Up To My Elbows

Greetings from the deep end!

Have you ever been up to your elbows in anything? I have been, and currently am, at this very moment. Here I sit in my RV/Home in the living room/bedroom/kitchen/play room/TV room/sitting room/dining room/dressing room/office/driving area with toys, blankets and baby clothes, up to my elbows. Does it sound like I have a rant waiting just under the surface of my skin? Does this installment of “The Deep End” feel like it may be about to explode into an angry observation on the negative situation that I have found myself in? Well, it may feel that way but that is not how I feel. Not today anyway. Today I am content. Usually on days where I feel content I have nothing to write about. No funny story to tell about falling into a pond and finding a fish in my pocket later. No rant about how the boy got me up entirely too early. I’m not going to share about cooking, as I haven’t cooked for real since before we moved to Rapid City. Nope, today I have nothing to write about. So then, I guess I will write about all of the injustices I have suffered today.

So, I woke up this morning at 8:00am when the kids woke up. Of course the little punks just cuddled and played until 9:00am. Don’t they know that today is Tuesday and mommy and daddy rely on their little alarm clocks to get them up sooner?

Then I get to work on time and ready for my day only to find that coffee has already been made. Don’t they know that having coffee first thing when I get to work is the worst way to start the day? I get all awake and produce a high quality of work. This coffee first thing in the morning thing must stop.

I got home for lunch at 12:02 after a very productive morning at work (stupid coffee) only to find that the kids were happy, lunch was ready and the plan was for me to lay down with Xander after lunch to put him so sleep. Great, I got to eat lunch with my family then I was forced to take a 20 minute nap so that the BOY could get his rest. Wonderful.

I woke from my nap, put my shoes back on and went to the weekly prayer and staff meeting. I had a wonderful time. Dang it. Staff meeting is supposed to suck! How am I supposed to be relevant if work doesn’t suck? I am being robbed of the basic American right to loathe going to work.

So, then, I return home at my leisure and spend a couple hours playing with Aryll and working on my computer playing with video while Pam and Xander take care of the laundry and get some more movies out of storage. Pam brought back “Happy Gilmore”. Life is just so frustratingly good right now that it is bad. We have come full circle.

Then, just a moment ago Xander interrupted me. UGH HE IS SO ANNOYING!!! He came over with a toy and asked me to play with him. He was kind and cute and didn’t scream or cry. So of course I was forced to spend time with the interrupting monkey and play crocodile with him. Of course he would be respectful of Daddy’s writing time and stop playing without a fight a few minutes later. So frustrating.

It is with that thought, dear reader, that I will leave you with. Even when we are “up to our elbows”, with the right perspective, we can still find something to grump about. Now, where is that crocodile puppet, Xander is just screaming for a good tickle.

Extraordinary People

Greetings from the deep end!
There are a few times in a person’s life when, for a brief time, they are paired up with truly extraordinary people. For the past four months I have had that privilege with Shawn Michael Shoup. I have written in past blogs about most of the process of my family and I coming to Rapid City and Destiny foursquare. What I have not written about, until today, is the caring heart and gracious attitude of the man whose position I will be carrying on. I am truly humbled to have spent time with such an extraordinary man. Perhaps a little back story would help the reader understand why I feel this amount of praise is necessary.

At the end of April of this year, I found on the Foursquare website a job opening here in Rapid. I wasn’t sure if Rapid was a place we wanted to go to and I didn’t even tell Pam that I had emailed. It was simply a request for more information. Pastor Brent wrote back that he would like to pursue a relationship with me and Pam to see if God had a plan for all of us. Things progressed. One day I opened Facebook to see that Shawn had invited me to be a friend. Knowing that Shawn was the current Youth Minister I didn’t know what to expect. I accepted the friend request and one way or another Shawn and I began a Facebook email dialogue. Shawn was open and honest in answering my questions about the staff at Destiny, about the youth program here and about the town in general. He never hesitated to give me advice and opportunity to find support and to grow as a youth minister. This was all before Pam and I had our first meeting with Pastors Brent and Tani Parker.

It was obvious to me that Shawn cared very much for his youth kids and wanted to make sure that they were well taken care of in his absence. It was also quite evident that Shawn had a heart for encouraging, networking with and training youth pastors. Over the next weeks, Pam and I had the chance to talk at length with the Parkers and were invited to come to Rapid to visit the church, meet some of the people and get a feel for the Rapid/Destiny situation.

I met Shawn in person first thing the morning after we arrived. I came to the church early for music practice as I was to play the acoustic guitar that morning. Shawn was the first person I saw. We were dressed in like fashion. Both in black button up shirts, jeans and fashionable footwear. We are both very stylish men. That is to say, we both have wives that make us look good. He introduced himself and helped me get set up for music. Meeting with him that day was not an uncomfortable experience. He was not aggressive towards me. He was not hostile as some men would be when faced with the person who could possibly be the one to carry on the work that he had spent over nine years building. Shawn was humble and friendly. That in itself is worth all of the praise I could give to a man, however, my story is not yet complete. In fact, Shawn and I had only begun our time together.

That Tuesday, Pam and I had not yet been hired but we were feeling more and more that this is where God was leading us, I found myself in Shawn’s office. That morning, instead of spending his time doing what he usually did on a Tuesday morning, he spent the time we had showing me how to be a better youth pastor in Sheridan. He introduced me to Twitter and the networking system that opens up. He introduced me to a myriad of online services for youth ministers and he started handing me tangible resources off of his wall. Shawn had no such obligations to me at this point, but as mentioned earlier, Shawn’s heart is for the mentoring and building up of youth ministers so they can better build up their students so that in the end, God be glorified.

That Wednesday we were offered and accepted the position at Destiny. From that day on, I do not believe that there was a single day when Shawn and I were not in communication about one thing or another, from his youth kids and their needs to how the Destiny youth program is run to how to better utilize online programs and applications so that I could be a better minister for my youth kids in Sheridan and for the Destiny kids when I arrived. For four months Shawn has been dedicated to helping prepare me for the trials set before me.

The last month of my life, my first month in Rapid, was spent working in tandem with Shawn. Not many people would be comfortable training their successor. They would feel threatened by the presence of the new guy. If Shawn felt this way he had the grace and patience to not show it but rather to become my friend. Over the last four weeks Shawn and I have worked and sweated next to each other. We made phone calls and emails and texts and Twitter direct messages to each other at all hours of the day and night so that we as a team could better serve the youth of Destiny Forusquare.

Today and tomorrow as Shawn and his family leave Rapid City to pursue the new adventures God has placed before them, I feel sad. My friend is moving away, and I will miss him. Not many predecessors have the integrity and personality that would make the person coming in not want them to leave. It is with this blog that I share my feelings towards one of the most extraordinary people I have ever known. I believe that I will end with this, I believe it is fitting. It is a quote from Pastor Scott in Sheridan, his signature farewell:

Grace, mercy and peace to you and your family, my friend. 

Petra Means Rock

Greetings from the deep end!
As promised on Facebook and Twitter one week ago last night, this is my Petra blog.

Twenty years ago, I was seven years old. My friends had introduced me to Petra. A rock band that all of their high school aged brothers and cousins were excited about. I begged my mother to get me what I believed was their first "tape" (a music storing device not as nice as a CD with much less to offer than vinyl) called Beyond Belief. Later I would learn that Beyond Belief was their 12th of album of what would become 21 albums.

Through Petra's music I was introduced to some of the greatest song writing in all of rock music history, via Bob Hartman. I was also introduced to a kind of religion that wasn't about looking real and sounding real but actually getting into the dirt, digging deep, and regardless of mistakes or past sins, being real. Much of my early learning and questions about God were spawned from questions from Petra albums. I learned early with my second Petra cassette that what it means to really be a  man is to be willing so fully surrender to God and His will (This Means War!).

As time went on, around the age of 15, I began to play guitar. I still, 12 years later, cannot play much of what Bob Hartman wrote but I began to search out music to find where I fit. Interestingly enough, I found my home in Christian Rock. Cutting hard metal with biblically solid lyrical background. Four years later I found myself going to college to become a worship leader. Listening back at those first Petra albums that I listened to when I was little, my sound is quite similar. It is evident that the music I listened to twenty years ago is still influencing me today.

As I was growing up there was never an opportunity for me to see Petra play live. A few years ago when I heard they were going to retire I made peace with the fact that I would simply have to wait for an encore performance in heaven. I know what some of you are thinking. THERE WILL BE NO ROCK MUSIC IN HEAVEN!!! I would disagree. I believe that God gave rock and roll to you, and me for that matter. Besides that, God created the sub woofer and I believe that in heaven "22's" are measured in feet not inches. I was gonna skip over all of the biblical characters and just snag John Schlitt and Bob Hartman and have them play for me. Selfish perhaps, but I figure the line to smack Adam would be too long anyway.

That WAS the plan. Shortly after accepting the new job in Rapid City I checked the Hills Alive web site and almost passed out when I looked at the main stage line up and saw a picture of four men. Two I had never seen before, two were men I knew the likenesses of quite well. The caption at the bottom of the picture simply said, Petra.

So, last Friday morning, I woke at ONEcamp. I got up with the kids, packed my bedding, helped pack camp, returned to Rapid City to unload trucks and trailers, take a quick nap and be on the fence in front of the Hills Alive stage twenty minutes before Petra came on the stage. I screamed more than I should, was impressed that the father of Christian Metal guitar still played practically flawlessly, that John Schlitt could still hit all but the very highest notes (the ones that would have broken glass) and that they sounded just like the tapes, CD's and LP's that I have listened to all my life. I stood at the fence, I leaned on it for most of the show, I could reach out and touch the stage right monitor that Mr. Schlitt was using. At one point in the show, Mr. Hartman came to center stage to do a solo, he saw me taking a picture with my phone, leaned towards me and smiled. This was the best show of my life.

Perhaps what touched me the most, and many people may not understand why, but at the end of the show, I was talking to a friend back stage just outside of the back stage fence and I saw Bob Hartman leaving the stage area. He was carrying his own guitar, in a soft case.

The reader at this point may be considering whether or not Derick is over glorifying men. Perhaps a little idol worship is going on here. I say dear friend, that is not so. I simply believe in giving credit where credit is due. I am blessed to have been able to witness the fathers of Christian rock play in my lifetime. These are men who were faithful to the Father when all of Christianity thought they were of the devil. They were obedient when most of the church would have rather had them excommunicated than rock with them. I believe that it was through these men's ministry that I am able to lead worship from the electric guitar and minister to kids the way that I do. We practically had concert style audio at camp last week. I am convinced that if these men had not done what they did, and God had not used another rout to bring freedom to the worshiping masses, that youth camp last week would have been 84 teenagers with hymnals and an old organ.

Fell in the Pond.

Greetings from the deep end!
I actually was in the deep end yesterday. Well, kind of. It only came up to my chest. I guess that I'm getting ahead of myself. Bring on the whirly-wiggly-fuzzy-edge-of-the-screen effects and let the story fade into sepia tone. It is time for a little back story.

I am and have been at Kamp Kinship in the Black Hills of South Dakota with Foursquare ONEcamp (dang, that's a lot of titles) since Sunday afternoon. Shortly after I arrived I took a moment to view the camp pond from a window in the sanctuary. I told Shawn that I wanted to go swimming. He laughed a little and said something along the lines of, "see that eight foot circle of rope? That's the swimming area." My plans to go swimming vanished instantly. I did notice, however, that the camp has a few paddle boats and kayaks. I thought that kayaking might be a fun thing to try.

Fast forward to yesterday (Tuesday) afternoon. I had nothing better to do, my kids were either at the zip line, the rock wall or the pond and I thought a nice leisurely trip around the pond would be a nice, relaxing thing to do. I get down to the pond where life guard Amy immediately spots that I am a trouble maker (she has no idea) and gives me the quick, "you gotta wear a life jacket that was made for a guy 1/32nd your size if you are gonna boat". Me, being quick to follow the orders of a sixteen year old with a whistle threw one on. It only smelled a little like fish and B.O. I was waiting on the dock when my kayak arrived. It was the smallest one on the water. A little tiny voice in my head said, "Maybe you oughta wait for a bigger one there Sketch". Sometimes my inner voice calls me Sketch. I told Inner Voice to shut up! I've been on lakes and water and boats my whole life! So I kneel down on the dock, Lyle is holding the boat steady for me. I get my feet in and without really thinking about it drop the rest of myself into the seat.

Have you ever had a time where you thought to yourself something along the lines of, "Wouldn't it be (crazy, weird, funny, crappy, etc...) if...." and then the thing you were gonna think of actually happened. As I slid into the boat it rocked to the right pretty hard. Inner Voice said, "Wouldn't it be interesting if..." Then the water started to rush into the boat with me. Water doesn't belong in the boat with me. I belong in the boat with me. Water is neither welcome or invited to the "me, myself, and I" party in the boat. Water crashed the party. Hard. As the water rose and my head started to go under the water I imagined Lyle on the other side of the boat helping it along. I would have if I were in his shoes. The life jacket that was meant for a person 1/64th of my size joined in on the fun and began choking me. Lyle got the boat right side up enough (THANK GOD FOR LYLE!!!) that I could kick my way out of the boat. I immediately ripped off the murderous life vest, put my feet down and stood up. The water came to mid chest. I looked down and was very glad that I had remembered to take the video camera out of my pocket (THANK GOD AGAIN!!!) My staff badge was full of water and one of the students that was swimming a little ways away said, "Hey Derick! Your puffer is floating behind you!" THANK GOD AGAIN!!!

That is my story. It happened mostly like that. I am now dry and nice smelling again. I was able to remove all sand and pond weed from my shoes, clothing and person. Didn't really learn anything here but you know what? I would be really embarrassed about this if this kind of thing didn't happen to me so regularly.

“I didn’t do it, nobody saw me do it, you can’t prove anything.” Bart Simpson

Home Sweet... Car?

Greetings from the deep end!
I was reminded today of something that happened last week while we were still at the ranch. We had parked the RV a couple of days before and I needed to start it to check it's level. I moved back the curtains in the front of the RV, turned the drivers seat forward, jumped in and fired up the beast. Xander ran to the front of the RV and screamed a little. I looked over and saw that he was quite worried. I laughed a little. Well, I am going for the father of the year award and laughing only a little when a situation is HILARIOUS earns you points towards that award. Anyway, I explained to him that it was supposed to start and make those noises. He stopped and thought a bit. He got the most amazing quizzical look on his face, furrowed his eyebrows and pointed to the "captains area" in the front of the RV and said, "Car?" I couldn't help myself, it was too funny to not laugh. I can see it in my minds eye as I write this. "Yes Xander, it's a car." I replied. It didn't sound quite like that as it was filtered through sporadic fits of mirth as I calmed down from the comedic shock that had set in as a result of his statement; "Car". Didn't really learn anything about growing up this time, but it was a cute story that I thought I would share.

Coming Soon to a Theater Near You...

Greetings from the deep end!
Have you ever had a morning that was bad? Have you ever had one that was so bad that it could be a movie? Have you ever had one that was so bad it was ALREADY a movie? I have. Robin Williams starred as me. The movie? "RV". I mean, it was just one crazy bad thing after another this morning. If nothing else I think I have learned that it's okay to laugh at yourself after your tears subside (just another unwelcome reminder of a thing I already knew). Wanna know what happened? I didn't think so, but I'm gonna tell you anyway, because hey, you've read this far and if you are still reading, well, that's your choice.

I remember waking up around 6am with a crazy headache and Xander just losing it in his crib. I remember Aryll doing the same and Pam getting them both settled down in the front of the Parsonage. We have dubbed the motor home we are living in "The Parsonage" as it is parked on church grounds. It is not as funny a title as "The Rolling Turd" in the movie "RV" but we address it as the Parsonage just as affectionately. As is my style, I have digressed, point is, crazy headache, crying babies, 6am. I next remember waking at 7am enough to realize that I desperately needed to snag some sinus medication and Ibuprofen. I slammed the pills and a half a bottle of water, put a wet rag on my forehead and laid back down. I remember the pain subsiding around 7:30am and going back to sleep at that time.

Pam woke me at 8am to go "dump" the RV. This is a rather improper word as it inspires such visual definitions as a dump truck "dumping" a load of dirt or gravel at a work site. Let me assure you, the reader, this is NOT what dumping the RV means. If you have seen the movie, my experience of dumping the RV was not that bad. However, anytime you try to "dump" an RV and come away wet, it's nasty. So then, we get to the dump site, Pam chose to come along and bring the children and "help" me with the project. A sound plan, in theory. Usually when Pam helps me with the RV stuff, one of us walks outside to supervise and one stays inside to do the work, whether it be leveling, dumping, hooking up water or electricity. We communicate through our phones, me through my Bluetooth and her through her cell. Again, a great idea for this morning, in theory. I get outside and need Pam to run water through the pipes from inside. My cell says, "calling Pamela". Ring... Ring... Ring... "WAAAH GANGWAGH WAAAH hello? WAHH GAINGWAHH!!!" Dear reader, does this make any sense to you? Me neither. I finally understood that Pam had answered her phone and our two lovely children (affectionately dubbed "The Symphony of Scream") were tuning up in the background. I asked Pam to perform the task which she had joined me for... "Can you flush the toilet?" to which she replied, "WHAT?" to which I replied, "CAN YOU FLUSH THE TOILET?" to which she replied, "I CAN'T HEAR YOU", to which I replied, "DO THAT THING YOU CAME HERE TO DO!!!" To which she replied, "I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE SAYING!!!" I then returned to the inside of the RV to complete the job alone and send the family on their way. Dumping an RV is hectic enough without the symphony providing background tunes. I finished the job at the dump station, to make a long disgusting story short and less disgusting, I left wet and desperately desiring a shower.

Learning the streets in a new town is bad enough when you are in the family car and there is no construction. I got to take a detour in the RV on the way back to the church in a town that I don't know this morning at about 8:45am. I only ended up about a mile from where I originally intended to be. Classic movie prank. I was thinking to myself on the way back that things couldn't get worse for me because the dirty part was done. I was wrong.

I got back to the spot where I wanted to park the RV. I began to level it only so that the jacks would bottom out before it was level. This should not have happened as the infernal thing was on the same spot as it was not more than an hour before. 30 minutes later I was still trying to get it leveled. The on-board leveling system told me that it was level so I went outside to finish hooking up the water and electrical. Pam called to me through the RV walls to tell me that it wasn't level (she could have opened a window). I asked her how she knew and she replied by putting a water bottle on it's side on the table. I think the bottle rolled faster off of the table than the RV can go at top speed. I angrily stomped back inside, started the engine, got the hydraulic jacks turned back on, checked for level (it said it was level) chose to use the bubble levels by the fridge instead and finished the job.

Before we had left for the dump job I had parked my pickup in such a way as to hide the hoses and electrical wires in hopes of keeping them from being stolen while we were away. As I began to back it out of the area between the RV and the building I heard a weird scraping sound. My heart jumped and I slammed on the break. Pam looked over at me, looked under the pickup, shook her head and motioned for me to continue backing up. I obeyed and out from under the pickup popped a fence post. I silently parked my pickup and crawled underneath it to make sure there was no damage. Praise God there wasn't. I went back to try to bend the pole straight (I hadn't showered yet mind you). I grabbed a hold of the fence post and began to pull, I noticed a white car coming up by me as I felt the pole snap. Time went into super slow motion at that point. I remember the pole snapping, me looking down at it and then the force from the break hitting my body. I felt my feet leave the ground before my back smashed into the gravel. Probably looked pretty funny. Didn't feel funny. I looked up enough to see that I was still holding the pole and that the white car probably saw the whole thing. Great. Wonderful. Shuh-weet! I called for Pam. She came out to see me lying on the ground with a fence post across my chest and my hands on my head. She asked what happened and if I was okay. The only lasting damage, and the only mark from my ordeal was a broken blood vessel near my left elbow. Pam helped me up and I went to sit on a nearby step to cry for a minute. Then I picked myself up (thanks Batman's Dad) and went to take a nice short shower. A person really shouldn't take a long shower when they have just dumped their RV and are hoping to make it 5 days before dumping again.

So then, if nothing else, I am again reminded of Batman Begins. Bruce's father says, "And why do we fall, Bruce?  So we can learn to pick ourselves up."

When it's All Been Said and Done

Greetings from the deep end!
This is gonna be a short one. I just have a few feelings I want to try to work out. So, I was done with youth tonight, they prayed for me, Pam and the kids. We all shared a bunch of our favorite memories of our times together, and I shared my last words of encouragement and challenge for their future in the youth group. Did fine, didn't get sad, didn't cry, my voice didn't even crack. Gave and received hugs and well wishes, not a tear. Then at 9:03pm I went back to the youth room to shut down for the last time. I shut off the A/C, told the kids I was closing up, and flipped all 6 light switches. As I turned around and looked at the darkened room, lit with only the dim light that came through the windows, I looked at Matt walking out the door with his long board for the last time and stopped moving. I just stopped. Matt seemed to look at me as if he were waiting for me, but I couldn't move, and didn't speak. As Matt turned to leave and the door shut behind him, I found myself all alone in the youth room and suddenly a myriad of thoughts and memories, both good and bad, flooded into my mind. Remembering battles won and lost, kids that came for a long time and kids that were only there for a season.

I walked to the stage and sat down on the second step and began to choke up. I asked God as I looked at the empty room if I had done what I was supposed to do with the kids He gave me in the time He gave them to me. I asked if I were leaving the youth group, the church, in a better position than it was when I arrived. As I asked the question, I wasn't sure of the answer to those questions. As I thought and prayed a song came to mind. I couldn't remember all of the words but I remembered the gist of it...


When It's All Been Said And Done

Verse 1
When it's all been said and done
There is just one thing that matters
Did I do my best to live for truth
Did I live my life for You
Verse 2
When it's all been said and done
All my treasures will mean nothing
Only what I've done for love's reward
Will stand the test of time
Verse 3
Lord Your mercy is so great
That You look beyond our weakness
And find purest gold in miry clay
Making sinners into saints
Verse 4
I will always sing Your praise
Here on earth and ever after
For You've shown me Heaven's my true home
When it's all been said and done
You're my life when life is gone

The song didn't give me any answers, as the song is questions only. I guess that means that God, rather than giving me a solid, easy, yes or no answer, brought to mind a song that only multiplied the questions. Great. Thanks! But that is where I am, did I do what I did here for the right reasons? If I did, then it was worth while, if I didn't, I hope and pray that God will use it anyway. I won't probably know about the impact that my life and actions in Sheridan may have had until heaven. That is the great drawback to ministry, and youth ministry specifically. We do lots and lots of work on hearts, we can't see hearts, and only in heaven will we be able to really see what work God was able to do through our feeble hands and hearts. In the end, "Only what I've done for love's reward, will stand the test of time."

Greetings from the deep end!!!
I finished packing up my desk at the ACE program yesterday afternoon. Stupid bittersweet days. I'm really really happy to be moving on to the next adventure in my life. But what I am coming to realize, especially over the last week or so is that I am really leaving one life behind and beginning a new one. So, as we humans do when a life ends, I find myself mourning the loss of what once was and to a degree, still is for the moment but will cease to be in the next 16 days.

I've noticed the people around me that I have worked with for the last 3 to 6 years are starting to plan the future, without me. Plans and situations that I once would have been a big part of I now find myself on the outside of looking on. If I weren't leaving I would feel jealous that I wasn't being included, but my logical mind (I do have a logical mind, in some situations) tells me that life here in Sheridan must go on without me. As I write and my thoughts get organized I realize that moving isn't here one day, gone the next, but rather a process that will be finalized 16 days from now. For me, things in Sheridan are coming to a close. Relationships are ending, projects are being finalized and I am sad. I feel as if I am watching my life slowly end.

The up side to all of this is that I will be reborn into my new life in 17 days. God has a plan and purpose for that new life. For each relationship lost or severed by hundreds of miles one will be made new to take it's place. For each project that I won't be able to work with and watch grow and change and become more and more useful there will be a new project to be birthed and swaddled. In the end, this change is what is best for me and my family. As I said, I look forward to the bright future ahead of me, but I mourn for what will be left and lost.

Andromeda Finn - Chapter 1 - Introduction

Greetings from the deep end!
I thought that it would be ever so much fun to start writing a short story today. Enjoy.

Andromeda Finn had a stupid name. Or at least he thought so. Andromeda's parents were a little weird, by everyone's standards, not just his. They had a crazy obsession with stars and planets and galaxies, thus his stupid name. It was because of that name that Andromeda was known as the child of the local "star nuts". His parents were always studying the stars and went to space conventions and made dumb space jokes. Both of them were teachers in the little town where their family had lived for generations. Andromeda's father was a science teacher and mother was a math teacher. Their classrooms were always full of posters and dioramas of the solar system. They were always talking about the stars and having their students do projects about them. The students in the school generally just thought Andromeda's parents were weird. As a seventh grader in a small town junior high of about eight hundred students, where his parents taught, he wasn't able to escape the negative influence of his families insane obsession for even a minute. In big cities kids could hide under the radar, they could fade into the crowd and hide in a mass of people. Andromeda did not get to enjoy that lifestyle. Everyone knew everyone else and he was often picked because his family was different, because his parents were "weird".

In many ways Andromeda was a normal kid. He enjoyed television, video games, movies and music. He was looking forward to learning to drive in a couple years and couldn't wait to get into high school where he might get a little relief from the grief he endured on a daily basis by going to school in the same place where his parents taught. The only real problem in Andromeda's life was the shame he felt from being related to people who he didn't understand, who he didn't feel that he belonged with. Andromeda was uncomfortable in his skin, uncomfortable in his surroundings, uncomfortable as a part of the family he was born into. Even that was common among other thirteen year olds, but Andromeda didn't know that. He only knew that he was unhappy and wanted to be a part of a "normal" family like everyone else.

When at school Andromeda often did everything he could to avoid other people. One day after school, Andromeda was walking down an out-of-the-way hall on his way to his father's classroom to wait for his ride home when he noticed an open door. Andromeda had never noticed a door down that hall before. He quickly decided that he simply hadn't been paying attention in the past and that the door had always been there. Andromeda made to walk by the door and continue on his way when curiosity got the better of him, and Andromeda chose to peek inside. He was astonished at the size of the room. It was easily as large as a gym, perhaps even bigger. The room contained piles and piles of odds and ends, wrestling mats, books, desks, boxes of pictures and trophies. There was an old score board leaned up against a wall next to a pile of old speakers and audio equipment. There was also a pile of old reel to reel video equipment and tapes on shelving in the middle of the room. This stuff looked old. Andromeda knew that the school had been a high school building years before but he had never thought that there may still be things stored from back then.

Taking a few steps into the room, Andromeda called a shy "hello" to see if anyone was in there. No response came so he entered further. As he walked around taking mental notes of all he saw there, Andromeda's mind began to wander, wondering what history left all of these things here. Who had used this stuff, why wasn't it thrown away? He wandered around until he made his way to the shelving with all of the video tapes on it. Andromeda began to read the titles to himself. Most of them were old school plays and football games, but as he came to the last reel his blood ran cold and the small hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. The title of the last video was, "Andromeda Finn".

Sad Confessions of a Small Town Techie

Greetings from the deep end!

It's been a while hasn't it? I should write more, but I have seriously been lacking in the inspiration department as of late. This morning I found some inspiration tucked away in a forgotten drawer of my work desk next to the salt and pepper shakers that I keep there for emergencies. Actually, it came from two more much more common and less entertaining places (though I do have salt and pepper shakers in my work desk). First a friend of mine made mention of some of his audio recording technical woes on Facebook and I commented on it. After that comment I was pondering the whole gamut of technology and technological issues when I remembered some technical issues that I had yesterday morning while setting stage and sound for a Pacific Life Bible College missions team at our church in Sheridan. Thus inspiration was born. 

My friend wrote that he was having some technical troubles in the recording studio, to which I replied, "Audio stuff is just like really really expensive legos. You gotta take it all apart and put it back together again from time to time or you aren't getting the full value out of the product." How in the world did I adopt such an optimistic view of technical trouble? Why am I not like the people in the world who would much rather blow up the system than fix it? The answer to that question is simple. My name is Derick Brown... and I am... a... TECHIE!!! 

Techie - web definition - a term, derivative of the word technology, for a person who displays a great, sometimes even obsessive, interest in technology, high-tech devices, and particularly computers...

I enjoy tearing apart a sound system and putting it back together better than it was before. I look forward to such projects almost as much as I look forward to Christmas. Since I hastily rebuilt our system for the traveling group, I get to re-rebuild it for our use this evening. I am so excited. We (Pam, Xander and I) are going to pull all of the cables and snakes in the system, clear the sound board and plug it all back in so that it is more organized and more easily used by the remaining members of the church after Pam the kids and I leave. Think of it as spring cleaning for musicians. We will be throwing away all of the old busted drum sticks that have accumulated behind the drum cage, we are going to untangle the spaghetti bowl of cables and we are going to find out what channels are really shot and which ones are just faking. 


What does this situation have to do with everyman? I say it has everything to do with everyman. Everyman has things in his life that need to be gone over and repaired from time to time. Not so much physical, tangible things as I have been writing about today, but my heart is pushing me more towards speaking of relationships. Every relationship needs to be gone over from time to time so that it can continue to function at its prime potential. It is good to spend some real time with a spouse or friend from time to time and just talk. Take a moment and let them know you still care. Talk about past hurts that haven't been dealt with, untangle emotions and thoughts that may have run away from you over the past however long has it has been since the relationship was last evaluated and repaired. Relationship cleaning is like rebuilding a church sound system, it doesn't have to be done. A person can still continue to just modify things to make things continue to work. The problem with however, is that, the more you modify, the more tangled things get, and the better the chance of a break down. Everything works much better when we can begin again from a fresh build from time to time. Though they are both necessary for a productive system, I do not enjoy rebuilding a relationship as much as I do a sound system, but then again, I am a Techie, not a Relationship-ie.