Today was my first day helping out at Port City Community Church in the position of a mobile camera operator.  The video above, a cover of the MuteMath song, Chaos, is what I had the opportunity to shoot.

In helping with the production at PC3, I started off as a camera operator, but back then they only had stationary cameras.  I then moved to directing, which I did for, gosh, I guess a couple years.  Once we moved to the new building I was set up a switcher, but I only did it a few times before Amanda and I started volunteering at Grow Zone.  Since the production volunteers were on a three week rotation that sort of screwed things up a little.  So today I tried my hand at the mobile camera.

I enjoyed it.  I got good feedback and pointers from some people.  I’ve definitely got room to improve though.

When I left the house this morning I forgot to grab my car key and my house key.  I did have the Jetta key in my pocket though, so I took that car.  I reasoned that I didn’t want to wake Amanda up and it would be warmer out later in the day (Amanda was going to the 10:30 service with her brother, Michael Mercer), so the heated seat in the Jetta would benefit me more anyway.

I sat with Amanda and Michael (and a friend of his from work, Gary Harris, who wanted to check out the church) after shooting the music at the 10:30.  When Amanda left, she gave me the keys to the Olds and took the Jetta.

Before the 12:30 service Matt Davis saw me and walked up to me.  This was the first service he and Melissa had come to since having their baby, Penelope, seven weeks ago.  I got to see her after the service.

Speaking of babies, congratulations to Paul and Meagan Wicker!  Nick Warkentien told me this morning that he’d gotten a text that Meagan’s water broke, and after the 12:30 service I was told their baby, Hannah Wicker, had arrived.  Paul and Meagan are in Nick and Amy’s small group and we’ve met them a couple times.

I got home a little after 2:00.  Amanda was supposed to set the DVR to record the Duke and Virginia game, but she’d gone out to lunch with Michael and Gary then did a little shopping afterwards and had gotten home just a little bit before me.  There wasn’t much to rewind so I just picked the game up from where it was.

Not too much to report on that game.  Duke beat the Cavaliers 79-54, never once trailing.  Nolan Smith was aggressive on offense and scored 15 points, though Gerald Henderson, who seems to have taken over ever since ACC play started, had a team high 18 points.  Kyle Singler had an off game offensively, but helped out big with the rebounds.  The freshmen got some playing time too, and it was nice to see Elliot Williams aggressively attack the basket.  Even Olek Czyz got in at the end.

Up next, a tough stretch of games: at Clemson, Miami, then Carolina.

Amanda and I watched a bit of TV after that.  In fact, we were watching Saturday Night Live when Superbowl XLIII started.  We ended up not going out for it.  Amanda generally hates watching football anyway, plus we were feeling a little lazy I think.  I watched the second half of the game and Amanda went to bed.

The game featured the Arizona Cardinals and the Pittsburgh Steelers.  I didn’t really care who won, but Pitt seems to have a lot more bandwagon fans, so I thought I’d pull for the Cards.  It seems like they were called for a penalty on every down in the third quarter, which I think made the game less fun to watch.  They were down but came back and took the lead with just a few minutes left to go, but then the Steelers made a touchdown to take back the lead.  The Cardinals were trying to make a run as the time was expiring but then arguably fumbled the ball and turned it over, dashing any hopes for a Hail Mary win.

You know what though?  Give me a blowout Duke basketball game over any Superbowl game any day of the week.

Zach Dotsey