Happy Birthday, Troy!

Hey, our lead pastor's birthday is today! How about that?

There are much funnier and more eloquent tributes to this special day here, here, and especially here, but I will add my favorite memory of when I first started working with Troy, which was that one time he was teaching during one of our "Vintage" services when he was raving about how great Cuban food was, especially those "planteens."

Shout out to all the great additions to my vocabulary I've enjoyed since joining the staff at FRC, such as "surrenderance" and "reenvisionating." Use one today!

Santos

Happy Thursday, everybody.
So far, so good; the weekend videos are coming along (stuff is rendering as I type this); Steph's got her second midterm today, which she's going to kick butt in; and Lent started yesterday, which in recent years I've started observing in my own life as a way of adding a bit more focus and intention to the days following Easter. It's really a kind of a beautiful tradition, if you're the kind of person that can separate themselves from a lot of the religious hang-ups associated with a liturgical season like Lent.
For our part, Steph and I decided to take advantage of the season on our own, putting into place a few small, but meaningful disciplines designed to point our hearts more towards Calvary than we probably otherwise would be on our own.

Last night we got to check out a really good restaurant over by A1A and the beach at the Lincoln Road Mall called Santo's along with some of her superiors from work. I think I may have had the best steak I've ever tasted, which made me glad considering the entrées were about 30 bucks a plate (yeah, it was that kind of a dinner). Obviously not a regular stop-in for a guy on a church salary, but as we drove home I couldn't help but be impressed that I'm marrying a person who can so easily blend in with so many different types of people.

Steph and I can enjoy ourselves just about anywhere, whether it's at Quizno's splitting a sub because we're short on cash, or networking with people who can actually afford to eat regularly at a place like Santo's. That's just neat to me. It says a lot about her strength of character and maturity that she gets invited to dinners like the one we enjoyed last night (and of course, I'm pretty glad that she's not embarrassed to bring me along, either).
My fiancé rocks!

Lame post

Updates are coming...I promise...
For now, some quickies. Event-wise:

-Brian was out of town, so I was in the saddle for a whole week, working my heiney off (bet you didn't know how to spell that, huh?)

-Played guitar instead of saxophone this weekend. It was pretty sweet, especially on Holy is the Lord. I was like a brown Chris Tomlin.

-Stephanie has two big hairy midterms this week, so pray for her. Not that I'm worried about it, though; I've been helping her study for the last three days and she knows her stuff.

-Had Sunday dinner with some of my family for the first time since the last time (which was a while ago).

There. That should do for the moment. Once again, many apologies for being lame.
In depth socio-political introspection coming soon.

Arrrgh

I know, it's been almost ten days since I last posted, and yes, this is just going to be one of those lame quick apology and mini-update posts, but that just goes to show you how crazy busy I've been.

However, I've got a couple of pretty render-intensive projects I'm outputting today, so I should get the chance a little later on to update you on the latests happenings. I'm looking forward to it, too, because the past few days have been really neat and full of plenty of good blog-fodder (hah! I think I made up a new phrase. You heard it here first, folks)

Have a scrumptulescent day!

Mauricio in a three-piece suit

During my travels my travels today I came across a neat little article on NPR that has had me thinking all day. Earlier this week thinkchristian.net put out a link to the Top 5 Consumer Trends for 2007, which was both pretty neat and a little alarming, as it looks like American society is going to continue moving towards the shallow and superficial...sad, but not altogether surprising.

As I was saying, though, I was listening to the NPR report in my car and thinking about that consumer report, and it suddenly occurred to me that I actually have a decent grasp of the business world. It probably sounds dumb, but I just generally don't think of myself as having any kind of a bent towards the world of commerce, and that's mainly because I associate that with Cubicle World, and the thought of spending all day in a cubicle gives me the hives; however, it's also true that most of my time now is spent at a desk in front of a screen editing video, and I don't usually whine about that (unless it's Friday and I've been editing the same video for three days straight and am ready to poke myself in the eye or something, but that probably says more about me than about my job, anyway. My job is flippin' awesome). The thing is, I think that I could grasp it. I look over Stephanie's shoulder sometimes as she's studying, and I'm sometimes shocked that it's not as scary as I used to think it should be. I got to thinking that maybe my almost subconscious misgivings about entrepreneurship had less to do with lack of ability and more to do with a faulty paradigm I might have wandered into.

Along with all of that, I also remembered how Don Miller writes in To Own a Dragon that he will try to audit classes at universities just to stay sharp, because the brain is a muscle and needs to be exercised. In kind of the same vein, reaching our God potential is part of the reason we do ministry at FRC (helping other people reach theirs is the other side of that).

All those lines of thought coalesced into one weird thought (for me) tonight as I was sitting in Kyle's dorm after my Phi Mu Alpha meeting.

"Maybe I'll go back to school after I graduate"

Yeah, I know. I'm the guy who hates sitting in classrooms. And it's true that most of my college education felt like a waste of time (especially that last two-and-a-half years), and yes, I did give one of my professors that look when he suggested that graduate school was something that would fit me, but I dunno...after tonight the thought seems a whole lot less distasteful than it did before (and Stephanie liked the idea, so if it gets future-wife approval, I guess it can't be all that bad). In any case, I've got plenty of time to pray and mull it over.

Who knows? Maybe I'll get that master's degree after all...

Video production update #2

You know, you would be amazed to know how tricky it is to find tattoo artwork that isn't grossly inappropriate for a church video...

anyway, there's my short break to give my brain a rest from being creative...back to the drawing board...

FINALLY!

At last!
I've finished it!

After three days of nearly nonstop editing, I've finally knocked out this weekend's feature tune video.

"W00t" does not even begin to describe my relief.

Brian and I put this one together with lots of blood, sweat, and tears (well, maybe just tears), so as you can imagine I am beyond pumped to see this puppy get aired, especially since for this weekend we set up a...well, you'll just have to make it out this weekend to check it out.

And now I am off to go reward myself with a Quizno's sub for my efforts.
Rock strong, kids.

It just struck me once more...

I'm getting married.

Hee, hee.


That is all.