andrew dodson

Got together tonight with some friends and Julie for some Rock Band 2 action.  A few camera phone shots of the evening:

Last night, I came across Last.fm, a music site dedicated to keeping track of your listening trends and recommending music to the user, based on what they listen to.  It will sync up with iTunes or any other media player to get information on your listening habits.

I was directed to the site after checking out Feltron’s 2008 Annual Report.  This guy keeps track of everything he does in a year’s time.  And I mean everything (check out the report).  It’s pretty fascinating how much data he collects on himself.  In his music section, I noticed he used Last.fm to keep track of everything.

I’ve always thought it’d be cool to know how much music I listen to, which artists I listen to the most, which albums, which songs – all of that.  Until now, all I could rely on was iTunes’ play count for each track.  The Feltron report has inspired me to keep track of what I do each day, what foods I eat, movies I watch, places I go and more.  I caught an interview with him a few weeks ago (via Boagworld) and he just takes 5-10 minutes each day to jot down what he’s done.  I doubt I’ll get anywhere near as ellaborate as him by making a fancy report, but it might make for a fun blog post at the end of the year.

Yesterday (February 1st) marked one year of living downtown.  This time last year, I was settled into a mostly empty apartment on the St. Clair Mall.  After about a month, I finally had any of the furniture I might need.

One of the more memorable parts of getting furniture involved my couch.  I spent a Saturday with my parents in Lexington, shopping at various discount furniture stores to find the perfect couch for my budget.  I found the one I wanted and we packed it onto dad’s truck and came back to Frankfort.  After getting the couch into the building, we found that it wouldn’t fit in the elevator.  Then, it wouldn’t fit in the stairwell either.  It was wrapped in bubble wrap, cardboard and other packaging, but we didn’t want to take any of it off, for fear that the furniture store wouldn’t take it back.  We (my dad and I) finally came to the conclusion that we simply couldn’t get the couch up to my apartment.

It was a learning lesson.  The fine print of the furniture store receipt said “no returns or refunds.”  I ended up buying a love seat at a store in Frankfort.  The original store was able to give me a store credit, so I purchased a recliner with my credit, and later returned to buy a night stand for my bedroom.

My apartment is all the space I need (for now).  It’s an older building and it could use some work, for sure.  There are occasional louder-than-normal vocal noises for neighbors (arguments with significant others, mostly).  The elevator is a bit scary at times.  The fire alarms tend to go off, randomly, in the middle of the night.  I sometimes have to park a few blocks away because of lack of parking around my building.  Despite all of this, I’ve really enjoyed living downtown.

I can walk around the corner to a coffee shop.  In the summer, I can walk to concerts on the old Capital lawn, or take walks around downtown.  I can walk to local restaurants (one of my favorites, Gibby’s, in particular).  I can watch the Expo fireworks from my apartment.  All in all, I wouldn’t live anywhere else right now.

Check out the photos page for galleries from Christmas and the Abbott Family Danglethon.

Christmas and New Year’s came and went very quickly for me this year.  One of my least favorite responses to the question, “How are you?” is something to the effect of saying I’ve been busy.  Seems that everyone is busy these days.  But, I can’t remember having a busier December than 2008.  CLS was rockin’, we were preparing and performing Behold the Lamb of God, I had a recording or two to work on, shopping for Christmas, parties to attend, and so on.  It was all very good stuff that I enjoyed, but it wore me out!  It wasn’t until this past New Year’s long weekend that I was able to catch up on rest.

The new year is always exciting.  What’s in store?  I tend to shy away from resolutions, but I do like to come up with mottos for each new year.  This year, I’m thinking “Humility. Faith. Obedience.“  Here’s what’s on my mind:

Humility

This may come as a shock to some, but I have not been blessed with a great amount of humility.  I am well aware of my self-centeredness the majority of the time, and the fact that I can often react like a jerk if a situation isn’t going how I would like.  So, this is an area I’d like to improve this year.  Thinking of others first.  Are their needs being met?  If you’re reading this and thinking, “I can’t wait to see how this plays out,” I would ask for your grace and patience while I try to better myself.  Humbly, of course!

Faith

Such an easy thing to overlook sometimes.  In my self-centeredness, I often forget how utterly dependent I am upon God.  Coupled with faith is trust.  Am I trusting God in every area of my life?  Do I have faith that He will continue working in my life just as He has done to this point?  Faith is a huge topic.  I could write for days on faith.  Not today, though.

Obedience

Bottom line – am I being obedient to God?  Do I do the things He asks and requires of me?  The first step in obedience is digging into the Bible to see what God wants from me.  The next step is putting those things into practice.  I haven’t always been the best at putting them into practice.  I’m hoping I can do a better job of this in 2009.

This inspiration for this motto:

Micah 6:8

8 He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?

Okay.  I’ve decided to blog again.  Yes, wishy-washy.  Just like I said I’d be.  The thing is, I really do have a lot to blog about, and the last couple of weeks has revealed this to me.

Wordpress 2.7

Wordpress just released version 2.7, which is one reason to blog.  Wordpress is one of my favorite things in this world, and it really shows how big of a geek I can be.  I was actually anticipating the release of 2.7.  I’ve used Wordpress for the past four years and don’t plan on using anything different anytime soon.  I’m sure there’s other blogging and content management solutions out there, but I’ve just fallen in love with Wordpress.

New in 2.7 is what you (the faithful blog reader) can’t see.  As I type this, I see a whole new look in the dashboard (i.e., control panel or “back end”) of Wordpress.  It’s been completely redesigned and it’s great.  As mentioned, the new version and the new look of the dashboard is inspiration enough to blog.

A Girl

For the first time in the history of this blog, I’m going to post about a specific girl.  Her name is Julie and she’s pretty awesome.  For those of you that keep up with me on Facebook, this is old news, but it’s new to the blog.

We’ve been dating for a couple of months now, and I’m pretty happy.  As my mom pointed out in a comment a couple of posts ago, she could likely be a reason for posts being scarce as of late.  She has occupied a lot of my free time lately, but if I had to choose between time with her or blogging, it’s a pretty safe bet I’ll pick time with her!  Both of our sets of parents met last night for the first time, and it went very well.  It’s been interesting that all of the “next steps” of the relationship have gone well, without either of us being nervous (meeting parents, meeting family members, meeting each other’s friends).  It’s been a good sign – it’s just felt “normal” in a very good way.  Prayers are appreciated!

Behold the Lamb of God

For the second year in a row, I was a part of performing Andrew Peterson’s Behold the Lamb of God at The Point.  We were fortunate to have the same crew as last year, with the addition of a couple of string players (who added immensely to the performance).  I am so blessed to have been gifted with the ability to bang on drums for the glory of God.  I am so blessed to be connected with so many amazing musicians that want to glorify God through their talents.  I’m not sure how many (if any) of the bunch will see this, but I just want to thank them for letting me be a part of it all.  It was beautiful.  And a special thanks to the Tomkins family for helping with sound and MediaShout.

My Blog’s Birthday

I started this blog on December 27th, 2004.  This week, it will turn four years old.  I can’t say I thought I’d still be blogging in four years when I started.  Blogs may be dying out, but deep down, I do enjoy getting on here and typing out my thoughts for the world (or, a few people) to see from time to time.  A lot of blogs have a central theme or purpose.  I like that mine is a mix of personal thoughts, sports, music, occasional humor, and most importantly – God.  I hope to continue to blog more about all of these topics more in 2009.  All of this to say, this blog isn’t going anywhere.  I’d miss it too much.

Merry Christmas!

For some time now, I’ve had MySpace and Facebook accounts.  I’m on Facebook more often than MySpace, and the Facebook stuff gets updated more often.  It’s a pretty good way to keep in touch with friends.

This weekend, I started a Twitter account.  I’d been reluctant to dedicate any more time to another social network, but I find Twitter to be pretty easy to keep up with.  I can text message status updates to my account.  I might get on my actual profile page once in a while, but probably not as much as Facebook.

I’ve added Facebook and Twitter badges to my sidebar on this blog for others to keep up.  These social networks create transparency between you (the faithful blog reader) and myself.  Not that I live a very exciting life, but if I keep up with it, you’ll see what I’m up to all the time.  With that said, maybe I should start working on some websites that I’ve been putting off!

How ’bout the new look of the blog? Wordpress.org has revamped their theme directory and I found this one yesterday. I really like the simplicity of it.

So, what have I been up to? I’ve kept up with learning Flash and that’s coming along fairly well. I’m thinking about implementing some Flash on the Josh Martin Band website, but I’m not sure. I’d like to put what I’ve learned into practice in one way or another.

I’ve mainly spent time redesigning a few sites as of late. I continue to get people calling or emailing with interest in having a website done, so that’s been encouraging for BADmedia. I’m hoping to nail down a few more sites by the end of this week.

The Josh Martin Band stepped back on stage this past weekend at the Frankfort Christian Academy. It was good to play again. We’re going to start rehearsing again soon for some upcoming gigs. Josh has written some new material, so we will work on that as well.

Just wanted to check in and say hello. Haven’t been blogging much lately, I know. So, we’ll go with some rambling, random thoughts.

Did anyone catch Josh Hamilton in the Home Run Derby? Wow! What a story. I haven’t had a “favorite player” in baseball since Eric Davis & Nolan Ryan, but this guy would come close. If you haven’t caught up on this guy, please, please, please Google him and read up. I don’t know if his Home Run Derby highlights have made it onto YouTube yet, but you could check there too.

John Piper is doing a sermon series right now on the importance of church membership – specifically how it relates to baptism. It’s an interesting subject. It’s hard to disagree with Piper on much because we all know he’s searched the Scriptures on pretty much every topic far more than any of us. But, I will say, even after reading his first sermon, I haven’t landed on how I feel about the matter.

I’m spending this week recording the band Altered Worship at Georgetown College. They are the worship band for the Centri-Kid camp hosted by Georgetown this summer. It’s all very similar to my experience recording the Crossings bands last summer. The band is great, and I’m praising God for yet another opportunity to record something like this. So far, so good.

BADmedia has been busy in the past couple of weeks. I’m praying that work will continue to come in and the business will grow. I’ve had a good time getting it off the ground over the past few weeks. It’s the first time I’ve really pushed the business and advertised for it, and I’ve been encouraged by the response.

Here’s to hoping there are more frequent posts coming soon!

Last weekend, I was able to enjoy the Expo fireworks from the comfort of my apartment. These pictures show the view I had from my window.

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