going to use them for the next few weeks as we get through our current iLife series then migrate them back to my house and switch kits again. It’s a bit of a pain to switch, but it’s worth it. Thanks to Jason and Kevin for helping me get things moved around as I can’t fit much of my drums in my Honda Accord.

The rest of the day was nice, grilling and eating with friends and having cake afterwards. I don’t think I would have had it any other way.

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Last Thursday night, I planned on grilling out and hangin’ with my buddy Jim after work. While I was getting everything ready, Jonathan calls wondering what I’m doing for dinner. I tell him and now there’s three of us for dinner. Luckily, I had picked up some extra steaks and potatoes on my way home from work just so I’d have some extras on hand “for next time”. It was a relaxing time just sitting around the grill chatting about life in general and making fun of each other - the usual. My mad grilling skillz worked their magic and everyone’s dinner turned out to their liking. I realized in the middle of all this that I have this HUGE patio out back and I don’t have any decent patio furniture. I’ll just add that to my list of things I need to get. A long time ago I used to entertain more. I need to get back into doing that again. Nothing beats spending time with friends and family over a good meal.

My Friday evening was nice.

Saturday, my sis and niece Olivia came over and spent some time at my place. I worked on side projects I had going on plus gave my car a much needed wash to get away from in front of my computer for a while.

Like every Sunday, my morning was very busy. Today, we were playing a Switchfoot song, “Beautiful Letdown”. One of the key sounds from the tune is a muffled snare beat that’s echoed heavily. I brought along an extra snare stand, mic, mic stand and cable along with my copper piccolo snare for this. To get the sound right, I threw a bandana over the head and had Stacy (sound Stacey) pour on the echo for its channel. That did the trick! Big props go to Will for doing a good job on the vocals. All in all, everything seemed to go well on the music front. Dave did a great job delivering the message as always. Saw a few visitors in the theater also. That’s what it’s all about. I sometimes wonder though what they must be thinking as they sit and wait for things to start as “Going Under” from Evanesence plays during the intro mix. Some I’m sure get kinda freaked out. Others probably think “how cool is this?”… it’s exciting either way.

Oh did I tell you I got my camera back from the repair shop Friday morning? It also went back to the repair shop the same day because something didn’t get connected back properly… AAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGHHHHHH!!!!! The original problem is fixed though. The technician that repaired my camera apologized to me profusely, so at least he knows he hosed me and I was disappointed.

Sigh.

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