Wednesday, September 21, 2005
We're officially on the road :)
I'm at a church in PA as I type.
This afternoon's journal entry:
I finished the book. [Oliver North's autobiography, forgive me for forgetting the title.] It was pretty interesting, I was surprised I didn't lose interest half way through. Also, our CDs came today. It was exciting, but it wasn't anything more than we put into it; just because our music has been recorded and replicated doesn't make it any better. I practiced some yesterday at a truck stop and a walmart. I'm glad I brought my practice mute. I must have looked crazy sitting there with my trumpet and case sitting out there at the side of the bus in the middle of a parking lot. I've been spending a lot more time with guitar I feel bad about it (and I don't know why, or if it's right to feel so!). I just find it so much more enjoyable to sit down with some guitar music and just play. I'm afraid I might be fooling myself that I'm playing the same level difficulty guitar music as I have trumpet music; I'm feeling like I'm playing something hard - though I haven't played either exceptionally well - and it's a lot easier to make it sound good on guitar than on trumpet. Eh. I can't worry about it either though.
Someone tried to visit our website and it wasn't working. Apparently my little server change didn't work - I reverted back to Brinkster's DNS and now it appears to be working correctly. It's a good thing someone decided to go and check it.
We're parked on a hill and the bus keeps creaking. lol. Kind of scary. Dad says it's the suspension leveling out or something. As long as we don't start rolling. We're parked outside of Christian Assembly Church in Ellwood City, PA. I thought it was a storefront but apparently not. It's a medium sized church in a town of about 7000. So...it's been about four days since we left I guess. We've sung four times. Sunday morning in Olean, NY. I think I already wrote about that one. Then we sang in Little Valley, NY, at Rob and Bette's church. We met a guy by the name of Wes Aurum there; he owns a camp called the Circle C Ranch. He took us up there, showed us the camp and let us play lazer tag! It was so fun. It was surreal; the fog, the lighting, the lazers. The only downside was that I got a headache halfway through the first game; it stuck around until after the concert that night, which was in Yorkshire, NY. We met a family there with eight kids there, they came by the next morning and we had breakfast together in the church. That was a lot of fun too. We exchanged email addresses and that sort of thing. The concert wasn't that great for me, I felt like moaning. The funny thing is that the headaches I usually get (though rarely do I get them) don't hurt as long as I sing, then when I stop the pain just floods through my head and throbs for 30 seconds or so. Then it feels a little better, but it's almost always bearable while I'm actually singing. Of course, the applause that usually occurs directly after singing doesn't help my headache any. But what am I doing complaining? Any headaches I get are few and far in between, thank God.
I think I'm getting lazy. I just don't feel like writing down any deeper thoughts I have. I just feel them. It's as if they're held in a balance so delicate that making the effort to articulate them in words would destroy them. I know that sounds pretty lame, but I can't think of any way to put it. I'm just too lazy to do the work involved in keeping them true on paper. Maybe I'm afraid of what I would write. Afraid of what crazy notions I am grappling with, afraid that I would make a mistake that would prove my folly. But isn't that deception? Am I deceiving myself by holding back from writing whatever comes to mind? Is a man who contrains his tongue considered a liar? Is it what's really inside of me that I don't want to come out, or am I sure in my thought, but unsure that my thought would be universally understood - though certainly not universally agreed upon? I feel a terrible burden to write, but I don't know for what purpose. Or perhaps it is not a burden to write. "A fool delights in airing his own opinions."
Maybe that is why I have been practicing more lately. It's something that I don't have to think of in concrete terms. I need to be reading my Bible more. I feel like I'm drifting a bit - playing the part of the serious musician, owning a fine instrument, talking with musician's terms, playing a few concerts here and there, but not actually putting in the hours and hours of serious practice needed to make it real. I'm still a musician, but I'm far from what I could actually being accomplishing.
I'm at a church in PA as I type.
This afternoon's journal entry:
I finished the book. [Oliver North's autobiography, forgive me for forgetting the title.] It was pretty interesting, I was surprised I didn't lose interest half way through. Also, our CDs came today. It was exciting, but it wasn't anything more than we put into it; just because our music has been recorded and replicated doesn't make it any better. I practiced some yesterday at a truck stop and a walmart. I'm glad I brought my practice mute. I must have looked crazy sitting there with my trumpet and case sitting out there at the side of the bus in the middle of a parking lot. I've been spending a lot more time with guitar I feel bad about it (and I don't know why, or if it's right to feel so!). I just find it so much more enjoyable to sit down with some guitar music and just play. I'm afraid I might be fooling myself that I'm playing the same level difficulty guitar music as I have trumpet music; I'm feeling like I'm playing something hard - though I haven't played either exceptionally well - and it's a lot easier to make it sound good on guitar than on trumpet. Eh. I can't worry about it either though.
Someone tried to visit our website and it wasn't working. Apparently my little server change didn't work - I reverted back to Brinkster's DNS and now it appears to be working correctly. It's a good thing someone decided to go and check it.
We're parked on a hill and the bus keeps creaking. lol. Kind of scary. Dad says it's the suspension leveling out or something. As long as we don't start rolling. We're parked outside of Christian Assembly Church in Ellwood City, PA. I thought it was a storefront but apparently not. It's a medium sized church in a town of about 7000. So...it's been about four days since we left I guess. We've sung four times. Sunday morning in Olean, NY. I think I already wrote about that one. Then we sang in Little Valley, NY, at Rob and Bette's church. We met a guy by the name of Wes Aurum there; he owns a camp called the Circle C Ranch. He took us up there, showed us the camp and let us play lazer tag! It was so fun. It was surreal; the fog, the lighting, the lazers. The only downside was that I got a headache halfway through the first game; it stuck around until after the concert that night, which was in Yorkshire, NY. We met a family there with eight kids there, they came by the next morning and we had breakfast together in the church. That was a lot of fun too. We exchanged email addresses and that sort of thing. The concert wasn't that great for me, I felt like moaning. The funny thing is that the headaches I usually get (though rarely do I get them) don't hurt as long as I sing, then when I stop the pain just floods through my head and throbs for 30 seconds or so. Then it feels a little better, but it's almost always bearable while I'm actually singing. Of course, the applause that usually occurs directly after singing doesn't help my headache any. But what am I doing complaining? Any headaches I get are few and far in between, thank God.
I think I'm getting lazy. I just don't feel like writing down any deeper thoughts I have. I just feel them. It's as if they're held in a balance so delicate that making the effort to articulate them in words would destroy them. I know that sounds pretty lame, but I can't think of any way to put it. I'm just too lazy to do the work involved in keeping them true on paper. Maybe I'm afraid of what I would write. Afraid of what crazy notions I am grappling with, afraid that I would make a mistake that would prove my folly. But isn't that deception? Am I deceiving myself by holding back from writing whatever comes to mind? Is a man who contrains his tongue considered a liar? Is it what's really inside of me that I don't want to come out, or am I sure in my thought, but unsure that my thought would be universally understood - though certainly not universally agreed upon? I feel a terrible burden to write, but I don't know for what purpose. Or perhaps it is not a burden to write. "A fool delights in airing his own opinions."
Maybe that is why I have been practicing more lately. It's something that I don't have to think of in concrete terms. I need to be reading my Bible more. I feel like I'm drifting a bit - playing the part of the serious musician, owning a fine instrument, talking with musician's terms, playing a few concerts here and there, but not actually putting in the hours and hours of serious practice needed to make it real. I'm still a musician, but I'm far from what I could actually being accomplishing.
