ON A MORE PERSONAL NOTE

Heather Cosby tagged me to share this with all of you so, here goes...

4 things I was doing 10 years ago:

1- Working at Vineyard Music Group - Yes, I was hired on as their Wholesale Music Sales Director. It was one of the best jobs I've ever had and that entire experience was still one of the best seaons of my life. I loved VMG, I loved working with a "dream team" that included Dave Hackbarth, Jeff Searles, Brock Shinen, Lee Swope, Paul Martin, Brian Eichler and Chris Wimber. Chris was one of the best bosses I've ever worked for and I know there are those who would laugh if they read this because he wasn't really a great manager per se, but for me Chris excelled at envisioning his executive staff and empowering them to succeed. His funeral was one of the most amazing and signifcant events in my life.

2- Recording the Elysian Skies Cd, "Exquisite Whisper" - It was one of my lifelong dreams to record at the amazing Green Room in Huntington Beach. My friend and guitarist John Wahrmund and I wrote songs through the mail and my friend J.J. Plasencio (the bassist for "Sixpence None The Richer" at the time, and later "Plumb") agreed to produce our Cd. My friends Bill Scmidt and John Feiery joined us and the amazing Andy Prickett ("The Prayer Chain") engineered our recording and even played a guitar solo on our first track. My wife Wendy even sang background vocals on a couple of tracks too, which was very, very special to me. It took us almost two years to record, mix, master and manufacture the Cd, but it got great reviews over at the Phantom Tollbooth and True Tunes and our track "Digg" even ended up on a sampler called "Sparkler" which was distributed via Metro One Records. I think a few radio stations played "Digg" here and there, and a few of our songs ended up on the soundtrack for an indie film "When Love Walks In" too. Anyway, I am pretty proud of that Cd and once in a while I still listen to it and say, "Dang…we put out a really awesome Cd, didn’t we?" Yes, we did.

One of the biggest highlights for me was mixing the CD with the amazing Gene Eugene. He died soon after this and I will forever be grateful for those days I spent next to Gene. He blessed me and I was blessed to know him.

*Read the PT review


3- My son David was born. He's such a blessing to us. David is one of the only people I know who actually has all five of the "Love Languages" --Physical touch, Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Gifts and Quality Time are all important to David. He's the most loving person I know, other than my wife, and I am so very blessed to be his Dad.

4- Trying to publish my poetry. My senior year in college I wrote a series of poems on grief and loss called "Wintermoon and Coffeestain". I had attempted to submit my poetry to various magazines and come up empty. For a while there I had a British publishing house interested in the collection but then it fell apart. Oh well. Maybe I'll self-publish my poems through Lulu.com someday? Hmm….

4 things on my to-do list for today:

My HOME To-Do List:
1- Make plans to celebrate my 19th Wedding Anniversary with Wendy this weekend.
2- Re-install the OS on my laptop in hopes of eradicating a nasty virus which will not die and has now caused my computer to slow to a crawl.
3- Help my sons clean up their book-case in their room and separate out all the Baby Books which need to go into storage or get donated to charity.
4- Take a shower.

My WORK To-Do List:
1- Finish the Services E-Newsletter for October
2- Finish the Prevalent E-vite copy with new input
3- Finish the Marketing Services website copy
4- Finish the Hosted DRM End-User flyer copy

4 random things I love about my wife:
1- She's the most loving person I know. When we were dating in college she and I visited a local Nursing Home and I was in awe at the way she stopped to look each person in the eye, spend time with them and give them a real hug. I was instantly in love with her and I still am today.

2- She has the ability to speak words of wisdom to me when I need to hear them most.

3- She talks me out of stupid ideas and helps keep me from becoming a raging radical out in left field.

4- She still loves me after spending 19 years with me and seeing how shallow and selfish and petty I am.

4 jobs that I have had
1- Domino Pizza Delivery Driver- Lasted one week, I think. I couldn't get the pizzas there in 30 minutes so I ended up paying for them out of my meager paycheck. Plus my car, an awesome '67 Camaro, sucked gasoline mucho fierce so all my money went to buy gas.

2- Door-to-door "Rainbow" Salesman- It was a water-based vacuum-cleaner (my Mom still uses hers and loves it) and the sales exeprience helped me later in my career, but it was basically a scam. The only other good thing out of this job was meeting Lee (Hammar) Davis, one of my oldest and dearest friends who ended up being one of my groomsmen when I married Wendy.

3- UPS - First I was unloading the trailer trucks into the distribution center and onto the belts. I remember sweating like a pig and begging God to help me live long enough to finish the first truck. When I saw the back of the trailer I was so relieved. At least until my manager came into the truck, lifted up the floorboards and showed me the 900 boxes hidden in the lower compartment. I wanted to die after that. Soon I was moved to the belts, loading up the brown trucks for delivery. Hated that job.

4- Youth Pastor - I remember telling God that it was like using a hammer to drive nails. I was the wrong tool for that specific job, but God blessed those kids (and me) anyway. Good experience for me. Never want to do that again though.

4 movies I have watched more than once:

1- Blade Runner- I think I have probably seen this movie close to 200 times. I own all 3 versions of the film, including the recent boxed set which included the workprint edition and the deleted scenes and the 8 hours of extras and documentaries. I have read the book it's based on "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick (one of my fave authors) three times. I have read the book on the making of the film "Future Noir" by Paul M. Sammon twice and I own the soundtrack. Yes, I am obsessed with this film.

2- Fight Club - Can't help how much I love this film. Read the book too. I might watch it again before the end of this year.

3- It's A Wonderful Life - I cry everytime I watch this .Everytime. Never fails to bless me.

4- Elf - I keep showing it to my friends to share it with them. "Did you hear THAT?!" Oh yeah.

**Bonus:
5- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - Such an amazing film. It makes me thankful for my life and my friends and especially my wife. A true work of inspired genius.

6- Monty Python and the Holy Grail - Say no more.

7- Brazil - Another work of prophetic and creative genuis. Watch this film and marvel at how our modern media and culture mirror the one in this film. Amazing stuff.

8- Children of Men - Powerful stuff. The "one scene" where the baby literally brings peace is poignant in the extreme. Wow.

9- Hotel Rwanda

10- Gattaca

11- The Incredibles.

4 places I have lived:
1- Eagle Pass, Tx.
2- Bloomington, Indiana
3- El Paso, Tx
4- Huntington Beach, Ca

4 places I have been: (most memorable places I’ve been)
I am not a traveller by any means so this is not such an impressive list:

1- Grand Canyon- Took a helicopter trip into the canyon itself and split the "tuning fork" formation. Awesome.
2- Juarez and Tijuana, Mexico - Go once. Never forget it.
3- Brownsville, Fl - The big revival back in the 90's. I got to hang with Lindell Cooley and his wife and team for two days. Great experience.
4- Homeless- My family has spent the night sleeping on the floor several times over the last 10 years, thanks to the charity of our friends. Thankfully it never lasted longer than a week each time, but it really puts your life into perspective when your family literally has no place to call "Home".

4 places I want to visit:
1- Israel
2- England
3- Hawaii
4- Africa

4 TV shows I watch:
1- Joan of Arcadia - Never had any desire to watch this when it was on the air but thanks to the magic of DVD (and the charity of my friend Liz) my family is falling in love with this awesome show. God is allowed to say things on this show that blow my mind- and it's the heart of God for His people. Amazing.

2- Battlestar Galactica - Again, you'd probably never guess it, but this show has shown things about the heart of God and the nature of religion versus genuine spirituality that blow me away. It's not kid-friendly by any means, but the power of showing a flawed character asking for forgiveness, or laying hands on a dying child and asking God to heal him (and God does), etc. is very, very awesome.

3- Lost- I know, you either love it or hate it but I so, so, LOVE it! When it finally ends I hope they leave us with more questions than answers. I really do not want them to wrap it all up into a neat bow.

4- House- The best character on TV now is the guy you love to hate. They've had some very powerful shows about God as well.
**Bonus

5- The Fringe - I love sci-fi and this show has some promise.

4 things you may not know about me:

1- I've seen Elvis in concert. At the age of 9 I saw him with my parents in San Antonio, Tx. He died less than a year later. I still have the ticket stub.

2- I've been shot at.

3- I was nearly shot dead at a minimum security prison (different occasion).

4- Some of my favorite bands are "Rage Against the Machine", "Duran, Duran" and "Johnny Cash". Shoot me.

TAG 4 PEOPLE
*Lionel
*Heather Wright
*Keith Seckel
*Crissy Brooks

-kg