Woke up this morning (got yourself a gun. Momma always said you’d be the… chosen one- sorry, usually when I say or think the words "woke up this morning" I think of those lyrics) at 5:30 and went to help set up at Port City Community Church. Setup went real smoothly and so did the actual taping, sans the fact that for various reasons the first two services didn’t actually get recorded. But that’s okay, the 12:30 service is usually our best job, and that was true today. It was really fun today, running the camera. Not that it’s not usually fun, but it was really fun today. I can’t tell you why- everyone was just a bit goofy and things went well.
We’ve only got four more services in Roland-Grise Middle School before everything is packed up and set up at the new building. I think it will have been eleven months, which, for a building the size of this one is ridiculous. I mean, it seems like small houses take longer than that. Maybe there’s something to that, huh?
It was also the last service that Nicky will be doing. Nicky is a high school girl who often runs the stationary camera and she’s been volunteering for at least as long as I have. She’s moving to Cary. best of luck, Nicky, and make sure to broaden your movie-watching horizon.
Mike Ashcraft, the preacher, was in a humorous mood today I think. After the cameras had all been set up, wires run, equipment tested and all, I was standing on the stage and Mike walked out and said he was going to lead the worship today. He picked up an acoustic guitar and started singing Every Rose Has Its Thorn. Later, at the beginning of the 12:30 service, he said he was going to be the producer for that service. The producer gives heads up to the director about things coming up, gives suggestions of shots to get and keeps a general eye on things. Mike started telling us things to do before the band came out. I can’t remember what, but it was pretty funny. He was off before the band actually went out to the stage though.
Amanda had been planting more things today and asked me to swing by Home Depot to pick up a few more lilies and some support stakes. I got everything but then it turned out that I’d forgotten my wallet, so Amanda headed over there as I was driving home. She planted the rest of the stuff while I checked e-mail and played a turn on UltraCorps then went out to talk to her. After we (she) finished up with everything outside we went in and I took a nap.
She woke me up later and made me go with her to Smithfield’s to get some BBQ dinner (I’d had some for lunch at church but I wasn’t BBQ’ed out yet). Bruce rode along with us. When we got home we pretty much just watched TV for the rest of the evening- the season finale of Saturday Night Live with Steve Carell as the host, an episode of Law & Order: SVU with an ending that actually surprised us a little when a woman grabbed a guy and jumped over the side of a building to kill them both (okay, the thought crossed my mind that it would happen, but I didn’t think it would) and an episode of CSI: Miami where if people had done the intelligent thing that normal people would do in the first place a lot of drama would have been spared and Alexx (why two x’s?) resigned.
And tomorrow it’s back to work. Three more days until six weeks are up from Amanda’s surgery.
Zach Dotsey