So guess what today is?  Yep.  It’s Tuesday.  And you know what I completely forgot today.  Positive Post Tuesday.  I started the day getting Blue to the bus and went straight to work.  Before I knew it, the day had passed and it was nearing dinner time, so yeah, I just plain forgot.

In fact, I haven’t even really had a chance to go through my reader and see if any of you stepped up and did it on your own.  Either way, I’ve decided to get it going tomorrow, so tomorrow is going to officially be the first ever “Positive Post Wednesday”.  Now who’s with me?  I know it might throw some people off their writing schedules, but you know what?  You’re gonna be okay.  

So that’s the deal.  Tomorrow is the first ever “Positive Post Wednesday” and we will go from there.  But here’s the thing.  Let’s step it up tomorrow and see how many we can get on the list.  Let’s make it as big as it’s ever been.

There’s only a couple places in Nashville that everyone goes to meet.  Since Daniel was near downtown Nashville and needed to be at the airport, there was really only one place to go.  The trendiest place in this fine city.  Fido.  

One cool thing about what we do for work is that we can do work with people that live across the country and never actually sit down with them to meet.  It’s great to be able to communicate with someone online and on the phone, but there is something really cool about being able to sit down and have some trendy coffee with them.  Yesterday was the first day that Daniel and I were actually able to meet in person and we had a great time.  He’s a genuine guy and has a great record on top of it.  

Now, if you still haven’t gotten Daniel’s record, what’s wrong with you?  It’s time.  Go to iTunes, spend six dollars, and get it.  He’s gonna explode one of these days and then you can tell your friends at your trendy coffee shop meetings that you got his EP way back in the day and you already know four of his songs in guitar, and all that.  See I’m looking out for you and helping you be cool.  Now go.

In Nashville we have Fido, what’s your “trendy coffee place” called?

Dear Christian Music Industry, 

Have you been by any of the “heavy hitting” bloggers pages lately?  Oh, come on CMI.  Do you mind if I call you that?  CMI?  I feel like we are friends enough now right?  Anyway, I know you have been visiting a bunch of these “heavy hitting” blogs recently.  You know how I know?  It’s this new little thing that your marketing people are doing called the “Blog CD Giveaway”.  Yep, I know it’s you.  I know that you are the one’s contacting these bloggers with massive amounts of readers and asking them to talk about and give away the new records you are releasing.  They are everywhere.  Autographed copies, pre-release copies, copies with t-shirts, copies with posters.  There’s a number of ways that one lucky reader of these popular blogs can take home something special from either their favorite artist or a brand new artist they have never heard of.  It’s a good move CMI, and I support it.  Well done.

I do have one question about this tactic though.  And I’m not even being as sarcastic as I normally am with you.  Are you ready?  Here it is.  How come you recognize blogging as a valuable form of marketing to the masses yet you still are struggling to get your artists to blog themselves?  There’s an easy way to get your artists to blog well and all you have to do is ask.

I will give you one guess, Christian Music Industry, who would write about your artists new records with more passion and more excitement than any blogger you will ever meet.  Do you want to know who it is?  It’s the artist themselves.  I know, it sounds silly.  Why would an artist talk about something that they have spent the last year and a half giving birth to?  Surely they aren’t going to be able to convey a message more convincing than a popular blogger, right?

Maybe look at it this way.  I could show you pictures of friends kids, and I could talk about them all day and I could even get you to tell me that they are cute and you like their dimples or something, but think of the difference between that and me telling you about my kids.  What if I showed you pictures of my kids?  Told you about how they jumped off the couch and got a concussion?  Showed you their first day of school pictures?  Wouldn’t you be more convinced of my passion for my own kids?  

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m all about other people telling the world how cute my kids are, but if I am going to ask people to talk about my kids and tell people how great they are, wouldn’t I be doing that myself as well?  Wouldn’t I create a platform where I could join in the conversation and give people the real inside stuff?  The stuff popular bloggers might not know about?

As always, it’s great to talk to you Christian Music Industry.  Let’s get coffee soon.

Brody

Read Parts 1-7 Here

There’s a division in our household.  A division between Kristin and I.  She’s a die hard advocate for all things crushed ice and I, on the other hand, have nothing but disdain for it.  I just spent fifteen minutes in a fight with our refrigerator door.  I despise the crushed ice option.  I hate it with all that’s in me.  I don’t like crushed ice, I don’t like the sound that it makes while it’s crushing and I don’t like the time it takes to crush.  But the thing I hate the most is when all the crushed ice gets stuck in the little thing that the ice falls through and builds up, and stays there.  

See here’s the thing.  Once that ice gets stuck between freezer temperature and kitchen temperature something bad happens.  It starts to melt a little and then freeze a little and eventually turns to a solid baseball sized rock of ice.  The unknowing, thirst subject then presses the lever to get ice and there’s nothing.  Nothing but the loud, grinding sound of metal and ice.  By the time said thirsty subject figures out what’s going on a large amount of crushed ice has now built up behind the solid, melted piece and that large amount of ice is no longer crushed ice, but a fine icy powder.

It’s at this point the frustrated, thirsty individual is forced to reach up into the place where the ice should be falling and loosen the now frozen rock of ice.  Once loosened guess what?  A five gallon bucket of ice powder is freed and then pours out filling not only the cup but pouring out all over the kitchen floor.  All I’m saying is ice was made to be cubed.  

What about you?  Are you a crushed ice or a cubed ice person?

Alright all you Christian music fans, how many artists are mentioned or referred to in this song?

It’s Sunday. What’s random in your life today?

Picture this.  

It’s a few years from now, Nashville has run out of gas again, but this time it’s worse.  This time we officially have reached a “Mad Max” state and there’s a huge colony of us living in a deserted downtown area.  Sort of like the second Matrix, but without the weird rave scene.

Pete Wilson is in charge and sends out a request for someone to go down the the basement level of a warehouse across town and kill our once pet, now a threat, tiger-dog.  This tiger-dog is half golden retriever, half tiger, and according to Pete, a threat to our already fading society.  Pete corners me and asks me to be the one to take the white fifteen-passenger van down into the lower level of the warehouse and “take care of” the tiger-dog.  I reluctantly agree.

I find myself driving down into the basement level of this abandoned building and parking the van in an open space and start to look for this tiger-dog creature.  All of the sudden a massive tiger shaped dog thing jumps at me and starts rubbing it’s face on my head the way cats do.  Only this one has massive teeth rubbing right next to my face.  This is the tiger-dog I am here to kill, but for some reason he’s being really nice.  All of the sudden from nowhere a white, pitt bull-tiger come running out of the dark and slams into the side of the van.  The golden retriever-tiger and I jump into the van and speed away.  

Back on the street level I drive the van into the part of the city where our colony is living and everyone is scared because I have this tiger-dog with me and according to Pete, he’s still a threat.  Pete walks up and tells me that I was supposed to take care of the tiger-dog and I tell him there’s another one down there.  A white one that is more pitt bull looking.  

“I know” Pete says, “That one was mine.  I put him down there because he had a broken arm.”

Then I wake up to my alarm.  What the crap?

First of all, forgive the randomness of this post, as I only slept about three hours last night and it’s getting to that part of the day where things stop making sense.

So, last night down at the Gospel Music Channel’s studio in Atlanta, (thanks Carlos for not coming to visit even though it was in the middle of the Presidential Debate) there was a ridiculous amount of snacks and beverages laying around for everyone to take part it.  And what does one do in between taking pictures, talking about blog stuff, and watching video performances over and over?  They drink stuff.  They drink multiple bottles of water, Sprite, Diet Coke, more water because they can’t handle any more Diet Coke, and even a little coffee for good measure.

Here’s the problem with being a four hour drive away from home and having an entire day of sipping on selected beverages.  Nature takes it’s course and one might find themselves in need of a restroom more than once on the late night drive home.  Now, if any of you have driven the stretch between Atlanta and Nashville you know, that aside from Chattanooga, there’s not many spots to pull over and take a stop, and I for one am horrible at choosing the right place to take these stops.  I look for things that seem decent but always end up in places that I’m afraid I am leaving with a disease.

So last night at our second attempt to stop at a decent restroom, I had the choice between two gas stations.  One on the right, and one under the freeway to the left.  The one on the right looked a little dark and gross, so I decided to go to the one on the left.  As I pulled in I noticed the sign informing me that the restrooms were, in fact, outdoor restrooms.  Strike one.  I walked around the corner to find two doors.  ”Women’s” and “Men’s”.  At first I debated just going straight into the women’s knowing that typically women are cleaner than men and since it was after two in the morning there was sure to be vacant.  Locked.  Strike two.

As I opened the next door I noticed, first that it was unlocked, and second that it was occupied.  Not only was it occupied but it was occupied by a guy maybe in his early twenties, standing there with his back to me.  This particular guy was not only not facing me, he was also not facing any sort of toilet.  He was, however, doing what one would typically do when they are facing the toilet.  This guy was literally turned completely to the side and was peeing on the wall and directly on to the plastic mechanism that dispensed the toilet paper.  The floor was pooling and the toilet paper was now saturated with what I can only assume was at one point large amounts of alcohol.  

I took a step back and closed the door, and started to walk back to the car as the door opened behind me and a loud “Whaaattsssssuuuppp” came from behind me.  I turned to see now the front of this guy who was clearly under the influence of a different sort of beverage.  A slight nod and I was headed back to the car to look for a third option.

Randy and I are headed to Atlanta to hang out with the MercyMe guys and watch them record some stuff for the Gospel Music Channel.

Oh yeah, and I’m writing this from my phone because it was too much work to get my computer out of my bag.

I’ll have some pictures up later today from our travels but for now it’s time to find some coffee.

We’ve spent a lot of time this month in the care of medical professionals.  I suppose that’s to be expected with three boys, but nothing can prepare you for that feeling of your stomach turning inside out and loosing your mind all at once.  Last night was easily the worst experience of my life and I pray not too many of you can relate.

I don’t know how many of you out there have had the unbelievable misfortune of holding your baby as their eyes roll back into their head, their body convulsing uncontrollably, and between shakes feeling like there are no muscles inside them at all.  For those of you that have, I’ve joined in that fear, and I pray to never experience that again.

As soon as I got home last night, Cooper was in his highchair waiting for dinner and didn’t even look over at me when I walked in the door.  I walked up to him and noticed a blank stare on his face and his arm start to flex over and over.  I picked him up and the seizure started to get worse.  This is the moment, as a parent, you truly have no idea what to do.  I tried to get him to respond with no success, and had Kristin call the ambulance.  Ten minutes later or so, he had thrown up several times and was still not responding to anything.  

Once the ambulance got there he had stopped seizing, but his eyes were still rolling around and not responding.  For what seemed like the longest ambulance ride to Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital possible, Cooper was given oxygen, and was hooked up to all sorts of machines.  I sent out a Twitter and was immediately flooded with encouragement and prayers.  This online community blows me away daily.

Once we got to the hospital Cooper was responding to us talking but still wouldn’t talk or move around that much.  After much poking and prodding… and a popsicle, he started to come around and was acting more normal.  What seemed like an entire day of trauma truly only lasted about three hours.  The doctors checked him out, watched him off and on and finally told us it was a result of some virus and a really high fever spike.  Turns out that’s a pretty common thing but, no doubt, something a parent can never get used to.  Even as I write this, I can feel my throat closing up and my stomach turning.  

So, Kristin and my date night to The Swell Season was cancelled, and instead we spent the evening in the emergency room.  It’s disappointing, but I’m glad it happened before we left for the show.  We have some great neighbors that helped us out a ton and sprung into action as soon as we needed them.  Thanks for everyone’s prayers and spreading the word.  Cooper’s doing better today, his fever is still off and on and we are watching him pretty close, but he’s eaten today and woke up asking to watch Clifford, so he seems a little more normal. Thanks again everyone.  Your prayers meant so much to us.