Minnesota Update #11

Aug 11: Coming back from Vancouver, Sarah and I closed the deal with our friends the Moore's in buying their 98 Nissan Altima from them. They gave us a really awesome deal on it and we are very fortunate to have bought such a good car (in awesome condition). Sarah now drives the 4-door, automatic, air-conditioned, cup holding car and I get the tried and true Trecel (say that 16 times fast). Here's a photo of our new car, from 115 feet up:

Aug 12: August also kicked things off with a grand ol' Birthday Bash. The Grimsby's held a delayed surprise birthday party for Carl. Theme? Mexican Fiesta. The cousins and family from DC were in from out of town for the week and were able to participate in the celebration, which was cool. It was also good to see them.

Of course, what would a Mexican-themed party be without dark moustaches! See? So sexy it attracts the women instantly... and not just any woman, but this fine catch:

As part of the birthday, Jonathan and Stephan put together a video for their dad, which was shown on a large screen with a projector. And can you fully utilize an outdoor projector on a warm summer night without... video games!

Aug 13: The next day, Sarah and I joined the Grimsby Family for a day outing floating down the St. Croix river on a pontoon. It was an awesome day with some great food, fun and interesting sights (like this car-boat).

Of course, the Grimsby Family tends tends to be a magnet for interesting events happening to them, and this day was no exception. During our ride home, some of the younger passengers (who we'll keep anonymous) were sitting on the back of the boat.

Once the officers boarded our craft, they asked to count the number of lifejackets on board. Unfortunately, we were one jacket short, which seemed odd because the rental company assured us there were plenty of jackets. Fortunately, however, we were a stones throw from the dock, so he let us off with a warning. Ironically enough, as we were approaching the dock, we found another compartment filled with jackets. Oh well. It makes for a much more entertaining story.

Aug 14: Our Summer Voices series at Upper Room went really well. Since we're currently having space issues, our stage design included astro turf and bleachers onstage which allowed for an extra 100 people to have a seat better than the floor. Here's a look:

Aug 19 - 21: Sarah and I went with a few friends on a weekend camping trip to a campsite only an hour away. It was awesome to be camping again, and to share the experience with friends makes it that much more entertaining. During the Saturday, we rented canoes and went down the St. Croix (a different section of it than the pontoon adventure). Although it was incredibly tiring to paddle for that long, it was a blast, especially because Sarah and I jumped out of the canoe and floated down river for at least a mile...

Aug 21: Coming back from the camping trip, we went straight to the church. On this particular Sunday, Upper Room had it's annual Flood; an event where instead of a regular service, people can sign up to do various service projects around the city. Sarah and I went to a handful of the sites and took video/photos for the day.

And later on that day, we hosted a BBQ to celebrate Mike's 25th birthday (Mike can be seen at the very far end of the table in the first photo). We had a bunch of friends over for some burgers, corn on the cob, fun, fun and more fun. Needless to say, it was an exhausting day.

Aug 23: Today marked the first day that John Hoel was on staff. Actually, he didn't actually start until the following week, but on this particular day, he came in to decorate our office. John was actually the guy who worked at Upper Room before me. He's been back in MN for a while now, but since Upper Room is growing, we've hired him to be a part of the production team. This means that our roles have been split up into Production Director (John) and Technical Director (me). I now focus primarily on the website, videos, graphics, etc while John is in charge of set design, atmosphere and the general look and feel of the service, which is great because he's awesome at it. Here are some pictures of us working on getting our office painted.

In the evening, it was time to buy new shoes. After looking through the limited selection that Payless had to offer, I ended up sticking with the tried and true.

Aug 26: Sarah and I had the rare opportunity to watch our first ever Viking's football game from a skybox. Someone had donated their box for this preseason game to CPC, so a number of the Upper Room staff and development team had the chance to go. While I could really care less about the NFL, it certainly was fun to watch the game in a box. By the 4th quarter, everyone had left except Sarah and I. We stuck around to the bitter end because, hey, how often do you get this chance, anyways? We had our game faces on, that's for sure...

And, let's not leave out a random rare shot of the nasty men's bathroom in the Metrodome.

Aug 29: Ahhh. Chapter 2. Upper Room, because of it's growth, is looking ahead to what the future for our community is going to look like. There are three areas of growth we're going to move into and we've given this vision the title of "Chapter 2". The three main areas that we'll be focussing on are: A second identical service (with a Children's ministry), Community Life (small groups) and partnerships with other mission organizations. In order to cast this vision to the community, we invited people who felt they were part of the "core" to small house gatherings, every night of the work week for 3 weeks in a row (they ended on Sept 31). As part of these meetings, I had to put together a video that showed where we wanted to go with the Upper Room. Needless to say, this might have been the largest video project I've worked on so far (at least at UR, that is).

Since my buddy Mike works at Minnesota School of Business, he was able to get us access to some studio space at the production company next door. It was a joint effort with his class as part of their schooling, which was great because we ended up needing all the help we could get.

Technical details? The room was setup with what's sometimes known as a psyche-wall, which is a curved white space that runs along the floor and up the wall to the ceiling. It gives the impression of standing in a vast white space (like in the Matrix). It was a four camera shoot, with boom mic operator, lights, slate (which I was excited to buy) and even a teleprompter.

Felix, a guy from our small group, did the narration and an awesome job. It was fun to have him there and to work with him on this project. Plus, he helped me with the grueling part of capturing and logging all the footage (which is the hardest part, in my opinion). Here are some pics from the shoot:

Later on that night, Sarah and I joined up with two couples from our small group for an evening at the State Fair. We went with Jeremy ad Kristy and Anne and Jon. We had a great time hanging out. We ate way too many chocolate chip cookies, had 2 too many glasses of milk (but, hey, it was a buck for all your could drink), plus I came face to face with Jack Bauer...

Sept 4: At Upper Room that night, we held a CD release concert for community member Elizabeth Hunnicutt. For this special event, myself and a guy named John (with a student of his) decided we'd try a live video feed so that people in the balcony could see what was going on. Since we've never really done it before and since the sanctuary isn't wired for it, it ended up being a learning experience. I had my first ever opportunity to call the shots from the video booth, with John running camera downstairs and his student manning the one in the balcony. It was initially a little nerve-wracking for me, but by the end of the concert, we were all having a great time. Plus, it turned out well and looked great.

Right after the concert, we went over to Mike's work (Minnesota School of Business) to complete the filming for the Chapter 2 video. Here you can see Mike behind the camera, and John working with Stefan for his interview (plus the new slate that I'm excited about):

Sept 5: Sarah and I spent a majority of the day at the Renaissance Festival for Labor Day. We went last year, too (see Update #07). During our visit, we sat in at the Puke and Snot comedy show (these two guys who have been doing a show there for years and years). Since we sat next to the aisle, Sarah was right in the midst of the action...

In the evening, we hung out with our Small Group. BBQ and Poker :) Jeremy deals 'em up while Jon and I give our intimidating Poker-eyes.

Sept 9 - 11: Sarah and I had a weekend away in Door County, Wisconsin which is about 6 hours away. Christina (Sarah's cousin, who was in our wedding party) was getting married and Sarah was one of her bridesmaids.

Door county is located in the northeastern-most tip of the state. Surrounded by Lake Michigan, it's filled with small towns and cool places to walk. Before we show you pictures from the wedding, it must be pointed out that Wisconsin has the weirdest name for County Roads. Here's just an example, but there are others, including my personal favorite: County Road MM

The wedding was a lot of fun to be a part of. The weather was great, the ceremony went exceptionally well. It was just a good day to share with Christina and Brian.

We stayed in the Birchwood Lodge in a really nice room with a Jacuzzi. Since we stayed an extra day, we toured around the area on our day off by visiting a State Park (with a huge wooden tower), getting gobs of ice cream and their really good, but quirky ice cream place, buying (and flying) a kite, which, despite the photos, was very successful.

Once the weekend was over, it was time to head home, exhausted from a fun-filled vacation.

Sept 17: Valley Fair! Yes! It was the second to last weekend before the parked closes for the year, so Sarah and I took advantage of it and went. Not only did we have a great time, but we also got soaked (see below):


This is the Power Tower. It never ceases to be scary when you get dropped from those heights.

Our first (but certainly not last) ride that involved water.		Sarah and I on Thunder Valley. A huge inner tube that moves slowly through channels of water and waterfalls. You have to realize that it wasn't an incredibly hot day... What were we thinking?

Our traveling companion on Thunder Valley. Just as wet as we were.		In the background you can see the results of The Wave. The ride is actually for the benefit of those standing on the bridge, as a huge wall of water smacks you head on.

Nothing's as terrifying as the creepy Merry-Go-Round

A bootleg image from the rollercoaster.		Wild Thing.

Another shot of the park. On the left is Wild Thing. On the right (the spiral tower) is Steel Venom. Here's a video clip of this awesome ride: Steel Venom in Action		Our last adventure of the day was The Wave. We stood on the bridge twice and got soaked to the core... Then we got in our car and went home.

Sept 20: Through a series of unfortunate events, I was offered a ticket by Dave to go see Coldplay in concert. What an awesome experience. Our seats put us 18 rows back on the floor. Now that I've seen Coldplay and Seal up close, I can't see myself going to a concert without being close to the front :) Anyways, I was really lucky. Here are some pictures I took.

Sept 23: Sarah's college friend Becca got married to Rory, and we were able to be a part of it. It was actually the first wedding in the last few months where we weren't a part of the wedding party. It was a nice change to be able to witness the wedding without the chaos of rehearsals and dinners, etc (although that is kind of fun, too). I put together a slideshow video for them. Oddly enough, there's really only one picture that we took from their wedding (I guess we were having too much fun). That's Becca on the left.

Sept 25: Today was a "regular" day. No traveling to distant cities, no weddings, no events, just a walk through Mall of America.

Oct 3: After many, many, many weeks, everyone from our small group was finally together, so I got a photo of us

Sandy the dog, Jon Abbey, Corey Moore (holding Maggie the dog), Felix/Steve Dahlen, Me McQuade

While there is still some exciting adventures to report between October 3 and October 9 (you'll have to wait until Update 12), Sarah and I wanted to close with a look at our first wedding anniversary: