Thursday, May 31, 2007

Thursday, May 31, 2007

Trying to go to sleep, but it's 11:45 PM and my mind won't stop and my back and knee hurt from falling totoday while bowling...yes, I wanted to try bolwling with my family. It meant a lot to all of us to have the time together celebrating us.
God has been giving me good thoughts and such and I am grateful beyond words.
I listenend to a CD the kids wanted to hear in the van and it was one I used to play while I worked in the Worship Center at FOPC and I was instantly stung by depression that I don't have that anymore. Part of me wahts to say that it was taken away from me, but then, to be consistent with that original analogy, I would have to submit that it was never mine to begin with but simply in my charge until further notice...and last year, I got served my notice, so to speak. At any rate my heart broke again realizing what I know longer have as my vocation and craft.
Perhaps God will grant me another, but He's fulfilled a number of my dreams...He owes me not.
Still hurt though.
Looking back towards happier thoughts and topics, time to go back to bed.
I'll correct my spelling in the morning...maybe...
I am loved. That should be enough.
What more is there for me that that I am loved by my family?
I married my dream girl. She gave us the two most incredible children ever to breathe air that I know. My parents and my sister still love me after 43 years.
I can focus on that.
I'll catch up on the past couple days next I write...

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

It’s 10:06 and I’m readying to leave for Physical Therapy.
Today is the best I have felt since I can recall.
I’m grateful, thankful, hopeful and even prayerful; a combination that has not existed in many months now.
I’ll be having lunch with buddy of mine whom I haven’t seen in some time now and I really looking forward to that as well.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007 - Brief

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

I feel more human today though my K+ came back 4.3, which is lower than I would prefer; all said, I'll not argue.
I want to accomplish things and see my productivity and not be someone living from medical dose to medical dose to survive and get by and "feel" some false sense of well being which is being provided by the medicine, not because I'm actually better.

I'm striving now to grip tightly to a method of thought that is I am looking for God's provision and His care. Sounds glorious and well to do, but it is hard for me in the practical and the goal now is to keep a "good" and productive attitude for as long as I can, including times of rest and re-inspiration.

I have no doubt that I have drawn on the spirit and strength of my parents while they've been here during their visit and help and the bring and provide a source of strength I am simply without when they aren’t here, at least for now. My prayer is that God will grow that back inside of me as it once was before my spiritual drought of this past 13 to 15 months.

Writing helps. Reading from friends feeds me; balance is sought after and seldom achieved.
So many of you should have received emails of connectivity far before today; Corrine, Monteen, Harry, Aunt Nancy, Scott, Scotty, Brian, Rob, Robert, Carl, Madoli, the list can will stretch on for weeks. My goal is to become more personal through emails since cell phoning would become more difficult for me emotionally and I know it.

I think I’ve worked most of my way through mourning Jazzy, at least for the immediate time. The night times are most difficult because of his very obvious absence.

I think I’ve included this recently, but if not, CC’s mom will begin living in another location starting beginning of June. God’s movement, one thing at a time.

Lastly for now, if you know people who can help us or help me in some manner that you think appropriate, shoot me an email and let me know. As God leads you, let me know so He can further lead me.

This is Tuesday at 20 minutes at noon.

Monday, May 28, 2007

Monday, May 28, 2007

Pain in my right shoulder is sufficient to withstand the medication I am to take at night to help/make me sleep. That said, I’ll waiting an hour till 12:30 AM and then will take another full dose to see if I can avoid another night without sleep. Those attacks, though less scarier, are more debilitating and emotionally devastating to me. I think that the now identified different attacks hold the same hard if not terrifying effects on each of my family, regardless of nature of attack.

Potassium attacks are scarier because the numbness progresses and can make it hard to breath and swallow. These other Phosphorus/muscle attacks are just outright painful and wear me down with each rolling wave of exhausting spasms and close following weakness.

I want to be admitted into a hospital for a week or two to like Stanford or someplace where they are hungry for answers and understanding, different from Kaiser who simply wants you to fit into their pre-described from of answers and if you don’t, hell if they’re going to pay to see you get fixed correctly someplace else; they’d rather you simply return each crisis to treat the crisis and send me home being that it is cheaper that way than to send me someplace that they’ll have to subsidize. I don’t want to be away from my family for ANYTHING but I cannot continue to live like this, with this…this unknown problem that Kaiser says IS INDEED my problem.

I don’t know what the right thing to do is, but I do know this;
This condition/disease has cost me a good/promising career, it has cost me professional relationships and opportunities, it has and is risking my wife’s job due to time off she’s had to take, it has terrified both of my children, it has aged both my parents greatly as they cut their own corners to make multiple visits to come up and help us and work here doing work I cannot, friends are gifting us money of their hard earned wages to help us. The likelihood of loosing our home becomes closer each and every day, we need layers we cannot afford to help us with SSDI, with probable bankruptcy, with potential malpractice suite, we need help with direction and guidance and just simply someone to come along side and help hold our arms up during a battle we hope God will bring as a victory to us, but we are too overwhelmed and beaten and tired ti continue withstanding these oceanic mortal waves which buffet me/us each day and each night.

I don’t know how to close. it's 12:14 AM
Those of you who are helping us, may God show you the riches of your kindness so you may know the depth of the good you do and have done for us.
Pleaase pray for us; pray for me. That I may sleep and truly rest tonight, able to withstand tomorrow at least standing and with more dignity than I have now.
We need some miracles. Lord God please hear me; we need Your miracles even now. Even now.

Monday, May 28, 2007

Monday, May 28, 2007

Friday afternoon was another attack, which is why I didn't write any more. I didn't get to see Missy arrive but CC made it there while my aunt stayed with me in an observation room waiting for medicines I had been shot with, to take effect.
Yesterday was Sunday and CC and I drove Jazzy down to the vets for the last time and CC held him as he went to sleep. I cried for the rest of the day and night as I thought of him.
After the vets, we spent the afternoon with friends until evening time when we went and got my labs drawn again (4.2) and then an errand then home. Sat was 3.9 and Friday was 4.6.

Time for breakfast. it's 9:57 AM
I'm feeling broken and empty.
Hoping today will have a sense of repair and hope and strength. Hoping.

Friday, May 25, 2007

Friday, May 25, 2007

Today is the day that Missy comes home from Yosemite. I have missed her so, but there has been such heartache here that in some ways, I’m glad she hasn’t had to go through it and in others, it will make her coming home even more substantial.
Jazzy’s made it through each night, with each night being harder than the night before. Sometimes he cries out and he sounds almost human. Last night’s calls woke me from my sleep around 3:30 to the cry of “muaaud” which I initially mistook for Joshua calling “dad” with more of an “au” sound and then realized on his second cry that it was Jazzy calling out.
This is not about me, though I’m obviously writing to clear my head and share my heart and all the things that go with keeping a journal, on-line or not. I know this is tearing CC up as much as it is me. I don’t think it’s within Joshy’s total capacity to be processing the depth of slow loss that CC and I are, but Missy won’t be able to escape it and I fear it will knock the emotional wind out of her. I guess I’m hoping not, but if the reality of losing Jazzy doesn’t get to her, I’m sure watching the effect of that on me and or CC will make things much tougher. I cried all the way home from taking him this morning. Why this morning was harder, I guess was because he cried a bit on the drive there and then was a little more responsive to my petting while I waited for the gal at the counter to receive him for the day. The doc was there a few moments after the gal at the counter asked how she could assist me and when I told the doc that he hadn’t eaten or really consumed any more water she frowned and said that his numbers, though they have risen since the IV fluids began, are not near range for him to survive stably in the home, even if we were to give him shots each day of fluids. They handed me a box of Kleenex as I began to lose it and was unable to talk shortly there after and they only asked questions which required a head-nod or shake.
You just don’t know how this will effect you until it is there and you are effected. Even now, I just begin to cry for a minute or so then stop. I’m not certain how controllable it is, at least for me.

I think my parents are coming up tomorrow for the weekend. That will be good to have the support and help again for some time. Also, one of my best buddies up here, called and CC and I plan to hook with him and his wife in the next few days or so. Things to look forward to are good.

CC gets off in an hour and plans to head to the vets to see Jazzy on her way home. I’m not sure I could pull that off again this morning without becoming a wreck emotionally, plus the repairman for our clothes dryer is supposed to be here between 9 – 11 AM, so my timing revolves around that.
Need to get laundry going, dishes going and just “get” going, I guess. I’ll feel better once CC gets home.

Totally worthy of note, CC and her brother have talked and her brother and his wife are going to begin caring for his mom (Nana, who’s been with us since her near death in 2003 when we moved up here) beginning in June. This is such an answer to a long petitioned prayer that I cannot really fathom it even yet, especially with what is happening to Jazzy.

I’m planning to write more later after I make some more progress here in the home. For those of you who have prayed for Nana and her to be cared for in another manner, thank you for your persistence and intercession.
More on prayer later-
-w

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

It's now almost noon. I wrote the stuff below earlier but couldn't post for some Google reason.

It’s now 9:15 AM.
I woke up to my alarm at 7:00 and heard Jazzy quietly meow. I knew he’d made it through the night.
CC received an email from a good friend of hers this morning, replying to an email she must have composed before she left this morning around 5:15 AM, and CC noted in her email to her friend that “…Woke up to Jazzy sleeping next to Joshua. (Joshua does not like to sleep in his room alone when Missy is gone and our bed is too crowded with 3, so we make a bed on the floor at the foot of our bed for him to sleep on). Jazzy has never slept with the kids so this was so sweet to see him snuggled next to Joshy.” It warmed my heart to read that. Both CC and I and even the kids have been preparing to accept Shadow’s eventual passing, being that she’s in her 18th year and much weaker and frailer than she’s ever been. Watching Jazzy try to walk and fall and seem so incapacitated slowly shattered the more solid parts of my heart and resiliency inside.
I got dressed quietly so Joshy could continue to sleep and then lifted Jazzy while he laid in his bed, and placed him inside the bottom half of the cat carrier. [Last night; when we came home last night, Jazzy was far more than unhappy and clearly in pain/unsatisfied to some extent and could not lift himself to exit the carrier. He growled his low growls when I lifted him out of his carrier and placed him within the cat bed they alternate using from night to night. I placed our heating pad underneath a towels and placed that in the bottom of the bed and then placed Jazzy on top of that to keep him warm. The vet had suggested using a heating pad for him to keep warm, if he’d stay on it.
So, to take him back down to the vets this morning, I picked up his bed, heating blanket and all, and placed it back inside the bottom of the carrier and then re-attached the top of the carrier and took him back down to the vets by 7:30 AM. They took him in and said that they will continue to hydrate him and give him medications to battle the kidney issues they suspect are currently happening and we’ll just go day by day until he gets better or passes. We’ll pick him up each night and bring him back each morning, at this point, so he doesn’t have to be in the vets over night by himself, saving us an overnight charge and giving us a piece of mind that he’s with us and not alone.

Time to go to PT. More later when I get back.

Pray for direction; for hope, for a miracle, for our home, for my heart.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Back from PT and we are about to head out for errands, Dr. appt for Joshy and a variety of other errands.
We plan to call in the next hour to check on Jazzy and see how he's progressing.
I didn't work hard at PT like I was wanting to, but worked "average" so I wouldn't use that opportunity as a physical vent which would logically come back and bite me tomorrow or later today with another attack.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007 - Brief

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

It's nearly 9:00 PM and CC and I need to head back down to the Sunset Pet Clinic to pick up Jazzy, our 12 year old black and white male cat...who we found out tonight is dying from kidney failure for unknown reasons. They aren't certain he'll make it through the night and we don't want him to pass away in a closed clinic (they close at 10 PM and open at 7:30 AM) by himself. If he makes it through, then we take him back in in the morning for him to receive more fluids. His potassium was critically low and he had become self-dehydrated. Credit card time; as if you can plan for something like this.
Missy's at Yosemite...Not sure how to approach that with her...Joshy wants his sister home with him now. Me too.
This feels like a kick to the emotional groin, leaving me off balance and weak.
Harder, and harder and harder...

I'm almost cried out. Joshy too. CC still holding strong.
I'm weary and so tired.

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Hellish at best
I continue to whine
If fear were a feast
Then I’d be ready to dine
Sweat beads up
on a skin so tired
slowly soaks though
quenching any fire
Weakness stronger than strength and courage
Steps are taken no promise to rest

Thursday, May 17, 2007 - No one asked me to post this, but...here it is anyway.

SO, this is quite a departure from the venting and personal dispensing that I've been doing for some time now. I was aksed a question via email from a freind regarding how and why to clean audio cables and also how to care for them/cable them and essentially, this entry was my reply to him, but I felt good enough about it's form and lesson that I thought it might be helpful for someone else, if they find my suggestions helpful.
I'm trying VERY hard to battle my anger and bittterness regarding what has beset me and what toll it has taken on me physically as well as the toll it has taken psychologically and most critically, the toll it continues to exact upon my family.

My friends feel helpless and awkward; "what do you do? How do you deal or comfort someone going through something as strange and hellish as this?"
Unfortunately, I'm true to form and have no answers whatsoever at this point.
I would think as I expect you would think as well, that my prayer life should be alive and thriving, given SO many things to pray over, about and through, but, the fact is that my prayer life is minimal at best; full of self pity and unanswerable questions that I know are such.

I'm done for today.
What follows next is a simple read about how to clean and wrap cables. Something I know.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cabling and Cable Treatment:

Why to clean up cables (Practical Standpoint)

Cables are often treated as just a means to an end and there is often a thought process that “you just need plenty of cables and if one breaks you just buy another and keep rolling; don’t slow the train down with a bunch of house keeping.”. Often considered purely expendable and treated as such. One of the unwritten laws in audio control is that your signal is only as good and strong as its weakest link in the audio chain and that means that your cables should be considered as important and in some respects, as fragile as other pieces of your audio arsenal. Cables that are allowed to remain sticky and gummy from being covered by ducting tape or inferior gaff tape will swiftly become cables chosen to stay away from due to the mess they create when they are used. The gummy residue left by tape covering a cable on a floor, a pole, a stand or wall is caused by temperature changes for the hotter and the tape being left in place longer than the tape’s adherent capabilities to remain intact, which in turns means that the adhering chemical “goo” no longer stays only on the fabric it was originally bonded to as “Gaff Tape” but now passes it’s stickiness along to whatever it was taping down.

Long story abbreviated: once you have a cable that has old tape residue on it, or a cable with fine dirt or dust, sand, glitter etc., that cable will inevitably share its coating with every single other cable or piece of equipment it touches, not the least of which will be the hands of the person handling the cable.

How to clean up cables

There are a few different schools of thought on cleaning cables.

• One is with a solvent or oil. Place a small amount of Lemon oil or orange oil on a old washcloth. This process takes longer and is more thorough leaving the cables looking well cared for and easier to handle over time. Using too much oil will become a mess, so start small and work the dirty areas of the cable first to determine the amount of oil necessary before soaking a cloth and beginning to commit yourself to a very long time of cleaning and then drying and excessively oiled cable.


• Another “Roadie” rule is to locate the dirty area(s) of the cables and then having done so, strip off several inches of quality gaff tape and use the sticky part of the gaff tape and tape over the affected area and then “rip” the gaff tape back off the cable and over a number of passes, you’ll find that the adhesive on the gaff tape is stronger than the goo left on the cable and it will adhere to the gaff tape. This process requires having gaff tape at your disposal and has been accused as being a “waste” of gaff tape by those who have not had to clean cables before. A quick object lesson in offering the complainant the opportunity to clean the cable “quickly” with an oil-based or solvent based cleaner and you’ll likely be left alone with permission to buy more gaff tape when needed.

How to take care of cables

It’s the electricians versus those audio guys who yell at anyone who wraps their audio cables around their arm, wrist to elbow (generally, the electricians and most all well-meaning volunteers). The theory to “good” cable storage and wrapping is to create a reverse or counter twist in the cable for each forward or standard twist used while it is being wrapped up. How many times have you seen a cable, electrical or audio or even rope that is laying across the ground with “loop-d-loops” running the span of the cable or rope? I see this all the time. Those loops are there because the cable was wrapped with a single directed twist each time a loop was created; in effect, each loop of that stored cord, cable or rope directly corresponds to the number of wraps or coils it was stored with.

If you have a big ‘ole coil of 100 feet of mic cable and the person who wound it did the regrettable “hand over the elbo” wrap, you will have the exact number of wrapping coils as you do the number of loops in the pile/coil. Make sense? I hope so.

Here’s how to "Figure 8" your cables and show your allegiance to the world of Media technologies!

If you are right handed, follow these instructions for 50’ cable lengths and less for mic cables, speaker cables and guitar or patch cables;

Ready: Lay out the cable to wrapped in a straight line (as straight a line as it can, anyway) so that as you wrap the cable, you’ll not be pulling up tangles and knots (those will come later when you don’t have the time to deal with them and MUST use the cable gnarled up in your hand)

• 1: Pick up one end of the cable or the other so that the connector is laying in the palm of your left hand and the cable is between your hand and your body, thus saying that the connector/end of the cable is “pointing” away from you.



• 2: With your right hand, reach down arm’s length and take hold of the cable to be wrapped and make a loop that rests in the semi-open palm of your left hand, with the looped cable resting to the right of the open-ended connector. The diameter radius of the cable loop should be approximately 12” to 15” across. [By creating this first loop, you have placed a deliberate counter-clockwise twist in the cable.

3: To prevent that cable from “remembering” that first twist, you need to wrap in a loop with a corresponding reverse twist, in effect, negating the twist preceding it as far as the cable is concerned.] If you look at picture 3a, you’ll see the that the remaining cable which is coming up from the bottom of the picture, is actually on the inside of the loop you were creating. This will be done by twisting/rolling the cable being wrapped in an “over/under” manner which these pics should help you create. Look for the green circle to show you the resting cable position.

4: This pic should show you the final wrap (of a pretty short cable for picture purposes) and its theoretical (minimal) cable positioning in your hand.

I'd like to think that I can do a much better job of demonstrating how to "Figure 8 " a cable than this, but for the time and my energy, this is as good as it gets at this point.

Better ideas? Helpful suggestions? Send them my way.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Yesterday was another day from hell.

I woke up feeling somewhat sweaty and had only dozed a couple of times during the night, otherwise I was awake most the whole night, like I was the previous couple of nights. Since CC went to work, I got up at 6:30 and went in to wake up Joshy for school and saw that my mom had already started him going so I shared with him that I hadn’t slept most the night and that I wanted to go back to sleep. I gave him a kiss for the day and a hug and I went back into bed until around 8:30. CC took Missy to the Urgent Care clinic on Sunday during lunch time to have her checked for pneumonia (which came back positive) and we had fortunately caught it in its earliest stage so CC got her some antibiotic and we planned to keep her down for yesterday and not go to school.
About 8:30 or 8:40, I walked out without my cane and went into the living room where my dad was packing up their stuff to head back down yesterday morning. I don’t remember what he asked me, but I realized that I couldn’t answer him and knew that I was in trouble again. Shortly thereafter I was on the couch, then in pain, then shaking like I’m electrocuted and bound up. Both my parent’ were working with me then CC was called home from work and she made an appointment with my primary doc and she took me in with my mom, to the appointment and to have my labs drawn.

I didn’t have to go to ER, praise God, but I did stay for some time in the main clinic observation room, or something like that. They gave me shots of valium, phenergan (sp) and Dilaudid in both hips which seriously hurt like hell but eventually allowed me to rest from the spasms which stopped after CC gave me some liquid K+ first. These last two attacks have had no paralysis with them, but have been muscle tremors, spasms and tightening and such. We are back to ground zero having no clue what we are dealing with. It’s like something short-circuits in my brain or muscular system and then “it’s on” and the pain begins with either a paralytic episode to a muscle spasm attack. Almost like a seizure, I think, except I’m awake and can hear for the most part, but can’ remember straight or chronologically at points.

I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck and then backed back over by it. I can walk slowly by myself with the use of the cane and have come out from the bedroom to keep from becoming depressed or more depressed, anyway.

My parents left today, a day later than they had planned, to head back to the Bay Area and get back going with their lives until they come back up, his weekend, I think.

Again, I’m like a medical experiment gone wrong.

Our prayers/needs are:
- That I will be healed from this “whatever it is” and know it
- That we don’t lose our home because of this (we are close)
- That CC doesn’t lose her job for absences due to me and her mom
- That CC can be relieved from feeling overwhelmed by ALL of this and a home that needs at least two people to clean and keep up
- That Missy and Josh will not become scared, worried or fearful of/for me when the attacks happen.
- That God will continue to make our financial ends meet on CC’s part time salary
- That I will not lose my disability because of Kaiser’s inability to agree on a diagnosis for me.

These are all prayers and requests that are far bigger than me and far bigger than my family and our only hope is that God will pull us through this. We are in over our heads.
-w

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Interesting that when I was writing yesterday, I couldn’t remember what went on, on Tuesday. Tuesday morning, I drove down to CC’s work to meet her when she got off at 11:00 AM and then we left together to San Francisco for me to make my appointment with the neurologist who wanted to perform another EMG test on me.
We got there in plenty of time and once in the appointment, he again shared that he doesn’t feel that I fit the mold of the typical HKPP case. CC asked an unobvious but crucial question of perspective early one while I laid on the table waiting for the testing to begin. She asked him if he felt that HKPP could be linked to Hyperaldosteronism, something which is accepted in some medical fields and is something we believe is likely the case with me. He answered with a solid “no, they are completely unrelated.” which definitively indicated that he won’t even consider that as an option which set the tone for his “testing” which was apparently intended to prove that I don’t have HKPP rather than looking for more information.
EMG testing is two part testing which is essentially setting electric shocks into the hand/wrist and watching for nerve reaction to the repetitive shocking and watching the level of nerve reaction after about 30 minutes of shocking the hell out of my right hand.
Next, the added entertainment (sarcasm) is taking a dull electric needle like probe and having it stuck into my right shoulder then have me move my shoulder (causing sincere pain) and then the same process as he stabs my bicep and then the skin between the thumb and the first finger then he asks you to lift your index finger while this “probe” is stuck in your hand.
When all is said and done, he sits back in his chair and says that he’s glad to note that my results are “normal” and that they would not be if I had HKPP. Basically, he performed a test on me to simply test and “prove’ that I don’t have something that he felt I didn’t have from the beginning…let’s see…back when he received a call from a neurological colleague from Kaiser, a Dr. Gibbs, who called him to “let him know that I was not a candidate” for his HKPP testing because Gibbs doesn’t think I have HKPP either. Are they connected…? I guess it will depend on the day you ask me.
We left the appointment and drove down to Stanford Hospital where my niece, who was just married, is currently due to her disease and needing to be “cleaned out” so to speak. Her mom was there too, so we got to visit with Kimmy and Angel for a couple hours before turning around and heading back up here. We had a really good time seeing Nagel and Kimmy and hearing more about Angel’s honeymoon cruise and all.

Anyway, that was Tuesday. My arm still hurts from the pokes and my hand is tender/sore as well.

Fini.

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

I’m not sure where to begin now that I’ve let so many days pass (again) since I wrote anything substantive. Hhhmmm…I guess I’ll go from topic to topic and see how chronological I can be…
Last weekend, we drove down to the Bay Area and stayed at my parents Saturday night and then came back late Sunday night and Sunday was Joshy’s birthday.

When we got down there (CC’s mom went to her brother’s place in Shingle Springs and Annie went with us), we went to my parent’s place and set up camp pretty quickly and then the four of us walked down to my sister’s place, about a mile and a half away. I figured it was my cardio work for the weekend (and I was correct). My niece and nephew are in a Bay Area choir called Lumina, a predominantly high school choir which is Christian based that sings around the area and tours each summer. I toured with them in 2003 as their sound engineer and recording engineer and truly enjoyed myself. My family got to go with me (which was part of the deal of my going with them) and we all had a good time, learning each step of the way. Anyway, Lumina had a gig Saturday night and the same gig on Sunday night, so we attended the Saturday night gig and enjoyed their work (as we always do) even with my niece singing a solo (she has my sister’s pipes, no doubt) and my nephew was singing away in the men’s section. I was (am) one proud uncle. Aside from the gig that night, we got to spend some quality time with my sister’s family and my parents. My youngest nephew bought a electric mini-chopper that he invited Joshy to ride, which Joshy fell hook, line and sinker for. It will kick up to “speed” and Joshy had a great time on it; a VERY neat birthday moment for him on Saturday evening.
Sunday morning we went to service at my family’s church, trinity Presbyterian Church in San Carlos, the church I am still officially a member of and consider my church family to this day. They’ve stood beside me throughout my life.
After church, we had lunch at Red Robin and Joshy and my dad had Happy Birthday “sung” to them by the Red Robin staff and each got an ice cream Sunday. After lunch, we packed up, drove to Big Five and bought Joshy his birthday present (Heeley’s; tennis shoes with removable rollers in the heels) then headed to Safeway to stock up for the ride back only to realize that CC’s wallet wasn’t in her purse, where it had been when she bought the Heeley’s at Big 5. Panic quickly set in and we searched the car to no avail then I called Big 5 and upon saying my name, they quickly said that they had my wife’s wallet and were holding it ion the safe.
We headed back there, thinking the worst thoughts and wondering how much was already stolen and such. We got there to find that it had been left at the counter and nothing was missing.
God blessed us. Simple as that.
We left Redwood City and went to SFO off of 19th Ave and went to the ocean for a couple hours of children’s complete joy and dowsing in a dust-fine black sand that took me an hour to rinse out of the wet clothes the next day. After a couple hours on the beach, we were blessed to have dinner with Art Yeap, my friend and mentor of sound. His wife and son were suffering from illness so we missed out on seeing them too, but we really enjoyed our time with him over Noriega Teriyaki. After dinner with him, we left for Sac and got home around 11:00 or so and then CC had to get up at 4:00 AM for work.
Brutal, but she made it. We are seriously low on sleep.

I’m listening to my recordings from when I was at MPPC. I made 3 main recorded collections of worship songs and packages straight from service CDs. It’s probably the most substantive collection of recorded work that I’ve ever done and I’ve always amazed at what God did during my time there at MPPC; the song selections, the blends, the participants and what (for me) is purely inspired works caught in the moment and I happen to be the one on the board for 98% of the selections. The recordings set a bar for me that I never reached in the following years (for a variety of logical reasons, though “technical” reasons would not be applicable given the incredible gear God gifted FOPC with in 2004, not the least of which is the SSL C100 console) and it may be that my opportunities to pursue that bar may be concluded now or simply more difficult to reach; I don’t know. I DO know that while I was there (at MPPC), I worked the hardest I’ve ever worked on creating a live and recorded blend and stereo recorded imagery for the listener to experience the hard and gifted work being offered and created on the platform. I was allowed to mix for some of the Bay Area’s most talented and Nationally unrecognized talent that God assembled under one worshiping roof; Menlo park Presbyterian Church.
As was often shared with visiting worship directors, teams, pastors and technical crews; what God chose to produce at MPPC was done through His choice of collaboration and creative weaving of technical crews, musicians, vocalists, and two of God’s most rich arrangers/composers in Debbie Schaeffer and Brian Mann who in league with the master producer Doug Lawrence, produced a service that many wanted but no one to imitate because it was the sum of the parts in His anointing, grace and blessing and NOT in the formula. People left with formulas and inspiration, which is all that we could ever give them; they could not leave with the worship produced because, well, because what was done, was done once and done for Him, an audience of One through the hard work of many called to the work. Perhaps that is a key; those involved were called to the gig that they performed as a part of the bigger picture.
I was writing a reply this afternoon, to a good, good friend from my MPPC days; Joe Sinnott was my lighting engineer for my whole tenure there. Not only was he my lighting (the lighting) engineer, but he was the only volunteer on my team of that entire time. He had no theatrical lighting experience when he volunteered, but he had a heart for worship, a desire to be involved and a talent to learn and produce. What I did and tried heard to do through sound, he did through the lighting system; from the system’s archaic times early on, through the times when moving-head lights were incorporated and became a flexible (technically annoying) contribution which required far more of his time each week to come in and program them for Saturday’s and Sunday’s services. In my reply to him, I realized a few things, which come now in the foreshadowing of a monumental transition to come at MPPC in Doug Lawrence’s retirement this summer. It will be the “official” end of an era that I STRONGLY believe God unquestionably used, and often used far more richly, than most of us probable were ever aware of. Doug’s withdrawal from the leading creative edge of MPPC’s worship product is even more poignant with in terms of the shape of MPPC’s worship service constructions Since my departure, I know that subtle, and some overt changes have been made there due to the arrival of John Ortberg a forecast new leader for the church in Menlo Park, a teaching leader of national renown and caliber, distinctly different from the established days of now retired former senior pastor Walt Gerber and particular following structured leaders from his mold. With Ortberg comes a complete change in methodology, perspective and approach. Stepping back, even just a few feet from the global transitions within the church leadership there since my departure, gives one the easy opportunity to see the probable potential for this impending resulting change.
Wow, did I digress from my initial subject of the compilation CDs I made before leaving. It’s a healthy digression, but a definitive one nonetheless. Before leaving, I collected some of my favorite moments in worship and put them into three CDs; Team Worship, Solos 1 and Solos 2. In addition to those, I also made a compilation CD for one of MPPC’s most soulful and talented soloists; Avis Blair, and also for Soloist and good friend Heidi Fisher and vocalist Brent James. Add to that a CD of postludes by Brian Mann (organist/arranger) and Kent Reed, percussionist. I spent many late nights and very early mornings at work, on my own time, crafting these compilations with a drive that I just couldn’t understand but had to follow. Ultimately, it definitely turned out to be a real blessing in disguise, especially the three main CDs; I had no clue at the time that they would be a collected record of a soon to be gone Worship experience at MPPC. Now, during my times of tense, dark struggles from day to day, afternoon to afternoon, they’ve nourished and even encouraged me when I intentionally listened to them. He must have known what they would mean to me now, then so far in the future; an unimaginable future I couldn’t foresee.
A number of folks have listened to these recordings and remarked how well we captured the “sound” of the worship service and nearly did not believe that they are nothing more than straight-forward rips from the actual service CDs without any re-mixing or overdubbing or substantive postproduction. I did tweak the bandwidth for duplicating purposes, but as for what you hear when you listen to them; the mix was the mix during that particular service, the blend was the blend, the house was the house and the feedback (at different unfortunate points) was the feedback in the live house that inevitably finds its place in the recorded legacy that is now my recorded legacy from MPPC on Teams and Solos 1 & 2. The only other engineer who has a couple tunes recorded on the CDs is Brian “Zadamnezar” Kunz. He was my right-hand man and number one engineer who blends beautifully with a musician’s ear (he’s a superb drummer/percussionist) and he is loyal, long time good friend. My crew from my days there are still my friends and they have each helped me at one point or another to continue to look forward, whether it be though a simple phone conversation of friendship or from an email of connection.
TO close out my thoughts on the whole MPPC “thing”, I’m willing to concede that, perhaps, I live in the “past” to some extent when it comes to enjoying a worship “moment” crafted with intent and love, desiring that God be pleased (as well as Doug…) with the end result, but I cannot help but feel and fear that Doug’s type of attention to detail, structure and flow will retire with him and will ultimately affect how worship is approached for other churches, local and distant.
Am I giving too much credit?
Prove me wrong and I’ll stand corrected.

I pushed my limits today but no real price yet. I’m done. So done. Tomorrow will be the test and we shall see how I do.

CC’s mom has been at her brother’s since Saturday until this afternoon, where we understood she walked around with them without the use of the walker, she participated and was completely sociable and basically pain free. She returned here and within the hour was in enough pain and tired that she spent the rest of the day in her room on her bed and left dinner early because she said she wasn’t feeling good.
Back to “normal” I guess. Bummer. Time to call it a day, it’s 8:00 PM

Monday, May 7, 2007

Monday, May 7, 2007

Yesterday was Joshy's birthday. I'll write more about that tomorrow.
We went to the Bay Area on Saturday and drove back home way late Sunday night...and I'm still tired, but CC got less sleep than I did. We're both really tired.

I'm going to call it for tonight and will spend some time writing in the morning, I hope...oh yeah, I head to UCSF tomorrow late morning for an extended EMG test with Dr. Ralph...this should be fun; a somewhat dull electric probe is stuck into my arm , shoulder, and hand (at least last time I had it done at Kaiser) to measure the amount of muscle damage present, called myopathy. Last EMG showed signs of moderate myopathy which, according to my original neurologist, was confirmation of the HKPP diagnosis when combined with my family history. That is not good enough for others, apparently.

Please pray for safety in our travels to the Bay Area and back.
Please also pray for our family, our house, our loan situation, our finances and CC's job, along with the whole Kaiser, illness and usual depression stuff on a daily basis.

It's a long life right now. I'm blessed my wife loves me and that my children love me.

More tomorrow or Wednesday.
-w

Thursday, May 03, 2007

Thursday, May 03, 2007

Pretty tired. Kind of long day with only one point of light headedness.
My productivity was in emailing and researching and compiling information for some important issues at hand.
I haven’t felt creative to play guitar in quite some time, let alone creative for really anything.
Mom and dad have helped us with so many things it’s difficult to list them all. Today is my dad’s birthday and he came up this morning to pick up my mom and drive her back home. He called to say that they had dinner together out to celebrate his birthday.
Tomorrow is my sister’s wedding anniversary and then the 6th is Joshua’s birthday.
PT tomorrow as well.

More tomorrow -