Churchmedia.net convention

Ok. I am going to have to quit going so long without posting. I meant to post some last week while I was at the Churchmedia.net convention in Indianapolis, but with all of the classes, general sessions and the great fellowship which keep us up sometimes until 1 or 2 in the morning, I just didn’t get around to it.
It was great to finally put faces to names and avatars of people whom you have talked with, helped and received help from over the last four or five years. It’s amazing to see how well a worship service can go when people who have sold out to Jesus come together and just want to worship. Our band and audio crew came into a hotel conference room and transformed it into one of the best sounds worship centers I have ever heard.
Men and women with the desire to just spread the Word of Jesus just coming together, learning from one another and enjoying the fellowship. It was great. One guy told me as we were leaving, see you later, or see you in Heaven. How great is that knowing I will see him again, one way or another.
It’s also great to see the people who have come into their own by Tim Eason’s ministry. My buddy here in Central Ky, Paul Clifford who has started his own church media podcast, Tech, No Babble. Paul started about a year ago and is a really good speaker and teacher. His keynote at the conference was nothing short of amazing.
Phil Graves with Out of the Mud is one that talks about his growth in graphic design just because of CMN. Phil told us how he used the Media Exchange Center, or MXC to get ideas and grow his talents. Phil has some pretty amazing stuff and is getting ready to start doing some training session as part of his ministry.
Tony Kanago is another one. Tony doesn’t have his own ministry yet, but look for him to in the future. I think his parents want him to finish high school and maybe college first. You see, Tony is only 16, but was teaching a web design class at the conference and is helping me with a website for myself which I hope to announce here in the next week or so. To listen to Tony, you can tell he is just a teenager, but his passion and desire for churches to have the best design is just amazing. Paul and I were saying if we knew just half as much as he does when we were his age. He just tore down his site the other night and hasn’t finished it yet so keep on the lookout for good things to come.
I already can’t wait until next year’s convention
dj

Colby's Email

Well, he's only three and he got his first email today. No, he doesn't have his own account but a guy in my men's group sent him one. The guy who gave us tickets for the Lexington Legends emailed Colby about a thank you note Colby wrote. The preschool at church has a hand writting program and it's pretty impressive. Colby can just about write any letter, upper and lower case, so for pratice in writting and manners we have Colby write John a thank you note for the tickets.

I gave John the note the other night at our men's group and he wrote Colby last night saying he was welcome for the tickets and that he had hoped he had fun. He also thanked him for the note. Colby was thrilled to pieces as I read him the email. With Colby though, he may have been able to read it himself.

dj

Prayer request

I should have posted this last night, but I was hoping they would put off the trip a day but my parents for a family emergency had to take off for Florida this morning. My mom's sister is not in her right mind and my mom and some of her family are going down there to talk her into coming back to Ky. Anyway, they are currently as of noon Tuesday driving down I95 in South Carolina on their way to Fort Lauderdale. They are getting ready to drive into the first big band of rain from the tropical storm. I am watching the radars a lot today, but keep them in your prayers for a safe trip down and back. Thanks.

UPDATE: My parents made it to Florida with no issues. Hit some rain in South Carolina and Georgia. They just have to work thorugh some other issues but it appears that my aunt is ready to move back home.

Major league experience.

Some people remember where they came from and what it means to be famous. I posted a while back that the local Houston Astros A club had a chance of having Roger Clemons pitch for them. Well, it happened Tuesday and I didn’t get to go. Bummer I know, but tickets sold out within hours after the announcement and I was out of town at the Zoo.
Clemons pitched three innings, striking out 6. One guy from Lake County did go yard in the first inning off of Clemons, but that was about all they got.
The Lexington Legends have a promotion call the “Field of Dreams” where players from local little league teams get to run out on the field with the starters of the Legends at their respective positions. The team that went on that Tuesday was from Nicholasville and the player who went out with Clemons got an autograph there on the mound. You can read the story in the local paper, The Lexington Herald-Leader.

Extra key

Well, it’s time for an extra key to the house. I had just returned home from a church IT work night and was watching tv after eating a bowl of cereal when Colby comes back inside asking me to come outside and watch him play hopscotch. Well, good old me just comes outside and to keep the bugs out, closes the door. It didn’t dawn on me to check it first. Yea, it was locked. I didn’t lock it and Misty could tell by the look on my face something was wrong. I told her the door was locked and that I didn’t lock it. Colby speaks up, “I did.” The twins are sleeping upstairs and the three people that can unlock the door are locked out.

As par for the course with our luck, there is a locksmith that lives at the end of the cul-d-sac. We have never met them before but I have seen his truck as we are leaving for work about the same time in the mornings. So off I go to see if he can help us. Like I said, par for the course with our luck, he’s not home. His wife grabs some of his equipment and her cell phone to see if she can help. She tried several times to reach him on his phone but nothing but voice mail.

After several attempts, she gets it open. Good way to meet some of your neighbors. We couldn’t thank her enough. I see a trip to Walmart tomorrow to get an extra key made to have around. We also learned that without our cell phones, we have no way of reaching some people because we don’t have their number. One of the ladies that Misty works with, her husband is a locksmith. With our cell phones in the house, we would have had no way of reaching them. I guess I need to get those online somehow. I have a Plaxo account, so I guess I will be updating that online pretty soon.

Zoo trip

I have taken a couple of days off of work and we took the boys to the Cincinnati Zoo today. We got up early in the morning and headed north for the 2 hour drive and arrived at the zoo around 9, right when the opened. Getting there early, we were able to get a parking spot right at the main entrance. It’s been a long day by the way. We spent six hours in there seeing just about everything they had. We took Colby when he wasn’t even a year old so we didn’t remember going so he’s been real excited about going. We couldn’t decide at times what he wanted to see next. I will post more in detail along with pictures later as I forgot to pack the cable for the camera. After getting to our hotel room and resting we found some dinner and came back to go swimming. Now, Colby before the twins were born went swimming one time and about a year ago wouldn’t even go near a pool. This last year has been a real growing experience for him. He has done so much in the last couple of months that he wouldn’t even consider before. He rode on the train they have at the zoo and going swimming for example. Anyway, time to hit the hay as we have another big day planned for tomorrow at Totter’s Otterville.

Churchmedia.net Convnetion

I know I don’t have a huge audience here so I am asking if you read this and are a blogger to post this on your blog to help get the word out. I am teaching at the 2nd Churchmedia.net Convention to be held June 20-22 in Indianapolis at the Adam’s Mark Hotel. You can see the schedule and registration information here.
I will be teaching along with two other bloggers on blogging on the hows and whys. There will be classes on video production, projectors, podcasting, audio and team building. The guys from Midnight Oil will also be there.
It’s well worth the time and money so if you get a chance, post it and go sign up to come.
dj

First game

I took Colby to his first baseball game Sunday afternoon. It didn’t go as good as I had hoped but it was fun. The facilitator of my men’s group give me two tickets of his along with a parking pass to the Astros Class A club here in Lexington, the Lexington Legends. We got there in the middle of the first inning and got our food. Colby wanted a hotdog and a big pretzel. We each got a hotdog and fries to start and we found our seats which were four rows behind home plate. Thanks Jon. Before going inside though, I had put some sun screen on Colby to keep him from getting burned. Well, I put too much on and as he was eating, he kept rubbing his eyes. I noticed his eye was getting a little red and after he finished eating, we went to see if we could get the sun screen out of his eye. I took him to the restroom and tried, but didn’t do any good. So, off to the first aid station we go. They took some gauze and soaked it in saline and I held it on his eye for a couple of minutes and that helped a bunch. He was a trooper. He didn’t cry or complain any at all. I told him several times that I was sorry for putting to much sun screen on him and he kept telling me it was ok.
After that we started back to our seats when we ran into “Big L” the mascot of the Legends. Colby still doesn’t like to be around characters dressed up like that so we stayed away until Big L left. Colby then wanted his pretzel so we shared one and ate it before going back to our seats. After the pretzel was gone, Colby informed me he was ready to go home. It was the fourth inning but he wanted to go so we went back to our seats first and had someone take our picture together standing behind home plate.
I took him into the souvenir shop first where he looked around and held up a ball and mini bat. I asked him which one he wanted and he said he wanted the ball and the ball.
By the time we had left, it was the end of the fifth inning and the Legends were not doing so good, so that was ok with me. Colby told me that he only left because of his eye and that he would have stayed if it hadn’t got sun screen in his eye. I told him that next time we would come to a night game so he wouldn’t have to have sun screen and I can’t wait. Now I wonder if I can talk Jon out of some of those tickets ;)

dj

Hand in the cookie jar

Well you hear about it, but it’s never as funny until it happens in your home. Colby got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Well, at least in the cookie plate. We had fixed some chocolate chip cookies over the weekend for Mother’s Day. We celebrated on Saturday since it’s a lot easier for us to do things with the family on Saturday instead of Sunday. Well this evening, Gabe had took a fold up chair for kids off of the steps and brought it into the living room.
Well, Colby had taken it into the kitchen without us noticing. When Misty went to go upstairs to put the twins in bed, she looked into the kitchen and seen Colby just eating cookies. She had asked him how many he had and he didn’t know.
It’s one of those moments where you just have to turn your head and laugh and hope he doesn’t see you. I talked to him some about it but what can you say. It was funny, but like I said, you just don’t think about how funny it is until it happens in your house.

Also, if you want to read about what Colby picked out as gifts for his teachers, go to Dadbloggers.com and find out.

Painting

Ok. I am not as sore as I was on Sunday. The boys were out of town over the weekend so Misty and I took the time to paint. I mean paint as in the entire downstairs. It took us around 12 hours on Saturday and by the time we were finished, I could barely move. We went to bed just after midnight and woke up at 10, just in time to make it to church. My entire body was sore. It took around three gallons of paint to paint what we needed. We have to do some touchup work, but for the most part I am done painting. Misty wants to do the bedrooms upstairs. I think I will take the boys out next time for a weekend at my parents and her and her aunt can do the painting since they like it so much.
dj