Mae I Not Sleep

Mae was absolutely incredible live, I will definitely be looking forward to going to another one of their shows. The only problem is that Mae has assisted in once again keeping me awake way later than I needed to be. For the last week and a half or so, I haven't been getting much sleep. The night before last I was up all night (meaning no sleep) working on a project. I started seeing little Abe Vigoda's flying around my room.

Man, procrastination is great...

Nailed It!

That's right...I nailed it! We (me and my two partners) had to present our big project for Biology today and I have to admit, I was a bit nervous. We only met twice for like 5min each to plan out this 4 page paper and 12 min presentation and I was pretty sure it was going to flop.

I had done no preparation which was a bad thing since the two girls decided I was the best at speaking and left me to do 10min of the 12. But much to my surprise it went really well and we actually filled the entire time requirement...possible thanks to a little wasted time passing out the Swedish Fish. The project was over crashing fish stock populations and Open-Ocean Aquaculture if you're into that sort of thing. The paper was written by me...and the powerpoint was not...

Cleveland You Say?

So I really did expect today to be fairly normal, go back to my room after class and work on a paper and maybe take a nap after being up till 4:00am last night and getting up at 7:30am. But instead of going straight back to my room I decided, out of good will to my fellow sound men...and women, to stop by the chapel and see if any help was needed for Elliv set-up. I knew the answer would be yes but I convinced myself I'd only be there for an hour or so...

Well that was at 2pm...and I'm still here at 12:35am. In this vast gap of time I was sent on a mission to Cleveland (home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame) to retrieve a super special set of spectacular stairs for the show's stage. Upon arrival to pick them up (this is 4 hours away mind you) I realize that these are not the special stairs I had imagined, in fact they were quite ordinary and probably available at a dozen places within 30min of Cedarville. Yes, these were the stairs we ordered, spent 9 hours retrieving, and with all said and done find out that they're about 5 feet too short. So that's awesome...I may get to sleep by 6am.

...And It Should Just Slide Right Off

"Yeah right!", is all I can think as I read the online explanation of how to remove my brake rotors. Nothing on a car ever just slides right off like that, and sure enough during yet another marathon of car repairs I find myself yanking, hammering, and prying at it with no hope. Why is nothing ever as easy as it sounds? So once again I go about soaking the rotor in WD-40 (my new best friend), waiting forty minutes on the couch watching baseball, and re-mustering the will to go at it again with a hopefully freed rotor. I step up to it, stare it down for a couple seconds, move in quickly and give it some more muscle with the hammer in prying position...and finally it budged! And then a little more, and then a little more, and before I knew it I was sliding those nice new shiny rotors onto my car.

No more scraping noises, no more grinding brakes, much less shaking, and finally a car that feels like all $50 that it's worth! I really hope I can get a better car this summer...

81

Apparently my previous post titled "Day One" led some to believe that I was going to blog evry day of the event, but this simply was not my intent. I did get a lot of ideas at the conference and am back with a lot of cool ideas for improvement at WFFC and AE that we will hopefully be implementing soon.

After the conference we got to see our Arkansanian friends Josh, Sabrina, Aaron, and Kafka. It was a great time of quoting Mitch Hedberg almost constantly and playing rolling chair muderball before service (basically just running into each other and the use of my signiture move, the hammer throw). I was also able to fix their wireless microphone woes which I was quite happy with.

I learned three things through all of this:
1. The youth group at Church on the Move is actually On Eighty, I think when people realize this they will be severely disappointed.
2. "The way to stay is to outlast your critics." -Doug Fields
3. WalMart is the biggest attraction in Rogers, AK
4. XBOX three-hundred and sixty, 15" LCD, and a large van are a perfect combination
5. The media team needs a font budget.

You can download a copy of all my notes here.

Day One

Well, today is our second day here but the first day of the conference and I gotta say it was great! I'm not a big fan of conferences (especially the 5 Ways to do Everything Because it's Really That Simple type sessions) but I'm diggin' this one so far.

There was only one session today with Doug Fields and it was titled Important vs. More Important and about setting priorities for your ministry. All of his points were spectacular, but one of his points in particular was between having a structured youth ministry and and realizing the mystery of God. It's hard to explain in his words but he just wanted us to think about how even when everything goes wrong, and none of our plans work out, God will still mysteriously make it exactly what someone needed and work in a way only He could understand.

Other than that we played pool, bingo, and gambled away our rental van at one of those Native American casinos. But I feel God has a lot of blessings in store for us yet...even if someone is going to try to tell us the 7 Keys to Growth...

And things of that nature...

Last week I was informed that I was at the aforementioned Ken Ham seminar at Cedarville about 15 years ago...so that is neat. If you missed it, you should read it. I know it's long and boring, but I think it's important.

Pastor Jim said something really cool in his sermon yesterday. "I don't need CNN to tell me prayer doesn't work, I've had the Devil telling me that for 35 years." Not to be taken out of context, he was of course saying that prayer definitely works!


I found Rachel's Bright Eyes CDs that I lost. Thank God! Maybe now I can have all my cool points back which would be good because right now I'm in the negative range. [sung]"Yes he's less than zero, less than zero. He's a regular negative guy..." - Bill Nye the Science Guy

Most of the AE staff will be heading off to Oklahoma tomorrow night. It will be a fun, relaxing, bonding, educational time with the good people at the Edge. I'm sure Phil will take care of Elmo while I'm gone.