Stories, U2

Wednesday Morning Coming Down

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Well, I am back home and I am winding down after the massive emotional high I experienced Monday night at the Superdome.

First off: Way To Go New Orleans!!! Big win for the team and an even bigger win for the city!!!

My day started off at 9am when I flew out of DFW. After switching plaes in Houston, I landed in the Cresant City a little after noon. I dropped my bag off at the hotel and headed to the race track at the fairgrounds. I was still a little incredulous about the whole thing. Is ths for real? Had i wasted my day coming all the way to New orleans just to find out that this wouldn’t happen? All of my fears went away when I arrived at the designated spot and found 5 charter buses ready and waiting. About 5 or 6 more buses showed up later. At about 2 o’clock, we loaded the buses and waited (a theme of the day) until 3:30.

At that time, the buses were escorted to the Superdome by some of the sharpest looking Police motorcyclysts I have ever seen. It was awesome. It was almost as if the entire city stopped for us.

We were dropped off at the Arena next door to the Superdome where we had lunch and waited around for about another 3 hours.

There were about 1000 different people there: high school students, college students, Shell employees, hotel chain employees but only about 60-100 involved were individual fans like myself. All of us went through training and information about the event and then we ran through the staging twice.

At about 6:50pm we headed over to the Superdome. That is about the time all of the rehersals went out the window. It got crazy!!!

As we were waiting outside the dome, Harry Connick Jr. walked by. The crowd screamed. Then came the ESPN cameas. More screams. The U2 and Green Day walking by- Insane crazy screams and jumping and pushing. The loading dock to the dome opened up and we all surged forward to the endzone.

The stage was set into place and we were given the “go for launch” signal.

In rehersal we were told to briskly walk toward the stage and to sperad out so that our little crowd of 1000 looked like 10,000.

Yeah right! At the signal everyone took off in a full sprint to the 50 yard line!!!

I took a spot on the right corner of the stage with the bassist for Green Day directly in front of me. The Edge was over on the left and Billy Joe was next to him.

If you’ve seen the video of the concert you cannot grasp how loud the dome was. People were shouting and yelling and chanting. When the brass instruments began their march to the stage the place went gonzo!!! We were dancing, they were dancing, the crowd was dancing. It was awesome.

When the Edge began the opening note of Wake Me Up When September Ends it seemed like everyone just stopped. All eyes were on him.

From where I was I had a great veiw of Adam, bassist for U2, as he was waiting for his cue to go on stage. i was only about 5 feet away from him. What struck me was just how big his smile was as he watched his friend play guitar. He looked as if he was beeming with pride. Monday was the 30th anniversary of these friends begining their journey together. What a way to celebrate by helping others.

Then came Bono. Short on hair but long on bravado. I watched as he climbed onto the stage where he was greeted by thousands of screaming fans.

As the two played The Saints Are Coming everyone was jumping and singing the chorus as loud as they could. Both bands did an excellent job. I was very impressed. There was no lip synching there!!!

After they played Beautiful Day we all stood there in awe. Nobody on the field could believe what we had been privilaged to experience. Stangers wer exchanging high-fives and stories. I saw people hugging and smiling at one another. Then, almost at once, a realization set in.

We only have 30 seconds to get off the field.

With the dome cheering us off the field we moved toward the exit. I knew that this could be the only time 20,000 people would be screaming for me as I crossed into the end zone I did what any of you would do:

I did a tuck and roll over the goal line popping up into the end zone!!!

I wasn’t the only one enjoying the exit. College students were running between the hash marks with their arm extended like airplanes. Buzzing the hashes with percision accuracy. Fans in the stands were reaching down slapping our hands like we had scored the game winning touchdown. We were all high as kite on adrenaline! It was so awesome!!!

Well, that’s about it. The only thing I regret is following the guidelines about not bringing a camera. I was as close to the stage as the camera man who took the above photo. My hands were on the stage. Why, o why did I not bring my camera!!!!

Oh yeah. I was told not to.

Thank you to @U2 for posting the information about the event and thank you to Irene for getting all of us together. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity and I can’t thank you all enough.

Check out the Music Rising site to see how you can help and check out the performance video on Rhapsody.

Ministry, Review

Peer Review

3 Comments

At best, I am a novice at using Photoshop. I enjoy playing around and learning new things but I am far from being an expert at it. This coming week we will launch our weekly Bible study for our high schoolers called Chi Alpha (Christ First). Over the course of the next few weeks we will be studying about who the real Jesus is. I wanted to print up a poster to advertize the study and, more importantly, to get my students talking.

Here is what I created:

poster.jpg

I did an image search on Google and came up with a vast array of different pictures of Jesus. One image that didn’t make it on the poster but did make the desktop wallpaper I created was a native American Jesus. Another is a haunting line drawing of Christ on the cross. (See below)

I want to hear from you. What do you think? What is good? Where could I improve? Any other ideas?

Desktop Wallpaper (1024×768):
whoisjesus1.jpg

Firm on the Rock, Music, U2

Out Of Darkness Comes Light

music1.jpg After September 11, U2 performed during the Superbowl half-time delivering, quite possibly, the most poignant 9/11 tribute ever. They brought healing to a country that was still reeling from the attacks that happened nearly 6 months before. Now comes act 2.

On Monday, U2 and Green Day will take the field at the reopened Superdome in New Orleans as they welcome the New Orleans Saints back home…

AND I WILL BE ON THE FIELD WITH THEM!

That’s right. I have been given the opportunity to join with a few hundred other fans to be a part of the pre-game mini concert. My mind is going a mile a minute here. I am waiting on the final details but right now it’s a go!!!

The concert is being given to help aid in the Music Rising project which is now moving into phase 2. Music Rising was started to help get instruments back into the hands of individual musicians after the devestation of Hurricane Katrina. Phase 2 will now focus on the churches and schools who lost their instruments to the weather. What an incredible mission.

Music Rising, the campaign launched to help bring the music back to the storm ravaged Gulf Coast Region announced an extraordinary pairing of two of the world’s greatest rock bands for a special show before ESPN’s Monday Night Football game between the Atlanta Falcons and New Orleans Saints at the Louisiana Superdome on Monday, September 25, 2006. U2 and Green Day will make an unprecedented appearance together on stage to officially re-open the Louisiana Superdome and perform for the people of New Orleans on behalf of Music Rising. The pre-game show and special performance is sponsored by RealNetworks’ Rhapsody digital music service. Music Rising is administered by the Gibson Foundation.

In the days following Hurricane Katrina, the Louisiana Superdome became a symbol of agony and distress. This NFL football game is the first event to originate from the stadium since the Katrina devastation. It will be highlighted by a special live performance by U2 and Green Day that will be televised during ESPN’s Monday Night Countdown pre-game show between 7:00pm-8:30pm EDT (performance 8:20-8:30pm). An opening video presentation showcasing the efforts of Music Rising and the Superdome will air prior to the performance by the two super-groups.

Go check out what Music Rising has been doing and then be on the look out for me during the concert on ESPN’s Monday Night Football Pre-Game.

General

Most. Productive. Friday. Ever.

Fridays. Everybody loves them but they aren’t usually very productive. On most Fridays I spend the bulk of the day tying up loose ends and making sure that everything is ready for Sunday. As a basic rule I usually don’t start anything new. I don’t like plowing new soil at the end of the week. Today, I did some plowing.

After over-sleeping by about 10 minutes, I was a little frazzled when I came into work. I checked my email and read the news while I ate my breakfast (I’ve been on a yogurt kick). After that I was all buisness until lunch.

I had planned on confirming the location of the fall retreat and settling on all the costs. I finished that before 9:30. so I moved on to writting the informational letter to mail out to my students. That only took me to 9:45am. Before I left for lunch I had finished the retreat schedule, written two sessions, completed the power-points for those two sessions, contacted the t-shirt guy, and completed the medical release/permission slip. Whew!

Then I had lunch with my wife. Googly eyes over fajita chicken tacos. Very productive!!!!

After lunch I returned to the office and discussed the t-shirt art work more fully. I can’t wait to see his proposal.

Then I made huge strides in my curriclum development. I even got a chance to talk with one of my deacons about my plans.

After that it was off to the bank to deposit my check. There was nobody in line at 5pm on Friday afternoon. I felt like I had won the lottery!!!!

At 5:30pm I went to see one of my students play JV Volleyball. They won.

Then it was off to the Varsity football game to watch a couple of our girls preform in the color gaurd. They did great.

Now I’m blogging this. It is time for bed but Foster’s is about to come on! What to do? What to do?

Have a great weekend.

Books, General, Music, Popular Culture

Something to Blog About

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1) Fall Is On the Way
I went for an evening workout on Tuesday and was greeted by a nice, cool night. You could almost smell Fall in the air. The same could be said for the morning drives to work. I have also noticed that I haven’t been getting sunstroke as I drive around with my sunroof open and my windows down. It is actually comfortable. This summer’s heat was, in a word, oppressive. The cooler temperatures have been a welcomed change.

2) In Cold Blood
Every year I try and squeeze a classic into my reading schedule. This year I chose Capote’s In Cold Blood. I don’t know which is more fascinating: The story of a family that was brutally killed by two sociopaths and how the were brought to justice or the story of an effeminate homosexual with a weird voice from Ny by way of Alabama that travels to Kansas to document the murders and becomes the toast of the town yet allows himself to get too close to the story and never writes another book after this one?

3) Continuum
John Mayer’s newest makes the leap from frat/sorority pop-lite fluff to great, mellow rythm and blues. Well done.

4) Water Cups
What is the deal with fast food chains offering 44oz. sodas for 89 cents and yet they can only afford to give away 6oz. water cups? They ought to just have a dixie cup dispenser on the counter right next to the register. At Quizzno’s a large drink (32oz) is $1.59. A bottle of Aquafina water (20oz) is $1.69. for those of us who like to drink big, we might as well get a large drink and fill it with water. It’s messed up.

5) Dunder-Mifflin and Lego Star Wars 2
0910ba11a001p1_st6o3_17ajpg.jpgChristmas came early this year. My wife picked me up The Office Duder-Mifflin Severance Package from Best Buy. It came with both seasons of the funniest show on TV, DM post-its, a DM note pad, and a magnet replica of Dwight K. Schrute’s buissnes card.

b000g7x0ao01_ss500_sclzzzzzzz_v61203868_.jpgI returned the favor by picking up her a copy of Lego Star Wars 2. That’s right. We play video games together. We spent many hours together bonding during the first one. I used to think that canoeing with your significant other was the best way for you to learn a lot about your relationship with your spouse. I was way off. Video-gaming with your spouse will open your eyes to unseen issues that were never present before. You think you love each other until you try to jump over a pit of molten lava and fail. Character is built during these moments. We love it!!! We have a date with episode IV tonight.

That’s all I’ve got right now. Have a gret Thursday!!!

Popular Culture

Nancy Grace Is a Jerk

My wife says that if someone kills themselves after they talk to you than you’re more than a jerk. I’ll just stick with that title for now.

Two weeks after telling police that her son had been snatched from his crib, Melinda Duckett found herself reeling in an interview with TV’s famously prosecutorial Nancy Grace. Before it was over, Grace was pounding her desk and loudly demanding to know: “Where were you? Why aren’t you telling us where you were that day?”

A day after the taping, Duckett, 21, shot herself to death, deepening the mystery of what happened to the boy. Police have refused to say whether she left a suicide note, and said nothing they have found so far in their investigation of her death has shed light on the whereabouts of her 2-year-old son, Trenton.

Investigators have stopped short of calling her a suspect but have focused increasing attention on her movements just before the boy vanished and the notes, computer, camera and other items seized from her house.

Duckett’s family members disputed any suggestion that she hurt her son. They said that the strain of her son’s disappearance pushed her to the brink, and the media sent her over the edge.

“Nancy Grace and the others, they just bashed her to the end,” Duckett’s grandfather Bill Eubank said Tuesday. “She wasn’t one anyone ever would have thought of to do something like this. She and that baby just loved each other, couldn’t get away from each other. She wouldn’t hurt a bug.”

Janine Iamunno, a spokeswoman for Grace, said in an e-mail that Duckett’s death was “an extremely sad development,” but that the program would continue covering the case. “We feel a responsibility to bring attention to this case in the hopes of helping find Trenton Duckett, who remains missing,” Iamunno said.

Duckett had told police that after she finished watching a movie Aug. 27, she went to check on Trenton in his bedroom, and all she found was an empty crib _ and a 10-inch cut in the window screen above it. At the time she was living her son, wading through a messy divorce with the boy’s father and trying to get her life back on track after getting laid off from her job with a lawn care company.

The boy’s disappearance in this town of 19,000 people about 45 miles northwest of Orlando stretched the 75-member police force to its limits. Fliers were posted on gas station doors around town, asking for information from anyone who might have seen the boy, a brown- haired youngster wearing denim shorts and a diaper. Trenton’s father, 21-year-old Josh Duckett, was closely questioned after the boy disappeared. Newspapers reported that his wife had taken out a temporary restraining order against him. But Josh Duckett took a polygraph test and has answered all police questions satisfactorily, Capt. Ginny Padgett said.

On Sept. 7, Melinda Duckett gave a telephone interview to CNN Headline News’ Grace, a former prosecutor known for practically cross-examining her guests. Duckett stumbled over such questions as whether she had taken a polygraph _ she said she refused on the advice of her divorce lawyer _ and where, exactly, she was shopping with the boy before his disappearance. Hours before the interview aired, Duckett shot herself Friday with her grandfather’s gun at her grandparents’ house, up the road from where she was living.

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Stories

Walk Till You Run

Every other morning, I would have been watching or listening to the news. Not this one. I was headed to a retreat about 45 minutes away from home. It was a beautiful fall morning. With the windows down, I dropped my wife off at school and headed out to the site.

The soundtrack I chose that morning was U2’s The Unforgettable Fire.

A Country Has Forever Changed.
This Man Has Forever Changed.
The Album Has Forever Changed.

Strange what can happen so quickly.

For the past five years, I choose this soundtrack to begin this day with. I am still struck by the strong lyrics and haunting melodies.

I find comfort in the music. Maybe you can too.

And you know it’s time to go
Through the sleet and driving snow
Across the fields of mourning
To a light that’s in the distance

And you hunger for the time
Time to heal, desire, time
And your earth moves beneath
Your own dream landscape

Oh, on borderland we run
I’ll be there, I’ll be there
A high road
A high road out from here

The city walls are all pulled down
The dust a smokescreen all around
See faces ploughed like fields
That once gave no resistance

And we live by the side of the road
On the side of a hill as the valley explodes
Dislocated, suffocated
The land grows weary of its own

Oh, on borderland we run and still we run
We run and don’t look back
I’ll be there, I’ll be there
Tonight, tonight

I’ll be there tonight
I’ll believe
I’ll be there so hold on
I’ll be there tonight
Tonight

The wind will crack in wintertime
This bomb-blast lightning waltz
No spoken words, just a scream

Tonight we’ll build a bridge across the sea and land
See the sky, the burning rain
She will die and live again
Tonight

And your heart beats so slow
Through the rain and fallen snow
Across the fields of mourning
To a light that’s in the distance

Oh, don’t sorrow,
No don’t weep for tonight, at last
I am coming home
I am coming home

A Sort of Homecoming
U2
The Unforgettable Fire

The Goal Is Soul