Life...alright, submerged in work. Life...is stale, need some alone time. Any ideas on what to do for some good alone time?

Belated Thanksgiving

I'm very thankful for my new niece Zoey Jae Nydam!

Observation

I always read a lot of blogs, and I enjoy, taking a gander into people's lives. Im interested in what they are interested in and what is going on in their lives. I commend people who post every day or even every other day, because I don't. It almost seems like I have to discipline myself to do it sometimes. There are typically four types of blogs that I read, and they are all quite different from each other but in some ways they all have something in common as well. The least likely of the four that I read are basically for promotion. I know I recently have been guilty of promoting on my blog and have decided that I will not do that anymore, because I find it to be a little annoying myself. The other I don't take particular interest in are just general info about a person blogs (there are exceptions to this though.) The other two I really get into, and I don't really know how to catagorize them.

There are blogs that I read that are written by people who are concerned for things, like other people, the environment, the government and so on. They blog for the reason of creating dialog and trying to make things better, and in some cases, trying to make things better in specific relation to God. I really enjoy these blogs, they are blogs that have stuff that is posted that is genereally good for me to hear. It is ususally backed by good info, and is overall written with good spirit.

There are also blogs that are written by people who complain about things. They complain about people, the environment, the government, poverty, and so on. They blog for the reason to vent, or get attention, or to stir up conflict or all three together or something. I would say that I am more addicted to these blogs than anything else. They usually contain nothing all that worth while, and it seems as though they like to hear themselves talk and think. It also seems that in a way they are disjointed from the world somehow and are stuck in that disjoint or disjointment (which ever word it is). Sometimes I get really angry at the writers because they announce how horrible their life is, or how horrible our contry or world is, but offer nothing on how to change or fix. Sometimes I wonder if they even want to. It sort of reminds me of the old dutch guy elder in church that wonders why there is declining numbers and a spirit of discouragement, but when asked to worship in a slightly different way, claims it as heresy (that wasn't a very good word picture but I don't feel like writing it over). But mostly I have genuine pity for those people, wishing they would wake up, and look at and smell roses too. Im not saying that we should ignore the concerning issues at all, but we don't have to piss and moan aimlessly.

Apathy is such a sly thing, it can creep into everybody, especially in our culture today. We, who live in the United State and Canada, are the richest people in the world. God has blessed us tremendously, along with that wealth comes huge responsibilities. I agree that we could definatly improve on the actions we as people, as a nation and as christians, we have taken on the above topics I mentioned (and more). But lets praise God for what he has blessed us with as well.

I needed to get that off my chest...I will now resume the boring general life type blog.

California

Florida

Website

Well I said that I thought there would be some music in the future, I didn't expect it to be anything like this. averagechurchband.com is the website of the band I am going to Iraq with. We got together last week and came up with some arrangements for a couple of songs and we quickly recorded them. These are pretty rough mixes so please bear with the process. And please give me your feed back. Thanks

Iraq?

Well, I was telling you a little about Mike in my last post. This past Friday he called me up and told me that he was contacted to put together a band that would be doing a 10 day tour in Iraq playing for the troops. He asked me If I was interested in playing acoustic guitar and singing...I said yes. So from November 29-December 9 I will be in the desert. Mike told me that the two other musicians that he got are professionals and had to totally re-arrange studio time and things like that. I can only give God the glory for this wonderful oppurtunity. I am a very underqualified decision for the position in the band, but I am thankful that I can praise God through it, and that other great musicians can join me in praising God. I am also thankful that we get to go and worship with the soldiers In Iraq. I just hope that we can be of some service there.

Free Form

This Past Friday I was invited to a guys house to "jam." The guy who invited me goes by the name of mike. Before I knew mike, one of his friends told me that he played drums with Steve Miller...yes "Thee" Steve Miller. I didn't ask for how long (it could have been just one night or something) but needless to say I was pretty intimidated. I actually got to his house early and so I got to make small talk with mike and another guy for awhile, then I found out that he was going to record the whole 2 and 1/2 hour free form session. That made me even more intimidated, and on top of that three of the other guys that were going to be there had been on record lables and have toured the country multiple times. I think I was the only non-accomplished musician there. I was really nervous before we got started. Then Mike asked me If I knew of a band called "Sigur Ros"...and from that point on I knew things were gonna be ok. We started talking about how we loved a layered and ambient sound (at this point I am saying Thank you Lord, this is something I can at least do and keep up with) and how we kind of wanted to build and recess and layer and have a huge, epic, slow type of session. So we did that and some of the other guys wanted to do some faster stuff so we did that too. But I cant even begin to say how good this guy was on the drums. It was rediculous. I don't know, maybe I have drummer who is on the same wave length as I am. Before the end of the night we had finished done a 2 and 1/2 hour session and gone out to the beach and watched the glowing red tide and listened to ( ) on while we looked at the stars sitting in the sand hearing the waves crash in the background. It was a great night of music. It was one of the best nights I have had in a long time.