Hey folks

I have a new fancy Burbank cell phone number. Nothing against San Diego, but I need to have an 818 area code…so I got one.

Unfortunately, you can’t JUST change you area code, so I have a brand new phone number. Since I have like 50 billion friends all over the world, and you are among them, I’m letting you know.

If you’d like my new phone number, leave a comment or message me (or email or facebook or whatever) and I’ll send you the new number.

In case you haven’t heard, Capitol Records is a really cool place. You can read about the history of the famous studio here (good ole Wikipedia). But let’s just say that a few cool people have recorded there in the past…people like Frank Sinatra, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, and Nat King Cole (to name a few).

Why would I be going there for anything (since I’m clearly not Frank Sinatra or any of those others…)?
This week I helped an orchestrator friend on a Cocoa Puffs commercial that recorded there today. It was a very cool project because they were using some music from one of my favorite operas, Carmen (Bizet).

Side note: one of the highlights of my freshman year (besides the fact that I did NOT gain 15 pounds like everyone else) was playing the crash cymbals in the Symphony Orchestra on the ever so famed Carmen Suite. It was such a blast!

So I helped out the orchestrator and he let me come to the session.
It was a trip.

If there was any day I felt industry, it was today. I surrounded by professionals that are leagues above me in experience and ability…and it was so cool. Just to walk the hallway and see the history of that place…it was surreal.

Just think…in the studio next to ours, Al Schmitt was mixing a Barbara Streisand record.

Yeah. Capitol Records is pretty awesome.

And this is how it works:
You spend time building relationships with people so that they will want to create and be creative with you.  No one wants to hire you right off the bat, so you work for free the first time…like an audition. And once people see your work and feel like you have something to offer, they call you back…and hopefully next time they pay.

So I’ve been doing this a lot lately…and as much as I feel like I’m working my tushy off for no monetary reward, it is a necessary step–a VERY necessary step.

And just because I’m pretty much a dork, I’m attaching a few pictures from the day. These aren’t great because I was trying to be very surreptitious in my photo snapping…

This is the hallway walking down towards the studios. You can barely see the pictures all along the hallway, but Nat King Cole is there, Frank, and several others…

And old-fashioned cool looking sign.

We were in studio A…

The badge I wore all day…

I know. Forgive the cheesy pictures. I almost was too cool to take them, but then decided that I wasn’t…

So, the whole economic disaster thing finally hit us.

The Christmas season combined with a change in one of our employers pay period (making it impossible to pay our bills in the first half of January) combined with the fact that I didn’t really orchestrate much in November/December (meaning no money coming in in December/January) means we are really scraping the bottom of the barrel this time of the year. Bills are piling up…but the world isn’t ending yet, and we’ve made a few appropriate cutbacks to our spending. Check it out:

-No more Starbucks. An obvious luxury. They’re probably going to have to close down 600 more stores now that we’ve stopped going…

-Turn off the heater! Gas is freakin’ expensive! Wear sweatshirts and use blankets people…especially if you have a tin-can of a house like ours that loses more heat than it retains. This goes for the lights too. TURN ‘EM OFF.

-Scale back the monthly charges. I called AT&T yesterday and saved about $75 a month by reducing the luxurious plans I had on cable, cell minutes, and internet speed. I took us from the 200-channel plan down to the minimum cable channels, carved off 700 minutes a month (between our two phones) on our cell plan, and reduced my internet speed from 10Mbs down to 6Mbs. A wise move.

-Stop buying the non-essentials. I think it’s going to be a while before we go see a movie at Harkins Theatres (GASP!) or stop off at the Olive Garden for dinner. But not only that, you can save a lot of money by not getting those power bars and sodas when you stop at the AM/PM to fill up your gas tank. Just resist the temptation!!! You should save it up for those times that you’re really, really, really tired…then a red bull is worth it.

-Clip Coupons. You’d be surprised at how it can add up over time.

So these are a few things we’ll be doing at our house to save some money so hopefully we can pay those bills.

But HERE’S the kicker.

Right in the middle of all of these discussions we were having the other day…I get this letter.

The letter you NEVER want to get.

Apparantly, I incurred a “Red Light Violation” according to the traffic cameras at a certain intersection in Covina. I turned right on a red light, and according to the video camera, I didn’t make a complete stop.  Ok…I’ll pay the fine, where is the…WHAT THE…!!!!

The fine is $436.00!!?!?!?!!

FOUR HUNDRED AND THIRTY-SIX DOLLARS FOR RUNNING A RED LIGHT ON A RIGHT TURN?!!?!

I went through a myriad of emotions in the next minute and a half. I was in denial, I got angry, then I just plain got overwhelmed.

According to the ticket, you can pay the fine and go to traffic school to get the point taken off of your record, you can pay the fine and have the point on your record, you can contest the charge and pay the fine, you can…ok there are a few more options but ALL OF THEM make you pay the fine!

SHEESH.

Normally you’d think that the lesson one would learn from this is the obvious, right? Don’t run red lights (especially when there are traffic cameras). But no. That is not what I’m taking away from this…
The lesson I learned is the following:

NEVER DRIVE ON ROWLAND STREET OR BARRANCA AVE EVER EVER EVER AGAIN. And not just the intersection. I’m BOYCOTTING THE WHOLE STREET FOR THE BOTH OF THEM.

HA!

TAKE THAT!

Sorry friends that live on that street.

Concert is tonight. It’s going to be awesome.

Travis rocks.
Beth Moore will be there.
Max Lucado will appear on the DVD.
The music is fantastic.

And somehow it has come to pass that Heidi, Leanne, Christy, Joli, and I (along with 8 others) will each be singing on their own individual microphone.

On the live CD/DVD…

…for Travis Cottrell.

Dude.

Just chilling out in Atlanta…

Spent yesterday hanging out and not doing a WHOLE lot, then spent today rehearsing and hanging out with the band and praise team.

And when I say “rehearsing” with them, I mean sitting and watching them rehearse.

Ok, ok…I actually sang a bit with the praise team (along with Christy, Leanne, Heidi, and Joli) before the BIG rehearsal. But it was great.

Here are a few pictures of the church:

IT’S HUUUUUGE

Here’s the church right before we drove into the lot…

As we’re coming down the driveway…

The WALKWAY between buildings, over the driveway…

The 7,400 seat auditorium.

A picture of part of the stage and choir loft.

And ONE of the studios they’ll be utilizing this weekend…that is built into the church…

Yeah. THIS IS BIG.

Wish you could be here!!! And if you can’t, then BUY THE DVD, because it is literally going to be SO awesome.

For real.

Good news!

Our plane did not crash.

Phew!

Now, why would we automatically assume that it would? Cause we’re just scaredy cats like that. Christy is espescially terrified of flying…but I would be lying if I didn’t say I was a liiiiiiitle scared of it myself. I’m not quite as terrified as my wife, but I tell you what…it’s just down-right scary to be in a tube of metal floating 500 MPH above the ground at 20,000 feet.

So that’s the good news…we didn’t die.

We are thankful to be in Atlanta, safe and sound, and thankful for my parents who are watching the kids while we are gone. Apparantly the kids aren’t missing us as much as we are missing them. Before we left, Noah kept telling us to, “Go get on the plane, Daddy. Go to the plane, Mom!” And this is the dance they were doing when we dropped them off:

A birdy told me they all had a Wii tournament until 1:45AM that night.

I can’t say I’m surprised.

Off to hang out with Travis…

Last week was a pretty fantastic week.

Firstly, we spent Monday and Tuesday (as well as Friday) in San Diego preparing for a kids choir show–but not just any kids choir show–Word Music actually came out from Nashville to video tape our kids putting on Celeste Clydesdale’s newest musical “G.P.S.”. This is a big deal for us because we absolutely adore the Clydesdale’s (husband is David T.) and the stuff that they do. Celeste writes incredible, fresh, fun, and clever kids musicals and David T. writes stuff for adult choir and orchestra. We use their stuff ALL THE TIME, so to be asked to do a project like this was a HUGE honor. Christy and her team of leaders worked very hard to prepare the kids for this event, even to the point of learning two musicals at once during the Christmas season. It was an UNDERTAKING, to say the least.

And they ROCKED it.

Word Music couldn’t have been more pleased. Celeste said we were the best kids choir she has ever heard. The kids knocked it out of the park.

It was so fulfilling and fun. What an experience!

We are probably going to be joining forces with them again in the future…which is just a dream-come-true for Christy and I. It is so amazing to work with true aritsts like that…

Secondly, my BFF asked me to write string parts for his live album (recording this weekend in Atlanta, GA), so I worked my tooshie off getting those to him before we had to go back down to San Diego for the GPS taping. I also finished another project for the Male Chorale at CBU this week.

It has been busy!

But you know what?

It has been AWESOME.

I wouldn’t trade the insanity of our schedule for anything. I mean, it IS crazy, but so worth it. We were slated to be in San Diego on last Friday-Tuesday, but I KNEW I needed to get work done all day Tuesday in my studio (my church office does not have the proper equipment/hardware/software anymore) because of the upcoming projects, so I took Nathaniel with me on Monday night after the kids choir rehearsal and DROVE HOME. I worked until about 2AM, slept until 6AM, got up, worked some more, took Nathaniel to school, worked until 230PM, picked N up from school and drove back down to SD to be there for the dress rehearsal and to pick up Christy and Noah. As troublesome as the driving is, it is STILL worth it.
Am I crazy?

Maybe so…but I know how to do what it takes to get a job done…and sometimes it just takes that level of commitment to succeed.

I look back at the last year and I just marvel at what has transpired in my life and the lives of my little family. We are so blessed.

I am officially back ON the grid…

I am signing off for a while to write some charts for my BFF, Travis.

The only way you’d possibly get a hold of me is to send an angel of the Lord with good tidings of great joy.

…or call Christy.

Wow.

I almost titled this entry “The Right Man”, but quickly changed it…phew! That was a close one…

Neil Patrick Harris hosted SNL this weekend and it was by FAR the funniest show I’ve seen in a long time. The show experienced great success during the elections, for good reason, but since has been struggling.

Let this just be a lesson to all that the RIGHT HOST has a huge impact on the outcome of the show.

The best parts of the night??
How can I pick? There were so many!!

A 4.5 earthquake hit San Bernardino tonight at 7:49PM.

Thank goodness so far there have been no injuries reported.

We felt it out here in Burbank…I thought my studio had grown some wheels. It felt like we were being pushed around slowly on a giant piano dolly.
It felt sooo weird.

Anyone else feel the quake?