Posted on March 22nd, 2008 by by Pete
Jackie and I posing between performances.
Last weekend, my wife and I finally got our chance to perform in our church’s Easter production, a musical drama called Son of God, Son of Man. As I’ve said in previous posts, we were asked again this year to have our donkeys participate in the play, and our role would be to handle the animals while they were on stage. It doesn’t sound tough, until you look at the role that Jackie, our larger donkey was asked to perform. She was to be the donkey that Jesus Christ rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. This was a tall order, when you understand the magnitude of the production. She would be on stage with close to 100 people, under hot stage lights, a full orchestra playing music just off to her right, waving palms, people dancing, and a strange person on her back.
This is the crucifix scene from the show, to give you an idea of the scale of the production.
I was a little worried the day before the first performance. We had a “almost” dress rehearsal on Wednesday evening. We would run through the show without stopping and we’d all be in costume. The weather was gloomy. I had been in South Dakota all day for work. I rushed from the airport to get to rehearsal, and by the time I got there, we were already running behind. My friend Peggy, who was helping to handle Jackie on stage, was already there warming up with Jackie. As part of the warmup, we’d walk Jackie around and I would spend some time riding on her back, just as the actor who portrayed Jesus would do. I was getting a very bad vibe. Jackie was restless. She didn’t want to stand still. She lurched around when I was on her back, rather than moving smoothly. I just knew something wasn’t quite right. It came time for her performance. We took her back stage and she didn’t want to hold still. Dustin, the actor that plays Jesus came back to climb on her back for the big scene and every time he was about to step across from the mounting step to her back, she danced around and stepped out of reach. Finally, it was time for his big entrance, and he couldn’t get on Jackie’s back! So, we did the only thing we could think of. Jesus walked into Jerusalem with a perfectly good donkey walking behind him for that performance. Yikes!
The good news is that this performance was the anomoly. The next four performances, Jackie performed just like she was supposed to, with her final performance on Saturday evening being her best by far. Hallelujah!
Posted on March 21st, 2008 by by Pete
Recently I heard about a cool blog called Presentation Zen, which is about presentation design. The author, Garr Renolyds, has also written a book by the same title. I was reading this post in his blog tonight, where he talked about how much he was floored by the presentation of Dr. Jill Bolte Tayler, a brain scientist, at the this year’s TED conference. It is 18 minutes long and well worth the 18 minutes you’ll spend. Like Garr, I was floored too. Her message is fascinating, touching, and timeless. You can watch it by clicking here.
Posted on March 21st, 2008 by by Pete
These are my links for March 21st:
Posted on March 6th, 2008 by by Pete
These are my links for March 6th:
Posted on February 29th, 2008 by by Pete
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Posted on February 26th, 2008 by by Pete
These are my links for February 26th:
Posted on February 24th, 2008 by by Pete
How many people can say that?? I was practicing with Jackie the donkey today out at the farm to get her ready for her big performance at church. I was on her back and my friend Steve was leading her. We weren’t using a saddle or a set of reins. Everything was going well, and then we both got distracted just as something spooked Jackie. She jumped, and I lost my balance. Remember that we were not using a saddle or reins, so I had nothing to grab as I lost my balance. Two seconds later I landed on the driveway all tangled up in the lead rope. Oh well. That’s what I get for not paying attention.
–Pete
Posted on February 24th, 2008 by by Pete
Once again it is time for our very own Jackie O’Donkey to perform in our church’s spring production of Son of God, Son of Man. Jackie will play the part of a donkey — in the scene which depicts Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey on Palm Sunday.
Today was the first day of rehearsal for Jackie. We have to get her used to walking across the stage again, as well as the sound of the actors, the orchestra, etc. She was a little spooked at first, but by the end she was doing fine!
Posted on February 19th, 2008 by by Pete
These are my links for February 19th:
Posted on February 12th, 2008 by by Pete
These are my links for February 12th:
Posted on February 10th, 2008 by by Pete
An arctic front came through today and brought us a blast of winter again. We were at the farm when the front came through and with it came an impressive amount of wind, blowing snow, and plunging temperatures. While eating breakfast, the temp dropped four degrees and it has continued to fall all afternoon. As I write this, it is -8 F with a windchill near -30 F. YUCK!
What I could to for is a nice big snow storm. That’d be fun.
Posted on February 8th, 2008 by by Pete
These are my links for February 8th:
Posted on February 8th, 2008 by by Pete
These are my links for February 8th:
Posted on February 8th, 2008 by by Pete
Michael W. Smith wrote a song a while back about the Columbine High School Shootings. The message of the song is simple. You never know which day will be your last, so live every day a if it were your last. This is a common thing we all hear, but it never hurts to be reminded.
Here’s an excerpt from the lyrics:
This is your time
This is your dance
Live every moment
Leave nothing to chance
Swim in the sea
Drink of the deep
Embrace the mystery of all you can be
This is your time
Like the song? Hear the rest by downloading it here.
–Pete
Posted on February 6th, 2008 by by Pete
I mentioned in a previous post that Jordan, the retired Helping Paws service dog was staying with us temporarily. While I was snapping photos of him the other night, I took this photo of one of his feet.
Dog feet are weird. For those of you that have dogs, have you ever noticed that their feet smell like nachos? Seriously. They smell like nachos. How do I know? I’ve smelled many dog paws through the years. Why do they smell like nachos? I have no idea. Anyone care to expound on this? By the way, my wife and I have a term for this strange phenomenon. We call it “Nacho Paw”.
For those of you who aren’t dog people, you can just move along now…..move along….. There is nothing to see here.
–Pete
Posted on February 6th, 2008 by by Pete
It is no secret that I’ve become completely hooked on Flickr. One of the things that makes Flickr fun for me is the idea of “Groups”. A group is way to share photos about a particular subject and discuss them. There seems to be a group for just about everything these days and I’m personally part of a couple dozen groups.
Up until just recently, I never saw the need to create my own group, since I was always able to find a group about whatever topic I wanted. Last week, however, I finally find a spot where Flickr needed a group. I had taken a whole set of photos of horse-drawn sleighs when I attended the St. Croix Valley Carriage and Driving Society’s annual Sleigh and Cutter Festival at the Washington County Fairgrounds a few weeks ago. I went looking for a group to join to post my sleigh photos and came up empty. There were groups for horse drawn vehicles, driving horse, etc — but nothing specifically about sleighs. So — I seized the opportunity and created a group devoted to sharing photos and discussing horse drawn sleighs, bobsleds and cutters.
So far, after a week of existence, there is a grand total of four members of my group. Now I see *why* there wasn’t a group for this already. Oh well. It was fun anyway!
–Pete
Posted on February 4th, 2008 by by Pete
These are my links for February 4th:
Posted on February 4th, 2008 by by Pete
If you visit our house these days you’ll see we’ve added, temporarily at least, another dog to our menagerie of animals. The new dog is named Jordan, and he’s a big snugly Golden Retriever. That in itself is a bit odd for us, as we’ve always been much more of Labrador Retriever people around our house. One big issue we face as a result, is that Jordan has long, silky, yellow fur. Our labs all have short, coarse, black fur. Combine these two types of fur together and we now have a scenario where it doesn’t matter what color clothing you put on, EVERYONE can tell you have dogs. ARGH!
Jordan is a retired Helping Paws service dog. He worked for eight years for a woman named Bonnie. At the end of his career, it wasn’t possible for Jordan to stay living with Bonnie, and he needed a temporary place to stay while a permanent retirement home was located for him. Jordan was trained by my friend Jay, so we knew him well already. He still fits in well at our home, despite he fact we already have three dogs. We aren’t planning on him living with us permanently, but he is sweet — so who knows — maybe he’ll end up staying here.
–Pete