Dozens of Updates...

We left off our last update with a celebration of our 1st year anniversary. However, I'd like to go back in time just a bit to start this update... Join me now as we step into our time machine.

Oct 4 - 6: Upper Room and CPC are teaming up for a four week series. Normally, we each do our own thing, but this time we wanted to get the entire church body looking at the same topic.  The series is called: God on Location: Lessons for Life.  The idea is looking at how God is present in areas outside if our city.

The first week in the series (which starts on Oct 30) is "Washington DC: Lessons on Power".  John Hoel and I along with head pastor John Crosby went to Washington DC to film the scenes, people and monuments.

John and I on the plane to DC

We arrived late on the 4th. Having no idea what to expect the next morning, John and I grabbed a taxi and made our way to The Mall (where the monuments are). After waiting for the cab for 30 minutes, we found out from our driver that the Metro system was closed for the night. We could either catch a limited service bus, or ride all the way in with him.  What we also didn't know was that the fare would have been $25 just to get there.  We had him drop us off at a bus depot. We tried to find bus service, realized that this wasn't going to work all that well for us (since it was already 11:30) and caught a taxi back to the hotel.  Boy, did we feel like tourists from another country. We were so lost...

The next morning, we went to downtown DC. Thankfully we didn't spend the time or money to get there the night before, because it was far larger than we expected.

Our first stop was the offices of Congressmen Jim Ramstad (the Representative of Minnesota). On our way there, we were filming as much as we could (even though we really couldn't see anything besides the Capitol. As we entered the Canon Building and went through an airport security-like checkpoint, we were asked to step aside. Apparently they had seen us filming security guards on our walk there and got suspicious. An FBI officer dressed as a plain clothed tourist took our IDs (to run a check on them) and gave us a lecture on the fact that while what we were doing wasn't illegal, they just didn't want us to. Reason? We could post that video on the Internet and bad people would see what kind of security measures Washington DC has. Right.  I'm sure if some ill-favored person saw our video clip with some security guards walking around, they would know exactly how to plan their attack.  While it was a rather adventurous start to our trip, it certainly made us realize how paranoid everyone is, and how much we always felt like we were being watched while we were there.

The remainder of our day was filled with tours and walking, walking, walking.  We walked from the Capitol building (north end of the Mall) through all the monuments and almost back again.  By the time the day was done (around 9:00pm), we had probably walked close to 12 miles.  It was exhausting.

Myself, Johnny and John Crosby

Our last day we returned to the Canon Building and got an interview with Jim Ramstad. In total, we shot about 3 hours of footage, had seen most of Washington DC and were exhausted.  But, it was a great experience.  While I don't think I could live there, it was great to see it.

Here are two clips. One is the promo video for the series, and the other is one of 3 videos clips I ended putting together for the evening.

Oct 22: I'm working with a small team of people to launch a brand new Upper Room website. The team includes: Sarah, Dave Feil, Mike Burrows, Alissa Hjermstad and Ashley Court.  Today we had a meeting to discuss the database structure on which our website will be designed. Here you can see our white board drawing of some of it. Very exciting stuff.

We did, however, get a little side tracked. Sarah brought home from work a promotional dinosaur gift set for some place in the Mall of America. Inside this box of joy was your very own Dinosaur excavation kit, which included a clay egg (with dino inside), a wooden stick that was supposed to be a chisel and a small brush.  The idea is to chip away at the clay until you've completed uncovered the small dino.  Here you can see Mike working very hard on it.

The problem was that it was such a big egg and such a little dino, that it would have taken forever. So, we used other measures.

Oct 26: Sarah's last day at Hubbard. Here we see both Sarah's empty desk as well as her with radio personalities Laurie and Julia for whom she did her infamous celebrity dirt digging. To read more about the job transition, don't forget to read Sarah's Corner.

Oct 27: Once Sarah found a new job, we had planned on moving closer to her work, so that the commute with be somewhere between short and non-existent. Since no one wants to live in an office building, it was time to start looking at our options for apartments in the area.  Between jobs, Sarah had two days off which she used to visit a number of apartments. Here's a breakdown of what she saw:

I used to drive about an hour each way to work at Hubbard. (2 hours each day x 20 days of work each month = 40 hours in crabby rush hour traffic each month! That’s like an extra work week each month.) Therefore it was in our (ahem) agreement long ago when things were off in the hypothetical future that if/when I found a new job we would move really close so I wouldn’t have such an icky commute. Besides we (well, I) wanted a puppy and our current apartment won’t allow it. The time has come my friends. As soon as I got the job offer I was off like a very frugal wild woman to find us a new dog-friendly, close-to-the-new-job-I-hadn’t-even-started-yet apartment. I spend an entire day on 7 appointments – something I will never undertake again. My eyes were like pinwheels. I short listed it to my top 3 to visit with Michael plus and additional one I hadn’t been able to see the first time around. The 3 were alright and we would have been just fine living at any of those places. But when we got to the last one – which neither of us had seen – it was a perfect match. We’re super-excited have the whole month of December to move in so I’m a bit more relaxed about moving than I probably should be.

Oct 29: Busiest. Day. Ever. Period.

    8:00am: I went to work to tie up a few loose ends for work in preparation for the Sunday services. Since this was the first week of the God on Location series, the videos I put together had to be setup not only for Upper Room, but converted to formats that the other 3 services could use.

    9:00am: Breakfast with Christina and Brian.  As you may recall, Christina is Sarah's cousin who recently married Brian. Sarah and I were at their wedding just last month in Door County.  It was great to spend some time with them and get to know Brian a bit better.

    11:00am: Filming.  In preparation for the launch of the new Xbox, Microsoft setup a competition at www.hex168.com . It's a rather weird and cryptic contest, but the idea is to submit either a photo or a video that shows something out of the ordinary and incorporates the "Power of Hex" (which really just means, weird random things). Submissions go into 3 different categories: submissions with 0-1 people, 6 people or 30 people. Since each entry needs release forms signed by all participating parties, the 6 and 30 categories are a little thinner.  I was aiming for a video in the 6 category.  All entries are voted on by the general public. Semi-finalists are voted on by a panel of judges.

            In the 0-1 category, the top 240 entries make it to the final round where 120 will win.
            In the 6 category, the top 60 entries make it to the final round where 30 will win.
            In the 30 category, the top 10 entries make it to the final round where 7 will win.

If an entry wins, all participating parties will win an XBox 360, plus a round trip to the huge launch event.  At time of writing, there were less than 60 entries in the 6 category, which means there's a great chance to win.  Here's the video we made:

    12:45pm: Sarah and I headed off east of Edina to the Mendota Heights area to look at apartments in the neighborhood of her new job. As mentioned above, Sarah has visited 7 different apartments earlier in the week and had picked out the top 4 (one of them being a property she wasn't able to get to that day). For those in Vancouver, Mendota Heights has the feel and landscape of perhaps Abbotsford or Delta (but not nearly as far away).  While the drive feels longer, it's actually only 15 minutes. So, for those friends in Minnesota who get this: NO EXCUSES... :) We're not that far away.

Our second-to-last stop was the apartment complex Sarah wasn't able to see previous. Located just off Highway 494 (which is the same highway Sarah works off of) we pulled into Southview Gables .  During out tour, we learned that there was an apartment available on the third floor in the pet-friendly building, overlooking the neighboring country club.  What was nice about it was that the rent (on special) was $25 less per month than what we're spending now. Plus, we get the following:

        - 350 more square feet
        - 2 bed, 2 bath
        - Vaulted ceiling
        - Sweet kitchen
        - Bay window overlooking the country club
        - Washer and dryer in-unit
        - Wood-burning fireplace
        - Hot tub and sauna in the building
        - Only 6 minutes from Sarah's work

Now here's where everything has put our lives in overdrive, it seems.  The property manager told us that since it was such a great deal, that it wouldn't be around for long. She made it sound like it could have gone within the next few hours, which was probably a sales tactic.  However, it was an awesome place to live, is a great deal and meets all of our needs. So, Sarah and I had a brief family meeting and decided to take it. We put down the security deposit and plan to move in Dec 1. Here are some pictures (the interior ones are of their model, but has a similar floorplan as ours).

Here's where it might get a little complicated. What I didn't realize was the potential severity of breaking an existing apartment lease early. We haven't had a chance to talk to our current manager so we'll see what we need to do in the next month to make this happen.  Either we pay a penalty, or have to find someone to sub-lease our apartment until our lease expires in August.  We only have one month to do this in, so it might be hectic.

    4:30pm: On our way home from renting an apartment, I had to stop by the church to help with some setup for the first week in the God on Location series.  It's an interesting thing to see how using extra technology in a service that's not accustomed to it can really be a different change in mindset.  For Upper Room, setting up an on-stage screen and running videos throughout the service is a relatively natural task, but for the contemporary and traditional services of CPC, it's like throwing a curve ball... However, they did a great job and it was well received.

    7:00pm: For our one-year anniversary, I gave Sarah tickets to see Nickel Creek in concert. I had ordered the tickets before I left for DC at the beginning of the month, but they didn't arrive until just a week before the concert (keeping Sarah in suspense and anguish because we had to delay our gift exchange for almost a week and a half).  Anyways, I've listened to several of their songs through Sarah and really enjoyed them, but I didn't really know what to expect from a concert.  With an opening band called The Ditty Bops, I figured we'd be in for a long night.

Boy, was I wrong.  The bluegrass/folk sound of both bands was awesome. The shows were incredibly entertaining, and the musicianship of everyone was phenomenal.   Nickel Creek even mixed it up a bit with some well done covers, like Radiohead's "Nice Dream" and this popular ditty:

Nickel Creek Cover

    11:30pm: We arrived home from the concert, but our evening wasn't over yet.  John Hoel (my co-worker) was hosting a Halloween party that we wanted to go to. Sarah, of course, was far more excited about dressing up than I was, but we did it anyways.  Sarah dug out her wedding dress and transformed herself into the tooth fairy, while I decided to become our good friend Mike Burrows.  It was a rather odd choice, but I figured it would be mildly amusing. Plus, I had found the exact same turtle neck he commonly wears at Value Village, so I knew it was destined to be.

[SARAH'S ASIDE:  By the way, Michael won the costume contest as "Mike as Mike" about 2 minutes after we walked in the door.]

After the party, a few of us went to Perkins for some late-night dessert.  While normally it would have been 2:30am by the time we left, daylight savings kicked in, thankfully, and gave us a free hour.

    2:00am: Bedtime.  This day is done. Phew.

Oct 31: Halloween.  Today I did not have the opportunity to dress up as Mike Burrows and wander the streets trick or treating. Instead, I awoke at 4:30am in order to catch the 6:30am flight to New York.  That's right... the Big Apple. November 13th is the night our our third week in our God on Location series: New York: Lessons on Success.

We arrived at the JFK airport round 11:30 and headed straight for downtown Manhattan to our hotel.  We ended up staying at the Sheraton on Broadway, just two blocks up from Times Square.  After dropping our bags off in our room, we turned around and went to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.

EDITORIAL NOTE: Since it was Halloween during our first day in New York, I dressed up as an undercover Doom fan. My costume was provided by the very generous Jason from Channel 45 (whom I promised the shirt would make it to New York).  The best part about the shirt is that when I look at it in the mirror, it says "Mooo".

The Doom shirt on Ellis Island.

A HUGE billboard right outside our hotel window. Wallace peaking in. Spooky.

From there, we grabbed some dinner and strolled down the streets, past Trump Tower, past a small area of Central Park (not through, of course), and then into Times Square.  At night, Times Square reminds me a lot of Las Vegas.  Bright lights, flashing signs and people all over the world just wandering around.  It feels like constant daytime even at 10pm.

Nov 1: We woke up somewhat early and continued our NY adventure by taking the subway to Wall Street.  The street outside of the New York Stock Exchange was barricaded, with security checkpoints for the staff and heavily armed guards across the street.  Unlike DC where even thinking about looking at a security guard is strictly prohibited, the guards and officers of New York were willing to have their pictures taken with tourists.  It was a really strange (but cool site): imagine a guard with a Kevlar vest and helmet and an M-16 strapped over his shoulder with an Asian man getting is picture taken with him.

From wall street, we wandered a few blocks away to the site of the World Trade Center. Since I'd never been to NY before, I can't imagine what it must have been like to have those buildings standing there.. Currently the site is fenced off by some pretty heavy duty... well... fences.  As we approached, we noticed that there were film crews gathering around one of the areas. A little questioning revealed that Prince Charles was expected to arrive in a few hours.  Wanting to see him (but not wanting to stand there for that long) we wandered and filmed some more. When we arrived at 1, we saw the entourage of vehicles driving the Prince around inside the site. By entourage, I mean at least 15 vehicles filled with at least 50 people. It was insane. 

In the evening, Rob and I went to Canal street, had some dinner and wandered around. Once we returned to the hotel, I walked over to a nearby movie theatre and saw "Stay". While it was weird, it did take place totally in New York and referenced areas I had been to just that day.

Nov 2: Nothing terribly exciting happened, except for the fact that I had to bust my butt to get onto an earlier flight. Thankfully, I made it with only minutes to spare. In the end, it was worthwhile because I got home 7 hours earlier than I was originally supposed to.

I also talked to Shayna about breaking our  lease.  While it's still a fair chunk of change, it's manageable and not as bad as I thought. Looks like we're moving in December!

Nov 4 - 6: Pneuma 2005.  It's our annual Upper Room retreat to a place called the Gainey Center.  This year (upon Brennan Manning's recommendation) we had guest speaker Fil Anderson speak.  Once again, it was a great time for people from UR to get together and also to get to know one another.  Of course, not everyone from UR was there... but having a group of 50 people was excellent.

On the Friday (the 4th) I got a call from Johnny.  He said that John Crosby has lined up an interview with President Clinton while he was in town and needed us to film it.  Yes. President Clinton.  Wow.

On Saturday, after lunch, John and I took our gear from Pneuma and drove back into town.  The entire day my body was a nervous wreck; my stomach in knots.  This wasn't just someone famous, or any politician, but a former US President.  What would it be like? Would there be lots of security? Would we be watched every second? Would they do background checks and search us?  Would we be allowed to speak to Mr. President?

My mind raced the entire day.

Clinton was in town for a speech at the University plus a fundraiser in the evening.  We went to the venue inside the Russian Art Museum at around 3pm.  As we pulled up we expected black Suburbans surrounding every entrance with armed guards, but instead it was vacant save for the staff getting ready for the evening. Once we entered and dropped our stuff off in the room we were going to use, everyone in the building had to make their way to the 3rd floor so that a bomb sweep could be made of the entire building.  As we sat around the table waiting for the dogs to sniff everything out, I got to talking with a lady from the museum.  She knew that John and I were here for the interview and repeatedly told me how excellent that was and what a privilege it was.

The fundraiser gala started at $500 a head for people to be there to see Clinton.  He was giving a 10 minute speech and then taking pictures with some VIPs.  Somehow, a Presbyterian Church in Edina was able to get 20 minutes of his time for free.

Earlier in the summer, John Crosby and his wife Laura had met Clinton at an Aids Awareness dinner. Following the dinner, they somehow managed to get a personal tour of the Clinton Library with the man himself for the rest of the afternoon.  Having made a connection with him, John was able to get the interview lined up.

6:30 rolled by. John and I had been setup for a couple of hours already. John, Laura and their daughter Katie arrived. The plan was for the President to arrive at 7:00pm, spend 20 minutes with us and then be at the fundraiser for the remainder of the evening.

He did not arrive until about 7:45, so we got pushed back until after the fundraiser event.  This worked out well, because he would no longer be under the time constraint.

Since we had to wait even longer now, the staff at the museum felt bad for having us "cramped up" in the little interview room.  While it was small, it wasn't a big deal to us at all.  The insisted that we come to the main room to hear the President give his speech... We didn't even have to pay the $500 either! What a deal.

Clinton Enters

Me and my buddy Billy

God on Location: New York Intro (Apprentice)

Interview with President Clinton