Who is MuteMath?

My mom dared ask that question! They’re only the coolest band around right now – and they’re a Christian band, too – which makes them even cooler. Even their videos are cool:

Proably not my parent’s cup of tea.

It was a great show, last night. They played a new song and had new remixes of their current songs. My only complaint was that it was too short (or maybe it was just so good that the time flew by).

It’s not too late to get your ticket in Grand Rapids for Saturdays show, Lins!

I went to the show with several friends from work. It was at the House of Blues, which is always a fun place to see a concert. One of our friends, Kim, hadn’t listened to them much beforehand, but was convinced to come along anyway. She’s now a new convert.

That video above gives you a little sense of how entertaining they are on stage. Yes, they’re that animated in concert, too. The lead singer Paul dances around a lot, doing handstands and flips over his organ/keyboard. And yes, he plays a keytar! The drummer, Darren, has to duct tape his headphones to his head because he moves around so much.

These guys play great music and put on an incredible show. It was a fun evening and I was home by 11!

Halloween 2

No, not the movie.

You got to love a holiday that requires homeowners to cower in their dark basements in fear that if they don’t give out any candy (or just ran out), they stand the possibility of getting their house egged.

It’s amazing that some kids don’t pick up on the dark house hint. Even though there was minimal lights on in the house we’re staying in, still kids knocked on the door. Later in the evening, when I was back at our house, I stayed primarily in the basement, just so I didn’t have to put up with any disturbances.

I do enjoy giving out candy normally. Although by the time we get home from work, the majority of kids are done for the night. Or maybe it’s just that we live on a busier street that we don’t typically get a lot of visitors.

One thing that we do when we do give out candy is to remove the screen from the storm door. This way we don’t have to push open the door while kids stand there. For a lot of the younger kids, they are just in awe over this invisible window. We’ll hear gasps when we reach through the door to hand out the treats. Sometimes we’ll even watch little ones reach their hands out as if the window will appear back in place.

Ah, Halloween magic.

Anyway, here is the group shot from our party Saturday night:

Back Row: Todd as a Pirate, Kate as his Booty, Sara as a Harlem Globetrotter, Marc as a Pole, Emily V. as The Wolf, Doug as Grandma, Elin as Little Red Riding Hood
Front Row: Dale as a Xerox Photocopy, Esther as a City Cowgirl, Susie as a girl in a purple hat, Lydia as a Cheerleader, Emily M. as a Country Cowgirl (no they didn’t call each other to wear similar costumes)

Oh, and because this seems to be the most popular picture, here it is again. Sara’s costume was so versitile – I couldn’t help it!

Happy Halloween

I shouldn’t have to explain our costume, but you can’t exactly see Sara’s shirt in this picture, so here’s what we are:

Sara is a Harlem Globetrotter doing the hidden basketball in the shirt trick. I am a basketball, hoop, and pole. Yep – I dressed up as a pole.

More Halloween pictures are here.

Saturday night we went to a work friends party. Sunday night we went to college friends party. So we got to dress up twice. And carve pumpkins twice. Although, we left my pumpkin at the Schurrmann’s house because we’re not giving out candy at ours this year. I do have loose screws and empty tubes of Liquid Nails I could give out. That might not make any friends with the neighbors, though.

Saturday night was also a goodbye party for Doug and his family. They are moving back to Ohio to be closer to family. Doug starts a new job on November 1. We are saddened by their departure and will definitely miss them.

Saturday was a pretty windy day and I had a huge fear that if I came to the party with that sail above my head, I might blow away. So we actually had to assemble it inside. Thankfully, it’s a very portable costume.

Mute Math Concert

I love music. I especially like listening and discovering new music. (Not necessarily new to everyone, but still, new to me). Which is why I really love that iTunes allows you to share your library of music with others on your network. There are around 20-30 different users here at work that are connected in our iTunes music network. Thousands of songs and hours of music to listen to and discover.

One such band was Mute Math – their album was on a couple of different people’s playlists, so I gave them a listen and really enjoyed it. It’s really hard to describe (from the Christian Music Today’s review: the driving, jazz-influenced rock of The Police, drawing on the anthemic qualities of early U2, the modern stylings of The Killers, and the electronic experimentation of Earthsuit and Radiohead.) To learn about their album, it’d be best to visit the album’s review page here.

Well about a month ago, I was asked if I was interested in attending the concert at the Park West in downtown Chicago. It was a cheap show and I like their music, so I said sure.

As the show approached, I read a bit about their shows (watch the video on their home page or read about them at Spin.com) and I got excited that they were a high energy show.

But even that didn’t prepare me enough for how much fun this show was. I was blown away at how good they were in concert. And they did not disappoint with their on stage antics.

The drummer, Darren King, wears headphones for monitors and tapes them to his head to keep them in place because he moves around so much! The guitarist, Greg Hill, played his instrument with a drum mallet at times and also picked up his foot pedals and played those directly.

And Paul Meany, lead vocalist and keytar and keyboardist, was very active. He did handstands on his keyboard (it was enclosed in a hard shell case, kinda like a little organ), stood on it and jumped off of it, and he even went out into the crowd at one point. He ended up standing right next to us for a few minutes, taking in the crowd and put his arms around the two people behind us. I was in shock at that point and didn’t know what to do (nor did I have the camera ready). Then he moved up into the crowd and climbed on the shoulders of two guys, who then carried him back to the stage.

More about the drummer, Darren, that guy is out of control. He lost at least 6 or 7 drum sticks playing so hard (not to mention at the end when he threw about a dozen into the crowd). He knocked over his cymbals a few times. He played so hard his fingers were bleeding by the end. At the end of the show, the guy was playing drums on everything – mic stands, chairs, and moving the tom drum to on top of the keyboard and going nuts there.

They had some florecent tubes for back lights and during the last song of the encore, Paul bashed a few of those as well and the other guys threw other things around stage.  It was quite an ending.

My little Sony camera takes movies, as well as pictures, and I captured 3:45 minutes of the song “Obsolete”.  You can view it here.  It was very difficult to stand still during that song to capture that video.  Also, more pictures from the show can be seen here.

There were a couple of opening acts.  The first one was a rock band that is forgetable.  They had some good beats, but their vocals were so out of tune, it was painful to listen to.

The next act was Shiny Toy Guns.  They were a techno/electric/rock band.  I was very impressed with these guys and really enjoyed their set.  They dressed very punk though, and it was actually a bit comical.  The drummer had what looked to be the Principal Financial Group logo painted on his face (the blue triangle).  The keyboardist had very long punk hair that he kept over his face the whole time.  He also never looked at the crowd, even when he was talking to us.  But I still enjoyed their music and the vocals were very good.

The only problem with their set was that the bass was turned up to an incredible level that I’ve never experienced before.  Now, you’ve all experienced a car pulling up next to you on the street with their music cranked and you can feel the car shaking around you.  Ok, now multiply that times 100 and you get a slight idea of how much bass was in the room.  My internal organs shifted out of place.  The show actually made me cough a lot because my lungs were vibrating so much.

All in all, it was a great show and a great night.  I can’t wait until the next time Mute Math comes to town and I hope that I’ll be able to see them again then.

Weekend Goodness

What a great weekend.

On Saturday, the carpenters started work on our house, framing the walls. So, I wanted to be sure to stay out of their way. Sara had a training seminar at church, so I had could have either slept in or gone golfing. I chose the latter.

All of our usual golf gang was able to make it: Todd, Doug, Emily, and I. And it was a perfect day for it, sunny and mid 70s. We hit up our favorite cheapie course once again, the Ken Loch links and teed off at 8:30.

For the first time ever, we finished all 9 holes in 2 hours. Usually, we’re a lot pokier than that. When we got back to the clubhouse, the manager came out and told us we could go around again if we wanted to, since there was no one on the course.

Todd and I were the only ones able to take him up on this offer. When we came up to the 5th hole, which is about 275 yards, we could see way off in the distance, at about 180 yards, a figure dressed in black, doing what looked to be squats. Todd and I were very perplexed as to what was going on down there. It’s not possible that someone would be exercising in the middle of a fairway.

On good days, I can drive the ball right to where that person was standing. I think I was distracted and did not get close this particular attempt. As we walked down the fairway and got closer, we could see it indeed was a women doing exercises on the golf course. She had an exercise rubber band and headphones on. Now, there is an apartment complex adjacent to this hole, but there is a 6 foot fence. Why she choose to go around the fence to this particular spot is beyond me. She was a middle-aged woman and not exactly in her prime physical condition and definately not someone who should have been out in spandex.

For my second shot, she was lunging and bending a mere 30 feet from me (not in the line of my shot, but still within my peripherial vision). It wasn’t until Todd and I both had hit past her that she asked us if she was in our way. Apparently, she has no idea how the game of golf works. It was so bizarre and distracting that I didn’t do so well on this hole.

Still, on the day for the 18 holes, I shot a 93, but I know I should have done better. My mid-short game is in dire need of work. Next time I hit the driving range, I’ll be bringing along my 7, 8, and 9 irons.

Later that evening, it was more hanging out with friends as we went over to Todd’s condo for game night and pizza. We played Apples-to-Apples for our warmup. Then Scene-It, where we played Boys vs. Girls (Todd and I versus the 7 women, although Todd really didn’t need my help. However we did just barely lose). And then we topped off the evening with a rousing game of Pictionary. We laughed ourselves to tears and sore stomachs several times over.

Sunday was the second week of the move of our second service into the auditorium of Timothy Christian Schools. There weren’t any major mishaps, but there are still bugs to be worked out. It’s been an adjustment to using all lot of new equipment in a different auditorium than we’re used to. The acoustics are completely different than our regular sanctuary and it’ll take a while before we get it all right.

In the afternoon, it was great to watch the Bears play some offense again to go with their great defense. I actually picked up Rex Grossman last week for my fantasy football team and I think I could win the pickup of the week award for doing so, except I could also win the misplay of the week award for not starting him. His 4 touchdown passes would have given me a lot of points.

Sunday evening we were back at church for our church’s new format. Every other week, the church will provide space for small groups to meet, instead of a Sunday evening service. People not already in small groups will have the opportunity to form new ones or be placed in already existing groups. Child care is also provided.

So we met with our small group again, which was great because we really haven’t seen much of each other over the summer. We spent a little bit of time deciding on what to study and a lot more time joking around. Another fun evening.

And an all around fantastic weekend.

Ow

4 day weekends are not what they used to be. Considering I worked on the house for 3 of the 4 days. I could really use a day at the spa.

Fortunatly, there were a couple breaks from all the work. Saturday evening we went down to Esther’s in-laws house to celebrate Lydia’s 1 year birthday. Good food, good cake, good times. However the coolest thing was knowing that the state line ran right between their house and the neighbors.

“Look ma! I’m in Indiana! Now I’m in Illinois! Now in Indiana!”

Nope – I’d never get tired of that if that were my house.

Sunday was an off day from working on the house. My family rolled into town about 1pm. They were originally going to come down for the whole weekend, but since there’s no clean place to put them all and they didn’t want to stay in a hotel, it was decided that they would just come in for the day.

I started by giving them a tour of the house…which went real fast without any walls.

Then we had a little baby shower in the back yard. Lots of baby wipes and diapers…so looking forward to using those.

That afternoon was the wedding of one of my cousins. The church was in Oak Park and the reception was at Scoozi’s downtown Chicago. That was cool because we had the whole place to ourselves. (There were about 200 guests) The event was very well attended by my mom’s side of the family, which is rare these days. All of my mom’s 6 sisters attended and 18 of the 23 cousins were in attendance. 9 of the 10 cousin-in-laws were there as well.

Now this is were my knowledge of geneology breaks down. One of my cousins has 2 children. Are those my cousins once removed? I never know how that works. At any rate, I had seen them in a few years and it was nice to see how much they’ve grown.
Well, it was great to see some of the faces that haven’t been to family functions in years.

It was a fun evening, but we took off right after the cake was served. No time or energy for dancing this evening.