EDIT ADD:
I saw Sara Bareilles' album for sale on iTunes for only 7.99--and I happened to have a $9 positive balance...so I bought it (I had heard a single earlier and liked it) and the whole album is GREAT! I like the feel of the whole thing--I think it's a great bridge between the pop and indie genres. Her voice is cool. Check it out if you want!

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I'm sure staying busy...

School is out for me at CSULA, and school is out at APU. We had our commencement ceremony this past Saturday, and it was ultra cool to see those students finally graduate. I know Heidi has blogged about the fulfillment that comes from watching students participate in commencement, but I have never experienced that until this time through. Maybe it was because it was my first time as the Associate Registrar? I definitely played a MUCH bigger part in many of those student's journey. Many of them got petitions approved or denied by me...and one student in particular I helped quite a bit last summer as she had been away from APU for a while and was trying to transfer in for one last semester. Well--she did it! And I was a really big part of that...so this one felt different...and good. It felt good.

Another cool thing that happened Saturday was that our VP of Enrollment took the entire commencement team (or at least about 22 of the 30 of us) out to lunch at a fancy restaurant between commencements. It was super cool to have some time to hang out with a person in that level of leadership at APU.

The concert at Midway on the 16th was amazing...but I think I already mentioned that...
We have a lot of super things planned for this coming season for choir and orchestra. I love the amount of creativity and flexibility that Christy and I have with this group. It really drives us and fuels us that we get to plan and cast vision for pretty much whatever we feel like God is calling us to do. I'm super excited about the future.

I am having a hard time fully grasping that Christmas is here. A REALLY hard time...I just don't know where the time goes...

Now that school is out for a bit and my biggest concerts are over, I sure feel less stressed. That said...I really like not being stressed. I've been playing video games, hanging out with my family, helping around the house a little bit...it's a big change. Relaxing is more and more appealing. I am really hating always feeling like I have so much to do and constantly working. What kind of life is that?!?!?
All that to say...I'm going to be trying to take it easy, especially when it comes to taking on extra gigs. I don't know how it will all work out...but I'm going to TRY to...

Christy made an excellent and delicious Tiramisu tonight. It was delightful.

I have just a second to say THANKS to everyone involved with our Christmas concert "Noel". It was another phenomenal success! What an amazing and fulfilling thing to be a part of, and even more to direct! I am so thrilled to be back at Midway. Thank you to those of you that sacrificed to contribute.

I feel so blessed.

Sometimes these are stupid, and sometimes it can really help you get to know someone...this might be a little of both.

Christmas Questionnaire

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags?  Wrapping paper, and usually WAY too much wrapped up very poorly. It's generally very bulky...

2. Real tree or artificial?  Real. I grew up in the mountains--there were no fake trees. One time my family went up to some property my Grandma owned at the time and cut off the top of a BIG tree. We're talking a huge fir tree (my dad could tell you what kind, exactly). I think the part we brought home was about 18 feet tall and just barely fit in the tallest corner of our split-level house. We decorated the top of it from our balcony.

3. When do you put up the tree?  Whenever I get around to it. This year it was around the first week of December.

4. When do you take the tree down?  As soon as possible...those things can self combust! 

5. Do you like eggnog?  No. I try and try every year to drink it and like it...but I can't. Yuck.

6. Favorite gift received as a child?  The original NES.  I think we also got the Super NES later on, but it all started with the original...the one and only...NES.

7. Do you have a Nativity scene?  I guess...I don't know...ask Christy.

8. Hardest person to buy for?  My wife. I have a hard time deciding what to get for her.

9. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? I can't think of one. I remember not digging the sweaters my Grandma would perpetually buy us every year, but as a parent I can look back and see what a poor attitude I had about that. I'm sure those sweaters did me good!

10. Mail or email Christmas cards?  Mail. However, we're pretty bad at that kind of stuff. We don't keep up with people well enough. Maybe this year we'll do blog-cards...hahaha...

11. Favorite Christmas Movie?  Could be "A Christmas Story" or "Home Alone". Oh wait! Scrooged! I probably wouldn't watch any of these movies nowadays, but I remember loving them in the days of yore.

12. When do you start shopping for Christmas?  December 24th?? I'm horrible at shopping for Christmas. I did buy one gift yesterday (13th) and we made some gifts for family on the 11th...but generally, I stink at this.

13. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present?  Re-gifted?  I think we re-gifted some wedding presents (shhhhhhh), but not Christmas.

14. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? 
I used to love it when my mom would make homemade cinnamon rolls...there is nothing like those suckers. She would actually grind the barley to make the wheat flour, then make and knead the dough, let it rise, etc...I'm sure it was a whole ordeal and incredible time consuming...but they tasted amazing. I also pigged out on fudge and gingerbread cookies. Oh man...I LOVE homemade gingerbread cookies. That refrigerated cookie dough was tasty. No wonder I was a chubby kid!!

15. Clear lights or colored on the tree?  I  like colored--we used to have those BIG bulbs in all kinds of color...but now all the trendy stuff is the small white lights (which also look nice too...)

16. Favorite Christmas song?  Hmmm...they would probably be choir songs, since I've directed/sung so many of them. One of my all time favorites is "Christmas Fantasia". However, Carol of the Bells is absolutely the best Christmas song ever written.

17. Travel at Christmas or stay home?  Usually some of each. This year we're staying home and my folks are coming to visit. Yay!

18. Can you name all of Santa's reindeers?  No way, not even close. Maybe like...4 of them.

19. Angel on the tree top or a star?  Talk to Christy. Used to be a star, but now I think we just have a bow-type ribbon thingy.

20. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning?  Usually on Christmas day. Although when my brother and I were young we convinced my parents to let us open one present on Christmas Eve and do the rest in the morning. For some reason we usually picked the presents from my Uncle Lee...they were always wrapped so nicely (and probably had been there the longest and peaked our interest the most).

21. Most annoying thing about this time of year?  Nothing. I like it. I'm usually super busy performing or writing (and Christy's b-day is on the 11th, so we have many celebrations in December) but I can't think of anything annoying.

Side note: my brother John and I used to hunt around our house every year to find our hidden presents. I mean HUNT. We were pretty darn good about knowing the hiding places...sorry mom and dad...we didn't ALWAYS find our presents--and later on we stopped looking so we didn't spoil the fun--but we did find our presents often. That said--we never found ALL of them. We just usually found a portion of them...and it was super fun to look. The anxiety was killing us!!!

Once a year or so Christy likes to head over to Benihana, her favorite restaurant, for some Hibachi Steak. I'm not a big fan of Benihana simply because I don't care for a lot of fried or greasy food, and if you've ever watched them cook your meal there, you know just how much butter and oil goes on that skillet. But Christy loves it, and I love her, so we go--and I never complain because I can certainly handle going there once a year--no problem. There certainly is no limit to how much I can or should bless my wife, and the Lord knows I don't do that very well most of the time anyway, so Benihana it is!

Well--Beihana doesn't have a great reputation with me for a couple of reasons:
A couple of years ago we tried to go to there on a Sunday for Christy's birthday. We stood in line (at the front of the line) for 30 minutes or so before they opened, so we could try to get in. However, they turned us away because we didn't have a reservation. Boo.

and LAST NIGHT, after enjoying a perfectly nice meal and some quiet time with my love, I arose at about 1:30am to barf up my whole meal. In essence, I flushed a good 30 bucks down the toilet...
So BOO on Benihana! But all is not lost...I couldn't go back to sleep (I felt sick lying down) so I played some PS2 until about 3am. That's right, Lego Star Wars is awesome!

Side note: there was a PS2 that was left in the cafe at church that I bought an extra paddle, memory card, and some games for...and now I'm hooked on Lego Star Wars. This week for the first time I brought it home to play...I love it!! SOOO FUN! And now Nathaniel and I play it all the time...

Today my boss' boss' former boss (a.k.a. the Provost) came by my office to talk to me.

This is highly unusual. He might stop by our humble little trailer once or twice in a year--and today was that day...to talk to me.

Let me just say, it was awesome. It was like one of those talks that Generals give to their troops right before a battle (at least in the movies...). And it was also perfect for ME, the way I've been feeling over the past few days.

In completely unrelated news, I liked Heroes last night.

Today is December 1st.

This is something that is really hard for me to fathom. How is it possible that time flies so quickly? I can't believe Christmas is really here!

Today was the Midway Praise Choir & Orchestra's first concert of the season. We performed near the pier at Imperial Beach and the group did a really great job. As you can imagine, with the pouring rain yesterday, everyone was a little concerned that we wouldn't be able to perform today. But the Lord pulled through and gave us sunshine for most of the concert--later that afternoon it continued to rain. But the choir/orchestra did so well! I'm very proud of them and I'm looking forward to next week's performance at the Organ Pavilion (Sat. 4pm).

Christy and I chose to celebrate by going out to dinner tonight, and we decided to go to the restaurant where I played the Elton John gig to actually eat (since when we were doing the gig we got no food-but it all looked so good.) So it was actually pretty bad. The food ended up tasting pretty good for the most part (the soup and dessert were duds, but the main course and appetizer were winners), but the service was terribly slow and they messed up our check. After sitting there for two hours, we finally were able to pay our correct amount and get out of there.
And this is why Daniel & Christy stick to chain restaurants: you always know what you're going to get (quality, selection, promise of good service, etc...).

 
As for La Scala, boo I say!!

I'm sick today.
Blarg...

I do not like being sick...
I guess it's better that I'm sick now and not this weekend!

EDIT ADD: I did get the soundtrack! It's great! I love the music for this movie... It's charming...
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Happy Thanksgiving!

We saw Enchanted last night--it was totally hilarious. I highly recommend you take the family to see it. I loved it.

Mike says:

Not only that--but they used lots of actors and actresses that had previously voiced main characters in the classic Disney animated films (and when I say classic, I don't mean "Cinerella"-classic, I mean "The Little Mermaid"-classic...just a quick distinction...). Ariel was a big part, and also the chicks that voiced Pocahontas and Belle were in the film. Disney is pretty great at throwing stuff in like that, and this film was no exception. It was just great to laugh at Disney laughing at themselves. I love it when people are big enough to make fun of themselves, because THAT, my friends, is funny...

All that to say--it was amazing...PROPS to Disney.
Go see Enchanted. Perfect holiday movie.

I might get the soundtrack...

My apologies for the length of time between entries...

Our church has been in a series about the book of Revelation for several weeks now and we are getting close to the end. I hear every single message twice each Sunday, because I sit in the auditorium through both of our morning services. Although my A.D.D. tendencies sometimes kick in and my mind wanders during the message, I probably understand or "get" the message more than anyone else--strictly due to my exposure to it.
However, something has been much different about this series. This study has been incredibly in-depth, and if there is one thing that I will walk away from this series understanding, it's that there is SO MUCH about God that I don't know. I mean, I grew up in church, took my 18 units of Bible courses at APU, studied God's Word regularly for many years--but I was simply blown away by the amount of stuff about God that I just don't know. And this...this is refreshing to me.

Our 8th Anniversary was last week, and our little Vegas trip was pretty awesome, although short. We stayed overnight at "The Venetian" hotel. We had planned on staying in one of their smaller rooms (which is still very elegant) but when we got there they upgraded us to the biggest suite in the hotel!! We're talking 27th floor 1500 sq. ft. suite with two bathrooms, three TVs, a HUGE view and the most comfortable bed you could imagine. It was a pretty spectacular treat! I took pictures on my phone, and I'll leave it up to Christy to tell you the rest of the story. Needless to say, since we don't gamble or drink (and there's not a whole lot more to do in Vegas) we mostly just ate delicious food and hung out in our humongous room! It's also very fun to walk around the inside of the hotel, as they've modeled it after the streets of Venice--complete with Gondola rides.

I finished the book "Sex God" by Rob Bell. It's a pretty easy read, and very worthwhile. It's not necessarily about sex as much as it's about the worth that each of us has as human beings. It's about how God has formed us and made us, and how we look for connection with each other in the wrong way. It's an excellent book, and applicable to you whether you're young or old, married or single.

I heard a new Travis Cottrell worship musical last night based on Max Lucado's book "3:16 The Numbers of Hope". It's pretty cool--but not necessarily an Easter thing. I'm going to use it to teach some new worship songs in the Spring. I love TC's arranging. He has a gift, and I respect his musical instinct.

The Midway Praise Choir and Orchestra is in the final stages of polishing their Christmas rep. This show is going to be phenomenal! I am not bragging about anything that I'm doing--but I do want to brag about my peeps in the choir and orchestra that are working their butts off to put on an amazing show. They rock! I am really privileged to direct this group. You all should really come, I know you'll be blessed. We have 4 concerts that you can attend:

-Dec 1 at Noon at Imperial Beach. (We are singing for "Christmas Comes to IB" right after Santa shows up...)

-Dec 8 at 4pm at the Organ Pavilion in Balboa Park

-Dec 16 at 6pm at Midway Baptist Church

We're also doing an additional concert on Dec 9th at a Training Center in La Mesa. This is a place where inmates go right after being released from prison to learn some skills and go through a time of rehabilitation before entering "the real world" again. I'm not sure that this concert is open to the public.

I'll be super busy writing for my final project in Film Scoring that is due after Thanksgiving, plus a couple of charts for YLFC. Blessings to you all--and Happy Thanksgiving!

The WGA strike has seriously put the Spring television schedule in jeopardy. 24 will not be aired unless they can show the entire season uninterrupted--only about half of the season is taped as of now. LOST is on hold,  Battlestar Gallactica is down for the count, and The Office hasn't taped it's previously written Christmas Episode. Bummer.

That said--and as much as a consumer I am bummed that this will directly affect me--I completely support the strike. I even signed the online petition. I advise you to go see Scotlas' video of The Office writers (of which most are also the main characters) and the blog to get your RSS feed for the most up-to-date info on the strike.

I hope the studios come to their senses...

...soon.