The Gaither Homecoming was really good.  I'm not necessarily a big fan of southern gospel music, but I can certainly appreciate good music from the genre.  There were around 30 legends in southern gospel music there, and it was amazing to be right there to the side of the stage.  As each musician would sing their own songs, the others would back them up off stage.  The stage was shaped like plus sign, so everything was wide open.  We performed two of our choir's songs in addition to singing backup on two Gaither Vocal Band songs.  Sitting so close to these musicians and hearing them perform gave me a new respect for them.  They put every American Idol performance I've ever seen to shame.  I guess that makes sense, because these people have been performing for years and years... Not a single bad note all night, and the pitch was impeccable.  It was a real honor even just to sing backup with my 20 fellow choir members.

Sunday I had to come into work at 3am for a production certification.  I turned around quickly in my chair while I was talking to someone, and I hit my knee incredibly hard on the edge of a metal cabinet.  Sunday afternoon the wind blew the door of my Jeep out of my hands (and into the same knee), and today I hit the same knee yet again on a sharp edge underneath a table in our conference room.  I'll be surprised if I can still walk by the end of the week, considering I've hurt the same knee 3 times in 3 days.  :-)

The dryer timer came in, and I installed it.  There were literally around 12 different wires that had to be plugged into it, but I set up everything right and it's now working.

I found out this week that I'm going to get to sing in the background choir for Bill Gaither at the FedEx Forum a week from Thursday.  They're only allowing members of the Bellevue Pit Choir to sign up, since they need 60 and our choir has well over 300 members.  We'll only be singing the chorus of two songs, but it will still be a neat experience.

I got a phone call yesterday asking me to be on the praise team at church tonight. Generally they get people that will do it on Wednesday as well as both Sunday services. Since I'm in the engaged couples' class at Bellevue at 11:00am every Sunday, I can't do one of the Sunday services. Since they prefer people that can do all three services, I knew that meant I wouldn't be on any praise teams until after I got back from the honeymoon. I guess I was wrong. I confirmed that they remembered I won't be there Sunday, but they still want me to sing tonight. :-)

On a side note, only 31 days until the big one. ;-)

Tonight is the meeting with a lady at church that will approve all of our music for the reception. I'll be playing it through my iPod at the reception, so I'm just going to bring that to her. That reminds me... I need to call Alison and ask her to pick up my regular headphones when she's at my house this afternoon (because I really don't want to share my earbud headphones with a random person.)

The wedding is in exactly two months (59 days). :-)

I got my music last night for the J & J Music Conference. In case you've never heard of it, J & J is a giant catalog of choir music. They throw multiple conferences across the United States each year, and choir directors come from miles around to see the music that will be available this year. This year Memphis has been selected to do Easter music, and the Bellevue Pit Choir will be doing Redemption: The Power of the Cross (A Praise and Worship Easter). There is a lot of familiar new music on it, and a very cool Latin rendition of Awesome God. :-) They gave us the books and CD so that we can learn the stuff I've ripped it into iTunes so that I can listen at work as well as in my car without having to cart the CD around. We'll be performing in mid-January, and it should be a lot of fun.

Some people were having problems with the codec used on the AVI file, so I've re-encoded it as a QuickTime file. You can get to my music page here. You need to be using the latest version of the QuickTime player to view the file, since it uses H.264, AAC encoding. Get the QuickTime player here.

I finally got the DVD today of my most recent duet (September 28th.) You can get it from my Music page. The file is 16.6MB, and should play in any player capable of handling MPEG4 (like Windows Media Player). It's better than the last duet, and is my favorite one so far. This is the duet that we got 1 day's notice on, and didn't actually practice together until the sound check that night. :-)

I just received a phone call from the music office at Bellevue. They want me to be on the up-front praise team this Sunday morning. What does this mean? I'll be one of probably 6 people singing up front with my own mic for the song service in both services (meaning I'll be on TV worldwide the following week.) Pretty cool, huh?

The duet went well last night. Unfortunately, Alison didn't make it there until right after I was done singing. Oh well, there is always the DVD I guess. It will take a couple of months to get it, but I'll likely post it here once I get it ripped.

I've been back on Weight Watchers for almost three weeks, and I've lost 5 lbs. Emily was right... I feel a lot less motivated the second time around. I won't feel like I'm losing weight for real until I get down 10 lbs or so. Ever since I started, I've been seriously hungry all day at work. I've started eating crinkle-cut carrots in salsa, chewing gum, and drinking diet drinks to keep myself busy so I don't eat. It looks like I had grown accustomed to snacking all day at work...

Alison and I will likely be going to the fair sometime this weekend. She has never been to the Mid-South Fair, and I want to take her soon so that she doesn't have to wait until next year. We'll probably either go Friday or Saturday.

Marisa and I picked a duet for tonight. We're going to do "Above All" (most recently performed by Michael W. Smith on his Worship album.) I'll be singing the melody, and Marisa will get the harmony (because the sheet music we have is too high for her the other way around.) The service starts at Bellevue at 6:30, but we won't be singing until closer to 7. Alison gets off work at 6:30, so I'm hoping she can make it on time. Anyway, I'm a little nervous that Marisa and I haven't practiced together yet, but I feel that we'll be able to pull it together in the end. :-P

I just got a call from Marissa. In case you don't know who she is (and I doubt any of you do), she is the one I sang the duet with on my Music page. Anyway, Dr. Whitmire (the Minister of Music at Bellevue) had his secretary call her and tell her that she needed to sing a duet with me tomorrow night. We don't have anything prepared, so we're going to go over things tonight. If all else fails, we'll probably just repeat the last one we did...

I just recorded myself singing for the first time in quite a while. This one is different from all the others in that you can actually hear me singing... :-P Anyway, I didn't use any special effects other than vocal reverb, so it's basically just me and my guitar. Take a look at my music page or just download it directly here:
Holy is the Lord (3.2 MB)