Tommy Boy, a Mac Powerbook & A Sleeping Family
What are all things in Blair’s life right this moment. Does anybody remember the old Johnny Cason routine where he would dress up as Carnack the magnificent. Ed McMahan would hand him the sealed envelopes and he would hold them up to his head and announce the answer to the question that was written on the card on the inside. Pretty funny stuff. When I was a kid I always wanted to stay up late to watch Johnny Carson. My parents didn’t care too much because my dad never seemed to sleep. Anyway… I am not quite sure why I started my entry that way today, just seemed like fun.
Christie is asleep in our room and Sally is asleep in her bouncy chair with me. She has been awake much more time today that in the past few. She has been fighting a lot of sleep, but hopefully the extra awake time today will let he get more sleep tonight. I think she was awake today so much because she had to go to the bathroom. She was sitting here in her bouncy chair happy as a clam and then all of the sudden just exploded! One of my favorite things as a new parent are the diaper changes that also include a clothes change… I will let your imagination just run wild on that.
The other thing I have been working on today is my new Powerbook G4. For those of you new to this saga, after the NAB conference this year Billy & I decided that we should be using Macs for our video, audio and graphic design work. We ordered them a few weeks ago and they just came yesterday. I have been using it all day today and so far so good. I love the computer itself. It is a beautiful design. I do not yet have all the software we are going to be using so that will be fun to try. The other thing that is cool is that I can still get into the Windows network at the church very easily, so going back and forth should be no big deal. Anyway… that’s all for today. I will have some new pictures tomorrow hopefully and a report on Overdrive.
Baby Noises
On the journey of life one has the chance to learn a great many things. I have always considered myself a well educated person and I dare anyone to challenge me to a game of Jeopardy! However, my little girl teaches me something new every day… and she is just one month old. The lessons are not always very significant, and today the lesson was that babies make a lot of noise. She has a range of ways to communicate with Christie & I from subtle grunts and groans to high pitched squeals (my least favorite!). Sometimes she is just quiet which tells us a lot and then there are times like right now when she just is cooing and humming in her bouncy chair. She is totally asleep, but she just make noise the whole time she is asleep. Now I don’t want to sound overly sappy, and I am sure that every new parent feels like they have so much to learn from their children, but she really is amazing.
In addition to all of the current parenting duties, things are continuing to go great at church. Here is the funny story for the day… Overdrive at 9am was pretty good today. We had a really great time and things were going well. 10:30 service was one of the best crowds we have had for an Overdrive service so far. The music was rocking and I was feeling pretty good about how the service was gelling… and then there was nothing!! The sound system just went dead. Zach Gibson was running sound today and so I ran upstairs and asked Zach what happened. I noticed the amps were off so I turned them back on and thought maybe somebody had accidentally turned them off… he said that the power seemed to be out and that there was a dead circuit breaker. I ran downstairs and went to the breaker panel. While that was happening Jeff just carried on a capella and that was really cool. I checked the breakers and they were all fine, so I checked the amp room and everything was on, so I ran (yes, dear readers, ran) back upstairs only to find that the sound board was still off… using my deductive logic I surmised that it was off. I checked the power switch and sure enough it was off. So in doing some forensic work I determined that after the rocking guitar solo by Kenny Krenzin, Zach backed up and accidentally hit the switch with his foot, without really knowing that he had done it. He felt terrible, and in the meantime we turned it on and got it working before the next song was over. Life is full of moments in which all you can do is laugh… and this was one of them!
This week is the Saddleback Church Worship Arts Conference + Festival in Lake Forest. I am going to be going along with Billy & John. The highlights that I can predict at this point are going to be the worship concert with Justin Adams, Israel Houghton & the live recording session with Tommy Walker! Should be fun.
Oh yeah… there are more pictures in the gallery… start on page 4 if you are keeping track at home. For the record Christie is the one who put her in the basket… I just thought it was really funny!
Disneyland Adventure
Being a parent has brought about many changes in life in the past few weeks. One has been being excited over a poopy diaper. Another has been stopping everything in life to make sure that the little one is breathing. I am not sure I have ever paid much attention to anyone breathing, but now I do. How about this one… pausing at least 10 times a day to notice just how amazing this little person is. Sure she cries sometimes, and she has made sleep much more difficult for Christie especially. There are some things in life that should always remain the same, and I believe that trips to Disneyland should be one of those things. Prior to Sally joining our life my wife and I would go to Disneyland quite often. Some of you may know that Christie even worked at Disneyland for a few months as a Vacation Planner before Sally was born. Disneyland was one of the first places that Christie and I went together not long after we started officially dating. So with all the family history at The Happiest Place on Earth, we decided that Saturday night was the perfect time to introduce our beautiful baby Sally to Disneyland. We got in the car and drove on down to the park and got to experience a whole new world as stroller goers to Disneyland. First off is the need to identify where elevators are. Check. Second is the need to make sure that you pick the right row on the tram. Only in the very first row can you load your stroller and not have as much hassle since she is still in the car seat. Once inside the park there is manuvering around people and obstacles that you never knew existed. But all in all the experience was great. Sally got to see the new show at the Main Street Opera House on the first 50 years of Disneyland, so she is pretty much all caught up. Grandma Sharon and Aunt Becky can spend some more time going ove the 40th Anniversary trading cards at a later date. She enjoyed the show quite a bit as evidenced by the slight baby gurgle noises she made. We then headed up Main Street to Tomorrowland, around the loop by Matterhorn to Fantasyland for a return trip down Main Street before the 7pm parade and a certain standstill until after the fireworks. We had to stop at the Castle for a few pictures. After we left the park we headed over the Spare Park aka DCA aka California Adventure for dinner and some loud California music. We had dinner at the Taste Pilots Grill and it was very yummy. On our way out we walked past the ice cream shop and smelled the yummy waffle cones and then as we headed further out we got to smell the burnt popcorn. Quite the olefactory overload. With a nice walk behind us and dinner in our bellies we deciede to call it a day. But this was not just any day. It was the very first day that our family went to Disneyland together. A tradition that I hope we will contiune for many years to come. Sally will have no memories of that day, but we will share the stories and pictures with her, and no matter where she goes in life she can say that she went to Disneyland when she only 3 weeks old! I think that is cool.
