EDIT ADD: Dr. came by the house to assess Noah’s developmental skills. Christy called me after 2 hours and said that they can’t give a diagnosis, but that it really looks like some form of autism. We have to wait for the Psychologist’s diagnosis, but it doesn’t look good…

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It’s been a while, but I’ll make this quick…

Been busy-went to a staff retreat this week. It was good for everyone, and fun, too! Great orchestra practice last night. Much appreciation to being able to start on time…We have some humongous concerts coming up in San Diego, so I’m a little bit nervous about all of this stuff coming together with choir, orchestra, etc….

Apple does it again with the new iMac G5 with built in iSight and a remote control that you can point to the screen and do stuff with. NOT TO MENTION THE INCREDIBLE NEW iPOD VIDEO…holy smokes that thing is awesome…and now, of course, iTunes is selling videos on their music store, including TV shows like LOST and Desperate Housewives. I’ll have to download LOST from last night because I ran out of space on my DVR and the recording stopped…I’ve gotta dump all those SNL episodes…Christy is getting mad at me…

I taught everyone NERTZ at the staff retreat, and they all loved it…yay for passing on the NERTZ traditions…Oh yeah, and I currently reign as NERTZ King, just in case you haven’t read Mike’s blog.

Last night I participated in a recording session for HELIX BRASS-a ten-piece brass pro brass group from San Diego. It was quite fun! They recorded five arrangements I did of Christmas tunes-it was cool to hear music you’ve written performed by pros…I also conducted the session and played piano on one song (plus sang-see below).

We began at 6PM, and the brass wrapped up at about Midnight…then in came the poor singers who had been waiting around for a couple of hours. Yeah, we only sang on three songs, and finished up at around 3:45AM laying down the vocal tracks. Then we found one HUGELY blatent wrong note in the trumpets at the very start of one of the songs (a Bb instead of B–so it made the chord minor instead of major- hee hee). So those two trumpet guys stayed later to fix that…yeah I got home at about 4:30. And MIke Cathey drove all the way home to LA from Rancho Bernardo after we finished the vocals. I really hope he didn’t fall asleep at the wheel…

So a quick side note: I was definitely the weak link in the vocals. I was unprepared to sing bass, but the bass guy didn’t show, so I jumped in. Needless to say, one of the songs was really hard, vocally, and I stunk it up. Pee-u! But seriously, after having a burrito at Noon, and nothing else except a Caramel Frappucino on the way to the recording session, how is one supposed to function in the wee hours of the morning??? Oops…I should’ve had my wheaties…

THanks to all my choir peeps who had rehearsal w/o me (I knew you’d be fine!) and for all your prayers! To God be the glory!

Hmm.
I have new respect for David Crowder after reading much of his book, “Praise Habit”. So I’m listening to his new album, so far, so good.

Saw the movie SERENITY last night. Honestly, I probably wouldn’t have seen it on my own. The previews didn’t look all that exciting, even though I am quite the sci-fi nut. However, I loved it. Never having watched the show Firefly (which this movie was a continuation of that storyline) I was intrigued by the story and characters. It was action-packed and full of good movie-going fun. PLUS, (film buffs get ready) there is this shot at the beginning of the movie that is seriously, like, three minutes+ without cutting. THAT IS UNHEARD OF in film. Watch a film and see how often shots are cut, especially lately–and this was someone on a steady-cam following the captain around the ship for a LONG time whithout ever cutting. It was amazing and quite the feat of film-making. Only rarely are shots like that succesful because of the amount of time that goes into making that kind of shot a success. But truly, overall, I loved it. I’m sure Mike will talk more about it if he ever gets around to writing another post. I swear…

SNL was a good opening last night. Not great, but good. There were some funny parts and the new feature player who does the impressions was cool. Yay Mike Myers for being hilarious also…(he made a guest appearance). Steve Carrell is one of my favorite guys–I saw him at least ten years ago on the brief run of THE DANA CARVY SHOW on NBC. I loved him on that show and didn’t really see him again until a few years ago on Bruce ALmighty. Then he shows up on Bewitched and The Office…and you all know how I feel about the extremely gross 40-year-old virgin (don’t see that EVER). BUt SC’s comedy is really funny to me.

That’s it for now. You can pray for our family-I’d appreciate it.