Road Trip: Andy O CD Release Show

After hearing the announcement that “much rock will be had”, I decided if I could make it work in my schedule, I’d head on a road trip to Nashville to see Andrew Osenga’s The Morning CD release concert. The schedule worked out, and next thing you know, I was on the road.

It’s not as bad a drive as I’d feared from Cedar Rapids to Nashville. I left at 4:30 am, and with very minimal stoppage I arrived in Nashville by 2:30 pm. I checked into my motel and then left to drive around and aquaint myself with the Nashville area. I drove past one shopping mall that was very dead, and then another one which turned out to be the Green Hills Mall that Andy Gullahorn sings about. After having located Mercy Lounge and how to get there, I went back to my motel to crash.

I apparently gave myself too much time to get down to the Lounge, because I got there about 30 minutes before the published “doors open” time. Deciding to escape the heat and humidity outside, I stuck my head in and managed to hear the end of Andy and the band’s sound check.

There were two openers for Andy; the first was Dave somebody; he sported a Napoleon Dynamite-style afro and a bunch of falsetto vocals with his acoustic guitar. Not bad, but not very memorable. The second act was Matthew Perryman Jones. MPJ is one of the Square Pegs, but I hadn’t heard any of his music until that night. He was very good. He played a few songs solo, then brought Andy O, Cason Cooley, and Eric Weigel up to play with him. Again, very good stuff. I bought his new CD Throwing Punches In The Dark after the show.

Then it was time for Andy. He was playing with a full band: Cason Cooley on keyboards, Eric Chris Weigel on bass, Paul Eckberg on drums, and a guitarist Jason Feller on guitar, and a percussionist whose name escaped me. They played a lot of music from Andy’s new album The Morning, starting out in album order with In Gym Class In High School, After The Garden, and White Dove. He played a few songs from his earlier album Photographs, including Kara and When Will I Run. The highlight of the night was probably his rocking Santa Barbara from the new album. It is a classic roll-the-windows-down rock and roll song, and it was great that night.

I thoroughly enjoyed the show, and also the chance to meet a bunch of folks, some I had already met, some I had not. This is where I name drop (though is it really name dropping if the people are only “names” to a few people?) : Geof Morris (of rmfo.net fame), Ron Davis (aka Ronzilla) of moreron.com, a couple of other dot.netters, and then in addition to the aforementioned band members, there were Jeremy Casella, Chris Mason, Andy Peterson, Ben Shive, Randall Goodgame, and oh yeah, Andy O’s wife Alison. Very cool.

After helping carry Andy’s gear down to his car, I called it a night and crashed hard at the motel. The following day brought me back on the reverse trip from Nashville to Cedar Rapids; again about a 10 hour drive. It was a great time, well worth the drive. As I told Andy, next time I’ll come back, but I’ll bring my wife along. :-)

Well whaddaya know?

CID has free wireless internet in the terminal. My flight was delayed by about 15 minutes, but now I guess it’s about time to board. I wonder if DFW has wireless? I guess I’ll find out in a couple of hours.

Today's Lesson: Motor Mounts

Yesterday I had an unhappy occurrance. I had stopped at Quik Trip to get some gas on my way to work. When I got back in the car and turned the key: nothing. No lights, no radio, definitely no engine turning. I checked the basic things I know to check (battery cable connections, fuses, etc) and found nothing apparently wrong. So I coasted it down from the gas pumps into a parking spot and walked the 6 blocks home and took the minivan to work. Soon I got a tow truck called and since my preferred mechanic was booked full until Tuesday (a day on which I plan to be on the road), I had the tow take it to the local Saturn dealership’s service department.

Two hours later I get the phone call. They checked everything out, my alternator is fine, my battery is fine. However, I had a bad connection with a battery cable/terminal. So they replaced it, and now the car starts fine, even better than before. However, they did notice that a motor mount had collapsed and needed replaced. I did a quick bit of investigation, ascertained that motor mounts are probably important, and had them replace it. So by 3 pm they had sent a nice lady in a courtesy car to pick me up, and upon my payment of around $200, I got a car back that had a new negative battery cable, a new motor mount, and an oil change.

What I had not realized was how much of a difference the motor mount made. The engine just feels tighter now. It accelerates better. It’s just all-around improved. I took it for a spin up a few exits on the interstate last night with the windows down and the cool night air in the cabin, and it was glorious. Oh, and the car ran really nicely, too. I think it’s ready to make the trip to Nashville next week.

If you’re ever buying a used car, I could recomment the ‘99 Saturn SL - at least, my ‘99 Saturn SL. We bought it 5 years ago, have put 70k miles on it, and so far the only two repairs have been an oxygen sensor back in ‘03, and now the motor mount. That’s a level of repair I can handle.

road tripping

In a bout of insanity, I have decided to take two days off work and drive to Nashville for Andy Osenga’s CD release concert. I don’t know what possessed me. But I’m looking forward to getting to meet Geof and maybe some others, and seeing Andy do a full show with a full band… awesome.

“Much rock will be had.” – Andrew Osenga

:-)

I'm sore... but I think it feels good.

Having been disgusted with my lack of exercise for a while, and having been challenged by my wife’s initiative to start swimming on a regular basis, I bit the bullet yesterday and set my alarm back an extra half-hour so I could get up and run to start the morning. Yesterday morning wasn’t too bad - I was ready to get up at 5:15, I did about 2 miles in 20 minutes, and felt pretty good. Woohoo!

Fast-forward to this morning. 5:15 seemed much earlier. I was sore. But I argued enough with myself to go ahead and get out of bed and do it again. But my heel was hurting this time; it felt like it was rubbing funny against my shoe, enough to hurt a bit, but I didn’t think there was much to it. Finally I sat down on a park bench about half-way through my run, and found that I had a bloody sock to rival Curt Schilling’s. Bummer. I guess it was worse than I thought. So I’m wearing my sandals to work today, and I’ll have to figure out what to do with the shoes this weekend. I’ve had ’em for 3 years or so, but haven’t worn them that much - they should still be in decent shape… oh well, I’ll figure it out this weekend.

So anyway, now I’m at work feeling a little bit sore. But that feels good - much better to have sore muscles than to be feeling fat and lazy. :-)

It's Monday already...

That’s actually not a bad thing, just a statement of fact. Had a nice weekend; installed a screen door on the side entrance to our house. It went pretty easily, but I ran down the batteries in my drill and had to wait until Sunday for them to charge up so I could finish the job. Note to self: pick up a cheap electric (plug-in) drill sometime so that doesn’t happen again.

Sunday was nice, church in the morning went well, then finished the aforementioned screen door, then later on we took Laura to the splashpad at the park. She’s still a little bit scared of the water, and quite a bit intimidated by the throngs of (larger) kids, but she’s figuring it out and getting braver. I have to keep reminding myself that she’s not even 2 yet. Amazing. Then we came home and I washed all of the nasty tree pollen and junk off the car, Laura helped with that, too. Give her a wash rag and she has all sorts of fun. Becky took some pictures, if they turned out I’ll have to post one.

It was awesome sleeping weather last night; it only got down to about 70 in the house, but the humidity was really low. Nice to have the windows open again and the a/c off at least for a day. Now it’s Monday and back-to-work time. This afternoon is softball… it will be fun to play again after a week off for the holiday. I’ve got Andy O’s The Morning playing on the iPod for about the zillionth time since I got it, and it’s still good. Probably even better than the first several times. More good stuff to appreciate each time. You’ll probably get tired of my raving about The Morning before I get tired of raving, so just get used to it… or go buy the album and joing the raving maniacs. :-)

weekend, where did you go?

Well it’s long past time for a weekend update.

Becky’s folks have been here for just over a week now (since May 20th) and we’ve been enjoying their visit. They will be leaving tomorrow to continue on their adventure across the USA. Becky’s mom is blogging their adventures, you might want to follow along! But that’s not about the weekend, now, is it?

Friday night my folks, my brother Ryan, and sister Rebecca came to visit. It was great to see them again. Rebecca is getting ready to move down to Cedar Rapids in a few weeks, so we’ll be seeing quite a bit more of her, I think. Which would be a good thing.

Saturday we didn’t do too much; some shopping occurred, and Becky and I went to a graduation party for a young man from church.

Sunday was busy. I led the WT playing the bass for the first time. It went pretty well, and I sure enjoyed playing bass. Wish I had an opportunity to do it more often. But I’m not about to want to get rid of the bass player we already have - he’s awesome. Then at the end of the first service we dedicated Addison. Then the second service was pretty much the same except we had two baptisms, and no baby dedication.

Sunday afternoon we all went out to Stone City to visit the Berberich’s. It’s always a good time. Stayed there until around 6:30. Then late Sunday night Becky, Ryan, Rebecca and I went to see the new X-Men movie. It was pretty good, but not nearly as good as X1 and X2. Still, it was fun to go out on the town and have mom and dad stay home with the kiddos. :-)

Monday we slept in, grilled out, and then my family took off for their homes. So things are finally calming down. But then last night Laura was up 6 times during the night throwing up. She was one unhappy camper. We quickly progressed through all the sheets we had for her crib, and then went to blankets and towels. She was sleeping OK, but just kept waking up vomiting. Yuck. But Becky reports that she’s doing better today, that some food is staying down, so hopefully she’s on the mend.

With so little sleep last night, something tells me I won’t manage to stay up through the whole Suns-Mavericks game tonight…

Happy Birthday, Becky!

Only the best birthday wishes to my beautiful wife who turns 29 today. She is a faithful partner, dear friend, and loving mother to our girls. I am truly blessed.

Becky’s parents are in town this week, so we’ll all go out for dinner to our new favorite BBQ place tonight to celebrate. And, woohoo for me, I knew what I wanted to get her for a gift, bought it on time, and got it wrapped up. Well, sort of wrapped up. It’s at least in a box… Maybe I’m getting this husbandly-gift-giving stuff down finally… :-)

Enough DaVinci, already!

I’ve heard just about enough about The DaVinci Code by now.

First, the hoopla over the best-selling novel.

Then, the adulation from the press and all of the discussion regarding the “historicity” of the fiction.

Next, the Christian reaction to the movie, covering the entire spectrum from “Cool” to “Yawn” to “EVIL, RUN FOR YOUR LIVES AND BURN THE HERETICS WHILE YOU’RE RUNNING!!!”.

So it was with some hesitation that I read a piece on Opinion Journal today entitled “Debunking the Debunkers”. The topic: how would C.S. Lewis have responded to DaVinci Code fans? I was glad I read the article.

“I have been reading poems, vision-literature, legends, myths all my life,” Lewis wrote. “I know what they are like. I know that not one of them is like this [the Bible].”

So said Lewis, and he was right.

The wrap-up:

Here is the real harm of these modern conspiracy theories: They may appeal to our emotions, but they violate our common sense. They reject reason, just as surely as they reject revelation. “I do not wish to reduce the skeptical element in your minds,” Lewis explained. “I am only suggesting that it need not be reserved exclusively for the New Testament and the Creeds. Try doubting something else.”

Good stuff.

Softball as it was meant to be

Monday night was our second church softball game of the year, and it was beautiful. We were afraid the rain was going to keep us from playing, but it held off until just after we finished. The night was perfect, we had enough players, and we played solid the whole game. We got hits when we needed them, even our weakest players drew some walks, came around and scored, and I managed a couple good defensive plays at third base. This reminds me why I enjoy softball so much - the fun with friends, a good competitive game…. what a blessing, and good times.