That's my boy!

Watchout Tower
Originally uploaded by nukeit1.

James (LCpl. McCauley) sent out his final email from the U.S. today. It was good to hear about his confidence in his training and his fellow Marines.

War is something that we can easily become numb to. The media and politics play it off like it's "normal business". That is, until it involves someone close to you. This whole experience with James getting shipped to Iraq has brought a whole new light to things. Previously, my buddy Staven was shipped off to Kosovo earlier this past year; but it seemed a little different... because it's not a popular "hot spot". Although I'm sure it has it's problems.

I am glad that James is going after the Iraqi elections though. I know that he'll be fine. It's just now that things in Iraq are seemingly settling down... now, more than ever, my thoughts are in Iraq... thinking about James.

Keep up the work buddy...

Welcome guests...

Arch1
Originally uploaded by Josh R..

It looks like Joel and my parents will be taking a trip past the St. Louis Arch in the next couple weeks.

That's right... we're having company! Yeah! We're super-excited! Joel is coming out just to hang out for a couple of days... and my parents are stopping on their way to and from Texas; where my dad is going for work.

To Neil: To answer your questions... 1. Yes. We have to setup and teardown Keypoint church each and every Sunday. 2. We meet in a brand new elementary school, which is a very nice building. 3. No. That is not Casey and his family on "that welcome sign".

Even though...

... I don't want to; I may be going back to work for a little while. This past week, I sent my resume and a link to my portfolio to Wal-Mart for an "Art Director" position. Yesterday, they called me to setup a phone screening for today. The guy called... I think it went real well. He, essentially, just went over my resume with me to make sure that they understood exactly what my experience was. With my background in broadcasting, along with my design experience; he said that I was a real good candidate for a position. The job consists of primarily graphic design work... designing flyers, circulars, in-store signage, etc. At any rate, he said that he was going to write down a couple of paragraphs and forward my stuff on to the Hiring Manager. Although I really don't want to work a full-time job and try to do the church stuff too... I think that this could be a real cool opportunity for me, as well as bringing in some extra cash. He said that I should be hearing from them at the beginning of next week. Taxes. We went to H&R Block to have our tax return estimated... it looks like we're going to get a mind-blowing $11 back from Uncle Sam. Thanks to Old Navy (Gap, Inc.) for not taking any taxes out of Sabrina's checks.

This just looked like fun...

10 RANDOM THINGS YOU LIKE [10] Violent video games [9] Design of all kinds. [8] War movies [7] Grilled-cheese sandwiches [6] Chillin'. [5] Goldfish (the crackers) [4] My dog, Kafka. [3] Playing Paintball [2] Incandesent lighting [1] Apple computers 9 OF YOUR CLOSEST FRIENDS [9] Sabrina [8] Joel [7] Larry [6] Josh [5] Rachel [4] Courtney [3] Kafka [2] My PS2 [1] BigPru 8 THINGS YOU DON'T LIKE [8] Broccoli [7] Brussel Sprouts [6]  Grocery stores [5] Dessert right after dinner [4] Doing the dishes [3] Getting up early [2] Diet Coke [1] Shopping 7 PLACES YOU WOULD LIKE TO VISIT [7] London [6] Germany [5] Russia (again) [4] Fellowship Church (Grapevine, TX) [3] New York City (again) [2] France [1] India 6 PLACE YOU'VE SLEPT BEFORE [6] The couch [5] My bed [4] The ground [3] Hilltop Gym [2] Under the wing of a C-5 [1] On a cruise ship 5 OF YOUR FAVORITE MOVIES [5] Indiana Jones (all of them) [4] The Fugitive [3] Lord of The Rings trilogy [2] Kill Bill (both of them) [1] Full Metal Jacket 4 THINGS YOU WANT TO DO BEFORE YOU DIE [4] Win a design award. [3] Take my wife to Hawaii [2] Build a really sweet house. [1] Own a set of DW drums. 3 PEOPLE YOU WANT TO MEET BEFORE YOU DIE [3] Steve Jobs [2] Harrison Ford [1] Tommy Lee Jones 2 EVENT YOU WILL NEVER FORGET [2] Mad River Airshow plane crash... I was the first on the scene... five dead... no survivors. [1] Moving to Arkansas, biggest step of faith... thus far. THE 1 PERSON YOU WILL ALWAYS LOVE [1] Sabrina... without a doubt.

Late nights.

So, it's been a couple of days since I've posted. I've been busy. We had our second service today at Keypoint. Everything went pretty well.... given that I had to play drums, and had to give a crash-course on how to operate the video equipment to a couple of guys. I was pretty nervous... not so much about playing the drums (although that did make me somewhat nervous); but moreso because I wasn't comfortable with the video stuff. In other news... I may be going to Nashville, TN to videotape Spoken while they're in the studio, recording with P.O.D. The keyboardist for our church has his own recording studio, and recorded Spoken's record --- who were recently signed to Tooth&Nail Records. Anyway, he wants to go record them in the studio and make a video that will go on their CD and on their website. I'm not sure that I want to do it though. Yes... it would be a great opportunity, great for my portfolio, and I'm sure a lot of fun. But, it would take me away from home and Keypoint for a couple of weeks... which I don't like. Besides, this guy just kinda 'un-officially' asked me if I was interested... so, I dunno... we'll see what happens.

Just reflecting...

Smallgroupnorm
Originally uploaded by oggydawgy.

For some reason, I'm feeling nostalgic. This was the last time our small group in Springfield was together.

I miss you guys. :-(

The Day After...

As with most holidays... Valentine's Day is not a real holiday. It's just a day for corporate America to make the "little man" spend some of his hard earned cash. But, I digress. Sunday, we had our first service at Keypoint Church. It was pretty good. Things flowed pretty smoothly. Of course, there were some things that we need to work on for next week as far as technical things go. But, definitly not bad for the first time. We had about 250 people at the first service, and about 50 of those were from Casey's old church. We were able to see Pastor Rick Bezet... so that was pretty cool. From what I hear, everyone was real impressed with the whole thing. My buddy, Joel, is back from a missions trip to Namibia, Africa and I was able to talk with him for a little while today. Good to have him back! He's thinking of making a trip down here at the beginning of March. I hope he can come. On another note... the band, "My Chemical Romance" was mentioned to me... and I saw them them on Conan O'Brien... I thought of Rachel on both occasions. :-) Sabrina made me watch "The Notebook"... a mushy-lovey-dovey movie. I must admit though... it almost made my eyes water a little bit. Although I have to teardown the entire video setup every week for Keypoint... I've found that there is a perk to storing it at my house. I get to use it all during the week. Which means that the next time I watch a movie... it will be viewed on my wall, using a projector and real DVD player... not my PS2. I need to go buy the material to make a screen though, since my walls are beige.

Relaxation.

We were able to finish everything up in preparation for Keypoint's first service yesterday (Friday). So, that means that I've been able to relax today. Sabrina left to go do some shopping... and I was able (for the first time in about a month) to play some SOCOM 2. It's been a nice relaxing day. I cut my hair... took a shower... ate some pizza... and have been playing video games. I'm sure that tomorrow will be exciting and very busy.

Going shopping...

Well, we've been working out tails off after last Sunday. We've added 5-feet onto each section of trussing for the screens.... bought "real" projector screens... and bought about a zillion cables and adapters. So, to reward us for all of our efforts... Casey took us to the mall; bought us dinner; and then gives each of us $100 to go shopping with. Which is awesome! However, Sabrina and I weren't able to buy anything... because it's just not in our nature to just go spend money like that. We're all about the clearance racks... ya know. I mean, there's a lot of nice stores like Express, American Eagle, Dillard's, Banana Republic, etc... But, none of these are my style. It was just very awkward for us. So, we're going to hit Old Navy and stores that are more "our speed" sometime this week. It was pretty funny though... because we were the only ones that didn't buy anything. In that regard, we are different from everyone else here. But, both of us feel that it's a good thing. I don't think I need to wear clothes from Express to feel good about myself. My clothes are not what make me a good leader... my team isn't going to listen to me because I'm wearing $80 jeans and $100 shoes. I am looking for a new pair of shoes... my Skechers that I've worn everyday for the last two years are wearing out; so I'm in the market for some new shoes. I found some really cool ones the other night... but they were pretty expensive.

Welcome to Keypoint...

entrance
Originally uploaded by Josh R..

We had our "mock-service" today. Which was the first time that we were actually able to setup this whole thing. So there was some stuff to work through... but we got it running. We had an entire list of stuff that we need to buy... mostly little cables and connectors and such. Everybody did a great job with setup and teardown... pretty painless.

You can see more pictures on my Flickr site.... but this is the view right inside the main entrance.

The land that Wal-Mart rules...

Man, what a crazy week it's been. We've been building so many things and ordering things... it's hard to keep track of everything. It's true that God will give you the desires of your heart. I've been wanting an Edirol V-4 Video Mixer for a couple years now... and I finally got one. All I had to do was move 800 miles away from home. Why didn't I think of this sooner. Just kidding. I'm still waiting for my Dazzle Hollywood DV Bridge to come in. We ordered it last Friday; and it's still not here. We're have a our "mock service" this Sunday... so, hopefully it'll get here. Otherwise, we'll have no video. Today, MattRat and I drove around most of the day getting footage for an intro video. We drove to a small town called Pea Ridge. Seriously, it is beautiful out there. I guess a pretty major battle during the Civil War happened there. When we returned around 4:00PM... Kenny, MattRat, and myself took "Rex" (Kenny's monster retreiver dog) to Beaver Lake and let him go swimming. It was super pretty... because it was sunset with the water reflections and Canadian geese on the water and Rex sitting at the water's edge. I wish I would've had a camera. Because we could've taken a picture and sent it to an "outdoors" magazine or something. It was awesome. Sabrina and I are going to take Kafka out there this weekend.

Just a Monday...

Really, nothing of any interest happened today. It was a pretty uneventful day. So, I'm not sure why I'm blogging... aside from it's 1:30am, and I have nothing better to do. So... let's see... what I did today. Well, I got up and took a shower. I had to rework a couple of the print designs that I had done; because I was stupid and forgot to put the 'bleeds' on. So, I redid them and uploaded them to their FTP server. Then, I finally got my email client working... after much hassle. I'm now using Thunderbird. Then, Sabrina came home for lunch and we had PB&J. She had to run some errands for work; so I went with her... then she dropped me off at Casey's house. At Casey's, we brainstormed about the service orders and such. At around 7:00'ish... we all went over to Kenny's apartment for some Halo 2 system link action. Which brings me to now... I'm home and blogging.