December, 2004

A Wonderful Christmas

Posted by Evan at 10:22 am

I had a wonderful Christmas this year, better than I’ve had in a long time. It wasn’t just because of all of the wonderful gifts either. I was off of work from Thursday the 23rd through Tuesday the 28th. I had a lot of time to sit, relax and enjoy my presents. Speaking of presents, I got lots of great stuff. Some of the highlights were a Minolta DiMage Z1 digital camera, a black leather jacket a 12-disk Lord of the Rings Triology Extended edition DVD set, Seinfeld seasons 1, 2 and 3 on DVD some nice ceramic mugs and lots of DVDs. There was a ton of other stuff too that I really enjoyed.

My digital camera has been tons of fun. It has a full manual mode so you can really get some great pictures out of it. I’ve been taking pictures like crazy and they look amazing. I ordered a couple of things for my camera on ebay, a 256Mb memory card and a tripod. They should both be here this week hopefully. One of the cool things about the camera is that it records high quality video at 30Fps. It’s an awesome camera.

The Lord of the Rings set that I got is awesome. Each movie has 4 disks and 2 of them are special features. I’ve been watching them every chance I get. The Seinfeld DVDs are awesome too, but I haven’t had much chance to watch them yet. Some of the other movies I got were: The Matrix Revolutions, Spiderman 2, Deep Impact, The Perfect Storm, The Passion of the Christ, Napoleon Dynamite, Titanic and Office Space. Lots of movies that I’ve been wanting to get for a while.

I’ve still got some Christmas money left over and I think I’m going to save a little more and buy a home theatre system. I’ve got a set of large speakers and a receiver, but they’re old and aren’t 5.1. Plus you can get a nice set for under $200 so I’ll probably go for the upgrade.

Guess that’s it for now. Be watching the picture of the week to see what pictures I’m taking with my new camera!

Post performance and the glory days of Richmond

Posted by Evan at 10:34 am

Unseen performed on Saturday night and it went very well. We had a good turnout and we did well with all of the music. There was only one bad mistake the whole night and it was easily recovered from. Overall we were very excited to have it over with, but we all look forward to playing again. We’ve got a couple of events on the horizon. More on that later. For now I’m enjoying my evenings at home and loving not having to leave for practice and be gone all day on Saturdays.

Christmas time is here and I’m again reminded about how much I hate cold weather. It’s not too bad when it’s in the 30s, but I can’t stand it when it’s in the single digits or even 20s for that matter. You can feel the death trying to wrap its cold fingers around you. I’m beginning to understand that winter is a time for cleansing of the earth. The weak things die and the strong survive. It’s so extreme.

I’m getting very excited for Christmas this year. For some reason this year seems especially relaxed. Maybe it’s Kristen’s job and her being able to be off for two weeks for Christmas break, but I feel like a kid again. I don’t know what my presents are and I’m excited to find out.

I’ve been interested in the history of Richmond lately and I found a very interesting feature on the Morrison Reeves Library website. It’s called Lost Richmond and it does a great job of showing Richmond as it used to be versus today. One of the most interesting ones to me was the Westcott Hotel. Mostly because it’s so close to where I work. It’s sad that Richmond has lost so much of its character and charm to make way for the bland and generic likes of Wal-Mart and other life-sucking organizations.

Unseen

Posted by Evan at 12:06 pm

I’ve been playing in this band for a while. We haven’t had a name until about a week ago. We’re now known as Unseen, which is a reference to 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, which says “16Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

We’ve been practicing for an event that we’re playing this Saturday and things are going very well. We’re only doing 10 songs, but you wouldn’t believe how much work goes into learning those songs when you’re working with a group. It’s difficult to get everyone to the point where the know the song inside and out, which is what you need to do if you’re going to have a good performance. We’ve all been working very hard.

Through a twist of fate I’ve ended up as the drummer for the group. As it turned out our drummer wasn’t able to make our main practice and therefore wasn’t able to play for the show. So, I’m doing it now, and it has renewed my love for playing music. I have no doubt that this is the best way for me to serve musically. I’m so comfortable playing drums and I don’t feel as nervous when I’m playing as I do on guitar.

Because of this whole situation I’m actually considering purchasing a drum set with my Christmas money. I did some looking online and I can get a nice drumset for around $300, so I may end up getting one. I’ll wait and see once I have the money. I’ve already got some good drum equipment, so part of me would like to just buy one piece at a time of a REALLY nice set until I have all of the parts that I need. That would be one way to get a really nice set without having to save money forever to get it.

The event we’re practicing for is a youth gathering. There’s going to be food and stuff there as well as games and fellowship, so it should be a great ministry opportunity.

Darrell Abbott: 1966-2004

Posted by Evan at 12:10 pm

If you knew me in high school, you know that I was really into heavy metal music. Among my favorite bands was Pantera. They were one of the few metal bands that could really challenge my guitar playing skills and allow me to get better as I learned how to play their songs. The band I was in in high school idolized them and the majority of our song list consisted of Pantera tracks.

They’ve been broken up for a couple of years now and the guitarist and drummer from Pantera (which happen to be brothers) had formed a new band known as Damageplan. I’ve never listened to Damageplan before, but I knew this was their new band.

Today I read a headline that said “Ex-Pantera guitarist shot dead on stage”. I was horrified. I’m not a big fan of Pantera anymore, mainly because of the admitted satanic beliefs. However, as a musician, I still have a great respect for the skill and complexity that much of their music exhibited. He was an amazing guitarist and could go toe-to-toe with the best guitarists out there.

To read the news release about his death, click here.

Some site updates

Posted by Evan at 10:10 pm

Hopefully you can tell, but I’ve been making more updates to the site. One of the most notable additions is the items of Interest section. I’ll use that area as a place to post interesting stories as well as some articles and stuff that I’ve written. Make sure you check that section out frequently, because I’ve been adding to it a lot lately.

One of the most recent additions is a brief essay I wrote called “The New Ark of the Covenant“. I felt lead to write it after BSF on Monday night. I also have a link to my Amazon.com wish list and a little story about a new monitor that I just got at work. It will be very similar to my online journal, but I hope to put things that are a little less time sensitive in that section so they are a little easier to find.

Anyway, keep checking back as I make more updates.