I got up at 10AM this morning and went in to work around 11AM. I've been trying to come in a couple hours later on Wednesdays when I know I have to be there so late. It keeps me from getting frustrated since the day is so long.

One of my goals to complete this morning was calling Charter Communications since I had a question about my bill. I noticed when I got the bill this month (which is always dated for the end of the previous month, yet I seem to get it a week and a half later and am only left with maybe a week to pay it, which is kind of annoying in and of itself) that they had added Showtime to my plan. I'm not opposed to paying for premium movie channels, but I did find it kind of annoying that they added that to my plan without asking me about it, and it's not cheap either-$15 a month additional for a Showtime channel. It seems foolish these days with all of the free (and legal) opportunities to watch movies on the Internet via Hulu, etc. Why pay for something like Showtime on my cable service?

I called Charter customer service and was immediately connected to an operator. After they verified that I was who I said I was, I asked why the service had been added without my authorization or without any notification. The way it was explained to me was that the "pricing rates" had changed recently and the plan I was filed under had been moved to a higher plan that had Showtime, or something. The operator also explained that a lot of people had been calling with similar complaints about how it had been added. When the operator removed the option from my service, I then asked what new balance should I pay on the bill since I obviously didn't order or ask for the Showtime elective service but was told I had to pay the full amount the bill stated and that I'd be credited for it next month.

Anyway. Around 12:30pm, I headed out to lunch. Josh Amos asked me earlier in the day if I could meet him for lunch to talk about tech options for the upcoming middle and high school youth retreats. I went out to the youth offices in the trailer behind the church building, where Josh and Tyler were talking. The three of us headed out to lunch. Tyler rode with me and Josh followed us to Five Guys Burgers and Fries. That place makes good burgers but I just can't help but feel that every time I eat there, my heart is cursing at me on the inside for it. That's all I'm saying.

As we were eating, Jami Farnum joined us. We talked about options for the middle school retreat first, and then the high school retreat. I've grown rather unwilling of letting the youth team borrow equipment from the worship ministry simply because it never seems to get taken care of and protected in a manner that I would deem appropriate. And I told them this at lunch. With limited equipment and supplies that other areas of the church depend on, I wasn't sure if I could risk letting them take some of it off-site to a retreat in another state.

While we were talking, Jami stood up and ran out the back door. The rest of us were kind of confused but then realized what was going on. He had seen a tractor-trailer truck getting on the entrance ramp to the Interstate flip over while going on the turn. And here's how Jami and I are different: He grabbed a cell phone and called 911. I grabbed my camera and started taking pictures. Don't judge me. As a result of my picture taking, you get to see what it looked like. And we all know how people like to observe car wrecks.


We finished up our lunch meeting shortly after observing the truck and realizing the driver was probably ok. I gave Josh a few options of equipment he could use for the middle school retreat, and we're going to meet again in a couple of weeks to discuss options for the high school retreat. We will see how that goes.

Tyler rode back with me to the church and then he had to leave to go to class. I went back to my office and kept working. I finished the baptism DVD master for the 4 baptisms that we did at the beginning of February. I had done most of the work last night but I must have forgotten to save the project. Over the night, my computer did an automatic Windows Update. I hate it when it does that. It force-closes all of my applications and reboots and installs the updates. That is so annoying, especially since my only options are either "automatically install" or "turn off". So, when it rebooted, I lost my work and had to do it all again.

I also spent some time today researching options for a wireless translation system. For the past few weeks, we have had a growing Hispanic group of people attending the church, and someone has been sitting with them translating the service into Spanish while sitting next to them. We are looking at options to buy a system so that someone could transmit the audio to wireless receivers, allowing those that needed to hear to sit wherever they wanted to, and allowing the person doing the translating to sit where they need to in order to communicate effectively and not be a distraction to others. Most likely, that will end up being my office, since it's at the back of the worship center. We will see.

I worked on a few other projects today, including emailing new volunteers and trying to schedule more training and looking at my team assignent matrices to see where they might fit. Andrew showed up around 5:30pm today. We were both kind of hungry but waiting to eat dinner. Matt had scheduled to provide food for the band and worship team tonight from Bucky's BBQ. I was kind of bored just sitting around, so I went and found Dawn (Matt's ministry assistant) who was going to go pick up the food and I offered to go get it to save her some time. And to give me something to do.

Andrew rode with me and we went to Bucky's really quick to get the food. Kelly, one of the guys that works there, told me I had just missed seeing my parents and brother. They eat there every Wednesday, apparently. I paid for the food and we loaded it up into my SUV and drove back to the church and took the food upstairs.

Tonight during our worship team "mental gel time", we all had dinner together. Well, together at separate tables. We had a lot of new people join us tonight, including new vocalists and new instrumentalists. We had assigned seating at the different tables, with each new person surrounded by existing team members. I was assigned to a table of all vocalists, probably because whoever did the place assignments knows of my secret singing abilities.

We had paper with questions so we could get to know the new people better. I did a great job of introducing myself to Tara, a new vocalist at our table, asking questions and learning more about her. When we were all done eating, we came together as a group and then gave "reports" on the new people we had met. My entire table of people came up on stage and I grabbed the microphone and delivered my report like a proud elementary school student who had just finished a book report. As we went through the sheet talking about "How this person came to Southside", "Family facts", etc. I started making up stuff about Tara toward the end of the report because it sounded funnier. I wonder if anyone noticed.

We learned a lot of things about all of the new people tonight. After we were done with that little ice-breaker, Matt talked for a few minutes and then we broke up into groups. The vocalists stayed upstairs and the band went downstairs to get ready to practice. I stood around on the stage and helped get through soundcheck.

My friened Brian Schlarb stopped by to hang out with me for most of the evening. He even ran the slides for me and we sat and talked for a while. I'm trying to convince him to come run stuff with me on Sunday mornings.

We pretty much stayed in the control room, running slides and singing along with the band (and admiring at our ability to sing better than them, although that was probably just inexperience that made us feel that way). The practice went on for a long time tonight. We were there until 10pm.

I had to stop and get gas for my SUV on the way home. When I got home, I got out my Macbook and laid down on the floor in my apartment living room to watch "Fringe" online since I missed the new episode last night. While I was watching, I saw a spider crawling past my arm. I captured it with a bottle cap and let it sit there until I was done watching Fringe, and then released the spider into a bigger plastic container so that I could see what kind of spider it was.


As near as I could tell, it looked like a brown recluse, but I'm not really a spider expert. Bugs don't really bother me that much as long as they do their thing and I do my thing. It's when we have to interact that I feel the need to squish. I was going to let this one live but he seemed so agressive that I wasn't confident that it wouldn't just jump up and bite me. I was pretty sure it wasn't radioactive and pretty sure I wouldn't get super powers as a result, so the prospect of being bitten didn't seem exciting. I've never really liked spiders that much. I think it's because I saw the movie "Arachnophobia" as a kid and was convinced that things like that could really happen. You know, with spiders as big as houses and whatever.


I ended up stabbing it with a plastic fork, which was hard to do because this thing moved fast. Not as fast as my fork though.

So, that was my day. Tomorrow will be a good day. I've got some projects that I'll be working on at the church and I think I'm going speed-dating in the evening. I can honestly say I've never done that before. Hopefully it won't be awkward.

Later,

Joe