I cannot tell you how geekily thrilled I am to see this.
This summer promises a flurry of great flicks--Indy 4, Prince Caspian, The Dark Knight (Batman's latest...) and more...

But Christmas '08...that's what I'm waiting for...

Daniel is working in his home office.
Christy is checking her email in the living room.
Christy sends Daniel an email.
Daniel replies to that email.
Christy replies back.
Daniel replies to that email...and so on, and so forth...

We're so hip.

Got another gig for the guy I sang the Disney tunes for a few months back. This is a different type of gig...but still aweseome.
He rocks.

I get so excited and scared...it's actually a fantastic blend of joy and horror...

Starbucks is taking a new approach after a decline in revenues and a stock plummet in recent months. They actually hired back Howard Schultz as CEO (he was CEO from 1987-2000). It's an interesting read...I have no idea how long the LA Times keeps up articles...who knows if that link will work tomorrow or in a week.

There are also some incredible changes to the iPhone software. I updated mine last night and it is SUPER fun. I can't wait to hear Steve Jobs' keynote speech from the huge Macworld 2008 event. I know...call me geeky...

More later...

Something happened last night in my new winter-quarter class at CSULA that doesn't often happen to me: I was inspired.

Now, that might sound hokey, or something--but it's true. I was really burned out on arranging after the gig I did for Concordia. It seemed like the plates were never going to stop spinning during that time and the busyness of life wore me out. I did school last quarter, but my heart really wasn't in it. Ironically, it was the film scoring class. FILM SCORING! I MEAN--this is what I walked into my undergraduate degree saying I was going to do forever...and I went through the motions in the class.

But not last night.

Not now. And God bless my professor--she is amazing. I love her classes (took two last year also).  The class we had last night absolutely cemented some things in my mind--things I had wondered about before, but was never certain about. I'm SO looking forward to this course. The real irony about all of this is that I almost didn't go back to school this quarter (for reasons that are not pertinent). I thought, "I'll go the first time and see what this class is like--and see if it's worth going to. Otherwise, I'll just go next quarter." I think it's obvious how that turned out.

This quarter I have to interview 3 successful people in the industry that are doing something similar to what I'm doing. I'll be pursuing Steve Bartek (Danny Elfman's orchestrator), Hans Zimmer, and an orchestrator's agent for starters. John Williams was my first choice, but he's a little busy...

I'm starting to feel it--this year is going to be my year.

More life changes coming soon...

80% Geek

Learn about Ultrasound technicians

I love the rain.

Even though one's love for the rain could be squelched by reports of mudslides, floods, horrific traffic accidents all over the freeways, and other disasters attributed to this natural act of God--and those things can cause quite a bit of devastation (which is truly terrifying)--I still love the rain. There is something about it that feels clean and refreshing. Maybe it's the smell in the air, or the fact that the running water is washing over the earth--but rain feels clean to me.

This brings to memory a song...which I'll try to post here...written by Sara Groves and first introduced to me through the Midway Kids Choir in the production "Acorns to Oaks" (Clydesdale).

(Lyrics)

Call it what you will, I call it rain
When troubles come and pan against my soul
Go in if you like, I will remain
And let the washing waters make me whole

Just when I’m sure that I can’t bear the rain
A tiny leaf starts pushing through the ground
In a place where the soil was too dry to sustain it
A new tiny flower can be found

Once I was stuck, I thought things would never change
And I watched that cloud pass through the sky
And right before my eyes it took a different shape
And I knew, so would the clouds in my own life

Just when I’m sure that I can’t bear the rain
A tiny leaf starts pushing through the ground
In a place where the soil was too dry to sustain it
A new tiny flower can be found

And I see Him in the rain
And I feel Him wash away
What I do not understand
So new life can spring up once again
And I see Him in the rain
And I feel Him wash away
What I do not understand
So new life can spring up once again

And the flowers come to show
That all that rain was helping me to grow

I think I could have posted the audio--but I decided not to because A) It's illegal (and I have a conscience about these things) and B) Xanga threatened to shut down my account if they found out the material was copyrighted. Hm...not gonna chance it.


I found a wonderful and amazing resource for my church planning this week-- www.planningcenteronline.com
It's an all web-based program to aid me in my worship set planning. I can't even go into the many ways it will save me time and energy (and be really cool for other people) in the future. Just know this: I love it, and I'm spending an absurd amount of time playing with it right now...I just can't stop! Also, that 24 oz coffee from 7-11 that I had on the way home tonight might have something to do with it...

Oh my goodness.
I am back at work after having the most relaxing vacation of my life for the past 11 days.

I cannot possibly tell you how difficult it was to wake up this morning...ugh.
And it's not like work stinks...it just stinks to have to wake up early after sleeping in until whenever you want for over a week.

Easter comes way too quickly this year. March 23rd. Ugh. Why do we have a floating Holiday like this where one year it is April 8th and another it is 2 weeks earlier? It's crazy! Of course, the only reason I care about this is because it directly affects the amount of time we have to rehearse our church program...it always seems to come so FAST!

It's hard to believe it's already 2008. I wish I had something profound to tell you about 2007, but I don't. Although now that I'm spending 20 seconds thinking about it, a lot happened this past year:
I wrote my first 45-minute show, complete with full orchestration...this consumed the entire first half of my year and just about burned me out on arranging and orchestrating altogether. I've had a difficult time working since I almost killed myself writing that thing. I got a snazzy promotion at APU, and bought some suits to go with it...I left Christ-First Baptist Church after just short of a year, and returned to Midway to the coolest job and most unique working situation that I've ever had. I worked for a guy that worked for Disney...all in all, some pretty cool stuff. I have a lot to be thankful for!

On to Christmas. Well...it goes like this. Christy was throwing up on Dec 22 and feeling horrible all day on the 23rd and 24th. She was scheduled to sing a solo on Christmas Eve. She ended up pulling through to sing that night and did great (and the whole service turned out to be a smashing success, despite my stressing out about it for the whole week prior). We drove home from San Diego on the 24th after the service, and I threw up on the way home...I spent Christmas day on the couch, sick...then poor Noah decides to get sick on the 28th, and spends all night throwing up...poor little guy.

My parents came down on the 28th for a couple of days and we had a wonderful time with them. We got Nathaniel Monopoly for Christmas and decided to all play a rousing game of it on Friday. Nathaniel can't last more than 20 or 30 minutes in the game--and given his age, that's not too bad, I guess--but we played for a good 2 hours and Christy and I eventually forced my mom and dad into bankruptcy. HAhaha...
We also introduced them to Corner Bakery Cafe and they LOVED it...good thing...so do we. Yum!

This has been a hard Christmas to keep Nathaniel grateful. He is a little manipulater, and sometimes operates with a large sense of entitlement. We're working hard to teach him about thankfulness, contentment, and selflessness, but this is a long road...and these are difficult concepts to teach.

Noah is talking and expressing himself more and more every day. I'm amazed at all of the little things he can say and do now. He is expressing all kinds of emotion and feeling. He is asking people to play with him all the time (a behavior completely opposite of what someone with Autism would do) and has a personality that is just blossoming. We are just ecstatic about his progress!

OH....and I'm totally hooked on LEGO STAR WARS. How did I not play video games for the last 7 years of my life? What happened to me? Seriously, my friends and I had WARS in 5th-6th grade about which was better: Sega Genesis or Super NES. Of course, I was on the side of Super Nintendo, and I've kept that die-hard loyalty throughout the tragic showing of Nintendo during the last 8 years. Gamecube? No, thank you...It's only been since the release of Wii that Nintendo has finally gotten back into the gaming scene. A guy that works at Wal-Mart told my parents that they had approx 400 requests for the Wii each day during the Christmas shopping season. 400 people asking for the Wii every day!! And it REALLY IS THAT COOL! Nintendo spent a long time in no-man's-land in regards to gaming during this decade, and now they're back.

However, for now I'll do just fine catching up with you all on my lowly PS2...which pales in comparison to the Wii, but in comparison to the NOTHING that I've been playing, rocks pretty hard!

So many times I've wanted to sit down and blog about everything that has been happening over the past week or so, but I have been having WAY too much fun relaxing and hanging out with my family. Talk about a vacation! I'm loving it!

So...I'm going to have to get back to you...but let me just say this: Lego Star Wars II.
The most fun I've had in a long, long time...

From a post on the United Hollywood blog:

OUCH.

Come on people--let's end this. Everyone is hurting for it, and you media moguls--you KNOW you don't need the money.
Greed...ugh.

Side note:
We saw I AM LEGEND last night and loved it. I absolutely loved it. What a fantastic story--and for all the previews and trailers I saw for it, I never really knew what the movie was going to be about--and I liked feeling that way. Usually I am prepared to enjoy a movie before I go see it (due to the massive marketing combined with the research I do). This was refreshingly surprising.