My new Mile

One thing I brought back from my trip last year to Seattle to do Twenty First Century Leadership was the Mile. The Mile was a ritual I started practicing last July; doing the Mile was going for a jog around the park. It started off as a goal just to get out the door in the morning and do it. Then it became a goal to do it daily throughout the week. Once I succeeded in making it a regular habit, I measured my progress by how many laps I would do.

I kept up with this habit until around October. I got up to around four laps. By October the days were much shorter and the weather got colder so it became too difficult to keep going with it. I got off my Mile last fall, and my body sure felt it.

I'm living in a different place now than where I was last year. One of the joys I had in settling in was finding a new route to be my Mile. I have found a park near by and have adopted it for my new Mile. I don't know if the distance around the park, one lap, is longer or not than my old Mile. I don't even know if it's longer or shorter than one physical mile. It doesn't matter to me what the actual distance is, it is still my Mile. It is the ritual of it more than the actual physical distance.

I had been doing my Mile regularly on a week to week basis until last month when my life got really busy and I was staying up a lot of late nights and decided that my body needed the extra sleep in the mornings more than it needed the exercise. Well I might have been fine with that decision for a few weeks but it just doesn't do for me to keep avoiding. So I gave myself a kick in the ass and got some support from a member on my men's team and recommitted. Right now my goal is to get out and do my Mile three times a week. I hit that goal last week. I did Day #1 for this week tonight so I am tracking to hit that goal again.

My old Mile was all on flat ground; my new Mile has some hilly area. That suits me fine - that means I am training myself to run uphill. There is something about that which reflects my personality.

On Sunday I went out with the goal to break three laps. During my final lap I realized that I had lost count; I wasn't sure if it was my second lap or third lap, and I wasn't up to doing an extra lap just to be sure. This evening I went out with the goal to do three laps and to remain aware of my lap count. I can happily claim that I accomplished that tonight.

Gala squared

I just got back from an evening out at the Gala of Hope - a fund raiser sponsored by Children of Hope and HELPS International. There was dinner and a silent auction. I had fun during the auction. I bid on a sailing cruise; had some competition that kept me on my toes but won it in the end.

This is my month for Galas. Galae? Last week I attended the BBBST Big Night Out Gala. I wrote about that event in my post titled The Big Brother waiting game. After trying for several weeks to connect with the volunteer coordinator for that event, Wayne, I finally got an email from him the day before the event with the volunteer schedule.

At the event I started to understand why I'd been having difficulty getting in touch with the volunteer coordinator. The event was huge and there was a ton of stuff to coordinate. They were expecting some 700 people. They had an auction too. One of the prizes was a guitar autographed by the Rolling Stones. The starting bid was $3,500 and it went for $5,000. (I didn't bid on it - are you kidding?) My volunteer job was parking lot attendant, during the beginning of the evening. After that I got to go inside, have dinner, and be one of the silent auction monitors. I got to talk to Wayne about volunteer possibilities with the Men's Division, as well as the grant my employer is offering. At the end of the evening I felt wiped from being on my feet for so long in the parking lot, but I had a nice time.

I had a nice time at tonight's Gala as well. It wasn't as big in terms of numbers, but I had fun bidding on the boat. I also picked up a pair of folding Muskoka chairs - I figure they'll be my Father's Day present for my dad tomorrow.

Tale of Two Steves

Had a drum session at the studio on Friday night. Once again the session went well. It took an hour to set up the drum kit and mic it. Then we spent one hour on Thank You and one hour on How Can I Keep From Singing Your Praise. Aaron played the drums. He's probably the youngest member of the worship team, at 17. I had invited Preston to come in again to play bass and give Aaron someone to play off but Preston was unavailable. Steve O. came - I had thought to have him play acoustic rhythm guitar but we ended up having him play bass to accompany Aaron's drumming. So we now have two sets of bass tracks. Will we use Steve O's bass track or Preston's from last session? Steve Sherman recommends using Steve O's track because it was performed in sync with the drums.

What we did was a bit unusual, bringing in the drummer after we already had the bed tracks. Steve Sherman was concerned, given that we hadn't played to a click track, but it seems to have worked out and I think it was the right way to do it. Will I do it the same way when we do Let It Rain? I don't know yet, but it is the way I would prefer to do it. I prefer to treat the drums as an instrument rather than to require the drummer to be the timekeeper for the band - we can use a click track for that purpose.

How Can I Keep is finished from an instrumental point of view; it doesn't need anything else and is ready for vocals.

Aaron and Steve O. both said they had fun. Aaron got to make a lot more noise than he usually gets to at our Thursday night rehearsals! Steve said he hoped to be back to the studio do more work. Amen.