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But if you click on the link, it will take you to my new blog over at www.shapingthespace.net

Enjoy :)

I did it ! ...but not what you might think...

...yes, the "Great Blog Transfer Project of February 2009" continues, but tonight I needed something not involving CSS/HTML/whatever.

So why, dear readers, did I choose to succumb the the Facebook 25 Random Things meme?

Well partly because I was kinda-sorta-indirectly challenged by Jenni to turn it into a song after her highly entertaining video version.

And partly, as a fun way to start Valentine's Day, Diane and I decided we'd better respond to the tagging together (though Diane did hers in the more conventional manner).

The MP3 is a bit long, a bit "midnight-recording-whispery", a bit crap really, but I think fitting it all into a 4 minute "song" (I use the word loosely) is somewhat impressive. Though not near as impressive as the one take vocals the whole way through...there's clearly no mistakes in there...oh no...

I'm also fairly sure I don't want to use this as my February entry for Our Creative Community...but let's see how the month pans out :)



And since the likelihood you can hear what I'm singing is small, here's the things :

1. I’ve only ever broken bones doing wimpy things, like playing handball.
2. One of my front teeth is fake.
3. It’s fake because it got smashed out by a flying metal ruler.
4. Toilet paper must be over, not under. I will fix it if it’s not.
5. The consequences of my nut allergy are a refreshing change to choking to death.
6. Depending what theatre production I’m in, I’m either God, Satan or Fagin.
7. The first time I used a non-electric razor and shaving cream to shave was when I was 24.
8. The first word I knew how to read was ‘Niacin’. Thank you Cornflakes.
9. I’m only 72% of the man I used to be.
10. I never bothered crawling.
11. The first song I ever wrote was called ‘Rock-a-Bye-Bra’ when I was 4.
12. It was full of nonsense words.
13. It shall never be spoken of again.
14. I usually change my hairstyle at least every two years.
15. The fact my dad says ‘prorably’ for ‘probably’ only stopped annoying me when I was 27.
16. I dance in the car.
17. I wrote an album of songs about being jilted. And called it ‘Catharsis’.
18. None of my real life friends Twitter.
19. None of my real life friends blog.
20. I once played Dead Or Alive’s ‘Brand New Lover’ fifty times in one day. I still love that song.
21. The sourer the sweet/candy/lolly, the better.
22. The most fun thing we ever did in Barbershop Quartet was sing Motley Crue’s ‘Kickstart My Heart’ or 'Dr Feelgood'
23. The second most fun thing we ever did in Barbershop Quartet was hide from our bass, usually in cupboards. Sometimes for up to an hour. In one cupboard.
24. I was upgraded to business class on my first international flight, but I was 15 and too young to appreciate it.
25. I think ‘inconsiderate interlocutor’ is the best phrase I’ve heard all day.

A New (Personal) Record

Earlier today, I tweeted about the number of meetings I was having with staff.

Most were brief and of the "hey, howyadoin'?" variety, some a bit longer, all vital for me keeping my finger on the pulse of this company and its' most precious resource - the people.

After nearly 10 hours, I'm a little spaced, but I've managed to fit in 15 meetings - that's nearly half the permanents, and I saw a couple of the casuals too.

In retrospect, this might be a bit much in one day (especially since I'll likely be doing the other half tomorrow), but most of my staff don't work onsite for the vast majority of the time and I'm taking the opportunity while it's there.

In more exciting news (probably), my "long-awaited" blog transfer to the competition is getting closer...

Warbbler

Some days just need a little bit of light relief.

With all that's been happening with freaky weather down here this week, today is one of those days.

Thanks to @kmesiab who Twittered this and made me laugh.
Lots.
I still am.

Fire and Flood and Thankfulness

This past week, it has been really bizarre to be complaining about the heat in Sydney, because:

- Up north, 60% of Queensland was underwater with floods (that's like France and Spain, btw...Qld is Australia's second largest state, and 60% being underwater means a really big area)

- Down south, the worst bushfires in Australian history are blazing. As I write this, 108 people are confirmed dead, 750 homes have been lost, and it's far from over.

What on earth do I have to complain about here in my cushy life? Nothing at all. Sure my situation isn't perfect - whose is? - but what I don't have pales in comparison to the tragedy unfolding around me everyday, and I mean everyday, not just in the midst of these epic tragedies.

So I weep with those who are weeping, rejoice at how the nation is pulling together in support of those who have lost, and express my thankfulness - for life & Life.

Shake the Disease

This week I've had the privilege of helping one of my staff make some positive steps to get out of a rut he's been in. There's been a few tears along the way for both of us, and that's OK.

He doesn't know Jesus as his Lord, but he knows of Him. So in my search for a third-party counsellor who could help out and be completely unbiased, I was amazed and thrilled at how easy it was to find people who were both business-focussed and Christian.

So I'm praying for the seeds sown to be watered and tended over these next few months as we rearrange a few areas to enable this young man, who has never worked anywhere else in his life, to "shake the disease" of disinterest, regain the professional respect of this colleagues, and shine.

Acknowledging its existence is half the battle; there's still a long way to go until victory can be claimed. But he (we) will.

Meanwhile, some vintage Depeche Mode. I have no idea whether he knew this song would come flooding to my mind as soon as he used the title phrase - he knows I'm a Depche fan - but it did nonetheless.

Your love is like a heatwave (heatwave!)

I'm not really sure how to start this. The title doesn't give a good idea of the content really. Great song though

Maybe it should just be a fluff post, we all need those from time to time (I took all of 3 days to get to my first one I think) and it's been a while since a pure fluff post here, hasn't it?

Well...cute as these pics are, it's also a sad reminder that our wildlife is fragile, and with all the bad weather events happening at the moment around the world (we've got floods and heatwaves while the upper hemisphere freezes), these pics are a bit poignant as well, for me anyway.

So here we have an adorable young koala who has clearly become so heatstressed in the extreme conditions (days and days of +40C or +105F temps) that it was forced...
(a) out of its eucalypt tree, which is bizarre enough behaviour,
(b) into the shade of a house,
(c) to allow the inhabitants of said house to look after it, and
(d) to actually drink some water!
All totally irregular behaviour for a wild koala - or any koala when it comes to drinking; they usually get all their requirements from eucalypt leaves.

So, everyone together now...awwwwwwww.

Now, I'm sure I need to credit someone with giving me these photos, but as I've received the email from nearly everyone in Australia (perhaps a slight exaggeration), consider this my thanks :)

A Little Taste

(After a few aborted attempts earlier today, I've gone with another 'brand' of embedded playlist which seems to obey and not autoplay when it's told not to...I don't like the adverts it chooses to put at the bottom of itself, but such is life)

Along with some questions being asked on other blogs, for me this week is becoming a bit of a journey through history, so in further response to my Monday post, here's some of the music that has spewed forth along the way.

The playlist is basically in reverse chronological order, and includes...
(a) "Unchangeable Truth v2.0" (yes, I know that's somewhat ironic titling) - added some hall reverb while keeping the initimacy of the vocal, also boosted the bass slightly (maybe too much?) and dropped the lead vocal to sit better in the mix. I need some studio monitors for the study!
(b) "I Am There" - the first thing I recorded in Garageband, all of 6 weeks ago. The lyric was written by a netfriend in NYC for another friend of hers who'd been through some major challenges; everything else is my contribution.
(c) "A Lover's Song" - our wedding song, which was a surprise for my wife when we danced to it; we were both a bit overcome I think.
(d) "Your Smile" - a 70s/80s MOR love ballad pop song, which got played on local radio a few times when it was done, yonks ago.

There's a reasonable amount of diversity in there, which might go part of the way to explaining my 'probably not expecting this' statement on Monday. The diversity covers everything from style to the quality of the songwriting/singing/recording; quite apart from whether it was done in a real studio and mastered, or by me in the study. Regardless, all fun.

'Course, this doesn't cover anything I recorded before I started writing my own music...maybe later...maybe...

Comments always welcome, including criticism (maybe especially the criticism, cos I can't get better if all I get is praise or silence ;)

Some explanation

In response to my last post, which for a few of you is the first time you've heard some of the loony creative stuff that comes out of my mind and mouth, some background. This may be reminiscent of the 25 Things tagging on Facebook; I really must do that, I was tagged a while back...

1. I don't play any instruments, so it's me and my voice. There are loads of reasons for this, at least one being the amount of time I spent in choirs at school and university.
2. Most of the music I've written in the past 5 years has been congregational praise and worship music, often to suit a specific season in my church, but a few that have lasted the distance too.
3. We're going to do some studio recording this year which will hopefully result in an album.
4. I'm getting off topic.
5. Despite not playing instruments, I know lots of theory, so instead of playing a guitar or keyboard, I sit and move dots & lines around the screen, adjusting intensity, length, pitch, etc. However, it means that what I create in this way is very different to what I create with my church worship team. This is a good thing.
6. I love electronic music, especially the crossover of electronica (or armchair techno & intelligent techno, my fave names from the early 90s) with choral music.
7. Writing for me, rather than congregationally, only restarted in December 08. However, I was a little distracted by how much fun Garageband is and have only completed this one song...and then only because of joining @ourcc. Nearly everything else I've done on there has been (somewhat dodgy) recordings of some of the more congregational songs I've written, usually in a very different manner.
8. I might post some of those here for your curiosity too :) This may also include some older recordings, and maybe even some that I've done which don't have explicitly Christian lyrics.
9. My wife and I often discuss the difference between relative and absolute truth, and the general shift in society to the whole "this is my truth, tell me yours" type of thing, rather than an acceptance that some things just are, no matter what you do or do not believe. This was a major seed point for what became "Unchangeable Truth".
10. With the idea floating in my head for ages, the process of physically 'getting it down' only began on Saturday after the huge week of prayer at my church meant zilch self-creativity time...it was worth it though.

That's 10 lines of somewhat interconnected thought. I'm looking forward to where all this goes!

Our Creative Community : Song for January

Yes, I know it's February already...I missed it by just over a day, so you're gonna have to extend me a little grace.

Here's my first "submission" for the Our Creative Community accountability club (or whatever we are :) Thankfully, the showcase post where this will be linked to isn't there yet, so I'm in the clear for the moment - haha! EDIT: it's definitely there now, so head on over and share in the creativity!

For the few of you who actually know me, you'll know that this song doesn't really fit with much that I've done before...but it is probably more the kind of thing you should & would expect from me. That includes anyone who's found my music lurking on Worship The Rock or MySpace, or (years ago), on radio in Australia and a few web stations from time to time. What's been posted there doesn't really prepare you for this I don't think...though there were pointers along the way

For everyone else, including those who read my worship blog, who knows what you expected?!? Probably not this in any case...

Musically, it's much less complicated that I usually go for...perhaps lacking in variation. The mix is also lacking a bit in bass it seems. It had way too much in an earlier version. At least it's less muddy vocally now...

Lyrics are below, and most of you will probably recognise that they are drawn from Genesis 1 and John 1, specifically the Amplified Bible (which I read quite a lot as it's the translation I chose for my phone). It was originally inspired by Ecclesiastes 7:8, which paraphrases to "the end is better than the beginning". But that didn't end up in the song anywhere, and neither did the title, which was the starting point for the song. I thought about calling it "Unchangeable Truth", but I like "In The Beginning", and it's even more appropriate considering it's the beginning of this creative accountability lark.

So, let me know what you think...the good, the bad, the ugly - even if you don't like the genre, etc, I want to know because it's this critiquing business that helps us (me) grow and become greater at what God's put in our (my) hearts to impact His kingdom!

Before all time, before the earth and sea were formed, in Him was Life
Before the sun, before the moon and all the stars, Life was Light
This has been and will always be unchangeable truth

When earth was formless, when all was darkness
Life hovered, brooded o'er the waters
The Word was spoken, and all creation, was made through Light
This has been and will always be unchangeable truth

The Light shines on in the darkness
The Light shines on in the darkness
For the darkness has never absorbed it
The darkness cannot absorb it
This has been and will always be unchangeable truth

The Light shines on...

EDIT: after having some sleep, and then getting the comment from my wonderful sister Cee (nearly typed your name...lol), I'm convinced of good reasons to rename it "Unchangeable Truth". Do let me know if you think this was a silly idea ;)