Last week I posted about my Fresh Kicks. I told you about how my buddy J hooked me up with the guy to get them.
What I didn't tell you was that when I was bidding on my Nike Vandals, J also bid on a pair in his size...but lost the bid. So when I got my shoes J immediately came over to check them out and loved them.
So last week while I was writing my Fresh Kicks post I went back on e-bay to double check what I actually paid for them. While there I did a quick search of the guys inventory and found that he was selling the Vandals in J's size for 10 bucks with only like a day left. Guess who won the Vandals? That's right. J and I can now be seen on the streets of Warren....or more than likely in youth groups in Warren wearing the same shoes. He clearly has more of a selection of shoes to chose from to wear on any given day, so the likelihood we actually go complete GEEK and wear them together is slim.
I have a box in my basement (exciting stuff right?). I call it my Jumble Box. In all my years of playing music in various locations around the world and in various venues and places, I've met a bundle of other musicians/sound guys with similar boxes. Actually they're not always boxes...sometimes it's a plastic tote, or a cabinet, or cupboard somewhere. And they have their own name for their "Jumble Box."
So what's in my Jumble Box? Well...a jumble of cables, chords, adapters and microphones. There's even one of those metal things that go around your neck to hold a harmonica while you're playing guitar. Guess what's not in there? A harmonica.
Over the years I've just steadily collected old cables and stuff in this box that seems to continue to make it's way to every place that I've lived. To be honest I don't even know how some of those cables got in there in the first place, nor can I remember how the box got started in the first place.
Now here's the thing about that: I have spent tons of time teaching other people how to properly roll and wrap a microphone or instrument cable. For the record you can't just wrap it around your elbow...that puts kinks in the wire on the inside. To properly wrap a cable you do a quarter twist of the cable with every loop. I was on a church worship team for awhile where we had to tear our gear down every week and set it back up every week. So every week we had to wrap all our cables and put them away. I was constantly lecturing people about making sure the cables were done properly. I worked in a recording studio for a year and in a studio you have to be a bit OCD about how your cables are treated.
So in a music setting I'm a freak about taking care of cables and adapters. Yet in my house I have a rats nest pile of cables. And like I said before I know TONS of musicians/sound techs/studio owners who have a similar bin or cabinet in their house or corner of their studio. They don't use that stuff regularly but it exists.
What's the deal with that? I could see if I was the only nutball pack ratting stuff away, but that doesn't seem to be the case at all.
Here's what I was thinking this week though as I tripped over my Jumble Box...how much of my life is like that Box?
One of the first things you learn in youth ministry is to be real with students...because they can smell a fake a mile away. I try to be as honest with them as I can. I've shared openly with students that there is hurt in my life. I struggle with my relationship with Jesus at times. I cry when I'm hurt. Even at that there still parts of my life that teenagers don't need to be privy to.
There are areas of my life that are jumble. Sometimes I'm not nice and say things I instantly regret. I'm not always the best husband or father that my family needs. More often than I'd like I'm quick to anger rather than slow to anger. Sometimes I let the boys just watch a 1/2 hour movie rather than playing a game with them. I have been known to yell at other drivers while in the car.
I just finished reading "Forgotten God" by Francis Chan. The whole book is about the Holy Spirit. One of the big things I got out of the book was the idea that if the Holy Spirit truly dwells in us, our lives HAVE to be different. If we are listening to the Spirit's leading, our lives CAN'T look like any one else around us.
So I guess I'm wondering if more of my life needs to be less like my Jumble Box. Where do you fall in this? What's your Jumble Box look like? How large has your Jumble Box gotten over the years? What needs cleaned out once and for all and pitched?
Every year the area youth pastors have done a weekend retreat at a camp not far from here. It's a lot of fun, and has spawn some amazing ministry opportunities. The last two years as a fun activity we've done a "Talent Night" on Saturday night. Just a way for kids to do goofy stuff or serious stuff or show off a bit. Some of the kids have amazing talents we didn't know about.
So this past February we had our retreat. On Saturday evening at dinner our food coordinator told me that after worship I should send the kids up to the dining hall and she'd have big bowls of pudding laid out for them. So after worship I did what she told me to do. I told everyone there was pudding laid out and they should go eat it. Little did I know that in the mean time there was a change made and there were different snacks laid out for the students.
So we get back and some kids are filing over to me to do some last minute sign ups for the talent show. I'm semi-MCing the event from the back of the room at the sound board. One of those students is one of my kids...Kevin. I don't think anything of it. Kevin is normally pretty quiet...but it seems that when we get to the retreat a switch is flicked in his brain and he becomes incredibly outgoing and vocal.
So I'm letting everyone know who goes where and we finally get to Kevin. He stands up and lets everyone know that he's going to do a free-style rap based one....NO PUDDING. He's angry that I told him there was pudding and there wasn't any...because he really likes pudding.
He then proceeds to bust a rap that is not amazing. If you talk to Kevin today, he'll tell you that it wasn't very good. However it was one of those moments on a teen retreat where everyone got behind it because it was so bad. It became the "cool thing". Everyone kept saying "Blame it on The Aaron. UHHH"
I submit for your viewing pleasure Kevin's Pudding rap in it's entirety. I would like to point out ahead of time that I muted his mic at the very end because he clearly had nothing left. Prepare yourself....it's not really good and might not even make sense to you.
So the retreat is over and every is talking about this Pudding Rap.....for weeks.
At the time we didn't know that one of the girls had videoed the whole thing. So when she posted it on YouTube and linked it for me, we flipped out! The madness continued!
So I told Kev that I was going to try and redeem his Rap a bit. I've been thinking about how to go about doing that.
The first thing I did was ripped the audio from the video. Problem one arose here. I'm now using the audio from a video shot in a really big room with lots of crowd noise. Not a good starting point.
Step two was finding a program to work in. To be honest I haven't worked enough in most modern editing software to be comfortable. So I played for 1/2 hour with a program that really wasn't designed to do what I was asking it to do.....but found that I could make it work.
Then I started cutting up the audio I had into little snippets. This was also hard because any little section with bleed or crowd noise couldn't be used. I had to get just the right little clip. I then started looking for sounds. I didn't know what I was looking for exactly....guitars? orchestra hits? gongs? bass? I just knew I'd find something. Here too was a problem because it needed to be in the right format so the program I was using could edit it easily enough.
Then it was a lot of cutting and pasting...finding loops and using making them fit. Because of the program I was using, and the quality of the audio my hands were tied. But after WAY too much time messing around with this....it's done.
We took teens to Pittsburgh two weeks ago to work for World Vision's Distribution Center there and I put it on the mix for the trip. That was big reveal to students.
This story starts out a long time ago. Like....1985ish....I was in 5th grade. It's possible that it took place the year before in 4th grade, but the more I've thought about it, I think it's 5th. The most popular kid in our class was Benji Zawacki (who after some internet searching I've found out now works for Amnesty International in Burma). Benji was cool...but he was always just a nice guy to everyone.
So I'm pretty sure all the boys in our class played Biddy Basketball during the winter. Benji's dad was one of the coaches. Benji showed up with these black Nike's with gold swooshes. Everyone was in awe.
Now my brother and I never went without. There was always plenty of food to eat and we always had clothes etc. But my mom watched every penny and we never bought the highest fashion stuff either. We just knew that that was the way it was. So imagine my amazement when we found the exact same shoes in an odd discount store near where my grandparents live!
So I showed up at basketball practice and everyone thought I was wearing Benji's shoes...until he showed up. I was flying as high as a kite. It sure didn't make a better basketball player but I felt great that whole season because I had some great kicks.
For the record: My mom taught me well. I don't buy shoes for fashion. In fact I'm a cheapskate. I don't buy shoes that cost more than I think they should ask.
Enter my buddy J.
J is a youth pastor here in town. Over the last two years he and I have done more and more stuff together with our youth groups. We spend a bunch of Monday mornings together as he watches his son and I have the boys. We chill.
J is addicted to shoes. I don't understand his addiction, but he doesn't understand my addiction to paintball guns. We commiserate in each others addictions.
To be fair, J is more than addicted. Even though he lives with me here in little old Warren he's actually pretty well known in the Nike Sneaker Blog world.....whatever that is.
So over the years J has talked to me about shoes. About 5 or 6 months ago J asked me if there was one pair of shoes that I wish I still owned. I couldn't think of anything immediately. The more I thought of it though, I could only think of one pair of shoes. The black Nike's with gold swooshes. I tried describing them to J but I was doing a bad job of it. So after some Google searches I found them and shared the pics with J. He knew right away what they were...Nike Vandals.
So fast forward to a couple weeks ago. J sends me the link of a guy on e-bay who has the re-release of the Air Vandals. They're almost identical except that instead of gold swooshes they have golden yellow swooshes. Here was the problem though: The guy had them as a Buy It Now for something like 70 dollars plus 16 in shipping. That's WAY more than I would normally pay for shoes that I use daily far less shoes that are just fun to wear around. So I start digging around on the same guys e-bay store. He has a pair just for auction! So I bid what I'm comfortable paying. I WIN! I paid 30 dollars including SHIPPING!
Behold my childhood revisited!
I DO NOT like the strap that is on the top of these. It came off almost immediately. I really like the way the original Vandals strap went with the shoe. I'd love to find a strap that is black, yellow and white...not sure if that exists....J?
I LOVE these shoes. They are super comfy. They are really really light weight because there's no leather at all....it's all Nylon sides. J has definitely not hooked me on buying shoes...I still don't understand his obsession, but I really love owning these shoes. Thanks Bro!
This will mostly just be pictures I think. The rest of vacation with my parents, brother and his family.
We spent a rainy Monday going to The Museum of the Earth in Ithaca. They were good at pushing evolution, but for the most part it was a cool place. The boys both love dinosaurs so it was a fun day checking out fossils and skeletons. The whole place was very interactive and they had a couple little play areas where the kids could play with some dinosaur toys.
My brother is an avid fisherman. He brought a couple kiddie poles for the kids. Mostly they just caught some small sunfish. Corban took his turn and had the catch of the week on a tiny pole. A nice catfish. He was pretty scared of the look of that thing! Tobiah used a pole without any hook. He just liked casting and reeling.
This is the second installment of the vacation posts. We rented a house on one of the Finger Lakes in NY two weeks ago with my parents, brother and his family and these are some of our adventures.
I'm sure I've told most of this story before...but by now you have to know I like telling stories....so I'll tell it again.
While in Ethiopia picking up Tobiah we had to take a drive to the US Embassy to get our paperwork officially stamped. We walked to the AAI house to catch the van to the Embassy. A bunch of other families had to go too so we all piled into a van to make the drive across Addis. As we drove, Marjorie started chatting with the woman next to her....who turned out to be a super dooper cool person. As we drove, we talked a lot to this awesome couple who in many ways had a bunch of similarities to our own story. The more we talked the more we felt we connected. We spent only a couple hours with them and we felt like we were somehow connected.
Then we came home and went immediately to the hospital with Tobiah. They came home and went immediately to the hospital with their little boy E. The problem was that we didn't know that because we didn't get any real contact info from them other than the fact that Andrea had a blog called "Better Than Good." So we started searching. And searching. And searching. We pretty much gave up. Then one day I just did the same search I always did and found it right away.
So we've been Facebooking and e-mailing back and forth for the last 2 years. A few months ago Andrea told me they were going to a family reunion just west of Pittsburgh in WV (West Virginia not World Vision this time). So we started planning and plotting to get our families together. The problem was that it fell just at the end of our vacation away. So we worked it out to drive from the Finger Lakes on Saturday to my parents house and meet them for brunch on Sunday morning.
AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME!
The boys got along as if they had known each other forever. Their teenager daughter S fell in love with Tobiah. Too bad they live far away or we'd have a new babysitter for sure! It was only another 2 hours spent with them, but it was AMAZING time spent. Such an amazing family. Hugs all around. I really wish we lived closer....even moderately closer.
BUT....there are plans in the works to do something really cool with them in the future....but you'll have to wait for a totally different blog post for that announcement!!!
(see what I did there....always keep your audience wanting more)
NOTE: Last week [two weeks ago now that's how long this post has taken me to write] we were on vacation (thus all the pictures and videos pre-posted). Our clan, my parents and my brother and his family rented a house on one of the Finger Lakes in NY. This is installment one of vacation.
So all the adults sat down Sunday night to get an idea of activities we wanted to do throughout the week. We just made a mega-list. We knew it would rain on Monday, so we planned an indoor museum (possibly more on that later). On Monday we randomly decided that Tuesday would be Watkins Glen day. You may have heard of Watkins Glen for it's big Nascar races.....but there is a State Park there that is fabulous. From the main gate there are several trails you can hike to the top. We chose the Glen Trail. You hike along a large creek that was cut by glaciers and lots of erosion. There is a good size drop (about 400 feet) in elevation as you hike a bit under 2 miles to the top. There are tons of waterfalls some that you walk behind and under. It was a really nice hike. Lots of pictures (more at the bottom). Tons of fun. Kind of a struggle at times with Tobiah because his little legs still don't do stairs well at all. It was much easier to carry him. So at the 1 mile marker we could see we were most of the way to the top. The remaining hike was relatively level. The problem was that everyone was tired and hungry (we had planned a picnic lunch). The littler kids weren't stoked about hiking back down. So my dad and I decided to hike back down to get the vehicles and drive them to the top parking area and meet everyone else there.
So on the way down my dad and I decided to count how many stairs there were (559) from the mile mark to the bottom. I tell you that only to say that I was somewhat distracted on the way down and not really paying much attention to people. HOWEVER....as we neared the bottom I knew we were almost done counting so I slowed a bit and happened to look up. I saw some kids. No bid deal right? Then I looked up and saw.....saw.....well I saw Avery.
Those of you who have been following my blog for years....or just know our story, will remember the struggles we had with Corban's adoption. You'll remember that we had to wait for a year and a half for him to come home. During this time we started reading a bunch of blogs and connecting with some families who were also in the waiting process. One of the couples we met were Avery and Heather. They each have their own blogs and we followed both of them. While they were waiting they made a couple trips to Ethiopia. We never met...but we knew them well.
And there in front of me was Avery. I just knew it was him. I took a harder look at the kids.....yep these were definitely their kids...and this HAD to be Avery. So I motioned for my dad to slow down...and stop counting...and said, "um...excuse me...you're Avery right." Now let's keep in mind that they had never met me. After a quick explanation of how I knew him all was well. I explained that we were at the top and they explained they were headed there and hoped to see us in a little bit.
So we easily found their van in the parking lot (big Ethiopian flag bumper sticker on it). Dad and I drove up to the top for lunch. I jump out of the fan and run to Mari...."YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE WHAT JUST HAPPENED".
So we eat lunch. The kids go to play on the playground while the adults finish actually eating....and then they appear. The whole family. The ladies exchanged hugs, the kids went off to play and Avery and I stood around talking. Tons of cool stories came out of our time together. The Moore's took two trips to ET before they finally went to pick up their kids. Heather definitely remembers holding Corban. So she got to hold our "little" boy before we did!!!! They shared a lot of insight into our first agency and where Corban was living. We talked about life with our kids. We laughed and cried. It was an amazing afternoon. It was amazing.
Not sure how anyone can't say God didn't have his hand in this meeting. They just "happened" to be at that place on that day at that time. We just "happened" to choose that day to go to the Glen. Dad and I just "happened" to go back down to get the cars and I just "happened" to look up even though I had ignored every other person on the way down. We started the day being strangers and we ended the day with new friends.
Lenny Kravitz was just sitting up on a terrace in New Orleans having a drink, and he heard the First Baptist Church in Lewisville’s The Voice of Praise Choir singing “Fly Away.”
So he walks down the street and jumps in. Bet they weren't expecting that!
