My First iPhone Recording

I remember when I didn't have an iPhone, and I would watch those "there's an app for that" commercials with relative disinterest.  It's a phone, after all.  A phone's a phone.  You make calls, you text, maybe you surf the internet.  Like most people who don't have iPhones, I didn't have a clue.

I don't even consider my iPhone a phone.  Making calls might be the least important of its amazing abilities.  It helps me through Houston traffic.  It tells me the weather.  I read books on it with the Amazon Kindle app, and carry the Bible in my pocket in my favorite translation.  I actually read Psalm 136 from my iPhone at my family's Thanksgiving gathering, which I'm pretty sure freaked my dad out.  I buy stuff on ebay with it.  I plan church services on it that are uploaded to the internet and keep all our volunteers informed.  The list goes on an on: games, YouTube, songs, camera, etc.  I even find myself using it as a flashlight to find my way to bed at night.  But without a doubt, my favorite apps are the music apps.  My iPhone is a guitar tuner, a metronome, a chord finder, a drum machine, and even a pretty decent 4-track recorder.  I have more technology in my pocket to record music than the Beatles used to record the White album.  On one hand that's incredibly cool; on the other, I feel very exposed and without any excuses as to why I haven't recorded more and better music.  But you have to start somewhere, and I recently recorded my first song on the iPhone: take a listen to my version of a little Christmas song I came across recently.

Like most categories of apps, there is now a large list of available apps to record music, and you have to figure out which ones are the best.  In the recording category, FourTrack by Sonoma Wire Works is my hands-down favorite, and the one I used to record "All That I Want."  It's straightforward and easy to use, but still has all the most important features of a multitrack recorder: volume and pan on each track; listening to recorded tracks with earphones while recording a new track with the iPhone's mic.  You can even combine recorded tracks together, freeing up available space to record additional tracks if 4 isn't enough.

My recording is completely raw -- I just recorded the tracks and saved the resulting song as a .wav file.  But you can save tracks individually, transfer them to more sophisticated software on your computer, and produce something more professional.  A band called The 88 went all the way with this and produced a commercially-viable song recorded completely on an iPhone.  Check out this amazing video where they show how they did it!

The Gate

I was extremely stressed out, so I built a gate.  My family left for Thanksgiving without me (I'll catch up) and I stayed home and built a gate.  Sometimes in similar situations I'll clean up the house, or do some other project.  I don't even like cleaning up, or building gates--that's not the point.  I think sometimes I just need to do something that has a clear beginning and end, and that looks and feels like success at the end of the day.

My previous project was neither clear nor successful: a brake job on Jacob's racing atv.  We virtually replaced the entire brake system and the brakes were still soft.  We bled the brake lines I think 3 times.  It was horrible, and my OCD/perfectionism/anger issues were in full bloom.  The atv and I have issues right now.  Gates are simple.  Less mechanical parts, no fluids.  And since our labrador Bear had figured out how to get through the temporary fence I had up in the backyard, I knew it was time for the gate to be built.

As you can see from the photos, I have access to my backyard from the street, so I wanted a gate wide enough to drive through.  The metal frames from American Fence enabled me to build a 12' double gate that (hopefully) will not sag.  I recycled the old fence pickets to save money, which worked fine but gave me that interesting army bars pattern.  A good power wash should fix that.

I know it sounds neurotic, and maybe it is, but I slept better last night.  God worked for six days of creation, finished it, called it good, and rested.  That pattern never seems to play out in my life, probably not in yours either.  As soon as something is scratched off the top of the list, two more things are added to the bottom.  There is no duty cycle, no down time to offset the up time.  Recreation is not rest.  Sometimes it's harder than work.  I worked for six hours, finished, called it ok, and was done.  And there was evening, and morning of the first good day I've had in a while.

Fried Chicken and Communion

Sunday we concluded a series at the Springs called, "A Place at the Table."  It may be my favorite teaching series ever.  At each gathering, we took a look at an episode in Jesus' ministry that occurred at dinner.  It's amazing how many there are, and highlights the importance of the common meal in the first century, and why we believe it should still be the centerpiece of social, spiritual and family life today.  Sunday's episode was the Last Supper, arguably the most important dinner of all.  We tried to view the event as it happened, with Jesus participating in the Passover meal with his disciples, which to this day is celebrated not at a church building, but at home.

Last night we celebrated communion around the table with friends, similar to the way the first Christians did.  We all sat on the Harrises' back porch.  We shared the bread at the beginning our meal, then enjoyed dinner together--fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans and rolls.  Toward the end of the meal we shared the cup--grape juice in plastic cups.  We ended the evening in rich conversation as some of the boys played football in the yard.  It was a Texas spin on an ancient tradition, and recaptured the "community" of communion in a way I had not experienced in a long time.

So fill your cup, raise it up.  Here's to Fried Chicken and Communion, remembering the great love of Jesus and celebrating the Christ-life among friends.

Back In Black

I have a handful of students who take guitar lessons from me at the studio (FYI I have a second job as manager of MiracleSound Productions -- check it out at http://www.miracle-sound.com/).  One of my beginner students is around 12 years old--we'll call him Angus--and is a fan of AC/DC and several other hard rock bands whose members are old enough to be his father.  Last week at his lesson, his actual father announced that they were on their way to the AC/DC concert for some father-son bonding.  So for this week's lesson, I broke out the song "Back In Black," which just happens to incorporate several of the things I had been teaching little Angus in his lessons.  I fired up the virtual drummer on my iPhone, cranked up the overdrive on the guitar amps, and away we went.

I know, I know.  This is all horribly wrong.  I am a pastor, for crying out loud.  Am I even allowed to play AC/DC songs, let alone encourage a very impressionable youth to play them?  All I know is this: circa 1982, my garage band mates and I were playing "Back In Black" at the First Methodist Church's 5th quarter party on Friday night after the high school football game.  For an encore, we wanted to play my favorite song at the time: an awesome instrumental piece on Boston's new album called, "Foreplay."  My mother said no.  I couldn't figure out what was inappropriate about the song, it didn't even have words!

At some point I'll have to save my now-tarnished reputation and introduce young Angus to something more wholesome.  How about "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" by Guns N Roses?

Thank You Veterans

I was encouraged this morning by all the American flags I saw in the neighborhood as I drove my son to school.  But more importantly, I hope our veterans are encouraged by it.  I hope every veteran who sees the flags and the parades, and who is personally thanked today, will feel our immense gratitude for his or her service to our country, as will the families of fallen soldiers.  We can never repay them for their loss.

Read that again: we can never repay them.  If every Veterans Day celebration, expression of gratitude, and medal for heroism is weighed on the scales against the actual losses and sacrifices of soldiers and their families, they come up woefully lacking.  I don't see how a soldier could be fairly compensated in this life.  And unless a soldier believes in the righteousness of his cause and a reward beyond this life, I don't see why he would serve.  Selflessness makes no sense without eternity.

God bless the men and women who deny themselves every day for our protection and our freedom.