Where am I??

A summer thunder storm has hit the Valley and its making me think I'm on the East coast.

Beside the fact that its been really hot and humid in the Fresno area for the last couple of week, last night, we were surprised with a huge thunderstorm, along with a very bright lightning storm.

Although we need the rain desperate in the drouted San Joaquin Valley, the lightning usually causes havic for our firefighters, causing at least a hand full of fires.

It was my wake-up call at 3:30 AM this morning. Actually, I was already awake thanks to all my tossing & turning. I think it went on for a good hour and a half watching the lightning show for our bedroom window, watching the trees sway in the wind and counting the distance between the lightning and thunder.

Reminding me of my dear summers in Virginia, I wondered.... am I in California?? Or Virginia??

Gone Where Most Women Don't Dare To Go

Very few women have gone... a place where definately too much testosterone flying around.

Promise Keepers!

The weekend conference more men was held in Fresno this weekend and I attended, helping out at the KLOVE booth. Well actually, just attended Friday night, not on Saturday due to having a lot of homework to finish up. Even going for the few hours on Friday night, I saw plenty displays of machoism.

Being at the KLOVE booth, we were near the Army booth. The challenged men who pass by to do 50 push-ups to get a free T-shirt. I saw hords of younger, and older men do the push-up challenge. It was actually quite comical.



Overall, Promise Keepers is a wonderful tool to forge male bonding experiences, encouraging them to be better men, husbands and fathers. No other place can a grown man wheep hysterically and be comforted by the loving men around them.



If Promise Keepers is coming to your area, I strongly encourage all men to go experience the incredible feeling they'll receive from Promise Keepers conferences.

SLC pictures - FINALLY

Here's a few shots from my trip to Salt Lake City and the tour of the Temple Square. Unfortunately, since I'm the one with a camera (acutally had to use my cell phone camera for these shots) they are only scenic ones.

First, this is a picture of the temple from the convention center roof.
Second is from inside the tabernacle, where the famous Mormon Tabernacle Choir rehearses and performs. Although the photo can't show, the roof is dome shaped which makes the accoustics in the room incredible. From the back of the room, you can hear paper tearing, and a pin drop from the front podium.

These two pictures are from the SLC Convention Center which is across the street to the Temple Square. This convention center is specifical used for the major conventions of the Later Day Saints (aka Mormons) and is incredible HUGE. From the first picture you can tell that it seats a number of people. From the second picture, it shows that the front is similar to the tabernacle but larger.

Here is the views of the balconys. There are three levels of seating, none of which has abstructed view. Above the seating is two rows of lighting. The photos don't do this place justice - it is HUGE!

Back from SLC

I made it back from Salt Lake City fine and very tired. It was a very interesting experience.
The conference was very informative and I brought back a lot of info on how to improve our database and the security of the information we handle.

While I was there, me and one of the guys took a tour of the Temple Courtyard, which includes the tabernacle (where the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sings) and their very huge convention center. Yes, the mormon's have their own convention center! The tabernacle was very catholic church-like and had a huge pipe organ behind the choir loft. The convention center was HUGE and was constructed so that wherever someone sits in there, it's a good seat and not obstructed. Huge is actually an understatement for how big this thing is. It also features a stage with choir loft and a big pipe organ. It's very unique as it has a park on the roof. Although the grass was a little brown and the flowers weren't in bloom, it was cool to see and from pictures I saw, it's gorgeous when in season. Of course, we couldn't go into the temple, as it is reserved for LDS only and there was a wedding going on that day.

Trying to stay respectful to the tour guides and their beliefs, I kept my mouth shut about debating my beliefs vs. theirs. I'm knowledgeable but not nearly qualified enough to disprove their strong beliefs. Although we couldn't help but discuss the obvious misinterpretations on the way back to the hotel. Out of curiousity, I did ask one of the very nice tour guides if they believe in the holiness of the Bible as well as their Book of Mormon, why is it that they don't carry the Bible along with their 'other book'. I noticed that all the missionaries that work at the courtyard, and do the tours, held snugly to their B.O.M.

I took lots of pictures, although they were on my phone (I forgot to take my digital on the tour). I'll download them soon and post them.

Flying while pregnant

This week, I'm in Salt Lake City, UT at a conference for work.
I had to make preparation with my OB to get an 'ok to fly' note for the airlines. I'm at 29 weeks and it wasn't an intersting experience flying with a baby inside. Although the most of the flight was the same as the many others I've taken, When there was turbulunce or a slight altitude change, I was more sensitive to it - and so was Tyler. Luckily, the flight from Fresno to Salt Lake City was only about an hour and a 1/2 long (if even that) so it wasn't too bad.

I'm here with three other guys from work. It's been an interesting experience being with 'the boys' but it did guarantee that I got my own room. No worries with the guys, as two are very happily married (as am I) and the other is seriously dating someone. No temptation here. It's been a great experience so far, although being in SLC wasn't necessarily my top choice to come to a work conference. I've met some great people and have taken some very informative notes to take back to the office and hope to initiate with our group there.

Salt Lake City is an interesting city. From my hotel room, I have a unique view of the Mormon temple, and through the steeples, I see the capitol building. Eventhough we can't go into the temple, the mormon church where the Mormon Tabernacle Choir rehearses and sings, has tours for the public. We're within a block away from it so I plan on walking down there and checking it out. I've heard the accoustics in there are incredible.

The conference ends tomorrow, and we'll fly back to Fresno.
I am looking forward to going home, but on the other hand, I know there will be much to do.
One good thing is that summer hours at work have ended and we're back to an 8-5 schedule. Sleeping in an extra hour will be nice but working til 5 will be tough, as I barely made it to 3:30 during the summer. The weather has been nice here - warm with a slight breeze. Not looking forward to going back to the Valley heat.

Are YOU Ready for some FOOTBALL???

Are YOU ready for some football?? The preseason has begun! Wooohoooo!!!

Although my team is no long the Houston Texans since they released my dearest David Carr, I harbor no ill-will toward them and wish them a good season. I hope they can do better with their new QB (I doubt it).

Since David now plays for the Carolina Panthers, I'll be watching how they perform, although David probably won't get much play time this season unless the lead QB gets injured. I'll also be keeping my eye on the incredible Trent Dilfer, who is backup QB for the 49ers. Both are alumni of Fresno State and veterans in the NFL now.

Keep an eye one new rookies who will most asuredly make thier mark in the NFL - Dwayne Wright, a running back for the Buffalo Bills. This guy was amazing for the Bulldogs and with his talent and speed, will be a star - GUARANTEED!!

Let's get ready to Rock! Let's get ready for some FOOTBALL!!!!

SWC - Saturday update

Saturay: Saturday was a brand new day. We had the late shift again, and didn't need to be here until 1. It's hard to work on homework when there is so much I want to see and do. I did a little bit of homework once I got there, and then finished up later that night.

It was cold and overcast yesterday. I was glad I decided to wear jeans instead of my shorts. Good Call!! We had a lot of traffic at the booth, since it was the last day of the festival. One of the things we got while there was a personalized sing-a-long Veggie Tales CD. It was so cute! What they do is digitally put in the kids name and the Veggie Tales characters pretend like they are actually there with you, singing children's songs and introducing the child to other characters on the CD. We was so cute, we had to get one for Tyler. Since it's songs that I would know, I could sing them to him until he can sing along with me. I'll have V.T. DVDs so he'll know who the characters are. Besides 2 CDs (BarlowGirl and Todd Agnew's newest ones) that's all we purchased - besides all the good food!

We left around 11ish since we had a long drive and it was foggy. Staff & crew stuck around to tear everything down so we didn't have to stay long after the last concert ended. Good thing because I was really tired and was so sore.

Another year is almost gone. It's been fun and definately a different experience then past years. Next year will be quite an adventure will a baby on my arm. We're blessed to be working with KLOVE/Air 1 and the fabulous staff with SWC. They treat us well! We are definately blessed to be working with people who have the same desire we do - to reach lost souls for Christ through the influnce of music... and I must say, Christian music has some awesome representatives out there preaching the gospel through their music!

Spirit West Coast 2007

Another year, another music festival is just about over. On the last day of Spirit West Coast 2007 (SWC) in Monterey, I finally am able to sit down and reflect on my time here. It's been a busy week and boy, am I tired.

To sum up the fun:

Wednesday: We left Wednesday afternoon and drove to Santa Cruz (from Fresno) which is about a 2 1/2 hour drive. We stayed in Santa Cruz, since we have a rent-free vacation house there compliments of Troy's family. :-) Troy, myself and our friend Larrin kicked back with a pleasant evening at the house before starting our long day on Thursday. We grabbed some pizza, I worked on some homework and enjoyed the time together.



Thursday: We started our day early by having to get up at 6 am to get ready and head to Monterey. Of course, coffee was an absolute NEED!! Don't worry, mine was decaf. :-) We started our shift at the KLOVE/Air 1 booth at 9 and once the gates were open, hords of people from every direction kept running past, trying to find the best plae to plop their 'territory' for the day's concerts on the main stage. We had a lot of people stop by the booth, signing up for our contests and playing that dance revolution game that is all the crace with kids nowadays. One catch with this game though - they danced to Christian music. It was pretty cool. I might see if I can get that program for the house. No better way to dance off all the baby pounds but to dance to the best kind of music every written.

After our shift at the booth, we walked around alot, just checking things out. My body is definately telling me that I can't do all I used to do. Tyler takes a lot of out me - more then I thought he would. I guess this is just the beginning. I'm not letting him stop me from serving in my God-callen ministry though. In fact, next year, I'll be toting a 9-month old around, while I work. He will become very well accustomed to what mom & dad do, and will learn to love Christian music and love ministry as much as we do. We stayed until about 10ish that night then went back to the house. I was exhausted and my legs and feet were so sore.



Friday: Another long day, although we did get to sleep in a little bit. We got to SWC about 11:30 that morning in anxious anticipation of seeing my ultimate favorite band BarlowGirl and their wonderful family. We've become friends with them the last few years, since they did a concert in Fresno and Troy and I went above and beyond to make their stay a great and memorable one. We got to talk with them briefly and break the exciting news about my pregnancy. They were thrilled and excited for us... and I promised that I would call them once Tyler is born to let them know. We wanted to try to hook up with them before they left to catch their plane but wasn't able to. Their schedule while they are here is always so hectic, it's hard to get a moment with them. That' the life of rock stars. :-)

The rest of the afternoon, we did a lot of walking around. I tried to sit still and put my feet up every now and then but it's just too difficult to sit still in this environment. Concerts going on all-day, seeing people we know and visiting with other vendors we see every year. We found a cool vendor that was selling personalized Veggie Tales Cds. We tried it out with Tyler's name and it was very cute. One CD was full of silly songs that are familiar from Veggie Tales videos and the other was a sing-a-along CD with more familiar kids songs that he can learn to sing when he gets older. Knowing us, we'll probably get both. :-)

We had the late shift at the booth so we were on-site until about 11ish. Didn't get back to Santa Cruz until about midnight. I was really starting to feel the sorenes in my legs and my feet so I sat a lot during the shift (which I had permission to do - if I needed to). Traffic through the booth died down once the everyone started making their way to mainstage for the evening headliner concert - Third Day. There was an off-and-on crowd after that so it was an easy shift for me.


I'll post Saturday's review tomorrow, once the day passes and there is more to write about. I'll also post pictures soon.