It's log

It's log. It's log. It's big. It's heavy. It's wood. It's log. It's
log. It's better than bad. It's good.

-chris

Moo!!!

Moo is right.


It's for fun.







-Chris

Something new

So this week I started a new project. This project revolves around a department and discipline that I am interested in, but don't have as much experience in as lighting. VIDEO!!! I am getting a chance to work with an audio company on a touring broadway show. Much fun.
I have a good bit of knowledge on most of the gear, but video walls are a bit new to me.

What's cool about this show is that everything runs through a media server. All cameras are controlled through the media server. So the lighting console has complete control over everything video. There is no director sitting at a mixer, heck there isn't even a tech that will travel with the show. All the cameras have automated pan/tilt that can be programmed into the show. If you are a production manager on a upcoming tour I am working on be ready for me to want to do this:)



I am getting the chance to learn about video wall mechanics and it is great. The system I am working with acts a lot like DMX addressing so it's pretty familiar to me. We will mount them in large metal roll around racks and that's how they will travel and be used in the show. Pretty cool.


I also get to play with some fun toys that I have been excited to see in action.


All in all this has been a great experience so far. I am eager to get back to my friends next weekend, but I am going to enjoy the ride.


I feel like I bragged a bit, but I am pretty excited about this.


-Chris

Fatherhood

I wanted to list a few things about parenting that I was reluctant to do or go along with at first, but now consider to be normal. As a matter of fact, I don't think I can see us not doing these things.
**a note** I am in no way trying to tell anyone how or what to do. I just want to share my experiences. Because knowledge is power!

Natural birth:

Before Elijah was born and even before we knew we were having an Elijah, Brandy wanted to have a natural birth experience. This is not an entirely uncommon thing now a days. Brandy didn't want a partially natural birth, she wanted 100% natural. For her, this meant not in a hospital. This freaked me out. Many thoughts went through my head about how this was not a great idea. "The closest hospital is 30 minutes away?", "If labor starts and Brandy decides the pain is too much we can't stop the labor", "insurance doesn't cover this", and "the birth happens in a cabin on a place called 'The Farm'?" You know, the usual:) I of course supported my wife and we began the process of having Elijah at "The Farm". The process:

• All prenatal appointments were up in TN. This was over 2 hours from our home.
• We really didn't have the support of a local OBGYN because most won't see you if you are not having your child with them.
• Insurance would not cover this birth. We had to put money away for the birth.
• Our delivery room was a "birthing cabin" on property at The Farm. One room downstairs with a single bed upstairs (for guests/midwife during labor). We had to pack our vehicle for a long camp trip and plan on bringing back a new family member when we came home.

The labor was long and tough (mostly on Brandy), but baby Elijah was brought into this world with zero incident. I was so impressed with how much knowledge these woman (midwives) had. I never stopped to fully appreciate how delivering 2,000 + babies on The Farm could give you so much experience. Both Elijah was born fully alert. He was cleaned off, checked out, and given to us. We then, all of us, took a nice well deserved family nap.
If and when baby number two happens I will be more than happy to have that child at The Farm or a similar place if God allows that to happen.

Cloth diapers:

This was something I never thought of in a bad light, but was a little worried about the um... practice of using them. Modern cloth diapers are not the same thing as our grand parents or maybe even our parents used. They come in so many different styles and colors and are really very cleverly designed. I think we own three different brands of cloth diapers along with a hand full of the traditional "pre fold" diapers. The selling point for me was that you don't throw away a cloth diaper. The practice of using these things has been much easier then I had thought. In Elijah's almost two years on this earth we have maybe used a pack of "standard diapers". I will admit that there were and are times that we need to use a regular diaper, but those times don't happen that often.
It turns out that using cloth diapers is pretty easy. We have even taken them on long trips.

Baby signs:
Baby signs are awesome. I do highly recommend these to new parents. If you don't know what it is, it's basically very simplified American Sign Language. Elijah can speak now, but he knew and used over 40 different signs. It was great knowing what he was thinking about and what he wanted even at 5 or 6 months old. It sure cut down on crying because we could respond to his needs quicker.
In the early months I did think to myself that Elijah would never pick up on all these signs we were doing, but boy did he.




Co Sleeping:
This was another practice that I was reluctant to at first. Co sleeping, also known as the family bed, is the practice of sleeping with your child. I was assured by my wife that it was a common thing throughout the world. My fears ranged from me rolling onto the baby to just plain not wanting a baby in the bed all the time. I believe we did agree to use a convertable cradle that one side could lower. The cradle would sit along side the bed on the mothers side. That was our middle ground. For one reason or the other we never got that special cradle. In Elijahs early months we had to use a small "baby holder" so that he wouldn't roll onto his tummy. I joke with Brandy that I have gotten very comfortable sleeping on the edge of the bed:) If nothing else, co sleeping has been great for Brandy because she doesn't have to get up in the middle of the night to feed Elijah (breast feed). Now I can't imagine bed time without Mr. Elijah. I will say that when the day comes when Elijah wants a "big boy bed" I will be ready:)


This blog was written not only to share my experiences, but to (hopefully) encourage people to give new things a try. There are plenty of things, parenting wise, that have not worked for our family. Brandy has been instrumental in all of this. She is the one who does the research and educates me. I maybe a reluctant father at times, but I have a wonderful partner to help push me along.


-Chris

This guy....

(Edit: It is actually impossible to see him, because the photo did not email correctly)

Its hard to see him, but this guy is a jerk.

And I quote "I am talking calmy. I am trying not to yell and contain myself"

He is angry because he had to wait fit his food longer then he felt he needed to. He was being, in my opinion, very rude. He was surrounded by many young children at his table. What a great role model.

Somebody is always watching

-Chris

Fun in the dark

Question-
What does my son do when we let him take a flashlight to bed?

Answer-
Not go to sleep.

Elijah loves to play with flashlights. He will walk around the house
"looking" at everything using the flashlight, even inside my eyes.

I miss him.

-Chris

Early

Usually the words Waffle House and 5:00 a.m have a different meaning
for me. By that I mean usually I choose whether or not to be at a
Waffle House at 5:00 a.m or not, usually not.

Dumb bus driver......

- chris

Air travel

I don't get to fly a lot, but when I do I enjoy it. This morning the
band bus dropped me off at the Knoxville airport because I have a show
today in South Carolina with another artist. This airport is small,
bit pretty darn fancy. For examlple, the hallway leading up to
security and gates has a stream that runs down the center. Complete
with big fake rocks and mini rapids.
I don't think of flying as a negative experience. I do not love the
fuel situation, but hopefully we as a people will take this issue more
serously and really start to develop alternative fuels more actively
then we are now. Anyway, the security lines don't really bother me,
nor do the rules. Its not really that big of a deal to just check
things you can't bring on the plane. Right?
Flying still feels kind of magical to me. Is that the best word, I
don't know? I mean you are flying in a giant metal tube with wings.
That's pretty neat. I assure you I don't say oooo and ahhhh when I see
or get on a plane, but I respect the intelligence that has gone into
powered flight. Fun.

PS-
I would like to dedicate this blog to Carter and Jeff who have said
that I do not blog frequently enough. I agree with that statement.

-chris

Don't be that guy....

A brief rant.

Don't be that guy....

The guy who doesn't wait with the rest of us to get off or on the interstate, but who drives right up to the off/on ramp and "nudges" his way in line.

The guy who circles around the Target parking lot for five minutes to find a "close" parking spot, when you would have saved about three minutes if you just took that "not so close" parking spot. Bad weather excluded.

love,

-Snooch

It is about to rain

I am sitting here eating my lunch and looking out the window. It is
close to raining. I really like the look of everything right before a
good rainstorm. Its almost like everything has to work extra hard to
stand out because of the gloomy light being cast everywhere.

-chris

Eye candy

Red rover red rover, send the green guy right over.









Little did Santa know it, but his life was about to change forever.










-Chris

I have an addiction...

.....to USB flash drives. As you can see I have many thumb drives. I don't know why. To be fair I don't discard any when I "upgrade" to larger sized drives. What do I do with the ones that I don't really need anymore. Everytime I am at Target or Best Buy or whatever I always think "boy, that's a great deal on a 2GB flash drive. I need to get that".

I do keep them organized a little bit as you can see by the Hog 3 label.


This is how I carry all of my drives around. Soon I might need to get another one.










-Chris

I am also in a meeting about blogging

Carter and I are in a meeting about blogging. It is fun.

-Chris

Fun times

This last Sunday my wife, my mother-in-law, my father-in-law, and I went to the Nashville Zoo with some good friends of mine. We met Carter and his family along with Darren and his family.

After meeting up at the front of the park we all set out to look at some animals. Carter and Katie brought a wagon for their kids, but let Elijah use it too. That was very nice of them.




It was great seeing Elijah have fun with the older children. They really played nicely with our little guy. It was especially great considering Elijah is so much smaller and slower. We did fall behind a few times, but Elijah had a great time just wondering around the paths looking at grass and speakers and stuff. I still don't think he is at the age where he notices the big animals, but he had a great time.


We stopped for lunch at one of the best stocked park cafeterias I have seen. They had a lot of different choices for us vegetarians. After lunch the older kids wanted to spend the rest of the day playing at the playground that was on site. Brandy and I had no problem with that since we were there for Elijah anyway. He (we) had a great time in the play area. There is this large padded room that toddlers can just run around in. Elijah got to play with a lot of new little friends. Elijah and I went down this very tall slide that was at the top of the main play structure in the play area. A small four year old asked me not to "run him over....because I am only 4 and you will hurt me". Cute kid.

It was a great day all around. Thanks again to all the older kids. They helped make it the great day that it was.

-Chris

It is no secret that I enjoy playing with toys at FOH.  My wife and I joke that my son Elijah and I will have to fight over toys when he gets older.  I don't know about that, but I figured I would post some pictures of some of my toys "in action".

The FOH Rangers

Here our rangers are attempting to run the show.  They didn't quite make it to the 'go' button, so I had to help them out a little bit.

This guys is so in love with the trackball

Putting good use to those muscley arms.....

Hope you all enjoyed looking at my toys.  More to come (hopefully).

-Chris

FYI

I like the new Starbucks cups.  I think they look nice.

-Chris

What a day

If you read any of my fellow crew members blogs then you know that we are at Liberty University today.  Hooray.  It's not that this is a terrible venue, it's that it's the wrong venue.  We brought in a portable roof system to hang our show.  They do this for anybody who needs to hang something in their arena.  This roof system messed with my day a good bit (for some good photos check out Culmer's Thoughts).  As it turns out Carter had a much worse day then I did so I can't complain too much.  The show is in the air and everything is working.  I can't ask for much more than that.

The good side to this day is that it's almost over.  Hooray!

-Chris

A cleaning date

This last week ,while I was home, the wife and I had our date night.
We decided to not go to the movies or out to dinner, but stay at home
and clean a little. This ended up being a really great date night.
As a young parent I am learning that the simple things like mopping
the floor can be a difficult task with a scampering 16 month old
around. We have time to keep things straightened up, but cant really
"deep clean" as much. Playing with Elijah is far more important then
dusting or cleaning a window anyway!
We don't know what it was about just cleaning, but it put us both in a
great mood. Oddly enough we each worked in different areas of the
house so we actually didn't see to much of eachother. We did get to go
out for a quick bite with some friends and that was great too.
If you are tired of the movies and bored with going to dinner, try
staying home and cleaning. You might find it to be a lot of fun.

-Chris

From FOH

Mobile style!

A sad beginning

I set this thingy dingy up last weekend, but have yet to post a blog.  This is my sad beginning.  It may have been short, but it had you all glued to your seats.

Chris