Sunday, January 28, 2007

Sunday, January 28, 2007

Yesterday was a “hang out” day for the most part. Missy’s friend, Jacie, spent the night Friday night and hung out here for the morning and then mom and dad came up around noonish. In the afternoon, shortly after my parents arrived, CC and her mom stayed at the house as my parents, the kids and I traveled up highway 80 to Auburn to the church that Novo had done the installation at, and my dad and I finished the final two punches on our list; to install the second wireless receiver into the rack we built and to place some cable raceway on the wall to conceal the incoming wires in the sound room coming from the wall and going to the rack. We (my dad and I) completed our mission while grandma and the kids hung out outside and played around until we were done. After finishing, we took a leisurely drive into downtown Old Town, Auburn and eventually found a Marie Calendar’s restaurant and had dinner there. We bought a Lemon Meringue pie and brought it home to CC, which was well received and seriously good. Marie Calendar’s ha sa pie sale on now through March, $5.99 per pie, except for cheesecakes. Wow.

Also, kind of a fun note for the morning yesterday was that when I got up, Jacie and Missy had been up for quite a while and decided to make pancakes. Now before you freak, Missy’s been taught how to make them, but one of us has always been “there” when she’s made them. I got up to find them in the kitchen and she gleefully exclaims, “See daddy?! I made pancakes for you and for us! I was caught so off guard that I did not give the proper and expected reaction and missed my moment and she nearly went to tears because I wasn’t excited like she had thought I’d be. Talk about moments where you just want to crawl in a hole somewhere and rot by yourself. I held her for a while and explained I was tired and surprised and told her she could have bought me a car and I would have reacted similarly being so tired from just waking up. She forgave me and I reassured her how proud I truly was and am of her and asked her to tell me all about the makings and her morning so she could re-live the excitement and I could have a kind of second chance to be excited, after the fact. Buisquick and milk was truly all over the counter, no joke. They had used Nestle chocolate milk powder to make chocolate pancakes…I’d not have thought of that…I was truly impressed, appropriately. When I saw that I had hurt her by my lack of reaction, I’d like to have just died right then. I felt horrible. It’s a terrible feeling, unlike most any other and those who have very young kids, my prayer for you is to not know what I’m talking about, but life normally has that within its balance. It’s not fun, but their triumphs are.

This morning we all got up in time to make it to a 11:15 contemporary church service at Capital Christian Church (AOG) off Bradshaw and 50. CC determined that her mom was “with it” enough to remain home by herself that we went without her since she said flatly that she did not want to go with us or leave the house. We left in time to make it about 10 minutes early for service and we sat in the center section on the floor (there’s a balcony as well). The place is pretty big with all kinds of seating front to back and side to side. The lights were fairly contemporary which included moving gobos and changing colors, etc. My dad felt they were distracting, but for me they weren’t as distracting as Bayside’s lighting approach, so I was fine with them for the most part. I though that they were fairly tastefully done. All of us felt the volume was higher than necessary, but again, for me, it wasn’t painfully too loud, per se. The bad was 2 guitars, 1 bass, keys and drums with one guitarist leading in vocals and the keyboardist doing BGVs. CC noted that she would have preferred to hear a female voice in the mix, that it was missing for her ear in the all male band. Also, the band was just that, a band, not a worship team. Huge difference in package presentation, consistency, blend, stage spacing/look and communication. I saw what I used to have years ago and appreciated what they have now.
The preacher was a guest preacher from India. He’s Chinese but born and raised in India. His name is Solomon Wang (pronounced Wong) and he made the joke a number of time that if you called him Wang, then you got it Wong…get it? We did…over and over. It got kind of old, but he was fast and furious in his excited delivery and he was a story teller who packed in a number of stories but no so much bible. I’d like to go back to hear their Preaching and Pastoring staff in the pulpit. I was pleased with the band, I’d like to have a chance to hear the teaching too. They had an advertisement up that showed David Crowder will be there February 8th, I think. We hope to take Missy and Josh to the show. Missy really enjoyed the “feeling” there and the music. Joshy liked the “funny man who kept telling the jokes and making everyone laugh and clap their hands”.

As we began to leave, exiting the aisle, I young guy, probably mid twenties came up to me from the adjoining section, walked straight, directly to me (my mom and Missy were with me) and he introduced himself, Andre I think…, anyway, he introduced himself and said he saw me walking with my cane and asked how long I’ve been using it/needing it. I told him and he said he’s with the healing team in the church and he asked me if he may pray for my healing. I said no and…kidding…I said of course and we stopped there in the aisle and he placed his hands on my head and shoulder and then prayed for me while my mom had her hand on my other should and Missy held my hand tightly. He finished his prayer by praying in tongues then thanking me for allowing him to pray for me. Missy was quite struck by that and immediately asked, after he had walked away, if we could start going to church here (at that church). I shared her sentiment but also said there’s more to it than just that, but how that‘s what you want to find in a church, no doubt.

After leaving the church, we drove to Logan’s Roadhouse in Citrus Height for lunch. Lunch was good and kick back which was great. While we waited for our food and as we began to eat, my dad shared much of his growing up, some of the stories of his youth and childhood which kept us all attentive, except for Joshy who was distracted by the TV screens with the snowboarding and motocross going on. As the conversation progressed, a lady in an adjacent booth to us got up as to leave but came to our booth and wiping away her tears, shared with us how blessed we are to have the opportunity to listen and share stories within the generations being that her parents both are in their 90’s and incapable of sharing anything due to the ravages of long lives and Alzheimer’s and such. She said she had just been listening to my dad tell the stories and was deeply touched by it. Before departing, she encourage d us to record his stories for the grandchildren and great-grandchildren to come and then she left, wiping her eyes as she walked away. We were all caught in the moment and felt how special our time was there.

After returning home, I set up the recording so I could sit with my dad and record some of his memories for compilation at a later date. We ended up recording about 50 minutes of his sharing while life happened all around us, so it’s not a silent recording with just the voice over kind of thing, but it sounds like your recording in a restaurant someplace with people coming and going all the time. It didn’t bother me then. We’ll see how I feel tomorrow when I listen to it back.

Oh yes, also, after returning home and before beginning the recording, Madoli and Carl came by to say hi and drop off a small gift to Missy. It was really neat to see them and touch bases. Their sincerity and love is truly a blessing and gift for me and for my family. They stayed for a short time before taking off to head out and grab some late lunch. I miss them. I miss my crew. I miss my friends. I miss engineering and mixing/blending; creating something from audible chaos, so to speak. That reads harsher than it truly is. Audio engineers take raw audio and blend it, weave it from channel to channel, from left to right, loud to soft, treble/tinny to muffled and boomy. That’s what I meant. In no way critical of one person or another.

Well, it’s time to bed…I’m yawning now.
-peace