Creating an Environment

So let's start at the very beginning (it's a very good place to start). I started this post immediately following my last post regarding Simply Christmas eve service. Because to someone who doesn't understand the vision I would imagine they're wondering why in the world a bunch of people would spend collectively 297 hours over a 24 hour period? So why do we do what we do at Lifepoint, why do we have people showing up at 6:00am on a Sunday mornings and then spend several hours working?

Have you ever heard the story of the three men laying bricks? They were asked during their labor what they were doing. The first replied, I'm making fifteen dollars an hour, The second replied I'm laying bricks, but the third man replied, "I'm building an amazing cathedral"

So first what we do: We're creating an environment conducive (big word for me) to learn about, and accept the message and gift of Salvation through Jesus the Christ. Everyone is preaching the gospel in the best way they know how through the talents and gifts that they have, it can vary from directing traffic to worshiping on the stage. (I had a much longer part earlier regarding every team, but I was a) bound to leave someone out, and b) probably boring you the reader). I suppose a term that would work well here Synergy, the whole of the team working in unison is greater than the sum of the individual parts.

And why we do it? To see lives changed for God's glory. Or as I like to put it, to change forever, someone's eternal destination.

~Matthew Furukawa

...And this isn't even my music notes...

Okay, I've had a full day to 'decompress' after a phenomenal (and yes that's spoken with extended accent) Christmas Eve service. I wanted to take a day to come off of the emotional highs regarding the service so that I could make clinical comments regarding such. (Okay, everyone who actually knows me, you can pick yourselves off the floor now, it's not THAT funny... Come one I'm waiting, take slow deep breathes to calm down, that's the kind of laughter that gets painful after a while).

I've seen a nice email regarding the service, and Jeremy's Blog as well, so you might want to read his in addition/instead of mine. It's bound to be more informative.

First lets take a glimpse into what went into this one night. Planning for this service began somewhere in mid/late October / early November, details fell in place around late November, and then the final push began the second week of December, here's my completely unofficial stats. (Some of which are fairly accurate, some of which are a wild guess based on inductive reasoning, ie I know about how many people where there for about how long a time.)

Totals man hours of planning during programming meetings: (Because I can' even begin to fathom how much time everyone spent individually planning for the service) 38 hours

Total Man Hours Spent During Set up/Tear down of the service: 105 hours

Total Man Hours Spent by technical/worship team during the run practices/service: 68 hours

Total Man Hours by Decorating Team: 60 hours

Total Man Ours By Parking/Greeting/Usher/Refreshment team: 60 hours

Number of hours it took the Video to compile: 20 hours

Number of hours it took Josh to Put together said video: I have no clue, but it was quite a few

Number of hours to build the loop for the song in the video: 4 hours

Number of barrels of food collected for food bank: 5 (from Jeremy's Blog)

Number of Injuries to myself: 2

Number of sticks I broke while playing: 1

Number of cool new gear I got to buy for the service: 1 new pair of stick/mallet combos.

Amount collected for Simply love (Donation to Hope house and Thurman Brisben center): Over 10k (Again from Jeremy's Blog)

Number if Times Jeremy Acted Grinch-ish: 3 (Mostly during initial planning, see this post for details)

Number of times I acted Grinch-ish: (Way more than 3)

Official Number of lives who have forever changed their eternal destination: 25 (At least according to Jeremy's Blog)

Unofficial Number of lives who have forever changed their eternal destination: Unknown, but higher than the above number based on the hands that went up.

Amount of pride I feel from those last two stats: Immeasurable.

And really those last two items on the list are why we do what we do. Yes I love music and drumming, but that's not why I play for our worship team, if it was just about music I'd be working as a session drummer and/or gigging at clubs on nights and weekends it's about seeing what God is still doing in and around us, it's about seeing lives changed, and it's an amazing feeling.

Matthew Furukawa
Post Christmas Eve Service Reflections (Is that proper use of that word?) 2007

The Greatest Generation

Something of an introspective posting, I'm currently "reading" a book I picked up from our local used book store, it's the Congressional Medal of Honor Library, World War 2, Volume 2 M-Z.

The world war two generation has often been called America's greatest generation, reading through this book is a strong testament to this fact. Now I don't want to cheapen the deeds by our military personal who served, or are serving in other times, but reading this book literally chokes me up. Most of the entries in it end in the phrase "He gallantly gave his life for his country."

The scripture in John goes something like "No greater love than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." I've read where men threw themselves on grenades knowing they would die to protect their squads, I've read where men would run out alone under severe fire to grab a man left behind, I've read where a pilot stayed at the controls to make sure his crew had enough time to escape a burning plane only have it explode before they themselves could make it out.

A part of me can't help but wonder what's going on now with our men and women waging a war against on terror on foreign soil so that we don't have to face one on our own. And I wonder why the deeds of selfless courage that are doubtless happening don't get reported, or what the real story behind some of what does get reported is.

It doesn't help that I've been watching band of brothers lately.

It's Christmas morning and I hope everyone stateside has a chance to spend it with family and friends. And when you see someone in uniform, thank them, because they are why you can. In fact, between the presents and the food, and whatever traditions you have, say a prayer thank God that you live in a country where you can freely celebrate his son's birthday, then ask him to protect the men and women who are keeping it that way.

To our armed service personal, I offer my thanks and gratitude and I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Safe return,

God Bless.
Matthew Furukawa,
Christmas 2007

DHL gets Coal this year,

Right, I just finished a long ranting (it was at least two pages long) post about shipping companies and Christmas, but I'll sum it up as such, DHL is getting coal this year, and next time place your orders 3 weeks in advanced, and next day shipping apparently isn't, even when you have an entire week to get it.

I deleted the rant by the way, I just felt like venting.

Acoustic Set

Oh the Irony.

A few posts back I mentioned our awesome acoustic set and the fact that my wonderful percussionist was out that week.

Ever get that feeling?

Because Said percussionist is at home with their family for Christmas, now I knew this was going to occur, twas planned for months, well I'd guess about 3 weeks ago we decided to make this Sunday another Acoustic set to help expedite Tear-Down and packing as we're in a larger facility for Christmas Eve. (Side note, if you're in the Spotsylvania Area for Christmas come on by we'll be at MAssapponax high school Service Starts at 6:30 sharp, I would recommend getting there around 6:00 so you have time to park, etc).

The short version, hand drums for me again tomorrow. Thankfully the set we have is one that should be much easier on my hands. We're doing Joy to the World, Enough and Welcome to our World, the last of which has no drums at all, hopefully my next post will say how it wasn't near as bad as last time and that my hands don't hurt at all. (Cue hysterical laughter here)

Right,

Current Stats:
Reading: The Ant and the Elephant (I'd misplaced my copy and I'm finishing it up now)
Listening to: Something be Bela Fleck and the Flecktones (Not sure what the title is, yay internet radio)
Watching: Band of Brothers, (though not at this very moment).

Simply Christmas!

Our current series at Lifepoint leading up to Christmas Eve service is Simply Christmas, with all the commercialism, and general business of this time of year, it's a chance to focus on the real reason for Christmas.

For me every Sunday has been a good refresher, between practices, work, Christmas parties cooking and baking for said parties I know for a fact that I needed that.

3 more days till Simply Christmas, Spotsylvania's Christmas Eve service!

I can't wait I'm so excited to see what God is going to do this year.

I have an earlier version of this song on my BOCA humor CD, but I thought it'd be appropriate for only a few days before Christmas.

~Matt

Monday evening Reflections

I guess I should Call it Tuesday Morning, at this point.

I'll post later when I'm more coherent, but I wanted to say that yesterday's worship set was amazing.

Angels we have heard on high (A slightly modern-fied version by Jeremy, our worship pastor)
Go Tell it on the Mountain, The Big Daddy Weave Version, (which is now my favorite Christmas song to play)
Amazing Grace, The Passion/My Chains are gone arrangement (Now THIS was a God thing, we had no idea that Pastor Floyd had renamed the service simply amazed until after we had already finished this song!)
finally we did
I Celebrate the Day by Relient K

The entire service was, simply amazing.
More when I'm not existing on Caffeine

Friday Afternoon Leadership...

I wanted to post a few notes from the Leadership Conference I was at this past weekend, but life has been in my way all week. (In point of fact I'm staring at the sea of chaos that is my office that I'll be ORGANIZING this evening), but I digress.

7 Laws of Critical Focus (I believe taken from the book Critical Choices, which is now on my To Read list)
1) Our Most Recent Experiences influence what we focus on.
2) What We Focus on determines what we believe
3) What we Believe Determines what we expect.
4) We see what we expect to see.
5) We tend to filter out what we don't expect to see.
6) The more we see the more options we have available.
7) We have the power to choose what we focus on.

Ever notice how people who expect bad things to happen seem to have more bad things happen to them?
How people who focus on things going right seem to have things fall into place?
Doesn't this explain a lot?

Or for laws 2-5 tell me if this isn't true.
Think about when you last bought a car.
Now Since purchasing that car have you noticed that the same make/model of car is EVERYWHERE?
Case in point. I used to drive a Mazda Protege, and saw them all over. After buying my Alero, (Which up to this point I had never seen another Alero on the road period) they were everywhere, including two others in our neighborhood, one which is exactly the same as mine! (Two door, white with a wing). Now did two other people run out the same day I did and buy an Alero at the same time selling their proteges? No, the only difference is that my focus shifted, and I naturally began filtering out what I used to focus on.

I've got one more set of notes I wanted to pull out but I'll save them for a later Post, for now I have an office taunting me.

Recent Stats:
Listening To: Go Tell it On the Mountain by Big Daddy Weave
Reading: In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy day.
Watching: Clip of Gavin Harrison and Porcupine Tree from Drummerworld dot com

Snicker

For the Record this was emailed to me and I had to share it.
For My Liberal Friends:

"Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, our best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. We also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the generally accepted calendar year 2008, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. And without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishes. By accepting these greetings you are accepting these terms. This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for herself or himself or others, and is void where prohibited by law and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher."

For My Conservative Friends:

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Forget Milk, Got Rice?

I'm all about improving my vocabulary, and this site that I got off of the Gadling blog not only helps in that aspect, but apparently donates rice to needy (I read starving) areas. Normally I'd question and research a "donate food to the needy" website (especially before mentioning it on my own blog, or linking to it), but in this case there's no money involved. Just brain power.

Sleep patterns

I've had really odd sleep patterns lately, Thursday I got 2 hours of sleep, Friday night I crashed at 9:00 tonight, or rather this morning I'm just giving up on it, if I were to fall asleep now I'd have an hour until I wake up, thus I take the simple solution.

A cup of hyper caffeinated beverage and a couple rounds of CS until it's time to head to Church.

Lifepoint Welcome Video

I just saw on Pastor Daniel's Blog that the Welcome Video is now up.

Music Notes

As I mentioned earlier I send out a weekly email to everyone on the worship team. It's fairly well received (at least based on the feedback I get) and thought if there are any other music directors out there reading this you might get a couple ideas from what we do at Lifepoint.

I'll post an explanation of the format here and then post one of the more recent music notes email here as an example (with annotations in color).

I start of with a general introduction usually with a quick overview/recap of the previous Sunday. I also attempt to make the occasional witty comment (That I indicate by use of parenthetical notation like this) One of the challenges of email is that so much of communication is either non-verbal (through body language cues) or intonation and timing, neither of which translate well into typed format I try to express myself as best I can (occasionally using little directive within the confines to express things like grins, smirk or maniacal laughter).

I then move onto the worship sets, listed by date, I do so every week because songs selection occasionally (read often) changes at the programming meetings. (SIDE NOTE: I aim to send my music notes out Monday evening after our programming meeting, in practice they normally go out some time on Tuesday.)

Finally the music notes: I try to address everyone with quick (and sometimes quirky) notes to all the band members and directly related staff. (Namely Our production manager, Media Director, Worship leader, Vocal Director, my worship planning coordinator and all the band members, I lump messages to the vocals, but leave individual messages for the vocal director.) Then I have a spot to address information to everyone as needed.

Here's one that was written during our Drive Series, hopefully this will explain itself much better than I did earlier. (Again annotations will be in color)


Wow, what an amazing service today was, I haven't seen the official count, but last I heard we had 11 people accept Christ as their Savior. I feel it's important to communicate things like this to your (or my in this case) people, so this and the following paragraph which is basically commentary on my part is letting the team know hey here's why we do what we do. It helps build a sense of purpose and really it's something to take pride in. Especially seeing what God is doing around us. What a Mighty God we serve!

Make no mistake people, this is what we're about, this is why we do what we do, everyone one of you should take immense honor in this, (at least) 11 people have forever changed their eternal destiny, I know I am humbled and feel invigorated, as Pastor Daniel would say, life change is a win for us, and this is a big one in my book.

Awesome job today, and I mean awesome. Having reviewed that sets today, almost everything sounds great. Kimberli your vocals on (well everything, but especially) Torn are just... honto sugoi! If you're wondering, I'm of Japanese decent and have a light grasp on the Language, Kimberli who's one of our vocals, my worship planning coordinator and something of an older-sister figure in my life also knows a bit, I'm basically saying seriously awesome in Japanese.

Addendum (Well it’s rather obvious that this was written over a two day period, just stick yesterday where the word today appears) It ended up being a three day period, thankfully no one called me on it. This was also done before I started sending these out AFTER programming and as direct result there would be subsequent addendum's during the week about this or that has changed. Changes still happen but much less frequently.

Looking ahead to next week we start Drive, did anyone else think that the video that Josh MADE was totally amazing?

This week's set is The Aforementioned Set List, I also send out everything I have prepared in advance now, it gives people more time to prepare. I usually have plans for two full weeks out, with specials (occasionally referred to as anthems) for the entire series if I have that information.
You Are
Let God Arise
Holy is the Lord
Life is a Highway (Rascal FLats) Special One thing we try to do both at worship planning, and programing is to find music that really helps the people in the service connect to Pastor Daniel's message. Sometime this "anthem" will be a secular song as was the case of this message. The series was drive and this was the kick off Ignition (I think), but don't quote me on that.

We'll be having a guest guitarist in this week as well, so we'll be having an optional practice this Saturday at 11:30 (again at the Schlee’s see the note at the botto ack tyop!), Bill if you can make it I'd appreciate it. Jeremy I know you'll be there so I'm not worried on that front. For everyone else it's completely optional.

Music Notes:

Everyone: Okay So Jeremy’s got us reading Doing Church as a Team, and this is something that I took away from it that I’ve never really thought about before. (hey this week’s deep thought is in a different Location, just making sure you’re paying attention) Wayne Dordeiro (Pastor New Hope Christian Fellowship) is talking about his worship team, and notes that they are preaching the gospel the best way they knew how, through their singing and playing. I’ve always thought of my playing as a spiritual act of worship and perhaps helping to create an environment for the gospel to be preached, but the words I read suddenly gave me new meaning to what we do on Sunday morning, we’re not just singing a song, We’re preaching the gospel the best way we know how. (By the way, from personal experience I’d like to add that eating should be listed at least three more times in the things locals enjoy) Occasionally I'll share a bit of wisdom I've picked up from somewhere during the week. In the case of this week it was from a book.

David Our amazing Media Team director: Out of curiosity, what am I getting in the mixdown? Is it the feed going to the mains or monitors? Or is it something else? This week's mix down could get by with a bit more bass, and a bit (ok a lot) less acoustic. Still sounded good though, one last note, is that it's very quiet. When Daniel is preaching or someone goes up to do announcements it very loud, but for the worship sets, it's really soft. David handles everything technical and has the distinct honor of being a bigger geek than I am (which says a lot) normally I check with him here for any technical sound issues that we're having, or about the mixdown which is a separate recording of the worship that I review on a weekly basis so I know what needs to be addressed.

Kristen Our deserves-way-more-credit-than-she'll-take Production and Programing Manager: We missed you Sunday! Normally I would ask her if there was anything that needs to be brought to my attention.

Jeremy Technically my Boss, Our worship pastor and all around great guy: MAC, REASON, the magnetic thingy you need for your guitar (just in case you forget about it), also I sent an email to Sweetwater to see if they know of any hardware to connect. Here I'm reminding him about some gear that he had asked me to remind him about. (And I'm still reminding him about for that matter)

Tammie Our amazing vocal director, fabulous voice, great pianist, puts up with me: Lyrics for Mia are attached, (I don't have her email address)

Bill Our ultra flexible bass player, no seriously not only does he play more instruments than I do, he also has an ear for finding harmonies: Awesome Job as always, Lead sheets are also attached, except for Life is a Highway, I didn’t like the ones I found online so I’m redoing them, expect them no later then Wednesday.

Brandon Our Guitarist (occasionally bassist and keyboardist) and also my alter-ego in a way, He's also the Worship pastor/music director for the downtown campus so he's really juggling hats: if you need anything let me know.

Elizabeth Our wonderful Percussionist who really deserves the MalletKat that's unfortunately still not in the budget (sorry!) : First, great job this week, the bells sounded really good for amazing grace, in fact, they sounded, dare I say it… amazing (Ba-dump ching), second: Question, would you be willing to play HiHat this week? (Opening of Life is a Highway) I'm not sure if I can play that and the funky tom breakdown. (and yes, I’m aware that I was still a day late)

Matt Me: There was only one thing missing, we need…. MORE COWBELL Yes, I do notes to myself, and I usually make them offbeat or humorous because (shrug) I don't want to pat myself on the back.

Vocals: Tammie has your lyrics for this week. Here I'm directing them to the Vocal Director it almost always say see vocal director in some form or another.

Everyone: MAJOR CHANGE to next week (The week I won't be here) switching out Real Gone to Crashed by Daughtry. Also practice will be at the Schlee's this week. It's near Breezewood, for directions if you need them you can contact me or Jeremy. Also everyone please give a hand to Jessica Watson, the only person to complete the assignment I handed out last week (So far) So I’m still waiting… Again a note to everyone letting them know a change of location for practice and of the song selection.

A shorter email this week, I’m not sure if I should be apologizing or expecting you all to thank me for not boring everyone to tears. In hind sight it not that short, so I bet you're wondering what a long email is from me now eh?

Furukawa signing off, I have a loop to write.
There are a few more names on the roster that wasn't there when I sent this email (if they read this I don't want them to feel left out, so I apologize now, but I will say I've been very blessed to be given the group of talent I have, have had, and will have in the future, (cue the fake hysterical crying) I love you guys!(end fake-hysterical crying) serious though all of you rock!).

One new issue that I'm kinda learning about as I go is dealing with depth. For the longest time I've only had one musician for each spot, now we're (slowly) building a team of musicians so scheduling and how to collaborate all of this is a learning experience.

Ok, one last note before I sign off now as well is that I try (because occasionally I do slip up, I am after all, only human) to only find things that my team did well in these emails, I want to build my team up not tear them down, and most certainly not tear them down in front of the rest of the team (as everyone gets these) instead if something needs to be corrected I tend to address them privately either in a meeting, or phone call. If its' nothing major I'll send it in email but I prefer to address issues personally to leave less room for mis-interpretation.


Hope this helps someone!

~Matt

Current Stats:
Listening to: Good Luck by Basement Jaxx
Reading: Jeremiah Ch1
Watching: Zip.

Snicker

Ok So Josh mentions this song for our Simply Christmas series and I i-tuned the entire album, (Let it Snow Baby, Let it Reindeer by Relient K) The album is awesome, and has an arrangement of Handel's Messiah performed in in one minute nine seconds, now as a lover classical music a part of me is horrified by this, the other part of me thinks it's awesome!

I Celebrate the Day is an amazing song (And not sounding like the standard Relient K Piece) Thanks Josh for recommending it. What's a Partridge and what's a Pear Tree? Well I don't know so please don't ask me, but I can bet those are terrible gifts to get.

I get a snicker every time I hear the song now.

Current Stats:
Listening to: 12 Days of Christmas by Relient K
Reading: Doing Church as a Team Chapter 5
Watching: Nothing

Confessions of a Worship drummer 12/2/07

I dated this post because I'll probably re-use this title in the future.

A quick blurb on my background before I get into it. In addition to being the (now one of the) drummer(s) for Lifepoint I'm also the director of music for the main campus. I send out weekly emails to my team (which usually run the subject header music notes). I'll publish a separate post on this later, just wanted to clear some things up, on the music notes are coming from myself the music director and this (and subsequent referenced) postings are from myself the drummer.

If there are any other worship drummers out there I hope some of this helps.

For the first year I played drums for the church I was continually requested to play aggressively. Then I kept getting, play softer(I would assume they meant to play quieter), the easy solution? (for playing quieter, aggressive playing will only come from practice and confidence) Drumsticks! I started with 7a Manhattans from Vater, then later moved on to 7a's from VF, then to the American classic 5As (and 5ANs) then back to the 7A's with a bunch of signature sticks that I've tried in the middle of that muddle). I now (mainly) use a set of Steve Gadd Signature Drumsticks (From Vic Firth) I do use the plastic tipped sticks for two reasons, part of the reason is it gives a brighter sound when I'm riding on the cymbal, but the main reason is that's what they stock in our local Guitar Center.

Drumstick selection makes a huge difference on sound performance, Vic Firth, Vater, Pro-Mark all have great articles on stick selection, actually all of them have some great articles on drumming in general, but Vic Firth's site is content rich (Quicktime required for most of their media just a heads up). I personally like the Steve Gadd signature sticks because they've got a good feel, and have a very light touch, (and I mean light, I can hammer away when the mood hits and the volume never gets too out of control). If I were in a more rock oriented venue I'd probably switch back to either the 5A's of the 7A's (And when we get an auditorium instead of the gym we meet in I may do so anyway) but I have to admit that these are great sticks. (Mental note research what type of wood they're made out, they don't feel like hickory).

I'll cover more on drumming in general in a later post (I think that's becoming my signature expression) for now let me resume this post entitled confessions of a worship drummer.

Our worship set was
Point of Difference (Hillsong)
O Come All Ye Faithful
Silent Night
You Alone (Crowder)

Point of Difference was (for the most part) played as it's heard on the Hillsong cd.

O Come All Ye Faithful was played in 6/8 (with something of a shuffle waltz underneath) I personally prefer this in a 4/4 with a rock feel, but it didn't sound bad.

Silent Night was played with a jazz waltz (3/4 but with a 6/8 feel), in retrospect as my amazing ultra talented percussionist (see previous post) was playing bells I could have done one (or both) of these songs on hand drums... but I really didn't feel like bruising my hands... again.

You Alone was played in 3/4 (I take that back I think it was in 6/8) and is one of my favorite pieces in that time signature because, can't explain it, just love the way the groove feels. I think it's a R&B groove in 3/4 but don't quote me on it.

This was a nice easy Set-list for me, which is both nice, and occasionally unsatisfying. while I like the break, I also like the challenging set we (I) occasionally get to pull off, though there are times when I have to remind myself that I'm sitting there to worship through drumming, not just perform. Speaking of which I did find this resource for drummers to be inspiring and it was interesting to see some of the well known names in the industry who know who sits on the the throne (sorry drummer joke couldn't resist).

Current Stats:
Listening to: Feels so Good by Chuck Mangione
Reading: Never Give In
Watching: Nothing, but I did get 1/2 way through Band of Brothers over the weekend.

Back to square one

My Pc's been a it buggy lately. Nothing to bothersome, but with a free weekend, (Something of a rare commodity in my life) so being the geek that I am I decided to format the c drive and reinstall the operating system. A simple process. One I've done hundreds of times.

So no less than three formats later I'm finally back up and running, and no I don't have all my software back on. Actually that was one of the reasons I decided to format, I've gotten such a collection of little (read pointless) progs over time that i think i was bogging down my system. Now I'm only going back with the basics with the others being added on an as-needed basis.

So it took three hours longer than necessary (I admit it, it's been a while since I've done this and I ran updates before installing drivers, something that my system doesn't like, and then did it again because I forgot about the second driver cd)

On last thing I'm doing different on this system, I've decided to try running mostly Open source software for the time being, that means instead of digging my ancient copy of office 97 out of the woodworks I'm going to run Open Office.

I will probably install photoshop though, I prefer it's interface to gimp's.

Right well I've got a bunch more work to do.

Current Stats:
Listening to: Remedy by Crowder
Reading: Never Give in (A Biography on Winston Churchill) by Stephen Mansfield
Watching: Band of Brothers

On nick-names

Ever wonder how people get their nick-names?
Or, for that matter, their online (IM, chat etc) monikers?

With the exception of my IM moniker (which was the result of a LAN party, Ramen, and being up till four in the morning) I normally go by Fudi (Pronounced Food-EE) in point of fact if being called out from across a room I will normally respond to Fudi sooner than I will my own name.

Now some people get nick-names based on their initials (JP) or a shortening of their name (Matt, Kel, Lou, or Tam for example), other's for physical traits, (Opi, who was instrumental in coining my own nick-name, more on this later), and still others for personality or other quirks, (Sneezy, happy, grumpy, well you get the idea).

That being said my moniker of Fudi was actually coined by a good friend of mine who was also a Matt, who bore a some-what scary resemblance to Opi (Hence his nick-name).

My point? I'm not sure, I lost it somewhere between 5:30 and now.

(Ironically, there's at least one other fudi out there, and here I thought it would be a unique reference).

Right, well I've got to get ready to get myself into work.

Matthew "fudi" Furukawa signing off.

Current Stats:
Listening to: The House of Stone and Light by the Brown Derbies (Originally by Martin Page)
Reading: (See Previous Post)
Watching: The Clock!

I'm back!

Well technically I haven't been gone, but comcast has finally seemed to fix the problems with my internet connection. (For how long remains to be seen). I would have posted this last night but with practice and all, (not to mention the drum rack that was, sitting in front of the computer, and now off to the side) I didn't get a chance.

Current Stats:
Listening to: Collide by Howie Day
Reading: I swear I will finish the Any and the Elephant this weekend!
Watching: Nothing this early

East of Eden, (or Fruits and Faith)

Okay, so here's the deal I have pounds to shed. By shed I mean loose, and by loose I mean purge never to be seen again. (Especially after Thanksgiving, anyone else running into that?) It's not like it takes a phd in rocket science to figure out how to loose weight, consume less calories, increase body's burning of said calories. One of the more culturally accepted manner is to eat more vegetables and less fast food, whilst adapting to, or developing an exercise regime.

Let me tackle the last part first, exercise, as a drummer I consider myself moderately active, but I'm starting to wake up an hour earlier in the morning so I have time to actually "Work Out" as it were. So that's not much a problem a small matter of personal discipline is all.

Where said personal discipline (for me anyway) often flies out the window is on the subject of food. Food is a major issue for my whole family, (And not just the normal spread either, our family loves food culture in general). Now I'm not a grazer (who eats constantly) nor do I eat past the point I'm full, I do however have a particular unhealthy affection for food stuffs that have been fried deep in fat (more commonly known as deep fat fried).

While I do like a nice salad here and there and love my fresh fruits... I'm sorry but the flavor just doesn't compare to a nice juicy cheeseburger! (Which is not deep fat fried, but I digress, regardless it's still unhealthy).

Thus I come to my next point, has anyone else ever wondered what life was like in the Garden of Eden? I mean scripture says "trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food" so did they have fruits (Or vegetables) that tasted like, say pepperoni pizza?

Before you write this off as the crazed ramblings of a (soon to be) fast food deprived mind, consider this, Adam and Eve sinned against God by eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Now from my world view as a Christ follower I accept the following, God created the Heavens and the earth, and everything on the earth in six days, he made a tree, a TREE that eating it's fruit gave the person who ate it knowledge of good and evil.

I accept all of that, (And honestly I still find it much more believable than evolution but that's another debate for a much longer post), having accepted all that, does a fruit that tastes like pizza sound so difficult to accept?

Lunch break is over so I must return to work, how fun.

Current Stats:
Listening to: You Raise Me Up by Josh Groban
Reading: The Ant and the Elephant (You'd think I'd have finished this by now)
Watching: Nothing at the moment

Find out what it means to me...

If you're wondering about the title of the post, it's the line that follows R.E.S.P.E.C.T. from Aretha Franklin's song of the same name (Respect).

Why?

Well some back history here I got a call on Saturday from Jeremy letting me know that we were changing our worship set to an acoustic setup. No big deal, if anything it makes setup and tear-down MUCH easier. so I'm playing hand drums as Elizabeth (our normal percussionist) is out on vacation this week, normally that would be bongos and congas but as I said she was on vacation it meant congas (I sent the bongos with her) and a Djembe which was borrowed from another team member (And probably spelled wrong) . On a side note it's a beautiful hand carved solid wood Djembe, (again with the spelling), it was a joy to play and hear. And after playing one I can now say with no doubt that I have to get one. Perhaps not a hand carved one but they have a distinct sound that I much enjoy.

Now let me clarify one other point before I get any farther, I respect the abilities of all my musicians and feel very blessed to work with the group of talented and inspired individuals who make up our praise team. Every single one of them, you have no idea how awesome they are. We (and by which I mean me or sometimes Jeremy, and once in a while our lead Pastor Daniel) have switched songs on them last minute and they never fail to sound amazing.

That being said my respect for that girl has gone way up. (And as I mentioned earlier it was fairly high to being with.) My reasoning? She plays those (blasted and yet wonderful) hand drums almost every week, during both services with little gripping or complaining. Me? My hands still hurt like the blazes and are swollen enough that typing this blog is taking twice as long as normal.

Now the service itself was great, and we've gotten a lot of positive feedback about our foray into acoustical set-ups, and will probably make them a more regular occurance. However the next time we do one, I'm going to let our wonderfully talented (and now much more appreciated) percussionist play the hand drums while I play something safer and less painful (like... say a washboard).

Current Stats:
Listening to: Untitled by Simple Plan
Reading: The Ant and the Elephant
Watching: Nothing at the moment

It is indeed Black Friday

I do hope that everyone had a good Thanksgiving.
For those of you who are brave (or insane) enough to fight (in some cases literally) the crowd my hat's off to you (I still think you're nuts though). Before you protest about how good the deals are (And some of them are indeed that good) I'd much rather take a day to catch up on reading and projects then save an extra $300.00 on a new labtop, (really the only thing that was truly tempting. Not to mention (And I hate to tell you this if you just spent 5 hours in line since midnight) but a lot (though not all) of deals can be grabbed online.

Jumping back to the beginning of the paragraph I'd like to take a moment to thank any and every service men and women currently active and otherwise who are out there to busy fighting for their country to fight the lines at the mall. Thank you, know the regardless of the headlines on CNN or the political speeches, your country respects, cares about and thanks you.

Ok moving on from another subject other then shopping, I finally have a linux box running Ubuntu 7.10, but that will soon change to Ubuntu studio vers. 7.04 probably this weekend when I have enough time to tool around with it. Why the downgrade? because last I checked studio was still at 7.04 and it has lots of preinstalled goodies (Audio/video/graphics)

Speaking of weekend project my little cousin came home for the weekend, during which time she did a bit more work on the "Wall Mural" at the entrance, I'll post a picture when I dig the camera out of storage.

Current Stats:
Listening to: Lifesong by Casting Crowns
Reading: The Ant and the Elephant
Watching: Nothing at the moment

Testing, testing (tap, tap, tap)

Right, well I've been encouraged to start blogging by several people.
I think the conversation went something like, "Hey man you're emails are so verbose you should start a blog." I think they were trying to tell me I write too much.

I'm still not sure if they were serious or not, regardless I decided it was time to join the gazillion other bloggers out there, it's part of my patriotic and civic duty to partake in the great Blogging tradition. Right...

No really!

Ok, the first part is true, and the reason why I'm now blogging is because I'm avoiding writing this week's musicnote's email which is currently 2 days late. Something else I have to do while I'm on my lunch break, (Which is why I'm now typing) as internet is down at home. They're coming Friday to fix the line, what I don't get is that when we called, the [insert insulting term of your choice here]s knew there was a problem with the outside line, arg!

Anyway back on topic, Expect this blog to read something similar to my musicnotes emails, hopefully with less typos and most likely longer and far more random posting topics. Much more random posting topics.

~Matta Ne
Matthew Furukawa

Current Stats:
Listening to: Kiss that Frog by Peter Gabriel
Reading: The Ant and the Elephant
Watching: Nothing at the moment.