Category Archives: Personal

Nov 07

I’d love to live on a mountain top

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It’s been a stressful week or two, for reasons I can’t really go into here, and I have to admit that one of my coping mechanisms when I start to feel anxiety and I’m not in a position to do anything productive at that moment has been to daydream about being someplace else.

The past few days, that someplace else has been Camp Cumberland Pines, near Altamont, Tenn.

My Sunday School teacher was out of town this past weekend. The previous week, he announced he’d be gone, but the question of who exactly would fill in for him was left up in the air. When I agreed late in the week to take the job, I asked if it would be OK for me to show some of my video from Mountain T.O.P. Adults In Ministry last summer. I think – I hope – the class enjoyed it. I showed this Summer Plus video:

I did not show my Kaleidoscope video. Instead, I showed the official camp slide show from the Kaleidoscope week, because it also included shots of the home repair projects. My video, of course, pretty much includes only places or programs where I was present to take video (or hand the camera to someone else). I wanted the class to see the home repair projects, because I’m still hoping to take a few more from church with me when I go back to Mountain T.O.P., God willing, next summer.

Anyway, completely unrelated to my Sunday School class, a member of our outreach committee asked me to send him some information about the program; he knows I’m looking to take a group next summer and would like to go.

I thought I’d share with you what I wrote him, in case maybe anyone who reads this blog is looking to spend a week next summer in intense Christian community doing good things for people who need them. I guarantee you’ll get more out than you put in.

Here’s the Mountain T.O.P. Adults In Ministry information you wanted.

Continue reading →

Oct 27

Danette

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We just had an all-employee huddle here at the newsroom to mark the passing last night of Danette Williams, of our display ad composition department. The publisher made a few remarks and then I had the sad honor of leading a brief prayer.

Danette was soft-spoken and even-tempered, but had a wonderful sweet spirit. She had survived breast cancer many years back, and I remember her concern when my mother had breast cancer and then later when she had the pancreatic cancer that took her life.

As the publisher noted, Danette was a woman of incredible faith, even during her illness. We have missed having her here among us during her illness, and now our hearts are crushed at losing her altogether.

Please keep her family in your prayers.

Oct 22

Rhapsodic

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Earlier this year, I was the lead in a play. One of the joys of being in that play was getting to meet the talented Sharon Kay Edwards. Sharon and I had a very funny scene together in the play that involved me behaving towards her in a way I wouldn’t normally behave towards a woman, and she got tickled at seeing my discomfort.

Well, tonight, Sharon – a gifted mezzo-soprano – gave a free concert in Shelbyville along with Nate Strasser, the wunderkind pianist-organist at First Presbyterian Church (where the concert was held). I was scared that I wouldn’t feel up to going because of the cold, but I’ve been feeling better today, and I’m so incredibly glad I went to the concert. It was exactly what I needed. I’ve been down this week – stressed out in addition to under the weather – and this was the perfect pick-me-up.

The first half of the concert focused on show tunes – Sharon sang “They All Laughed” by the Gershwins, “You’ve Got A Friend In Me,” “How Deep Is The Ocean,” a scorching version of “At Last,”  and “For Good.” Nate played a medley of Broadway tunes and also did a great little bit where he had different audience members call out notes, and he arranged the notes into a little melody and then, using his tool kit of flourishes, turned the melody into a shockingly-beautiful song.

The second half of the program included a lot of sacred music. Nate took three hymn requests and made them into a medley. One of the hymns was “His Eye Is On The Sparrow,” which was my mother’s favorite and which now has special meaning to my siblings, my father and me. Sharon sang the most incredible, no-holds-barred version of “How Great Thou Art” I think I’ve ever heard. She also sang “The Lord’s Prayer” and a piece (in French) by Camille Saint-Saens from an opera about Samson and Delilah.

Nate was supposed to close the program with an original compostion on the organ, but it turns out the sound board had to be set up in such a way he couldn’t get to the organ. Good news for me, because instead he played an abbreviated version of one of my all-time favorites, “Rhapsody In Blue,” on the piano.

The encore was “The Girl In 14G,” a piece written for Kristin Chenoweth which Sharon also performed each night prior to our play last spring.

It was a complete success – a wonderful evening of music that I think would have been worth a high-dollar ticket in Nashville. And it was free! (There was a donation bucket.)

Oh, and by the way, did I mention that at the same time Sharon was preparing for this concert, she’s also in another play right now? And she’s a mother of two? I have no idea how she does it.

I sat in the back of the sanctuary, afraid that I might start coughing and have to slip out. (Thankfully, no.) Martin Jones, a pressman at the Times-Gazette who was a castmate of Sharon’s and mine in the spring, came in and sat in the same pew. Our director, Wes Campbell, was also there. Wes and Martin are both in the play Sharon’s in right now at Duck River Restaurant. They’ve got one more weekend of shows.

What a wonderful evening. I am so glad I didn’t miss it.

Oct 16

A sneak preview

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OK. The audio is still a little rough — I’m still learning how to make the software and the hardware play nice together — but this will give you an idea of what the podcast I keep talking about would be like. Please give it a listen and tell me what you think.

Oct 15

BarCamp addendum

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When Staeven Frey was talking about brand marketing, one of the rhetorical questions he asked the audience was how many had an iPhone or iPad, and then how many of the rest ever felt intimidated by not having one.

Well, I was really intimidated at BarCamp. It seemed everyone had a tablet or at least a really nice smartphone. I stopped by one of the vendor booths and they had a giveaway going for two AppleTV boxes. I didn’t enter – in part, because I don’t have the infrastructure to use AppleTV right now, but also because of my crummy phone.

You see, the giveaway involved posing for a photo with some camping equipment which the vendor had brought and set up next to its booth, and then tweeting it with the vendor’s hashtag.

“Just hand me your smartphone, and I’ll take the photo,” said the helpful fellow at the booth.

Well, the smartphone I tore up six weeks ago would have, in theory, been able to post such a photo. The unlocked, out-of-date smartphone I ended up buying to replace it has a camera, but every time I’ve tried to use it to upload a photo to Facebook the camera has crashed. And it’s not even 3G, and I don’t have TwitPic set up on it yet, and so it would have taken me 10 minutes just to get the phone set up to upload a photo to Twitter, and even then I’m not sure it would have done so without crashing.

I mumbled something about how maybe I’d come back and enter the contest later, and wandered off to my next session.

Oct 15

My letter home from camp

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I had a great day today at BarCamp Nashville. For the uninitiated, BarCamps – which are now held at various cities around the world – are informal technology “unconferences” that are generally free to attend, with a relaxed atmosphere. Although some of the speakers and sessions are announced ahead of time, there are also chances for anyone who shows up to propose and lead a small breakout session. Sharing and social networking are encouraged, and each session has its own Twitter hashtag, so you can comment and see what other people are saying even while you’re sitting in a session.

The conferences are often held at relaxed, alternative locations like nightclubs. The name “bar” ties in with this but actually comes from the computer programmer term “foobar,” from the acronym “FUBAR,” which I will sanitize as “fouled up beyond all recognition.” There was a conference called “FooCamp,” named for Friends Of [Tim] O’Reilly, an open source software guru. When some people couldn’t get into “FooCamp,” they decided to start their own informal conference as an alternative, and called it “BarCamp.”

I attended the first two Nashville BarCamps – the first at the Exit/In, the second in the meeting rooms beneath Bridgestone Arena, but I’ve had one conflict or another with the event for the past several years. The event is now held at Cadillac Ranch, a nightclub on Broadway.

Because of corporate sponsors, a small army of dedicated volunteers, and income from lunch and the bar, there’s no admission charge, and you even get a free T-shirt and tote bag. Various sponsors had vendor booths as well.

The formal sessions I attended included one of the use of Twitter in education, one on branding, one on developing a social media plan for your organization. The two impromptu sessions I attended – meaning they weren’t scheduled until this morning – included one on résumé-writing and one on European board games like “The Settlers of Catan.” (Yes, it’s a technology conference, but they don’t mind you going off-topic if it’s going to reach the same basic target group.) Both of the “impromptu” sessions were well put-together; obviously, the session leaders had planned them ahead of time, perhaps even pitched them for the regular schedule, and had them ready to go when impromptu sign-up took place this morning. So they weren’t that impromptu, but both were interesting – the résumé workshop by itself was probably worth my trip to Nashville, and I said as much to Jennifer Way, the presenter.

The sessions ran until 4:15 or so, with an afterparty at 4:30, but I left a little after 2 p.m. Looking at the schedule, I decided that while there were a couple of interesting sessions I might have picked, my need to get home outweighed them. I have to finish up work on my sermon tonight.

Among those in attendance were my Mountain T.O.P. / United Methodist friend Gavin Richardson, Trace Sharp, and my co-worker Kent Flanagan. I’m sorry I didn’t get to more time talking to Gavin or Trace, whom I don’t get to see that often. (Kent, it goes without saying, is already sick of me.) Other than that, it was an enjoyable and productive day.

Oct 08

Beautiful music

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I had a fantastic evening last night. The steering committee for the annual Nashville Symphony concert in Shelbyville traveled to Nashville for an evening at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center.

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We started with a meal at Arpeggio, the restaurant inside the Schermerhorn. It has buffet-style service, in order to get you to the concert on time, but with gourmet cuisine. Everything was wonderful, but the one thing we couldn’t stop talking about was the soup, a perfectly-creamy lobster and tomato bisque. I could have made a meal out of that soup and been blissfully happy. But then I’d have missed the beef tenderloin, and the blackened red snapper, and the bread pudding for dessert.

The concert, “Ax Plays Beethoven,” was phenomenal. It started with a new symphonic arrangement of music from a Strauss opera, prepared by the Nashville Symphony’s own principal librarian. Then, after intermission, Grammy-winning pianist Emanuel Ax soloed on a Beethoven concerto. Ax, just this year, has performances with orchestras in Boston, Houston, Toronto, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh,  Detroit, Cincinnati, San Francisco, Berlin, London and Paris. After hearing him, I can understand why. By the way, according to the program, the Nashville Symphony first performed this particular concerto in 1976, at which time the soloist was … Emanuel Ax.

Then, the piano was lowered out of the way, and the concert closed with a piece by Edward Elgar.

All three pieces were beautiful, especially in the incredible acoustics of the Laura Turner Concert Hall.

As guests of the symphony (for the concert), our Shelbyville group was invited to relax before the concert and during the intermission in the exclusive founders lounge. We returned there after the concert for a very exclusive meet and greet with Emanuel Ax, conductor and music director Giancarlo Guerrero, and the symphony’s new concertmaster and first violinist, Jun Iwasaki, who is only 27. (The link is to a page at Iwasaki’s previous orchestra in Oregon.)

I had to tell Maestro Guerrero, who was born in Nicaragua and raised in Costa Rica, about my stay in rural Nicaragua with LEAMIS in 2003.

Unfortunately, the photos taken with my camera of our group with Ax and with Guerrero did not turn out – I must have changed a setting by mistake at some point in the evening. But the Symphony is supposed to be sending us some photos. Here’s a group photo from earlier in the evening:DSCI0002

Oct 04

Here’s Killing You, Kid!

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Several of the people with whom I worked on “Cash On Delivery” earlier this year – Wes Campbell, Dianne Clanton, Times-Gazette pressman Martin Jones and Sharon Kay Edwards, whom I motorboated every night as part of the story – are part of a dinner theater production, “Here’s Killing You, Kid!”, which will open Friday at the Duck River Restaurant in Shelbyville. It’s the first production of a new theater group, the South of Broadway Players, about which I’m very excited. I didn’t try out for this play, but I definitely plan to be a part of some of their future productions.

Anyway, I covered the dress rehearsal tonight so that I can write a first-person column about it for the newspaper. It’s a fun show – broad and silly, in a good way, and ideal for the dinner theater setting. It’s a murder mystery, centered around the mysterious “Majorcan Monkey” (think Maltese Falcon). And Sharon, an incredible vocalist, gets to sing. (She also has a concert coming up this month.)

Wes is directing and playing a part, just as he did for “Cash On Delivery.” He’s great to work with.

I love live theater, and I’m delighted that the South of Broadway Players are bringing a second option for community theater to town. The SOBs (and, yes, the group is playfully celebrating that moniker) hope to be a democratic, member-driven organization, giving a platform to people who have a specific project they’d like to direct. They’ve got a good relationship with the Duck River Restaurant but would also like to do traditionally-staged plays as well.

Anyway, if you’re in the area and looking for a nice evening out over the next few weekends, call Duck River Restaurant and make a reservation. I think you’ll enjoy it.

Oct 03

Sky lanterns

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If you’ve ever been to the American Cancer Society Relay For Life, you know about the luminaria — small paper bags, with candles enclosed, each bearing the name of a cancer victim, survivor or patient, honoring or remembering that person. A moving luminaria ceremony, during which all other lights are turned off and the relay arena is lit only by luminaria, is one of the highlights of the event.

There are also torches bearing engraved plates with the names of honorees; my mother was honored in this fashion by the women of Mt. Olivet United Methodist Church during this summer’s event:

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At next year year’s Bedford County Relay For Life, for which I’m a committee member, we will have a third such way to honor loved ones during the luminaria ceremony. It was demonstrated at this summer’s event. It’s called a “sky lantern,” and it’s sort of a cross between a luminaria and a hot air balloon. Here’s video I found from a Relay event in Hutchinson, Kansas:

I think this is going to be an incredible addition to the event. And like the rest of Relay, it helps raise money for research and patient services provided by the American Cancer Society. Here’s a form with more information about sky lanterns at the Bedford County event. If you’re one of my friends from out of town, check and see if your local Relay offers sky lanterns. I am sure there’s someone in your life whom you want to honor or remember, and this would be a remarkable way to do it.

Oct 02

Distortion

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I interviewed my old college friend Peter Smith on Tuesday for the pilot episode of my podcast. Peter is the acclaimed religion reporter for the Louisville Courier-Journal. His wife Holly teaches at the same high school from which my mother graduated, although it’s long since moved into a different building. The interview went well – almost too well; Peter was such a great guest that I didn’t have to work very hard as an interviewer.

I tried putting together a complete episode of the podcast today. I’m still getting comfortable with Audacity, the open source audio editor I’m using to put things together. I did the interview itself using Skype and a Skype add-on program that records calls. But I recorded my voice for the beginning and end of the podcast using a standard microphone. Ironically, it’s that audio – not the headset audio from the Skype call – with which I’m having problems. It’s distorted.

I will play with it further this week to see if I can get everything mixed and balanced somewhat correctly. If I can get something with which I’m satisfied, I’ll try to post it. Posting to this site isn’t viable for a continuing podcast, especially if I’m able to build up an audience, but I can probably put up a sample episode to share with my regular readers without going over my bandwidth.