Is Rusty Still in the Navy?

Yes, its Christmas Vacation time. And not just the movie, although I still haven't watched that this season... But also for me! I head out bright and early tomorrow morning and fly to Kansas City where some friends will be picking me up and whisking me away, eventually back to Omaha. I'm rather excited to be back and see some friends. I've been down here for a week shy of 9 months now and have only been back to Omaha twice, and neither time really got to spend any time with people.

I'll get some good quality time with my friends and family, including the traditional Christmas at Grandma's where we will more than likely eat dinner in the cold, dark basement, and open gifts, followed by the annual decorating of the Christmas Jeff.

Then Friday afternoon, I fly out to Las Vegas to help watch my niece and nephew. I'll have a Vegas New Year, before flying back to Tulsa on January 4th. Yep. Really looking forward to the next 2 weeks!

I'll try to do some mobile blogging while I'm gone, and who knows, maybe even another Vidcast?

i love you,

dw

Promised Thanksgiving update

Ok, in my last post I said I'd send out another "recap" blog over Thanksgiving and obviously, that didn't happen, so here it is... better late than never.

I'll try to summarize best I can, but I've been keeping myself pretty busy with lots of concerts, live remotes, and a few little projects soon to come at KXOJ.

Back in October, mom and my aunt Rhonda came down for a concert with Michael W. Smith and Steven Curtis Chapman. I'm sure there was another reason they came down, but free tickets didn't hurt. My boss is very close with Steven and Michael, so I really felt like I had the pleasure of meeting a different side of them than most. With Bob there and being backstage, it seemed they both had their "fan guard" down.

From my end, the concert was a big success as well. It was our first experience with the new Spirit Bank Event Center but it was a great one. Especially for me. The deal with them is they take care of most of the finer details as part of the rental price. Those finer details are normally my responsibility so my job was limited to finding merch volunteers. Their merch manager was great working with and I even got to show off a little for him. In talking, he expressed gratitude for finding all the volunteers and said that was not the case for the next night and he was getting a bit worried. Knowing the next night's show was Omaha, I gave him a hand and jumped on my phone. Before long I had 5 volunteers lined up for him. Again, he was thankful.

On to November, and two more concerts! The first, was Creation Festival Tour with Kutless, Thousand Foot Krutch, Pillar plus half a dozen or so more. We also chose to have our "Bible Across America" stop on this day. Zondervan Publishing contacted us a couple months ago and presented this idea to us about a handwritten bible they were putting together. They went from city to city having people come out and sign their very own scripture in the Bible. We got a HUGE response that day with I believe just shy of 600 people over a 6 hour period. This was their largest 6 hr stop and I believe we could have added 100 or so more had they had an additional podium (by the end, the wait was nearly 2 hours in line so many people left). We were also able to get many of the bands to sign, and they were quite excited about it as well.

The concert went well with over 2000 seats sold, which we were pleased with. Tulsa has become very concert saturated and ticket sales overall are way down. Many concerts are being cancelled and if not, the numbers are very low and promoters are losing big. I didn't actually stay for the show because by that point I had been there for 10 hours, but i heard it was awesome.

Mom and dad came down a few days after that for Thanksgiving. Mom made her annual huge Thanksgiving feast which I couldn't eat! I had been going through some back pain that day and by dinner time it was so bad that I had almost no appetite. Plenty of leftovers though! Had a great time with mom and dad that week and we did our annual trip over to the Rhema lights. For my readers who aren't from Tulsa, and aren't familiar, Rhema is a bible college down here that is right across the street. Every Thanksgiving, they begin their annual display which this year includes nearly 2 million lights all over their campus park! Its truly a site. This year, they included a LED display set to music.



Mom and pop left Sunday afternoon, and that night we already had another concert. Casting Crowns was joined by Natalie Grant, Avalon, Michael English, and more for the Christmas Celebration Spectacular or something like that. Before hand, Natalie Grant joined by about 90 listeners went down to John3:16 Mission to do some caroling. Even though it was a little chillly, we had a blast and collected a lot of warm items! You may remember John3:16 Mission from a previous blog.

So far this month has been pretty calm less a lot of remotes. Its Wednesday and i still have 2 more this week, then a concert Saturday night. This concert will be a blast though. TobyMac, Relient K, Family Force 5... I'm excited!

Just 13 days and I fly back to Omaha to see lots of family and friends for Christmas! Then on the 26th, I fly out to Vegas to help my sister and brother-in-law with the kids while they are working. I'll be out there through January 4th, and fly back to Tulsa. I'll do a mega picture post when I return!

Giving Thanks

Wow, has it really been so long since my last blog? My apologies. I've actually had a lot going on, but haven't felt the need to blog about it. I'll try to get in a "recap" blog tomorrow while I'm waiting for mom's delicious Thanksgiving meal to be prepared, but in light of the holidays, there's one particular opportunity I've been blessed to be a part of that I wanted to share with you all in light of the season.

I have a couple stories to share with you to lighten your heart for the holidays.

First off comes from my three year old niece. My sister, Stephanie, was watching the news back in Omaha and saw a story of a family who lost all their stuff in a house fire a month or two ago. Forgive me for not knowing all the whole story, but although thankfully no one died in this fire, the details were enough to bring tears to my sister's eyes. My niece came into the room moments later to find her mother obviously distraught and asked what was wrong. Stephanie told her this family's house caught on fire and now the kids didn't have any toys to play with. Annabelle immediately jumped up and exclaimed "We could give them some of our toys!" and ran over to the toy chest and began pulling things to share. Despite the fact that she pulled only her younger brother's toys aside to giveaway, her heart was still genuine and she continued to ask mommy about it for several days.

The second story is one of my own experience and comes in two parts. There is a local homeless shelter that our radio station supports called John3:16 Mission. We do several things with them throughout the year, but especially around this time of year we make a hard push for donations. The mission supplies a Thanksgiving meal to over 20,000 individuals between a Thanksgiving Banquet at the mission and baskets that are delivered to needy families. A couple weeks ago we were out on remote at a grocery store collecting canned goods and a little boy came up to me and handed me a sac full of cans and gave me a big hug to thank me. I'll admit it was a little awkward, but afterwards, I thought there must have been a good reason this boy was so thankful we were helping the needy. We saw so much generous giving that day including one individual who drove by and saw what we were doing, and went inside specifically to get cans for us. What he came out with was a shopping cart literally filled to the brim with cans of fruits and vegetables. It was great!

The second part of this story happened last week. One of our sales managers let me know that every year, the staff travels down to the mission to serve a meal and tour the facility. The schedule said we would serve the food, and then get a chance to eat before we toured the facility. I have to admit, I was a little nervous to actually eat food that was served at a shelter. It was anything but unnerving! BBQ pork, vegetables, potatoes, salad... a great spread. Probably better than any lunch I'd prepare for myself! These people eat great and its because of people like that generous individual who donated a shopping cart of food! The people we served were so happy to have us there too. It was a gratefulness that reminded me of the people of New Orleans on my visits shortly after the hurricane: even though we weren't necessarily down there to fix their home, our willingness to come down and help others truely touched them. And likewise, these people knew we did nothing to provide the food they were eating. They'd get a hearty meal with or without us there, but our presence just let them know someone out there cared.

My final story is one I actually stumbled upon immediately after starting to write this blog. My friend Anna (you can find her in my blog roll) had a very encouraging experience as well. Rather than retell it, I'll just direct you to her story. Its an awesome one!
http://adetrich.wordpress.com/2008/11/24/i-forgot-to-get-him-a-fork/

So this Thanksgiving, as you gorge yourself in mom's home cooking, eating enough to slip into a tryptophan-enduced coma, give thanks. Not only for the food and lifestyle God has blessed you with, but also for those who have a heart to bless others.

Matthew 25:35 "For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in."

Happy Haloweeeeeeen!

Its that time of year. Where its ok for little kids to take candy for strangers, young women can dress slutty without actually being slutty (or so they think), and I come up with a genius Halloween costume. Who could forget the Bob Ross costume a few years back that won me $1000 at a local radio station's Halloween bash. Or last year's Dancing silhouette from the iPod commercials-man (I still think it was a great costume, despite no one knowing who I was). Well, this year once again, I've thought up a brilliant Halloween costume... Sadly, I have to work that evening and have no where to wear it to. So perhaps next year I will be able to unleash it.

Here's a couple videos to help you this Halloween.


Or perhaps you're looking for a costume that's a bit "crazier"

What really grinds my gears

I'm generally a pretty calm person and don't get upset over much. People ask what my pet peeves are and they are generally pretty minor and even the things that do get on my nerves don't really leave me that upset. But every year, I'm reminded what gets me upset like nothing else... the commercialization of Christmas!

I've got a wedding this weekend for a friend from college, so I'll be making the journey back to Sioux City this weekend and staying in a hotel. I just called the hotel to confirm my reservations and she precedes to put me on hold. Here it is, September 29th... yes SEPTEMBER!!!... and I hear "just hear those sleigh bells jingling, ring-ting tingling too..."!

Don't get me wrong, I love love LOVE the holiday season, including the music, but I hate how it starts earlier and earlier every year. My opinion is that its not to put people in the spirit of Christmas, but to put people in the spirit of buying. I could go on a million tangents with this including my hatred of our desensitization and concern for being P.C. that "Christmas" has become offensive. In fact, once its actually Christmas season, I'll post a transcript of someone else's tangent because they said it much better than I could. I think it was Andy Rooney or maybe Ben Stein.

Anyways, thanks for letting me vent. Merry Christmas.

Happy Independence Day!

So I've got the day off and my sister is out of town, so until tonight, I'll probably spend a majority of the day hanging out at the house. Those who know me know how much I love movies, so I thought I would share my love with you and give you a list of movies to watch to get you in to the spirit of Independence. I'm not much into film noir so some of the older movies that probably should be on this list (Yankee Doodle Dandy[1942], or Stars and Stripes Forever[1952]) won't be. If you have your favorite Independence Day movie, leave it in a comment!


The Sandlot[1993]

New to the neighborhood, Scotty Smalls seeks the friendship of a team of outcasts who meet at the local sandlot to play baseball every day. The team star, Benny Rodriguez teaches him how to play and Smalls becomes an integral part of the team, as well as part of this group of friends.

To me, this is one of those great American movies that everyone should see. I've come to love baseball over the last couple of years and the themes of the game, comradery, and responsibility make this a great movie. The standout scene for me, and the reason its on my 4th of July pick list, is the one that takes place on Independence Day. You hear a Ray Charles rendition of America the Beautiful playing over scenes of a neighborhood celebration and the kids playing baseball. The fireworks start and all the kids just forget all about the game and just stare up wide-eyed and mystified at the fireworks.


Rocky[1975]

Rocky Balboa, a second-rate boxer, is offered the opportunity to fight the world heavyweight champion, Apollo Creed, for a shot at the title.

Why is this a Fourth of July pick? Well, the title-fight takes place in Philidelphia on the 4th. That and Apollo Creed's Uncle Sam outfit and American flag shorts. Rocky is a great underdog story that you also get to see two guys beat the crap out of each other.


National Treasure[2004]

Ben Gates has spent his whole life searching for a treasure that has been passed down through the centuries and hidden by our fore-fathers over 200 years ago. After also becoming a fugitive from the FBI, he puts his whole career and life on the line to find the treasure.

This movie makes a great pick because of the historical figures and locations about our nations history that are weaved in to the plot line. As a friend of mine said after living in DC for a few months, "I felt like I was living the National Treasure movie."


Independence Day[1996]

When aliens invade and are intent on destruction and domination, Captain Steven Hiller and scientist, David Levinson may be the only hope. After Hiller is able to bring one of the alien crafts down and Levinson is able to crack the alien countdown their knowledge may save the world and make the 4th of July and Independence Day for the world to share.

The title alone should make this movie holiday worthy. The countdown to the end of the world ends on July 4th so when they save the day and destroy the aliens (sorry if i spoiled it because I'm sure you didn't see that coming) Independence Day takes on a new meaning, and not just for the US, but for the whole world.


Thats all for my movie picks. Here's something to end this blog of freedom on. Thanks to joMAMA for pointing me in the direction of this video. God bless America.

What really grinds my gears

I haven't written a blog in a while, so I thought it was about time. Sorry that I'm going to start it out by venting a little, but this just has to be said - It is November 12th and there is absolutely no reason for Christmas decorations yet... excuse me, I mean "Holiday" decorations since apparently Christmas is offensive. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Christmas and everything about it; the decorations, the music, the Church Christmas programs - just not in the middle of November! Are we forgetting Thanksgiving? A time when we can be thankful for everything we are blessed with. People bicker so much about all the things that are wrong with this nation and what it stands for, they forget that there is so much that is great about it as well, and then the one day we should take a step back and give thanks for everything gets burried in the commercialization of the Holiday Spirit.

Anyways, things are going great. I interviewed for a job last Friday, and for any of my co-workers reading this, don't start spreading rumors... its still with the same hotel I'm at, just a better position. For the sake of not looking foolish if I don't get it, I'm going to save the details for a later blog, but I will say, it is something a little more related to my field of study, and would give total validation to why I've spent nearly 2 years in hospitality after leaving school, when all I've wanted to do is radio and promotions. The good news is, I still love my current job so if I don't get it, it wouldn't be the end of the world, but I would probably start seeing what else is out there for me.

I think what bothers me most about my job is my inability to have a life. I'm really wanting to get more involved with a church in Omaha, but I don't want to commit to something I wouldnt' be able to follow through with. Right now my only guaranteed time off is Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings, which is spent leading music at my church, and right now, its just not something I want to give up. I want to try to find something for other nights of the week that I can regularly attend.

Hopefully I'll find more info on this job tomorrow and then maybe I'll have a new blog to post in the next few weeks... until then...

Thanks fer bein my friend,
David