Jeff Kerr

So You Want To Write Songs

My wife and I both like to write songs.  With 4 kids at home, there is not often extended time for us to sit in peace and write songs.  But yet we try.

Tonight, we tried to sneak a few minutes by the piano to share some new songs with each other.  Now, the sharing of new songs is often a touchy moment.  When you play someone a new song you've written, you are putting yourself out there.  It's like you take a little piece of your soul and put it out there for others to step on it.  Now Kristie and I try to avoid stepping on each other's soul.  Most of the time we succeed.  And tonight was going well.

We listened to each other, ideas were exchanged, encouraging words were expressed, feelings were strong. 

Just then Dottie, our two year old, entered the room not wearing anything.  She thinks this is a cute game to remove her clothes and diaper and run around screaming "Naked Baby in the house!!"  (it is sorta cute)  we paused from our nice song-writing moment and laughed at our cute daughter... Song writing by the piano, coffee in hand, cute kids running around laughing...it was a moment straight out of Norman Rockwell.

Kristie picked up Dottie, when she and I made a simultaneous discovery.  Kristie had poop on her sleeve.  We both gasped and began to move quickly from the piano room.  For poop on the sleeve means that Dottie removed her diaper after she had filled it.  Which means that somewhere in the house is a vacant poop-filled diaper, and depending on how enthusiastic Dottie was during her dis-robing, there may be remnants of said poop scattered abroad.  We began a hasty house-wide search for the diaper. Running in to the play room, we found the diaper on the floor, being eaten by our dog Buster.  Yes.  Buster likes to eat Dottie's poop.  This is gross.  But in the moment, we didn't dwell on the dog.  We snatched the diaper from the clutches of a snarling beagle, Kristie took Dottie to the tub, I began cleaning the carpet.

IF you want to be a song writer, you may not want to have kids.

Room for cream and a fly swatter.

How did all these flies get in here?  How long have they been living here? 

 

I’m in Starbucks, enjoying some coffee and some down time while my Betty is at Pre School down the road.  Kristie and Dot are home sleeping away this cool, windy fall afternoon.  Its definitely fall.  The clouds are here, the temps are barely squeaking in to the 50’s today. 

 

Now that I think about it, we missed the 60’s all together.  We had unusual warmth for most of September, which was nice I guess, but not if that means we miss out on highs in the 60’s.  I put up with a years worth of weather for a few weeks with highs in the 60’s and leaves changing color.  I’d better get at least one round of golf in with a sweatshirt, fall colors, sunny skies and 63 degrees.  That’s not too much to ask.

 

It’s Monday and it’s a perfect afternoon for a few hours in Starbucks.  Except there are flies everywhere.  I will now pause typing to count the flies….

 

… nine.  There are nine flies in my corner of the starbucks.  Who knows how many there are on the other side… by the kids toys.  Certainly, one of the employees could take a few minutes at the start of the day and swat a few flies right?

 

Joining me at starbucks this afternoon is a lady who apparently has very important work to get done.  She blew in here about a half hour ago, placed her order and while the gal was making her minty drink, she found her table and set up her laptop, put her phone on the window ledge as to not miss that call from corporate, inserted her wireless card and her usb wireless mouse, pulled out her reports and got to work.  All with a facial expression that says “I’m so busy, you don’t even know how much important stuff I’m doing, you can sit there with your laptop and blog all you want, but the stuff I’m doing would blow your mind”. 

 

Oh man, they just ground more espresso beans and my seat is in perfect position to smell the fresh ground espresso.  Now I know why the flies are hanging out here.

 

At the very next table is a pair of ladies who are catching up.  I have headphones on and I’m listening to music so I can’t hear what they’re saying.  It seems like they’re talking about things that are very interesting and entertaining.  A couple minutes ago, one of the ladies stood to show her friend the new workout pants she was wearing.  Judging from hand gestures and body movements, they were discussing how tight these pants were and yet so easy to move around in.  There was more than a little gyrating and butt feeling going on which made for awkward moments for the rest of us here in Starbucks… I wonder if anyone else noticed. The working lady is way to busy with her reports to notice.  There’s a young guy here working on homework with his tutor. He definitely noticed. 

 

Seriously, there are flies everywhere.  I’m finding myself thinking of possible ways to kill all the flies without causing a disruption.  There are none. There is absolutely no way to kill 9 flies in a Starbucks without becoming the focus of everyone at that Starbucks.  And have you ever tried to kill a fly with a group of people watching?  If you miss just once, you’re a loser.  If you miss on just one swing, you become dumber than that fly.  Then you get more determined to kill the fly and you finally succeed, but do so with just a bit too much gusto and then you’re a guy who got overly competitive over a fly.  When you’re overly determined to kill a fly whilst trying to keep a cool look on your face, you just end up looking like a crazy person.  It’s a no win situation.  Besides, I don’t have any proper utensils.  I think everyone in here would agree that a few flies is better than some crazy person running around killing flies with his spiral bound notebook.

 

Finally, there’s an elderly gentleman who is sitting at a table, enjoying a cup of coffee.  And that’s all he’s doing.  He’s not reading, listening, talking.  He’s drinking coffee.  That’s pretty sweet.

 

So here’s to taking a few hours to enjoy the Fall weather with a cup of coffee and some John Mayer.  Or a cup of Coffee and catching up on work, or gabbing with friends about workout pants, or just a cup of coffee and nothing else. 

 

It’s your life… live it.

 

Can you believe that it's time for my monthly blog??!!

Good Morning.  It's a beautiful Saturday morning and I am taking it slow, eating breakfast with Charlie and Dottie.  The other ladies are out this morning at a baby shower.  The grass badly needs to be mowed and I'm in some serious need of personal grooming... but that stuff can wait.

It is August 29th which means fall is upon us.  Can you believe the summer is over already??!!  Actually I can believe it.  I ask that question facetiously.  I've noticed a trend whenever I get something in the mail, a question like that one is in there.  For example:

"Can you believe the summer is over and it's time to go back to school?"
"Can you believe the year is over...???"
"It's Hard to believe that another Christmas season is upon us"
"Can you believe it's already been 6 months since your last visit??!!"

Why do people write these sentences?  Everyone does it.  I for one CAN believe that summer is almost over and that we're almost through the first decade of the new century.  How immersed in our every moment do people think we really are that we'd be shocked to learn that the Earth has continued to rotate on its axis and time has continued to move forward?

I say that IF you're shocked every time you notice time has gone by at it's normal and rather predictable pace, that you need to chill out a bit and look around once in a while.  The summer hasn't gone by faster than normal, you've just missed it.

The Kerrs have had a great summer.  We had a nice break from work, went on a couple trips, I played some golf, we set a record for family bike rides. 

This summer has also been great for getting to know the folks in our neighborhood better.  Tonight we are attending a neighborhood kickball tournament/ pool party/ Karaoke Machine/ Mexican food extravaganza.  This sounds like a good time.  Of course some of my neighbors drink a bit at these parties, so by the end of the evening, my sobriety will give me a noticeable kickball advantage and quite possibly a Karaoke disadvantage.  Again, if you've just now noticed that it's the end of summer and you haven't gotten to know your neighbors better, you gotta slow down a bit.  Winter is upon us and we'll all hibernate for 5 months.  Get in your social interaction while you still can.  CAN YOU BELIEVE WINTER IS UPON US AGAIN???!!!

So here's to fall.  I love the fall.  I don't love getting back in to the school routine with the kids.  As a family, we've yet to learn how to exist well getting the kids off to school every morning.  But the Fall season brings about great stuff to which we are looking forward.

I'm looking forward to some big creative projects that Kristie and I are working on. We thrive in that world.  If we could write a song about getting the kids off to school every morning rather than actually doing it, we'd be in our sweet spot.  Fall is a big season at church and we're excited about all that we've got coming up.

I'm not excited about it yet, but I have to start planning out Christmas Music in the next couple of weeks.  CAN YOU BELIEVE IT'S ALMOST ANOTHER HOLIDAY SEASON???!!!  (Ooops, sorry, i mean 'Christmas' season... not 'Holiday' season.  I recognize that if you call it the 'Holiday' season, some Christians go a little nutty... like you're giving turf back to the devil.)  In the next month I will be back in to Christmas music.  You wonder why i get a little tired of it come December when all of you are just hitting your holiday music stride.

I have a goal to enjoy this fall season in spite of its business and it's ups and downs.  I have a goal to not get to the end of the year and say to myself "Can you believe it's the end of the year already?"  I have a goal to write more and facebook less.  I want to blog more, write more music and begin work on a rather large writing project that I've been thinking about for a while.

(Shameless Plug Section... my wife Kristie finished writing a great book last spring called "The Father's Heart".  If you'd like a copy shoot me an email... or a blog comment.  Plus she produced a worship cd for our church called "He Loves Us"... also awesome....  You may be thinking "Kristie is producing Books and CDs.... what in the world have YOU been doing, Jeff??... I also am wondering that same thing).

So here's to the Fall season.  Fall golf is the best golf.  Fall campfires are the best campfires.  Halloween rocks.  Trees change colors.  Shorts and sweatshirts is the best possible clothing combination in the universe.  Turn the AC off but don't turn the furnace on... that is the best... it's like living in Amish Country. 

Here's to Fall season at church. The church picnic 'Rock and Roll Concert' is tomorrow night, (with sensible volume of course) the fall launch of our 4th service in Apple Valley Campus and our 2nd service at the Faribault Campus is a couple weeks away, our Sparkle Womens Conference is going to be great and is happening at the end of september, and Christmas music will soon be in the works...

Can You Believe it???!!!

bearing fruit and dumb facial expressions

Good Morning.

I'm starting my day at Caribou.  Dunn Bros is shut down.  SHUT DOWN??!! When did this happen?  It's OK though, I hadn't been going to Dunn Bros in quite a while... Actually... maybe that's why they shut down.  Sorry Dunn Bros, You were the topic of many a blog a couple years ago and now I've let you down.

I have caught a cold.  It's a bad one.  Total and complete head congestion.  I hate that. When you have total head congestion, I've found its impossible to not look dumb.  With total head congestion, you always have a slight neanderthol, head-forward, mouth breathing, eyes glazed look that makes people think "That there is not an intelligent person".  Anyway, I have a bad cold... it's a swine cold.

I spent some caribou time catching up with Facebook.  "Why am I looking at this?" I wonder to myself.  Facebook has become the best way to find out about all the parties that you weren't invited to.  I was looking at pictures this morning on facebook saying to myself... "hey, there is all my friends hanging out... I wonder why I'm not in any of these pictures... I must have been the one taking the pictures... but I don't remember this party at all......" 

The rest of my time at Caribou was spent catching up on SOAP.  I'm trying to stay caught up on soap... both the shower kind and the bible kind.  SOAP is the bible reading plan that our church is going through this year.  If you are an RVC'er and you have stopped soap-ing... spare me your excuses and start reading your bible.  If you've stopped using the other kind of soap... that's another issue.

This morning I was reading the first few chapters in Matthew.  Here are the two things that hit me.

Matt 5:43.  Love Your Enemies.  Everyone can love those who treat them nice.  How are we doing at loving those that don't treat us well?  Ouch.  We are a people/culture that has gotten used to being nice when we've been treated nice.  The bible says that's not that impressive.

Matt 7:17-20.  Good Trees bear Good Fruit.  Bad Trees bear Bad Fruit.  By our fruit we will be recognized as bad or good trees.  So the obvious question we must ask ourselves today is How's My Fruit?  When people see the fruit in my life, are they thinking "Hey, that fruit reminds me a lot of Jesus".  or are they not.  My prayer today for my life is that people would see my fruit and say "In spite of his neanderthol facial expression... the fruit there reminds me of Jesus."

Lord, Help us be people that bear Jesus-like fruit.

Friends tell Friends the Truth

Hello people of the world.  My name is Jeff.  I'm your friend, and friends tell friends the truth.

Hey Apple Computers.  I went to your store at MOA today and you wouldn't let me in because I wasn't buying a new iPhone.  Really?  I wanted a little plastic pad piece for the bottom of my laptop and you wouldn't let me in the store unless I was buying the new iPhone.  I love my Apple computers, i have multiple, but you don't control the universe.  You own less than 10 percent of the computer market.  I once took a test in school and only got 10 percent of the answers correct.  You know what I DIDN'T do then?? I didn't get cocky.

Hey drivers who approach 4 way stop signs.  Your urge is to just sit there and wave everybody else through first because you lack decision-making skills.  This isn't helping. Whoever gets to the stop sign first, goes first.  If its a tie, the person on the right goes first.  Waving everybody else through first isn't good because every so often there are more than one of you at the same intersection and then the Earth stops spinning and time stands still.  If it’s your turn to go, go.

Hey men who use urinals and spit their gum in there.  That's gross.  This is not a trash can.  The gum doesn't go away on its own. Somebody has to reach in there and pull your chewed gum out of the urinal.  Really?  That's what you're about?

Hey Marty the guitar repair guy.  You fixed my guitar, which was good.  I'd like you to call me when it’s done and let me know.  Instead you don't call and you wait 3 weeks til I call you and you and hear you say "Oh it was done 3 weeks ago... I thought I called you on that one..."  That's not the same thing.

Hey Lifetime Fitness.  Recently you unveiled a new kids swim policy that unless your kid can swim 25 meters on their own, they can't swim alone at the pool, even in the zero depth shallow end.  Instead parents are required to be within 10 feet of kids at all times.  This doesn't work.  I have 4 kids, one of whom could pass your test.  What shall I do with the other three?  We could harness ourselves all in to some spider web-like harness system that only reaches out 10 feet, but alas, there's no fun in that.  How about potty breaks?  "OK kids everyone out of the pool, Betty's gotta go potty and if she goes potty in the pool thus maintaining the magic 10 lazer-perimiter, they shut the whole thing down”.  Don't worry LTF... I'm watching my kids. The very last people I'm entrusting my children’s safety to are the slow-moving Baywatch teenagers.

Hey people who are crippled by insecurity and thus can't re-tell the details of a story, or situation, or conversation without changing all the details to suit themselves, make someone else look bad and/or get a desired result.  Stop it.  When you don't tell the truth, you're telling a lie.  And lies make baby Jesus cry.

Now, on to the good thing that's happened to me today...  I just heard that NIKE shoes has a shoe insert that syncs with your iPod (made by the egomaniacal Apple corporation) and keeps track of steps, distance run, speed etc.  But the best feature is the Power Song.  You can set a certain song from your ipod and you can designate that song as the power song and when you are in the midst of your run and your hitting the wall, and you need a musical boost, you can set off the POWERSONG and BOOM! instant power to your ears.  BOOM-POW!!!

So now the discussion shall be about power songs.  What would your power song be?  Here are some of my choices.

Anything by Chris Tomlin.
BTO - Taking care of business.
Kool and the Gang - Celebration
B52's - Love Shack.
Keith Urban - Who wouldn't want to be me
Van Halen - Panama
Maroon 5 and Rihanna - If I Never See Your Face Again
Kenny Logins - Footloose

Feel free to post a comment and leave your POWERSONG... or to leave your apology for any of the other items discussed.

6 Habits for a Highly Effective Sabbatical

I’m a high capacity person.  I’m a goal setter and an accomplisher.  I have dreams and I believe in taking my dreams and turning them in to my DESTINY.  I’m on Sabbatical for a month and I’ve decided to set some goals for this one-month stretch where I don’t have to go to work… I mean I don’t GET to go to work.

Here are my sabbatical goals:

1-    Make the lawn look nice.  We’ve had crab grass in quite a few spots so I’m going to focus on fertilizer, crabgrass preventer and watering.  I enjoy putzing around the yard.  This morning, I literally spent about an hour just standing in the back yard watching the tractor sprinkler creep along its path.  I think I may give it another hour of close attention later today.

2-    Get better at washing cars.  I know the basics of car washing… spray, apply soap, wash and then rinse.  But in this elementary approach to washing a car, the finished product is not what I’d refer to as ‘Award Winning’.  So I’m going to learn the basics of waxing and buffing a car.  I have a teal green, 1995 Honda Accord with the paint chipping off of it… it’s time I started making it look nice.

3-    I’m installing a micro-wave oven over our stove.  This sounds like a project for next week.

4-    I’m going to get one, if not two of my kids confidently riding on two wheels.

5-    I’ll try to tan my Canadian body in the areas covered by my golf shirts.

6-    I should remove my suitcase from the front entry-way.  It’s been there since Monday (today is Friday).  I think today should be the day for that.

There they are, my 6 goals for a Highly Effective Sabbatical.  I may write a book about it.  I’ll call it “In a back yard, with a tractor, on a sunny day”. 

So learn from me everyone.  Dream Big.  If you don’t set some goals for yourself, you may end up spending a beautiful sunny day outside and not really accomplish anything. 

Crabgrass and Facebook both choke out life.

Let's do this.

Blogging used to be easier.   I remember when everyone blogged.  This was before the days of Facebook and Twitter and after the days of talking, interacting and normal productive social behavior.  Now the act of writing a nice blog has been replaced by churning out a thoughtless twitter update or a self absorbed Facebook status.  Speaking of which, my lack of blogging has become fodder for Facebook walls... sorry for the delay Hillary.  Thanks for caring.

But I journey on back in to the blog world...  I have thus far refused to join twitter and I'm growing more and more tired of Facebook.  Facebook hits both extremes of love and hate with me and in this way it's not unlike an episode of Dancing with the Stars.  Facebook is Good:  I feel more connected to extended family and childhood friends than I ever have before and it's because of Facebook.  Facebook is Bad:  Husbands and Wives are posting converstations to each other.  People are giving medical advice.  People are sending out blind baseless warnings about the courts removing all Christian TV from the airwaves.  People are giving the results of every personal quiz imaginable.  Never before has 'having no friends' seemed so desireable.  And don't think I wont do it.... Hey, I did it through high school, I can do it again. 

The latest annoying facebook trend was all the people who were thanking God that Kris Allen won American Idol.  People, God didn't phone in a vote... nor did he text one in.  (And by the way, I am aware that Kris Allen is a worship leader and that there is video footage of him singing "God of this City", You don't need to send it to me on Facebook).  Speaking of American Idol.  I really enjoyed this season but by the end of the season I noticed that it was turning in to a bit of a good vs evil competition...  Kris was the Christian, music pastor, nice young man.  Adam was the scary looking, make-up-wearing, questionable sexual orientation and sings really high... kind of like the devil sings, guy who must be thwarted.  And the Facebook world was a buzz with Christians hoping that their boy would win. I found this... akward.

I personally believe Adam Lambert deserved to win.  He's an extrememly talented dude.  He was by far most interesting and original and will make a much bigger pop music star in the future.  But I'm happy for Kris Allen.  I do not, as has been light-heartidly suggested, have a case of Worship Leader Envy.  I know I'd clean up on American Idol... I'm just too old.  You should hear me sing "Big Girls Don't Cry", it's really something.  As for the rest of the singers...Danny Gokey is the only one of whom I would buy a CD.

On to other things. 

I am beginning week 2 of my month long sabbatical.  I get a month off of work because i've been at the church for 7 years.  Kristie and I spent last week in Dallas with some friends and spending some time with the staff of Gateway Church.  Great Church, great staff.  I'll tell you more about my week in Texas some other time.

Today was the first day of Sabbatical that I've been home with nothing to do.  It's pretty sweet.  I bid for an iMac on Ebay.  I watered the new grass seed in my ongoing battle against the crabgrass.  I worked out.  Tonight is a birthday dinner for my nephew Hunter and then a Twins vs Redsox game with my oldest three kids.  Great day. 

Here's the great part about a break from work.... or rather ONE of the great parts.  Yesterday (after a trip to the zoo with my daughters 3rd Grade Class) I was putzing around in the back yard and I kept having that feeling in my gut that I should hurry up cause there's something else I needed to get to.  It was a great feeling to discover that there was indeed nothing I needed to get to.  But I had to keep reminding myself of that because I have gotten pretty used to a hectic pace.  It serves as a good reminder that we all get pretty wound up.  We rush from one thing to the next and pretty soon we are unable to really enjoy the moments during our day because we're hurrying on to the next thing.  Pretty soon we've missed out on a bunch of great moments and we have crabgrass... in the front lawn... of our hearts.

Hello Again

Hi. It's Friday May 15th and it's been over a month since i've blogged.  It's been a crazy pace for two months.  I'll tell you about it sometime. But that pace is slowing and i'm once again finding my life.

Plus, I have some time off of work starting in two days... so I shall continue to find my life.  And thus, the next few months will hereby be known as "the season of life when Jeff blogged from time to time".

So that's it... Just saying 'hello' and letting you know that i'm getting back on the 'blog horse'... which is different than a 'horse blog'.

Peace.

Easter's Biggest Secrets: REVEALED!

Hello.

It's the day after Easter and I am battling through my yearly post-Easter hangover.  It's a church hang-over not the more commonly known type of hang-over.  But the effects are similar:  Headache, body-ache, blurred vision, slow movements, inability to get out of bed and an overall foul demeanor.

It is now Monday evening and I think I'm coming out of it.

It was a great weekend at Church.  We had a total of 8 services at our two campuses and close to 4000 people came through the doors between Friday and Sunday.  We even had over 200 people come to our 8am service on Sunday morning.  This was WAY above what I was expecting.  I was expecting around 100 and I was secretly fearing that 11 people would show.  That would make for an awkward church service in a room with 1000 chairs.  We may have just called it off and taken everyone to Perkins.

Kristie and I received lots of good comments from several people throughout the weekend and I would first of all like to give some props to some very deserving people.

Most of the comments I received were in regards to the bridge on the stage and how cool it was to have people walk across it at the end of service.  The bridge was designed and built by two awesome guys in the church.  Paul Hoyt and Kenny Parker.  These guys are all pro.  Thanks Gentlemen.

I heard some great comments about the sound and tech stuff over the weekend.  Pastor Chris Cortte is the guy who's in charge of that stuff and he does a great job leading the team of talented volunteers every weekend.  And one of those volunteers in particular is Nils Lorvick who was running the sound board.  He is exceptional at what he does.  Plus he plays drums for us as well and has also been known to pick up the bass guitar.  Thanks to the tech dept.

There was lots of comments about the music.  Thanks to all the very talented people who gave pretty much their entire weekend to the music dept at RVC.  Kirsten Nissly was the lady who sang the offertory and to answer some of your questions.... No. She doesn't sing professionally.  Although she could.  Pastor Ryan and Alli Williams are the talented couple that lead the music at the Faribault Campus.

Many people commented on the cool video at the end of the service that had words that matched the words to the song that Kristie was singing.  The guy in charge of all videos at Church is Pastor Tom Poch.  He edits and produces all videos at RVC.  He's a talented dude and has been at RVC for almost 7 years.

And now to the 'secrets revealed' part of this post-Easter-blog.  There a bunch of people who asked how we did that video and song.  It's not Rocket Science.  Although, I think it would have been super-cool if rockets were involved.  I gave Tom Poch a copy of the recorded song 'Amazing Grace - my chains are gone' by Chris Tomlin.  He made the video to match that recording.  Then I made what is called a click track... (just think metronome if you know music and if you don't... just think a clicking noise that is in the same tempo as the song.  If you don't understand tempo, I'm going to need you to not read any further and Google 'music theory for dummies'.)  Anyway, I made the click track to match the song and we swapped that for the original song track.  When we played the video, the click noises were the only sounds in the video and they were only in my earphones.  So as long as we followed the clicks, the words to the sang matched the words on the video.  Easter's Biggest Secrets Revealed.

Now to answer the other questions I got.

The song that was sung for the offertory was by Cindy Morgan.  It's called "Where You Are"  and it's on her CD called 'Postcards'.  You can purchase it on iTunes.  If you don't know what iTunes is, I'll need you to stop reading and Google 'Technology Skills Needed By Everyone for the year 2002".

And NO, we can not make a CD of songs like that one that we sang in church and sell it and give the proceeds to Kingdom Builders.  This is in violation of Internation Copyright Laws and I would go to Jail.  Or at least get fined.  And if somebody out there wants to make a CD of songs I've written, sell it, make lots of money and they don't give me my share... I'd be unhappy about that.  Not that it hasn't happened before...

Happy Easter.

Just some stuff

Hello.

I am blogging and/or working from home today.  I am a single dad for the week as Kristie is out of town on a mini vacation in Orlando with a good friend.

I am on Day three of single parenthood and so far so good.  All the children are accounted for.  They all have maintained an appropriate level of hygene and are all clothed and fed. 

We discovered that Cub Brand Pomegranate/Blueberry juice mixed with Canada Dry Ginger Ale makes the best drink in the universe.  We had steak and chicken on the grill with rice and green beans the first night.  We had spaghetti last night.  We’ve had high-quality bacon and eggs breakfasts every morning… The kids must be thinking that they’ve been well fed.  Unfortunately the kids will soon be thinking:  “Wait a minute, Steak and Spaghetti must be the only things this doof knows how to make… this certainly doesn’t meet our expectations… Where’s that Lady that used to live here?” 

Every night, I go to sleep by myself and wake up in the morning sharing the bed with an assortment of children… but who minds that?  I guess it depends on if they’re your kids or not.

Anyway, good times with the kids.

On another note, I managed to squeeze in a few hours at the recording studio this morning working on the soon to be released RVC worship CD.  This is a live recording of our Chick Night service a couple months ago and is on track to be released Mother’s Day weekend.  My lovely wife does most of the worship leading on it and Heath Ewing is doing the mixing/editing.  I know I’m fairly biased, but I’m also fairly critical of music stuff and I think the new CD sounds amazing.  I couldn’t be more pleased with how this project is turning out. 

Huge ‘Thanks’ to Heath for all his hard work.

Huge ‘You are fabulous’ to Kristie who is the driving force for this whole project… and is fabulous.

Huge ‘Thanks’ to Pastor Rob and Becca who are always encouraging and enabling their staff to dream big and succeed.

So, Mother’s day weekend… you don’t have to shop for presents, just come to church that weekend and buy a CD.

Finally. We are working on another video for this weekend that should turn out pretty good.  All I’m saying is that it involves swords, flutes and tights.

Anyway, we're off to McDonalds... gotta go.

What is it with Mondays?

I'm not sure why, but I have an urge to tell a bunch of people off today.  For some reason most Monday's start out that way. 

I'll start with the people who keep moving Daylight Savings Time.  When its the beginning of March, I don't want longer evenings.  I want brighter mornings.  We were just getting to the point where it was bright and sunny when we awoke and now were back an hour.  There's too many people messing with too much stuff.

Next are the people from the Elementary School Drop Off Lane today.  "Really?? still need to watch your kid walk AAALLLLLL the way in to the school?"

Of the other 'tell off' people, some are for legit reasons and those people already know who they are.  Others are mostly in fun cause they are posting pictures from their trip to Florida on Facebook for us to see. 

On the whole Florida thing...Never fear, both Kristie and I each have a trip booked to Florida in the next two weeks... 'urge to tell off' may fade after that.  I have an opportunity to go to Jacksonville for three days and golf the TPC Sawgrass. This is of course a well timed warm climate mini getaway... and a golfing dream come true.  The following week, Kristie is spending 4 days in Orlando sitting by a pool, shopping, reading and relaxing with one of her best friends.  Which means that me and her best friend's husband are in the running for Husband of the year. Which means I've got it made, because this other guy really doesn't have a chance.  You may wonder why Kristie and I aren't vacationing together... We have 4 reasons.  4 little reasons. 

Back to Facebook.  I'm realizing that Facebook ups my urge to tell people off.  The whole allure of Facebook is based on the understanding that people care about what other people do, think and say.  If you don't care, than Facebook seems like something you do to intentionally cause yourself pain.  Which is me.  Most times when I'm on facebook I have the ongoing "I don't care" chatter running through my head but for some reason I keep looking.

What is making it worse is the new 'note' trend.  The '25 Random things about me' craze was bad enough.  But now there's new ones like: Google your name and take the 8th word of the first 13 postings and make a sentence with those words and then POST that sentence on your facebook and TAG EVERYONE in the world so THEY can read that funny sentence and then they will want to do the same thing... it will be so AWESOME!!!! ... my sentence was "Jeff Kerr housing his Dog to the Ice Cream Mall and skipped yellow."  LOL!!!!

Then there's Twitter.  Basically, twitter is a way for you to give status updates easily and incessantly.  And send those updates to straight to the phone of your 'followers'.  First of all, if you have 'followers', there's a problem. Second of all... There is no 'second of all'... you shouldn't have followers.  People with followers usually end up on the news.

Now there's "Google Lattitude".  You and your friends sign up, and at anytime you can log on, and with the power of google maps and cell phones, you can see where everyone of your friends are at any time on a map. 

With the power of technology, stalking and self absorption are popular again.

The irony is that 10 years ago, everyone was concerned about privacy.  We were concerned that with techonology, people could know where you were and what you were doing.  "I don't want people spying on my life... I want privacy"  would be the cries.  Well, IF people wanted that sort of info, all they needed to do was wait 10 years for general public to become so self-important as to (again thanks to technology) willingly offer up any info you could care to know... or in my case, not care.

Anyway, did I mention that I'm going to Florida next week?  I'll keep you posted on Facebook.

I made the change, they made my day.

A few weeks ago we showed a music video at church called 'Make the Change'.  Well, soon after that my daughter Lucy sent a link to her third grade teacher.  Her teacher enjoyed the video and showed it to the whole class. 

Well, I received an invite from Mrs H. to come to her class today and watch the video again with the whole class and I had a blast.

When I arrived they all applauded and told me that I was famous.  I said "You're right, and don't speak to me directly".  We then watched the video and they all sang along.  They had most of the words down.  I answered lots of questions about how we made the video and what it's like being in music videos.  I signed some autographs and heard one boy (pretty sure he was joking) say "I'm gonna sell this on ebay"... (I brought rock star photos to sign)  I'm pretty sure he'll be disappointed with the winning bid... but if I see it on there, i'm for sure bidding on it.

So here's a big "Thank You" to Mrs H, my daughter Lucy and her Third Grade Class.  'Make The Change'... you rock.

     
     

Review: Hectic households and Grammy Awards.

First of all, on any given Monday morning, the Kerr family is, at best, only moderately equipped to get kids out the door to school on time.  Then there are those perfect storm Monday mornings when I believe that the Kerr family should just disband and join other families that are more suited for life in today’s society.

This morning was kind of a perfect storm.  Our Monday malaise is in large part to our weekend job.  Weekends are different for our family because we are to and from church quite a bit and the house pays the price... it gets pretty messy.  Plus we were gone for three days last week and most items of clothing in the house are either piled in unpacked suitcases, piled in dirty clothes bins or piled in the laundry room.  (if you’re ever invited to the Kerr house, the main rooms may look presentable but I dare you to look in the laundry room.  The last person to try that was never found... lost under a pile of PJs)

So if you combine a tired Kerr house that was coming off a full weekend at church, with the disappearance of any clean clothes, you get a striking ineffectiveness and a surprising state of sloth… even for us.  We managed to get the two oldest in the van and off to school in decent time.  I’m not sure if there was any personal grooming/hygene done, but they were at least in the van and on the way to school. 

The elementary school drop off line has the single greatest power of annoyance in my life.   I’ve given up trying to fight it or improve it.  Pastor Alan (rvc youth pastor) has his oldest kid in Kindergarten and thus he’s still new enough that he thinks he can fight the powers that be.  Silly Alan.  In time he’ll get disillusioned like me and just get in a fowl mood at 8:20 every morning.

Looking back at the morning, I now realize that I was no help at all.  I think all I did was get myself dressed and made some coffee.  Perhaps I'm the weak link?

Next.  The Grammy Awards were last night and this is my favorite awards show of the year.  I will now give my annual review of last night’s awards show:

This was by far my favorite Grammys ever.  First of all whoever was producing it and whoever was mixing the sound for TV need to have this gig forever.  The production and the sound were spectacular.  In the first 36 minutes we heard performances by U2, Coldplay, Carrie Underwood, Justin Timberlake and Keith Urban (these are all Kerr favorites) and all were truly great performances. U2 performed their new single and it was great.   Coldplay guy did a piano version of ‘Lost’ which included a rap by Jay Z, and this was my favorite moment of the night…(now that I’m a rapper, I appreciate these things) Carrie Underwood… We like her music a lot and we’ve NEVER heard a bad performance out of her.  Justin Timberlake is always great… Kristie and I both have a secret crush on Justin Timberlake.

40 minutes in to the recorded broadcast, I commented to Kristie that all our reasons to watch had already taken the stage and we still got 3 hours left on this thing, but the rest of the evening was surprisingly enjoyable.  I even enjoyed Kid Rock and the all star rap performance of ‘swagger like us’.  I could’ve done without the teeny duet between Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus… I don’t enjoy hearing either of them sing, but I’ll say this, little Taylor Swift can write a good song.

I’m bummed that Coldplay didn’t win Album of the year.  I know it’s cool to be a Coldplay fan but I believe they deserved the win.  Anyway, best Grammy’s ever.

That’s it.  Enjoy Monday.

RVC Video Project

If you attend RVC, you've seen this.  It's also on facebook.  But, incase you're interested and haven't seen it, here's a video project we did for RVC's sermon series 'change before you have to'.

enjoy. just double click on the video window. or click the link below to download.

Download Make The Change - Music Video