From the Desk 9/2/2008

This morning I got to work and it felt like a Monday, trying to get to things that were pushed off from the previous week. The majority of my day was spent working on the website. The School Box website has now launched our "pink" site to support breast cancer awareness and ties in with our retail promotion to raise money to donate to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. In the process of the site changing, they have turned control of the 4 boxes at the bottom of our site over to us to change graphically how we want to. I was not expecting this to happen at the same time as the site changeover so when I first visited the site, the boxes at the bottom were missing. I spent the next 2 hours mostly on my own (Mike helped periodically) adding the new boxes to the site and then tying the links to all the information in the boxes. After fixing that problem, I noticed that the website header no longer appeared so I had to go work on fixing that problem. It ended up being something simple; the permissions on the image file were limited and I changed them to view for everyone and it corrected the broken image file quickly. It was then time for lunch.

I thought the family was going to eat together in the break room (minus Stacy as she was in a meeting), but it ended up being just Blair and I. Tausha was swamped with making sure payroll was done, which we didn't object to, and Carmen was buried in invoices from the long weekend. Blair shared about her trip to the beach and I told her about my weekend visit with Hickey and Christina. We returned to our respective desks and I began working on the next project: re-working the teacher resources page. We have a tab along the left-hand side of the website that is named teacher resources and contains links to website that students, teachers, and parents can use. The box at the bottom of the website is also named teacher resources, but contains links to PLU teacher class schedules and answer keys to CRCT testing books. To solve this problem of the same name being used for 2 things, I combined the pages into one page that holds all the information and is linked form both the side tab and the graphic box. Once I made the page, I had to link the updated class schedules to the new page and link the box to that page. I finished that up around 3:00 and then followed Vickie's suggestion to go ahead and roll up tape and stick on a lid so we can quickly put tape on the back of the idea cards and stick them up on the wall tomorrow. I made 75 rolls and I have a feeling that we will need more, but its a start. I also responded to an offer for our participation in a teacher open house event held at the Georgia Aquarium. It is a win-win situation. We get to promote The School Box, meet teachers, and view the aquarium. Leslie from Howell-Mill will be attending with me, which means that I might not get lost! After wrapping up things that had to be done before Thursday it was time to go home.

I went home and straightened and cleaned up after the weekend. I ate some dinner and then got a text from Christina to let me know she was on her way. 92.9 Dave fm was putting on a free concert tonight at the newly renovated Pontiac Garage, located in the basement of The Tabernacle. The headline band was Needtobreathe, a band that I hadn't heard of until about a week ago when Christina first heard them and bought their CD. I listened to it and loved their sound and lyrics. We drove down to the venue and got there a little early so we could be standing near the front of the stage whe the bands started playing. The opening act was Matthew Mayfield, a singer/songwriter who played acoustic guitar while letting his mellow vocals sail over top. His voice reminded me of a mix between Dave Matthews and the lead singer of Lifehouse. The combination was great and his lyrics centered largely around the image of fire to illustrate passion, love, pain,etc. I purchased his CD "The Fire EP" at the end of the show. The second act was a guy named Andy Davis. He was from the Nashville area and played both guitar and piano (not at the same time). My description of his style and voice will seem a little odd, but its all I could come up with. He had a sound like Fiona Apple mixed with David Gray, and a voice like David Gray mixed with Rufus Wainwright. The combination, again, was beautiful. We involved the audience in the song "Let the Woman" by teaching us to sing part of the song and then giving the audience the cue to join in his song at the appropriate time. He played a great set and I also picked up his CD. After a few minutes of tuning and changing the stage setting around, Needtobreathe came out to play for us. They stole the show. I'm not sure if they are solely a Christian band, but their lyrics certainly lead one to believe that. They opened with the song "Streets of Gold" and I really enjoyed the way that the songs they played seemed to be over, but they always played an instrumental segue way into the next song so there was little to no silence. They played several of my favorites such as "More Time", Signature of the Divine (Yaweah)" and "Spare the Time". The show ended with their last song, "Washed by Water" being dedicated to the people displaced by the hurricanes hitting New Orleans. They pulled out their acoustic guitars and sat at the edge of the stage about 15 feet from where we were standing and played the last song without amplifiers or mics. It was eerily quiet until they started playing the song and then asked everyone to join in singing the chorus with them. It was almost like a worship service at a church the way that everyone's voices blended in and carried the powerful lyrics across the room. It was an amazing show and I was sad that it was over, but I knew that I needed to get sleep for the meeting tomorrow anyway. Christina dropped me off at my apartment around 11:30 and I went to bed soon after walking in the door. I went to sleep still hearing the songs echoing in my head.

Meditation for the day: I decided to put the lyrics to the song "Washed by Water" for the meditation for today as I think they are very applicable to everyone's lives.

"Washed By Water" ~by Needtobreathe

Even when the rain falls
Even when the flood starts rising
Even when the storm comes
I am washed by the water

Daddy was a preacher
She was his wife
Just tryin to make the world a little better
You know, shine a light

People started talking
Trying to hear their own voice
Those people tried to accuse my father
Said he made the wrong choice

Though it might be painful
You know that time will always tell
Those people have long since gone
My father never failed

Even when the rain falls
Even when the flood starts rising
Even when the storm comes
I am washed by the water

Even if the Earth crumbles under my feet
Even if the ones I love turn around and crucify me
I won't never ever let you down
won't fall, won't fall, won't fall as long as you're around me