I'm out of bagels, and I didn't have enough time to make a smoothie before I left this morning. So for breakfast, I'm having Cheez-Its and coffee. No, they don't go together very well.
It was in the high 50's here when I got up this morning. Gotta love that.
Practice went well last night and it was a lot of fun. Since we were not trying to prepare for a Sunday morning service in less than an hour, it was very light and everyone was cutting up and having a good time. We were there for three hours.
We play tonight at 6:00 in the city park. Hopefully a few people will come out and join us. It should be a nice evening with the cooler temps. As long as it doesn't rain on us, we'll be good.
One week from today school starts again. Wow, this summer went fast.
-- Edited by WebGuy on Thursday 11th of August 2011 07:40:43 AM
Morning all. It is a nice day. It was a gorgeous night. The overnight temps were supposed to be around 60 so I turned off the air, opened the windows and let the fresh air flow through the house. It will be in the low 80s todays so I left the windows open. What a nice break for my electric bill.
Mz - I'm glad I already ate my cereal. The thought of cheeze-its and coffee together doesn't sound appealing.
Oh my. Time for school already? Crap. That means I only have a few weeks of much better traffic remaining. have fun to night Web.
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Stop trying to be what you see. Be what you ought to be.
Maybe after this you guys will play more outside gigs, Web? It sounds like you're having fun.
We did the same thing Fuzzy! It was so nice to sleep with the windows open last night. We don't like to turn our air on at all, but it's been so hot lately that I can't remember the last time we had it off. It'll be nice to just have open windows for a while. Usually our gas and electric bills run just over $100 together, but last month between the A/C and backing up our computer (which did eventually crash), the electric alone came to $130. (I know everyone else's is much more than that, so I'm not going to get any sympathy.)
More rain for us last night and looks like more this morning -- YAY! And thank you Web, for sending us some much cooler temps from you neck of the woods -- 75 right now.
We haven't seen our electric bill yet. I will probably faint when I see it
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You should fear anything that can bleed for seven days without dying... (as told to Mr. DS on 3-12-10)
$200. That is mine for a quarterly bill that includes trash, water and sewer. And there is some kind of one time credit on there due to a trash billing cycle change or something. It would be higher if not for the credit because I have been watering my front lawn. But darn if it doesn't look good and healthly. It also needs a haircut. My electric bill for the month will probably be close to $200 this month. I think the air has been on continuously for two months now. Just one more month. It'll be good to give my bill and the unit a break. It is supposed to be rainy Sunday so we'll see what has to be done then.
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Stop trying to be what you see. Be what you ought to be.
Maybe after this you guys will play more outside gigs, Web? It sounds like you're having fun.
This is an area where we have to be a little careful with terms and mindsets with words like "gig", "concert", "sets", etc.
Our current worship leader once told me "We'll never do a 'concert' or 'entertainment' type of thing while representing our church, we'll only lead worship." And that makes sense to me, as that really is our purpose as a church "band". We're there to lead the music portion of worship, not entertain a crowd. Really, our ultimate goal is that people are using the music for their own worship time and that they are not even paying any attention to us. Of course not everyone is in that place, but we can't do anything about that, that is up to each individual.
Last year, we were one part of several different groups from different churches. Song sheets were handed out to the crowd so they could better sing along and take part in the praise/worship. It was supposed to be more of an old time sing-along, praise music kind of thing. We did throw one contemporary song in our mix just because that is more representative of what we do at our church.
This year, they asked us to do it alone. I assumed we'd be handing out song sheets like last year, but I just found out last night that we won't be doing the sheets. It will be very "concert" like.
Our new youth pastor is in charge of this event, but the worship leader seems to be going along with it without too much issue. I was a little concerned it may be a problem between as tonight is looking more like a "concert". The youth pastor has the mindset of although the music is not about us or our skills, it is a good opportunity to show that "church music" doesn't have to mean pipe organs, hymns, and choir robes, and that it's not like that at our church. There might be a person there who is resistant to church due to past experiences, but may think "hey, if this is what their church is like, maybe I'll give it a try." The youth pastor is going to speak for a few minutes too during a music break. I think that will also help make it less like a "concert" event.
I would never say we are the "best" praise band in town, but I'm quite certain we are the most contemporary. Maybe that is why they asked us to do the whole thing this year. I don't know.
Yes, personally, I'm having fun. I had a lady once set me up by saying "you seem to really enjoy playing the music". I said that I do enjoy playing and that it's fun being part of the group. She then got a rather pius look on her face and went into "Well, for me, the music is about the words and worshiping of God, not for having fun". I just said "Yes, while I agree that is true, I also certainly hope that God doesn't mind if we enjoy and find our ministry activities to be fun as well."
We'll see how it turns out. I have no idea what kind of crowd to expect. It is fun, but yet, we still have to be careful that we all keep in mind why we're there and not let ourselves get into the concert/entertainment mentality.
You know, most will still call it a "concert"; not much can be done about that. I hope it turns out well and that everyone enjoys the evening and the purpose.
Raining... Making me very sleepy.
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You should fear anything that can bleed for seven days without dying... (as told to Mr. DS on 3-12-10)
We've got some cooler weather too. Today was the first time in almost two months without the air running. I'm curious to see my electric bill, it should definitely be the highest one of the year, but I don't expect it to top $100 - $110. Last months was $80. I've got a fairly small one bedroom place and it's pretty energy efficient. The first thing I did when I moved in was replace every single light bulb with fluorescents. I've also gotten good about unplugging or turning off power strips to things I'm not using. Also, now that FFR is no longer the four computer project it once I'm not leaving a bunch of computers running 24/7.
But, on the other hand, I did punish that air conditioner this month. It was running about 15 hours a day EVERY day and even longer on weekends. So we'll see I guess.
Alright, ya'll have a good one, I'm gonna go catch up on the days news. Maybe read the St. Louis Post Dispatch and see how much crying their doing over losing to us AGAIN.
Speaking of St. Louis, that makes me think of Missouri, and Missouri makes me think of Mema, and Mema makes me think "Where the hecks Mema been?"
Yeah, to train the India peeps. I know it's coming up, but I can't remember the dates. She was also training some that came over, so that could be taking up all her time too.
Wow. A real life "Outsourced". Our very own Mema could be the star of a hilarious cross-culture, multi-continent romp! I hope she takes the video camera.
