Keep it simple. The endeavor I’m working on involves a lot of hands, which are the bane of my drawing existence. I can’t have the hands always be off-camera.

You wanted a picture of Mike’s beard. I think I captured it pretty well.

I was listening to my Nobuo Uematsu station on Pandora (I highly recommend it) and Loreena McKenna’s “The Mummers’ Dance” came on.

It just so happened that I was at the point in my writing where an airship crew was dancing a mournful jig (because my story is awesome) and this song, a corsair interpretation of Ecclesiastes 1, came to me:

All streams run into the sea
But the sea is never full
All things full of weariness
But hearts are never whole

What do we gain from our day’s toil
Beneath the beating sun?
Can we say that this is new
Before our course is run?
Before our course is run

What I love about writing a fantasy is that I can bust out with a song and no one thinks it’s strange. I mean, if dwarves can sing of cracking plates, then why not a corsair jig about empty pursuits?

So, sing my song to the tune of “The Mummers’ Song” and marvel at one of the only music videos (that I know of) to feature people dancing with wicker chairs on their heads.

(A mummer is a performer who acts in a traveling troupe to tell folk plays. Yeah, I Googled it.)

In the belly of Sheol
I cry
confident
in Your love

Water closes in
driven from Your sight
my brain
a sushi wrap
my life
faints
what I have vowed
I will pay

A second time
I hear
Three days
In the belly
Three days
To the city
But I go
One day in
And say,
“Forty days left!”

And they
Believe

But how can they?
I’m the one
You sent
I can hear
Your word
I’m the one
You love

Fire here
Locusts there
A pillar of salt
A shake of the Earth
Maybe even
A flood
(You’d make an exception, right?)

But no, it’s
Sackcloth
Fasting
Turning
Relenting

Disappointing
I said this back home
I called it
My reason to flee

You are gracious
Merciful
Slow to anger
Steadfast love
Abounds

It is better
For me
To die
Than
To live

You ask
if I do well
to be angry

East of the repenting
I sit
Pouting
The sun beats down
You cover me
A worm warns
of Your judgment
I’m faint
I repeat
It is better
For me
To die
Than
To live

Do I do well
to be angry?
Yes, I do
Thanks for asking
Kill me now

Steadfast still, You say,
“You pity the plant that
you did not grow
came in a night
left in a night;
I show my mercy on those
who did not yet know.”

Like snow in summer or rain in harvest,
honor is not fitting for a fool.

26:1

Signed amnesiac masterpieces
Of a faithful artist

Also, check out some of the most moving images from the news in 2011.

Reading was an escape, but not an unhealthy one. It didn’t enable me to deny my grief or the strain our family was under. It didn’t distract me from my children or make me wish for another life.

In fact, the simple act of allowing myself the luxury of literature served to inspire my days with my children. I was a better thinker — more happy, more energized, and more full. Reading served as a wholly reparative act, something that offered renewal at a time when everything felt out of sorts.

Haikus for a year
Make me want to play guitar
Just like Biff Tannen

Tom Wilson is also on Netflix. I will definitely have to check it out.

I hope you all are having a happy Veteran’s Day.

On Sunday, this is what I’ll be wearing:

No, Mike, I haven’t converted to something, although you gotta admit that my wife’s texts were a lot funnier than my own. (I said I had converted to Awesomeness. She beat that.)

I’m wearing it in solidarity with believers, specifically with Juma Nuradin Kamil’s family, around the world on a Sunday when we remember and pray for followers of Jesus who have been/are being persecuted. (Really, we should remember and pray all year long, which this app (for iPhone and Android) can help you with, but it’s also good to have a set day on the calendar.)

Thanks, Jeremy, for showing us this video that lines up with one of the songs we play. We won’t be showing it on Sunday, but it’s definitely worth a watch.

Art that expresses my heart? Sign me up.

Travis Prinzi of the Rabbit Room has a great article about telling a meaningful story, quoting from Walk the Line:

I mean, you can’t help nobody if you can’t tell them the right story.

I started a new story as part of NaNoWriMo, yes, but also because it’s straight from my heart. Each book I’ve written, I’ve rejected people-pleasing more and more and now write what I believe to be a good story and not what I think will sell (if you’ve watched the majority of what’s on TV, you’ll notice that it’s not always the best story that sells).

Thanks, Futile Ohm, for the link to the NaNoWriMo version of Scrivener. This project has so many character details that it definitely helps me keep all my notes organized. Anyone that has seen me in the midst of writing a novel knows that they should have bought stock in legal pads and tiny memo notebooks.

And for those praying about agents looking at my manuscripts and all that, James 4:2-3 had some insight for me this morning.

We’re making leaves for our thankful tree. Grabbing the red construction paper, I subconsciously cut out the official leaf of William Shatner’s home.

Have you watched Captains on Netflix yet? What is that all about?!

You’re officially invited to hang out with us in our front yard starting at 5:30pm tomorrow night.

What’s on the agenda? Making teenagers sing just to get bite-sized candy bars.

Thanks, Jeremy, for the “paint using a syringe” technique. It gave me the control I needed. I couldn’t help but feel like Jeff Goldblum watching a rivulet creep.

Jeremy put music to two poems I had written. Amazing stuff and yes, I did get a little misty-eyed. I’m going to blame it on allergies. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

My wife pointed out an interesting part of my creative process tonight. I didn’t realize how many times I say, “Maybe if I…” and usually what follows is trying to guess what someone else would like. I can tell you that it’s definitely come up quite a bit during this search to get published. It also shows up when I paint. You know when “Maybe if I” didn’t come up?

The Haiku Project

I just wrote. I just did.

Considering your audience is an important part of writing, but I swing so far to paranoia so easily. I was reading an article on the Art House America blog (thanks for recommending the site way back when, Sidewalk Driver) and found this quote from Rembrandt:

I can’t paint the way they want me to paint and they know that too. Of course you will say that I ought to be practical and ought to try and paint the way they want me to paint. Well, I will tell you a secret. I have tried and I have tried very hard, but I can’t do it. I just can’t do it!

The part of the quote that Art House left off was, “And that is why I am just a little crazy.”

I also started reading more about Emily Dickinson and learning that she had a huge portfolio of work and only a fraction of that is what has been published. That was the motivation (albeit sarcastic on my part) when I found out that e e cummings wrote a poem a day for years.

Dickinson wrote to write. Some of her greatest work she never intended for other people to read.

Two Sundays ago I was listening to the sermon and I just broke out in pages worth of poems. I was responding to what I was hearing, what I was feeling, and a whole bunch of other stuff. That flowed into the week and the night that I stayed up way too late and wrote a poem summarizing Philippians. I had wanted to create something as a response to Philippians for months. It was when I just sat, wrote, and had God as my only audience that this poem showed up on the page.

It’s funny because I’m not a good judge of poems. Sure, I can teach them, dissect their structures, but the “Is it any good?” question stumps me. Until the Haiku Project, I actually kinda didn’t like poems. They used to be a waste of time (thus my haiku sarcasm).

And that’s why I can’t overanalyze the poems that I write. I have absolutely no confidence in my poem writing ability with regards to other people’s approval and I think that’s pretty freeing.

So here’s to shunning the “Maybe this needs…” and the what-ifs.

You would think ten years of teaching would dull the appeal of whiteboards. Nope.

And then I get to come home to a wonderful family full of artists:

This is my youngest’s depiction of a flower. So cool.

Gone is any pretense of aloofness or hilarity. He now has an infrared eyestalk and is training Mon Cal to fight in zero-G while boarding ships.

Meanwhile, Jesse’s guy dated Jaina Solo and Steve rolled a d4 to see how many wives his Cerean had.

Yeah, I’m not drawing that on the back of my character sheet.

Georgia O’Keefe has suggestive desert flora and fauna in hers.

Me? I’m the guy who’s going to go crazy painting nebulae.

I try and then can’t get it to look exactly like the photo.

This is irony because the photo is only a small shadow of what a nebula would look like up close. The other thing I’m realizing is that I’m expecting to get it perfect the first time. Since art can only summon up a memory or feeling and not replace the original, I don’t think I can ever get it perfect, to be honest. But I can grow in my painting, in how and what to do.

Sticking out from under my piles of notebooks this morning was my query hook for my second novel (I’m on my third, the first being insane). I read the sentence that was supposed to get my book another look and had to laugh. It was so cheezy.

It was also encouraging because, on Monday, I read one of my queries for the current book to some junior high and high school students. One kid was honest enough to give it the stink-eye. Monday I came home and typed furiously. I shared the new, completely different query with another teen. Their reaction? “Wow.” I had to clarify if it was “Wow, cool” or “Wow, get away from me”. It was the former.

You could say that I grew as a writer. I know it’s also cheezy to cite Captain America, yet the choice to give the serum to the scrawny guy has stuck with me. Steve Rogers appreciates the growth. I feel like getting a book published has been tough because, well, it’s tough to get a book published, but also I feel like if I do actually end up having a book on the shelf, I will appreciate it more after the journey.

Yes, feel free to snark and mockingly sing Green Day’s “Time of Your Life” or whatever song it was in Anastasia.

With the bloggh, I just write whatever makes me laugh/think/not think and call it good. You are all witnesses to me making myself crack up.

For some reason I get nervous when I’m creating something I put my heart into AND I’M NOT WELL-PRACTICED AT ALL. So, to break through that I’ve posted my first painting using the easel my girls got me. This is not a fishing for compliments; this is a “stop obsessing and just do”.

Ugh. Imperfections. Wabi sabi, suckas. Wabi sabi.

But even today I remembered how I’ve used this site as a repository of my Cliff Claven-esque web trivia.

So – to the Utah friends who needed writing links:
Duotrope.com – Use this site to search for places to publish your short stories and poems.

Querytracker.net – Use this site to find agents that match your style of book. When a publisher needs a certain book to fit in their line-up, they’ll go to specific agents to see what they have. Danielle Steele’s agent is not the same as Scott Westerfeld’s.

I was going to draw a completely different picture to test out Adobe Illustrator’s Live Trace on my scan of a hand drawn sketch, but then I found a note in my sketchbook from years ago. Here’s today’s take at it, complete with jagged lines that show I’m still getting the hang of Illustrator. Wabi sabi, right?

“Today’s contestant is an R4 unit tired of dating guys with bad motivators.”

I guess 3PO as a droid dating game host was funnier last decade.
And an official blech to the Neimoidian that’s behind all of the reality programming on television today:

“Unscripted television? Excellent.”

My friend Mick, a very talented artist, was telling me about a Chinese school of thought (which then the Japanese popularized) but he couldn’t remember the name of it.

It’s called wabi sabi, coming from two characters shared in Chinese and Japanese.

Wabi – used to mean “melancholy from living alone in nature”, but now is more “simplicity in nature”
Sabi – “serenity in the impermanence, transience of things” and a beauty in the aging of things

Essentially, it’s an understanding that things are not perfect, but that they are how they are meant to be at that moment with a knowledge that all things change.

A phrase connected to it is “natsukashii furusato”, “an old memory from my hometown” (at least that’s how this white guy says it).

It’s like the end of the famous love section in 1 Corinthians 13:

12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

I see wabi sabi as a reminder that now we only know in part and on That Day, we shall know fully as we are fully known. Art is a tangible reminder of that for me.

Here’s my first ever full attempt at a realistic lion:

and all I can see are the imperfections and asymmetry. And wabi sabi says, “Yeah. What did you expect? It’s life.”

Today’s picture is a lot different than how I normally draw lions:

But the chance to draw Kim Cardassian was too entertaining to pass up:

Now, that joke has been done. Where I boldly go is The Latinum Situation:

Are the Kardashian-Jersey Dominion still influential? I’ve been a little out of it. (Refer back to the whole Netflix Paradox.)

Click on the thumbnails if your eyes can sustain the damage from zooming in. The same caution can be applied to the new Weird Al video. So disturbing, so true, so hilarious.

Yep. That’s Weird Al.

A special thanks goes to my in-laws. My birthday gift was perfect. I like to write. (You may have picked up on that.) I was looking unrealistically at a Macbook Air because it has the instant-on/long sleep feature. I could write and not have to wait for a long boot.

You know what? My new technique boots even faster:

When I chatted with Mike Lupica, he said his biggest technology was a really nice pen. The slightly-Thernadier thing about being a librarian is that students lose really nice pens all the time. (I swear I don’t go too “Master of the House” on them.) Lupica writes most of his drafts on a big legal pad. Christopher Paul Curtis, author of The Watsons go to Birmingham, wrote his first novel on a legal pad in the public library.

I found that when I sat down to start a short story this week, I cranked out a thousand words pretty quickly. It’s funny how distractions decrease on a piece of yellow paper compared to a computer screen. The only distractions are the myriad of other ideas zipping through my brain. For those, I write them down:

The Apple Dapples thing was going to be an LL Cool J-esque rap:

When I say “Apple”, you say “Dapple”/ Hey-o!

but, even though generic breakfast cereals have a very limited budget for advertising, I’m going to keep that one for myself.

One of the things I love about Blue Like Jazz is that it’s coherent and yet not. It’s Donald Miller talking about his life, but yet there are so many lessons in it. It’s no wonder that right now he’s hosting the Storyline conference.

I’m curious to see how a book that’s so anti-hypocrisy transitions into a movie, a medium dominated by heroes that blow up lots of things to stop people from blowing up lots of things.

Here’s the trailer:

This is the same guy that wrote How He Loves and one of the things I love about his songs are that they use non-churchy words to explain theological concepts. He does a great job of explaining his creative process and inspiration here, so check that out first.

On Sunday, we’re going to be singing Death in His Grave. As a worship team, we don’t want anything we do to get in the way of you worshiping. When learning a new song, it’s sometimes tough to sing along if it’s the first time seeing the words. With Death in His Grave, the words are so poetic we don’t want to miss the truth that those lyrics hold. The song is called Death in His Grave, but if we miss the fact that it’s Jesus putting death to death, we miss the whole song.

I’m going to post the lyrics with links to Bible passages that relate to what McMillan is talking about (some are different than his explanation, but we think they’re still relevant). I know Jeremy is planning on doing the same thing on his site. Hopefully we can get the lyrics out to enough people so we can look at some/all of the references and get a really cool picture of who Jesus is.

These references are a result of the Body in action. Jeremy, my mother-in-law, and I sat in the conference room at church and worked together on this.

Death in His Grave by John Mark McMillan

Though the Earth cried out for blood

satisfied her hunger was

Her billows calmed on raging seas

for the souls of men she craved
Sun and moon from balcony

turned their head in disbelief

Their precious Love would taste the sting

disfigured and disdained

On Friday a thief

on Sunday a King
Laid down in grief

but awoke with the keys
To hell on that day
the first born of the slain

The Man Jesus Christ

Laid death in his grave

So three days in darkness slept

the Morning Sun of righteousness
But rose to shame the throes of death

and overturn his rule
Now daughters and the sons of men

would pay not their dues again
The debt of blood they owed was rent

when the day rolled anew

He has cheated

Hell and seated

us above the fall

In desperate places

He paid our wages

One time once and for all

Hopefully that helps. Here’s him singing it, if you want to listen while reading:

So, for contrast:

Our 19th President – How can you break a railroad strike with such tiny arms?

I always am encouraged when I see parts of Jesus’s life fulfilling centuries-old prophecies. It’s always a reminder that God knows what He’s doing.

So, John was talking about some cool stuff from the Passover feast (and all the rituals that went along with it).

You would need a lamb for your sacrifices:

The main supplier of lambs? You would herd them up from Bethlehem.

You would bring them in through the Sheep Gate:

(Nehemiah was one of the people who helped rebuild Jerusalem in ~400 BC.)
When would you bring in the sheep?

Sheep selection day was the week before Passover. Like, Palm Sunday/”Hosanna!”

You gotta make sure your sheep isn’t all jacked up. You need to inspect for faults:

This is also when the Pharisees and Sadducees starting questioning Jesus about paying taxes to Caesar and marriage after you die. (I drew a Pharisee pointing a finger and Pilate saying, “I find no fault.”)

Lambs were sacrificed at 9am and 3pm and the shofar (old school vuvuzela) would signal the ritual completed. Check Mark 15:33 and when Jesus was saying, “Eloi! Eloi”

The Amidah are a collection of eighteen prayers that are said at many Jewish festivals. Check out the sixth and fifteenth and picture people praying that during the Passover.

During the events of the crucifixion was also the Festival of Unleavened Bread:

and the Firstfruits ceremony:

I started drawing with my youngest tonight and illustrated my favorite character (who’s only in the book for five pages, max.) My youngest drew her own character.

But do you comprehend this culinary equivalent to the Star Child’s monolith?

One of the things I appreciate about the book is Ben Burtt’s love for what he does. When he was first interviewing to be George Lucas’s sound guy (imagine that interview!), he saw concept art on the wall of C-3PO that reminded him of all the fun serials he watched as a kid. It’s like how my dream goal as a writer is to be asked to do an expanded universe novel.

Here’s a great quote from him about working on Return of the Jedi. Notice his enthusiasm for the saga:

“We were all charged up with when we mixed it,” says Burtt. “We were deep into the scene and felt like we were helping to bring about galactic justice that would cap the entire trilogy.”

The book has a sound file player attached to the side of it. You read the book and play the sound that he’s describing to hear for yourself. I know kids’ books do this, but this book is definitely for the film buff.

Did you know that the sound of the Emperor’s lightning is the same sound effect used in the 1931 Frankenstein film? The old guy that was the sound engineer on that classic film had to be convinced that this “Star Wars” thing was worth his effort in helping. Ben Burtt took a rough edit of Empire Strikes Back to show Ken Strickfaden since Ken had never seen A New Hope.

Strickfaden was blown away and took Burtt to the room where he still had all of the lightning lab still set up.

The craziest sound effect from the Luke vs. Emperor vs. Vader fight is the sound of the Emperor’s Dark Side explosion. Watch the clip:

Do you hear the sound of pigs wailing? That’s in there as he falls down the shaft.

Very Matthew 8:32, in a sense.

I know that some of you readers are fans of the song How He Loves. You’re probably familiar with the David Crowder version. The guy that wrote the song is John Mark McMillan (Don’t worry, there’s still a beard). You’ve got to hear the background story to why he wrote the song. Puts a lot of context to the un-churchy words he uses:

We’ll be recording this song for our live album on April 3. I hope to see y’all there.

I only have experience with lyrics in the same sense that I think most dads have. Both my father and father-in-law are notorious for lyric-swaps. (Slade – “It’s now or never…” What’s the next line to dad’s song?)

All of those ridiculous qualifying statements aside, here are some lyrics remixed from Psalm 39 and Psalm 40 (and HEAVILY borrowed (like “Ice Ice Baby”/”Under Pressure” bass line heavily borrowed) from Isaac Watts‘ notes on those chapters).

DUST

Teach me the measure of my days,
Thou maker of my frame;
I would survey life’s narrow space
And learn how frail I am.

A span is all that we can boast,
An inch or two of time;
None but vanity and dust
In all our flower and prime.

See the race of mortals move
Like shadows o’er the plain;
They rage and strive – desire and love
But all the noise is vain.

What should I wish or wait for then
From creatures, earth, and dust?
Expectations trampled on
In disappointed trust.

You raised me from a horrid pit,
Where mourning long I lay,
And from my bonds released my feet,
Deep bonds of miry clay.

Firm on a rock you have me stand,
You teach my cheerful tongue
To praise the wonders of your hand
In this, my thankful song
In this, my thankful song.

You raised me from a horrid pit,
Where mourning long I lay,
And from my bonds released my feet,
Deep bonds of miry clay.

Firm on a rock you have me stand,
You teach my cheerful tongue
To praise the wonders of your hand
In this, my thankful song
In this, my thankful song.

Pick up a copy online right now.

Or nuns will peg you with snowballs.

…and now I wish to say seriously to all the daily newspapers, to the republican, the democratic, and the socialist parties that they cannot month in and month out and year in and year out make the kind of untruthful, of bitter assault that they have made and not expect that brutal violent natures, or brutal and violent characters, especially when the brutality is accompanied by a not very strong mind – they cannot expect that such natures will be unaffected by it.

I’m glad that 100 years later we have learned to remove bitter and untruthful assaults from our politics…

They had a big announcement planned, but then in a moment’s hesitation said that they found a creature that uses arsenic instead of potassium in its DNA structure. Keith Richards has been doing that for years, so I don’t see what the big deal is.

What did bloggh readers hope would be announced? Two-thirds of you predicted that NASA would say “it’s been secretly dating the NSA but can no longer hide its true love. It’s a grown agency and can make its own decisions.”

You guys are weird.

There’s a great article up from Donald Miller called The Great Stumbling Block of the Creative Mind. I can relate to self-editing based on what other people will think. I constantly have to fight against the “this won’t sell” voice and write the story that I would enjoy reading. When I booktalk, I recommend books that I enjoyed. Many times that lines up with what students like. The same should apply to my Gatling gun horse.

It’s like the difference between this bloggh and my professional one (the creativity block…not the Gatling gun). Here, I don’t care what you think (for the most part…sometimes it creeps in). I’ll put up a picture of a Japanese folk dancing robot:

label it sugoi, and smile. With my professional site and Twitter, I’m constantly evaluating what I post. Part of that is out of respect for where I work and that a big segment of readers are in junior high, but I am obsessive in checking author responses.

So, thanks for reading the bloggh and if you find it saikou or psycho, whatever. I’m havin’ fun.

On one end of the scale is a collection of musical atrocities committed by flautists in secondary marching bands across the country. On the other side, there is Greg Patillo, who I think should be an honorary member of Jethro Tull.

And the balance is even.

(Yes, Jethro Tull is the band name. They’re covered under the Monty Python/Lynyrd Skynyrd/Britney Spears Clause.)

Peter and the Wolf:

Super Mario:

A Hard Knock Life:

Sesame Street:

I feel that I’ve done a halfway decent job of recreating the Eastman and Laird fun of the early 90s.

Oh, that’s right. That’s when mutated turtles were supposed to be gritty. Sorry for the use of the word ‘fun’.

Watching Jim Henson make Muppets makes me want to make Muppets. So cool.

If you haven’t watched the a capella Inception trailer, remedy that immediately. My kids still crack up, which is a testament to its genius.

Both my fantasy teams won this week, which is a testament to the power of injured reserves/back-up quarterbacks.

I’m 20,000 words into my steampunk novel, which is exciting. (Thanks, Dad, for loaning me the books. Hopefully your favorite President doesn’t get too mangled by the end.) 20,000 words; only 50,000 more. It’s times like these when I’m glad that OSX Spotlight does arithmetic instantly in the search box.

This next link is for anyone who plays Star Wars Saga Edition and/or is a reference nerd. Jesse found the ultimate index.

The PDF is here.

It brings a tear to my eye because:

1. It is a thing of beauty.
2. Now all the books, who people were paid to write and organize, can finally be used.
3. There are hours of searching on Star Wars nights that we’ll never get back.

Thanks again, Jesse, for the find.

I must also highlight the Futile Ohm again for his Microsoft generosity. The Redmond company is seeping into my brain.

We got the printer. It came with ink. (The new printer uses $30 ink.)

I’m really happy since it’s a wireless printer. But what’s really cool is that it’s a 3-in-1, with the scanner and memory card reader and all that also being wireless. Those reception bars are like art to me. The inaugural prints were of my dad with my oldest and then a map of Middle-Earth.

Yep. Sounds about right.

The inaugural scan?

This, for my nephew:

Click on it to zoom in.

He is jealous for me
Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree
Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory
And I realize just how beautiful You are
And how great Your affections are for me.

And oh, how He loves us so
Oh how He loves us
How He loves us all

Yeah, He loves us
Oh! how He loves us
Oh! how He loves us
Oh! how He loves

We are His portion and He is our prize
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes
If His grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking
And Heaven meets earth like an unforseen kiss
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest
I don’t have time to maintain these regrets
When I think about, the way

The questions:

• What do you love?
• What do you fear?
• What makes you laugh?
• What’s in your pocket? Is there a story behind any of the objects?

I am so filming Star Wars night from the MacBook.

I set up a CoverIt Live event as an experiment. If we have Internet, I’ll post some updates. Even if we don’t have a wi-fi signal, I set it up to read Twitter updates from people’s Twitter timeline and add it into the conversation. If you want to join the fun, add the hashtag #starwarsnight or #swn to your Twitter update to be added to the timeline.

Oh, the Interwebs. More fun than hitting myself in the head with empty milk jugs.

1. He does concerts for charities.
2. He does those concerts dressed as the main character from Final Fantasy VIII.
3. He does his own arrangements.
4. He puts the sheet music for those arrangements online for free.

Go check out his site here.

Click on the thumbnail to see the full picture.

Mine – Double Cheeseburger Amana Robot

My oldest – FoodMaker Robot

My youngest – “Ha Ha! Robot!”

The unbroken crayon selection is quite girly in our house. I need to get my own set or Darth Vader will be sporting hot pink Sith alchemy.

I am but a mere mortal and no king of Atlantis and yet my powers of beardery are more applicable than Aquaman’s. In the same respect, you’ll notice a ceramic seahorse that I’ve constructed. The sea only gives it the ability to be asymmetrical. At a later date you will witness the unspeakable wrath of my forgeborne horse.

The proper response shall be to cower and/or sing a telegram.

Random Person: So, which one’s your son?
My parents: The one with the Masters degree and the blue stage make-up.

It’s better than how I lied to my chiropractor’s receptionist.

Receptionist: Hey! You lost your beard!
Me: Yep. It’s getting to be summer time.

I answered a statement with another statement. It was a misleading statement, though. I should have answered:

Receptionist: Hey! You lost your beard!
Me: Yep. I’m going to spend the night hitting PVC pipes with paintbrushes.

Thanks to Jeremy for posting the video so quickly. Here it is:

Blue Man Group from Jeremy on Vimeo.

And BlogghBot 3000, don’t think I didn’t see your post. We’re gonna have words.

(John Cole also has some cool Photoshop and Illustrator tutorials.)

This concludes tonight’s typography nerd anecdote.

As promised

I present to you…Web Site Story.

For anyone who has wanted to punch Clippy in the face: What if the Matrix ran on Windows XP?

In this one, we find out that stormtroopers do not take baths. (This is what makes them bad guys.)

Click on the picture to make it bigger.

Click the thumbnail to make it bigger.

My guess? I think Rip’s life is about to get more complicated.

Rumor has it that the song was originally “Classical Gasoline” but then the title got shortened. It debuted on the Smothers Brothers Hour and then went on to have a trippy music video kaleidescoping paintings, much like Fantasia. Here’s the tab for the song.

I can remember driving around with my dad listening to this song. To be completely honest, part of my Captain Palladium soundtrack was influenced by Mason Williams (but not kaleidescopes).

Tycho asked, “Is Han -”
“He’s fine,” Leia said. “Han shot first.”
There was no more blasterfire to be heard.

p. 232 from Aaron Allston’s Betrayal

I’m glad that my mind can now rest at ease. The great debate that had spewed from a certain Greedo scene and a “special” edition is resolved.

Now you can wear your nerd shirt with pride. Oh, you already did? That’s cool.

I am currently coming out of the 9-9-09 revelry (and by “revelry” read “editing a wedding video” and “living life”) and able to put up some prose that I chose.

I think my brain is still slightly broken from finishing my book. I’m very excited with the cover that @jeremypoehls did (among all the other ways that he has helped out this week). I can’t wait for the professional site to add a ‘/books’, if you know what I’m saying.

I did put up two articles on that other site today, one concerning philosophers that impacted the Constitution.

Here’s an excerpt from my science article:
To set up your hypothesis
Make an informative guess
For what you will try
To be like Bill Nye
And live a life of success.

I think that some of you may appreciate the fact that I was the alternative assignment for the Obama speech, considering my previous assertion.

Those that love irony will enjoy hearing that I presented to the students questions about setting goals, how they can contribute to society, and why they should stay in school. This should sound somewhat familiar. (I was remiss in not mentioning caution in what you post online. When you consider the precedents I’ve established, it makes sense.)

Oh, and I asked them to support me while I dangled a flashy watch on a chain in front of them.

Just kidding.

What should His be?

We adopt new tactics
Emotional Terrorists
Conform to my will
Or we blow this unity apart

Two year-old desires matched with thirty year-old resources

We cause trouble for our family
We deserve the wind

But He is the same from
Red Sea
to
Galilee

Creatures of dust complain
Life is too slow, too quick

And yet

We are the praise of His glory?

He is not insane
He has not handed the kingdom over without purpose

Adopted children?
Chosen?
Christ is the perspective

Those of the Kriege der Sterne persuasion will recognize this as the hermit who has been living for generations on Korriban in cliff-side ruins entangled by a cactus swarm.

Even if you didn’t play on Saturday (although you were invited, @bessiejo), the hermit may look similar to another bearded loon.

You may have heard that there is a Star Wars vs. Star Trek thing on the InterTubes. Have you seen the LEGO version of that fight?

On the topic of loons, I found this scrap of paper from a year ago. I can’t figure out what the epsilon I was talking about. (Editor’s Note: Check the comments for a hint at the solution. I remembered it.)

Don’t worry, Mom. It’s not like I write haikus about the library or anything.


I can’t take credit for the Bell Beast. Go visit the Sidewalk Driver for more details on coping with carrot carcinogens.

To fulfill the cutemetrics for this post, here is my youngest eating a half-pound burrito:

I guess if it’s metrics, it should be the 0.22679618 kg burrito.

Songs stuck in my head right now?

Danse by Caedmon’s Call
All creation moves in a cosmic danse
Before the Lord her King;
and the rythms, the reason, the rhyme
of the danse pulses within everything.
And the universe wheels and whirls like
a dervish in perfect seven-step time
The Lord made the Danse,
He taught her the steps, and He causes the songs to shine.

We must danse, danse, danse
danse in God’s honor.
We must yield all our steps unto the King.
We must danse, danse, danse
danse in God’s honor.
Let His praises ring throughout the earth

Adam and Eve dansed in Eden’s environs
Early in earth’s morning air
They named all the animals musical names
Glorious potentiality shared.
But Lucifer sang out a serpentine song
And offered death’s danse as a token.
And pausing to listen Adam missed his step;
Earth’s harmony in the danse broken.

We must danse, danse, danse
danse in God’s honor.
We must yield all our steps unto the King.
We must danse, danse, danse
danse in God’s honor.
Let his praises ring throughout the earth.

Jesus dansed into the world
Singing His heavenly song.
He taught the Danse to those who would
listen and learn as He moved along.
But the steps of His Danse led to a cross
where He died while the haters mocked on.
But He Dansed through death’s arms
and over Hell’s gate and in three days
dansed forth from His tomb

We must danse, danse, danse
danse in God’s honor.
We must yield all our steps unto the King.
We must danse, danse, danse
danse in God’s honor.
Let His praises ring throughout the earth (x2)

He is Lord by Hillsong
Oh blessed lamb once slain
Will reign forever more
His hands once bound now save
Our God will never fail

He is Lord
He is Lord
Sings my soul
He is Lord
And He lives
Yes He lives
I’m alive ’cause Jesus lives

‘Tis at the cross of Christ
Where earth and heaven meet
Where sin is overcome
To God the victory

And now
Let the earth resound with praise
For our Saviour God He reigns
He is high and lifted up
Arise
For the King of glory waits
He is coming back again

Check out more of what happens when an x-ray tech stays after hours at the lab.

I’m sure there’s a metaphor here somewhere:

Yeah, the past couple of months I’ve had pictures of tentacled sewer rats running through my brain. Don’t even act surprised.

Today also marks another sign of me getting old. I realized at the dentist that the dental hygienist very well could have been one of my students. Also, my wife didn’t tell me how young my dentist was. We got a recommendation from a family friend for the dental complex. When we looked at the website, I saw a picture of a really old guy dentist.

I was very surprised when Captain Awesome walked in. My dentist is my age. Why did I reel back a little? And when I say Captain Awesome, he looks just like the Chuck character:

He even has the same relaxed surfer accent. I guess he had enough time to graduate medical school, right?

I also thought about how weird it is to pay someone to shoot radiation at your face. Tomorrow I go back for intensified lasers repairing a tiny cavity.

Well, if tentacled sewer rats (or automated laser bots) ever drag me off, at least my loyal readers have my dental records.

It’s like the quiz about whether it’s a painting done by a pre-schooler, an elephant, or famous artist:

Test your artistic instincts with this fun quiz! But first, a little about our artists:

Jean Miotte is a semi-famous contemporary artist who resides in New York, NY. Her work is displayed in many private galleries, and a few public galleries, including the famous Guggenheim Museum. She expresses herself with gestural brushstrokes and thick color pools, inspired by her inner conflicts.

Jackson Pollock was an influential American artist and a major force in the abstract expressionism movement. By the mid to late 1940′s he developed a painting method which made him famous: dripping paint on large flat canvasses to create expressions of “unconscious imagery”. Jackson Pollock died in Long Island, New York, in a car accident.

Kamala the elephant resides in the Calgary Zoo in Alberta, Canada. Kamala expresses her mood through a form of “finger (or, should we say, trunk) painting”, using custom made brushes onto an easel mounted canvas. Some of her paintings have sold for over 2,000 dollars!

Ian Ford is a preschooler from the United States. He likes to eat paste (just kidding).

Take a look at the paintings below and guess the artist! You can click on each painting for a larger view. Scroll to the bottom of the page for the answers.

A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
G.

The answers?
Answers To Quiz:
A. Jackson Pollock B. Kamala the elephant C. Jean Miotte D. Kamala the elepant E. Ian Ford, Preschooler F. Ian Ford, Preschooler G. Jackson Pollock

I cleaned up the quiz from this site.

I mainly put this up for my wife, but many people have so many memories with Total Eclipse of the Heart. Sure, the Lifehouse skit has deeper meaning, but this song has etched into my brain people in black sweatshirts turning around to reveal all of college’s temptations. I guess with the advent of High School Musical 4, life’s tough lessons must now come through song.

But this video here tells us the true story of Total Eclipse of the Heart:

My wife is directing this year’s choir camp for our church’s elementary-aged kids. This summer’s musical is “The First Action Heroes”, starting on Monday. As church choir camps go, this one looks promising (promising as another way of saying “no dancing 5.25 floppy disks“).

When my wife and I looked at the suggested backdrops that will act as the set, we both felt like what was being suggested looked more like Sunday School workbook covers and not comic book covers.

You, as the faithful reader, get to see my re-boot/re-envisioning/re-doing of the set. These are guides for the volunteers to project and trace, so the color will be gone.

I thought that some of my comic literati might be able to guess where I got my inspiration. I feel like my students when I’m proud to say that I didn’t even trace.

To those who graduated with actual Art training, this may be glaringly obvious.

Even if it’s apparent that I can’t draw a straight line worth anything, what’s fun is that I’m going to be drawing all of the props. Benches, bushes, stacks of firewood – all in my big black Sharpie style.

If there is a cardboard famine for the next two weeks, it’s not my fault.

I needed help with moving the action into the camera:

Replace the sling with a shield and you’ve got Captain America.

This one has some Cap to it, mixed with some Ki-Adi Mundi leading the charge.

This one was inspired by this Batman cover.

When I think of princesses that chew bubble gum and take names, I think of Leia and this princess.

And then there’s the savior of the entire human race (pretty sure the offer would extend to Kryptonians):

This one I drew last because I didn’t want to have the dorky looking Jesus, or Buddy Christ, or even a picture of a lion and lamb. The picture pales to the real deal and I’m okay with that.

We’re in day two of a district training. Some of the stuff has been kind of goofy (like which candy bar you choose determining your personality type…I think I may have seen that quiz on Facebook), some just plain weird (thank you, Worth1000…yes, it’s EyePod/money laundering/cardiac arrest), and some brain teasers that I might be able to use as a warm-up in a staff meeting. To give the presenter credit, it’s three days, eight hours per day. We need some wake-up from time to time. (And teachers, if you’ve ever been surrounded by a group of them, are not always the best audience.)(Yes, I said it. Deal with it.) We did a cool graphing out of certain lessons on a rigorous/relevant X,Y chart (to really evaluate if lessons are doing what we intend them to do). I liked it so much, I took some photos with my phone. As I type, more teachers have gotten up and started taking photos with their phones. Muahaha! I am influencing creative uses of common technology. Perhaps some may even try their hand at booyoring next year.

Little known fact: when creating a survey, it’s better to have an even number of options so that you have to answer either high or low – you can’t choose the middle.

The meat of the training has actually been good, even though it’s during the summer. For my professional thoughts on how to make instruction relevant and rigorous, check out the other site.

For here, let’s get irrelevant.

We’ve seen three words to describe an animal you would become, three words to describe your favorite color, and even three words to describe your favorite river (don’t get me started on what educational psychologists say about that result). (I guess three is the magic number, whether in training or in Twittertopia. Nice break-up words, by the way, Devin. The Phantom Menace. That’s comedy.)

Cheers!

But here’s a fun challenge that I had seen before but had momentarily forgotten the solution.

So this week’s Pop Quiz takes on a new form:

What is the connection between these words? Hint: The number seven plays a part.

Misunderstood
Vermont
Statuesque
Swedish
Arthur’s
Africa
Sensation

Post some comments, post some guesses. (I should mention that my group won the challenge. Jodi, I’m gloating on the inside.) The solution will be posted on Saturday.

Mom, this one’s for you:

It’s from Tom Chapin (brother of the Cat’s in the Cradle guy).

static : pulse from Samuel Cockedey on Vimeo.

I still can find beauty in the urban.

Sometimes you just have to look up.

Has anyone else seen the human clock on Youtube? Check out the front page. (It’s an ad campaign, so it may be gone soon.)

We had some options for which assignment to complete:

1. Strengthen democratic ideologies in the Laos/Cambodia/Vietnam region
2. Persuade the US government to cover post-traumatic stress syndrome under veteran’s health care benefits
3. Write a rock and roll song

We chose the tougher of the three and wrote a rock song. Proof that this is powerful is measured in how much Communists hate rock and roll. Communists hate books, rock and roll, and Steve Martin. (No matter how much those mop-topped hooligans will try to convince you of otherwise.)

I had contemplated a parody of Justin Timberlake’s “Bringing Siam Back”, to fit Vietnam instead of Thailand, but thought better of it. (What with our previous experiences pillaging.)

Here are G’s lyrics:


And here’s the song:
Running in Fear

For it being a song for a G, I don’t think we had a sufficient amount of waving our hands in the air like we just don’t care.

Wayman Tisdale

Today the world has lost a great sports figure as well as musician. It’s rare that you come across people in this day and age that by their very presence can liven up a room. Many in this world of sin and corruption will pursue fame, they’ll pursue fortune, they’ll pursue pleasure and they will do whatever it takes to grab hold of material things. This man was not one of those people. This man was one who worked hard on the basketball court to produce solid results by becoming a three-time All-American, as well as claiming the record for most points scored by any player in their freshman and sophomore years. He won a gold medal as a member of the 1984 U.S. Olympic basketball team coached by Indiana University’s Bobby Knight, and the Indiana Pacers made Tisdale the second overall pick in the 1985 NBA Draft. As a center and power forward, Tisdale averaged over 15 points and six rebounds per game in a 12-season professional career with the Indiana Pacers, Sacramento Kings and Phoenix Suns. His best season was in 1989-90 with the Kings, when he averaged 22.3 points and 7.5 rebounds a game. Tisdale and Mitch “The Rock” Richmond combined to one of the most dynamic duos in the NBA. In 1997, Tisdale retired to focus on his musical career. Tisdale released his debut CD, Power Forward, in 1995. In 2002, he was awarded the Legacy Tribute Award by the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame. As a result of Tisdale’s fight with cancer, his experiences have led him to create a foundation to raise funds to help amputees with the prosthetic process, which is not always covered by health insurance. His efforts on the court have been doubled by his work in his own surrounding communities as well as throughout the nation.

In April 2009, Tisdale accepted an award from the Greenwood Cultural Center in Tulsa, and then set off on a 21-date national concert tour.

Tisdale died on the morning of May 15, 2009, at age 44, at St. John Medical Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He was admitted to the ER for breathing troubles.

I am a musician as well as a fan of the game of basketball, and I will miss this man greatly.

J, you’re welcome.

Facebook stalkers, click here.

Now see what it does to Alice in Wonderland by clicking here.

I like if your search fails.

Friend, there were no results found.

It makes me feel like someone else cares in the universe. Like Yooouuutuuube wants to Paaayyyiiitfooorwaaard.

I’m excited for Saturday.

For the grandparents: If you make it to the end of the article, I’ll put up some cute photos of the grandkids.

Thank you to The Family for the tickets to Third Day last night. Very cool, especially since the last time that I went to one of their concerts was one of my wife’s and my first dates (watching The Road to El Dorado with Mike and his wife is also in our First Dates origin story comics series.)

We have kids now. Look at my eyes – can you tell? Click to zoom.

This is how they started. For the other videos, I zoom in.

Before we get to more pictures, make sure you check out their Twitter accounts:
Mac Powell – Lead Singer
Mark Lee – Lead Guitarist
Tai Anderson – Bass Player (took pictures of fans during the concert…another bassist thing)
David Carr – Drums
Scotty Wilbanks – Keyboards

(What’s really cool/creepy is voyeuring how the band went to go see Wolverine, how their flight was and how they reacted to Celebrity Theater’s “in the round” set-up.)

Click to zoom.

I enjoy that they come off as very real. I’ve met with authors who show up and are very much, “Buy my book! Buy my book!” and then there are others who will talk for a little bit at the beginning and then walk the students through how to be a better author.

Mac Powell will sometimes call the audience to join in an impromptu church service and I love it. Mac shares my heart for Jesus and in turn shares my heart for the beaten down in the world. I know that some people get frustrated when they go to a concert and the lead singer just yammers (something Bono gets criticized of), but it doesn’t feel like that with Third Day. (I guarantee I’m biased.)

Third Day fact: Mac and Mark went to the same high school. Mark had heard Mac sing at a high school assembly and asked him to join the garage band. Also – they had technically played in a band previous to that. Mark played trombone and Mac played trumpet (like all holy marching band alliances…what did you expect, a clarinet? As if.).

Mac is mixed by a Mac. The great thing about the Celebrity Theater is that it’s very intimate. So much so that I’m thankful J got us aisle seats. I sat sideways (when I sat…Revive came out and asked everyone to stand. We stood for most of the show.).

I’ve determined that if libraries are abolished in the dystopian version of the future, I will become a rock and roll pastor. They have this guy, Nigel, whose sole job (as he put it) is to keep the guys in line. (Imagine if The Who or Guns n’ Roses had done this.)

They’re very honest with where they’re at, including musically. The majority of the second half of the concert was taking requests. Very cool. Jason Mitchener, who runs their fan forums, had been hounding them to play May Your Wonders Never Cease.

They’ve never done it live.

They did it live last night.

Now, when a rock star forgets the lyrics to one of his own songs that was on the set list, that’s a rip-off (but kind of funny). But when a band hasn’t played the song in years and is trying to remember how it goes? Reality. Mac jokingly told the crowd to stop Twittering him now. He apologized ahead of time.

They played Thief, still my favorite song of all time (followed closely by the song that plays when Kenobi dies (and Into the West is up there, too)(Wow. Never noticed the trend before.)).

And here it is:

Tears still welled up. I’m telling you, every time.

I’m big on humble bands not doing encores for the, “Look at me!” aspect. When they did an encore last time, they played worship songs with Jennifer Knapp. This time I held my breath – they started playing “Light at the End of the Tunnel” but thankfully moved on to some straight up worship alongside Revive (who Third Day connected with when they went to Australia) and Brandon Heath.

Brandon Heath on his own towards the beginning of the show:

Other fun moments:

When Mac came out at the beginning to sing with Revive for a song, he joked about not knowing how to get off the stage.

Brandon Heath said that he had some friends in the audience. He waved to them and said, “See you in about five minutes.” (Because the stage keeps rotating.)

You’ve got your trekkies/trekkers; you’ve got your browncoats. But have you seen the Gomers? They’re dressed in bright orange at the concerts.

Many artists don’t want pictures taken or video posted online. Third Day asked us to take as much footage as we could and that it would only help them out.

Because I needed more reason to like Third Day.

As promised for the grandparents: cute grandkids!
Click on pictures for zoomed view.

I know that I’ve left some off – with all of the big summer blockbusters in May and beyond, I’m sure you can think of some more.

Worthy of mention is Chief Wiggum’s Sunshine and Lollipops, but I classify that as more of a chase scene.

With over 900,000 views in the past week, I’ll take this guy over any current politician in congress with the exception of Jon Kyl and Mitch McConnell.

My oldest’s current contribution to the bloggh:

Yep. Genius.

The older Cannon brother (voice actor, stand-up comedian, puppeteer) has been putting up a constant stream of amazing caricatures on Facebook that would make Al Hirschfeld proud. He’s been drawing the presidents of the United States and I’m going to see what it would take to decorate my library in them.

I’ve also been inspired for another drawing of my own. You can probably tell I’ve got other things on my mind, as well.

I drew this in the van on the way over to our small group tonight. Lots of fun.

They have rules for NAU’s fonts (Caslon family, I guess) as well as the CMYK values for their logos.

I am extremely tempted to make one of these guides for our district, specifically for the newsletters that we send home to parents. It’s a different layout per school per month. Not being whiny, just intrigued as to who at a university makes the final decision for font.

Jim Gaffigan would say that the Lean Pocket was the most dangerous part of the weekend.

Our survey takers agree that Jack Bauer is the most dangerous part of dinner.

And yes, anyone who grows close to Jack is either a traitor or is gonna die. I mean, look at the statistics.

Thanks again to Jeremy with the save on contact solution and children’s Tylenol.

While driving around this weekend (which, given my previous condition, is probably not wise) I’ve been listening to a lot of Tchaikovsky, specifically his Greatest Hits (Greatest Works? I don’t know…better than his Unplugged album). I remember playing the 1812 Overture in high school and loving it. (The quiet parts as well as the cannon parts.)

Another of my favorites from him is the Marche Slave. I’ll be honest, my first real exposure to the song was in one of the transition scenes in Karateka.

Karateka, grandfather of Prince of Persia and mispronounced by elementary school kids owning an Atari 7800

In it this weekend I heard some folk songs from other countries, but mainly I heard some themes from the 1812 Overture. Here’s the story: Tchai-guy wrote it in five days when his friend Nikolai Rubinstein asked for a song to honor volunteer soldiers killed/wounded fighting the Ottoman Empire in 1876. The whole bloodshed started when the Ottomans killed some Serbian Christians. The Russians felt a connection with their Slavic neighbors and volunteered to fight.

That explains why it has a funeral march sound at the beginning but then gets all crazy at the end (my oldest thought I had a new Star Wars soundtrack. She said, “It’s kinda loud, but I like it.”).

But what about some 1812 themes that show up in Marche Slave?

So, me being so proud of my non-American-centricness, thought that the 1812 Overture was about the War of 1812 (that’s a different song altogether (Vern, I think you’re familiar with this song)).

No, the 1812 Overture refers to the Russian defense of Borodino versus Napoleon’s army. It gave the little guy time to reconsider an invasion of Russia. The emphasis on the cannons in the song is because Napoleon showed up with roughly 1,200 pieces of heavy artillery.

Tsar Alexander I had commissioned the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour to commemorate the French defeat. The cathedral was almost done and once again Nikolai Rubinstein showed up to challenge Tchaikovsky to write some music. The song was supposed to be performed when the cathedral was done. They had planned on the church bells ringing alongside cannons firing and musicians going crazy. But then Tsar Alexander II was assassinated and the performance never happened like Tchaikovsky wanted. It became a very popular song, though, with the Russian people and has been revised by different composers who added in more Russian folk music/anthems.

What blows me away is that Tchaikovsky wrote the 1812 Overture in six weeks.

But why the similar themes between Marche Slave and 1812? Russian soldiers whooping up. (I’m sure that’s what your notes say from Music History, right, Slade?)

Click here for a full orchestral score of Marche Slave.

Check out one artist’s LEGO impressions of New York. Then, check out the proper typography and grammar of a comic book. Use those in conjunction with some cool PSD files and you’re good to go.

I slaved over a hot oven to bring you the masterpieces you see here. I mean, what else would possess me to create a gingerbread away team? Only my deepest respect for Mike and his frontierial obsessions. Or I’ve gone loopy. Either are plausible excuses, really.

First person to name at least three characters depicted here wins a gingerensign of his/her choice.

All I know, Mike, is that someone else had to eat the gingerbread ensign, and I cried through every bite… *sniff*

I’ll present these other photos to you as a warning to keep Booyor away from the decorator bag full of frosting…

Merry Christmas!

Correction: This last photo is from Jeremy. What a talented young man. I hope his Babes of 2008 video turns out well. (Thankfully my daughters are too old to be in the video.)

This bloggh post is instead sponsored by my eldest, who drew this today:

For all of you politicos: I truly have figured out why politicians do that goofy hand-thumb thing. It helps you to accentuate a point without a condescending finger point or an aggressive fist. I employed it in my speech today.

The fashion show went really well. Three journalists from the outside world attended , as well as a whole bunch of students that had a lot of fun. (Check this weekend’s editions of multiple papers for signs of giant, bearded librarians.)

We raised a lot of money (although not nearing last year’s amount…I think because the teacher wasn’t there to donate to) and I continue my conflicted existence: I think Halloween is one of the dumbest holidays (give me a flipping day off if it’s a holiday) and the fact that I want to be a leader on campus in reaching past ourselves. Mission accomplished. Many teachers also want copies of their intros, just like they asked last year, but I had to admit that some I change on the fly, while I’m emceeing. Like the teachers that dressed as the Spice girls. I had originally written on the index card:

They’ll tell you what they want, what they really, really want
a tasty croissant and a trip to Vermont

I looked down at the card and my brain said, “This is stupid!” Thankfully I was able to gain some guidance from Five Iron Frenzy’s So Far So Bad:

I thought I’d write an epiphany, how something good is changing me, but I guess we dodged some passing fad, it looks like it’s so far, so bad. This song is rad. You could ask your dad. He won’t be mad. This song is stupid.

Love those guys. We of the Flesh Eating Monkeys persuasion opened for them back in ’97, back when ska walked the land and everyone was rocksteady with each other.

And, by the way, the wizard needs food badly.

Slade – I didn’t know that there was a separate campaign mode for co-op in Resistance 2, complete with class-based interactions that morph the objectives based on your different training. Yeah, Thanksgiving intrigues me. (Which, if you are taking notes, is such a holiday that you get two days off.)

Click here for awesome Resistance 2 videos, Slade.

Later, I painted over a giant chip in my library:

See if you can find it.

24 Hour Comics Day is where a group of artists/storytellers get together in one location and bust out 24 comics, one per hour. (I wonder if that’s how so many Marmaduke comics get made. Can you imagine if Gary Larson had done this?)

I can predict that they’d get pretty loopy pretty quickly. Here’s my attempt at the comics:

Hour 1

Click for full view

Hour 2

Click for full view

Here you can see the loopiness set in. I crunched 23 comics into one. There’s a ninja dinosaur bowling, taunted by a zombie robot, while being encouraged by a manga Cheshire cat. Yeah, we moved our drummer today. I got kinda tired. Maybe next year I’ll be more prepared, with the Wacom tablet instead of a Sharpie and a piece of printer paper.

Do my longtime readers remember my stealth plane?

Here’s the larger size for printing:
Droids vote poster

Rachel, meet Sauron. Sauron, Rachel. Now come up with a fruit that starts with the same letter as your name. I’ll start. Booyor…Bananas

And yes…still there.

For Jeremy…Two words: Trajan Pro

My daughters and I had so much fun putting these up, we shared the love:

Shhh. Don’t tell them we did it.

New tag.

Brown Squadron, here are some Ruing Resources:
Sauron Poster
Palpatine Poster

Hey…has anyone else seen the keyed parent controls on new Fords?

Aside from doing clinics and concerts, Norm Stockton also teaches some online courses. Check them out here.

It’s all about context. Bass players are the bridge between the rhythm section and the rest of the band: lend pitch to the drum kit. (Since on most Sundays we don’t bust out marimbas. Although this past Sunday we had a whistle and congas.) Bass players who understand how to be that bridge and keep it in context will have their cell phones ring more frequently.

This afternoon I got to hang out with Norm Stockton, who is currently on tour with Lincoln Brewster.

Ponderings from his free clinic:
Groove – an establishment of a motif that is consistent, predictable, reliable, and a movement forward

Groove is important for the whole band and congregation because a bad groove (in this context of groove) is jarring and has potential to break people out of a worship mindset.

We (the bass players) are the ministers of groove. Don’t be groovicidal. Each motif should consider context rhythmically, sonically, and harmonically. All that noodling? Yeah, it’s cool for a sound check or the last two minutes after a show as people are packing up their stuff, but unless you’re playing on a stool in a coffee house, it’s usually more than you need.

Norm knows his stuff, though, about having an entire song be just the bass. His solo version of “Angels we have Heard on High” is amazing. He also played a song similar to one on the Pondering the Sushi album. Norm was able to able to break it down to, “This is what the guitar would be strumming, this part’s for the horn section, and if I played bass, this would be the part…” Keep in mind he played all of the parts on his bass, mixing hits with pops and slaps and general flurries of fingers. (And yet he was able to show the difference between a constant stream of steady slap bass 16th notes and the annoying 12 year-old at Guitar Center.)

Best part? Very laid-back. Very Flagstaff. I would totally be his friend. He opened his clinic with a humble prayer and ended by praying for the hurt and for all of the different ministries represented at the clinic. Very cool stuff.

And who doesn’t dig a bassist who is into katakana T-shirts?

We’ll have to hear from Jeremy and see if he got his photo.

After being mindblown sitting down with Lincoln Brewster

We had hoped that perhaps the mantis would be lured by a garden. (For some reason it reminds me of Dustin Hoffman.)

The mantis must have spent significant time in Flagstaff to realize not to trust a home-grown herb garden sitting in a windowsill. (Have you seen what those “Elfin knight herbs” could mean in that song?)

My daughter was the keen observer to notice the self-righteous intruder today. (With my artsy wife catching the photos.) I should mention that something crawled on my toes while I slept last night.

While I was safe in my library, my wife and oldest approached the abomination with terms of its surrender. Certain conditions were met: the mantis was taken outside on a piece of cardboard and we would not terminate its existence, as per my wishes in accordance with the Demosthenes Treaty (it was fortunate that I’ve read more Orson Scott Card and not as much Robert Heinlein.)

My oldest had to go get her “watermelon hat” in order to protect herself. When they were carrying it outside, my daughter apprehensively told my wife, “It’s staring at me, Mom.”

Big day for all, including a second lost tooth (through age and not mantis-related causes):

And my wife and I watched Chuck Season 2, Chuck versus the First Date. “Sleeper has awakened” reference. Yay. (And Slade, you’ll appreciate that as Chuck alarm clock turns to from 6:59am to 7:00am, the radio starts playing “Power of Love”.)