One of My Favourite Concerts of The Year, Every Year.

I'm sad that I won't catch it this year.

Tuesday Dec 29 @ 6-10pm
Hilton San Diego: Fight for Life Benefit Concert
1 Park Blvd.
San Diego, CA 92101
A benefit to raise awareness for Suicide Prevention and Mental Health Issues.
Molly Jenson Gregory Page, Get Back Loretta, The Watkins Family (Sean & Sara Watkins of Nickel Creek), and honestly, you never know who else is going to show up!
ALL AGES
$15 @ the door
$12 in advance at www.yellowribbonsd.org

Sometimes I still miss you, Todd.

The Pictures are Here!

This X-ray is from November 3, four days after the crash. It's a front view of my left shoulder. You can clearly see the broken clavical. It shattered into two large pieces, left and right, and a large, floating piece in the middle. There were also a few other splinters of bone in there as well. Click on the image to see the full size. It's quite impressive, as you can clearly see the need for surgery.


This X-ray is from December 3, twenty-four days after the surgery. In this X-ray, you can see where they installed a zipper for easy access to the inside of my chest cavity, should there be any further complications. The plate, as I said before looks more like something from an Erector Set. I can't quite decide if the screws have Phillips heads or Torx six point star heads. They are, however, clearly self-tapping screws. I'm surprised that the ones sticking out through the bottom of the bone don't get caught on other soft tissue inside my chest cavity as I move around. Maybe there is just cartilage or something under there. If you click on the image to view the full size, you can see the now healing crack where the middle fragment was screwed to the Left and Right pieces. I still can't get over the fact that that thing is inside my body! It's weird to see a picture of it, so clearly, too! I've got other pictures of my hand and wrist, and a few other views of my shoulder. These were the best two pictures. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. I think they are going to be my new desk top background on my work computer.

I started Physical Therapy on Wednesday. I negotiated down to only 1 visit each week instead of two, as it's so stinkin far to drive! They gave me a whole regiment of excercises that I have to do for about an hour twice a day. I understand now why so many people don't do all their PT homework. I feel like my mobility is already at about 90%. Though, my left shoulder is way, way higher than my right. They've been off since high school to varying degrees, depending on the day, but now they are really bad. My PT is confident that we will be able to correct most of that. He says it's caused by the muscles of my back being in a sort of permanent cramp on the left side. We'll see.
Meanwhile, I'm supposed to be using my arm like normal, as much as possible, just as long as it doesn't cause any sharp, bone-on-bone kind of pain. Muscle and tendon pain is fine, even good, but the other kind isn't. He said that I should be sore every day as I continue to stretch and work the muscles for the next four weeks. But, I should stop and avoid activity that causes the other kind of pain. I think my left arm and shoulder are going to be way stronger and more flexible than my right by the end of all this. Thanks for watching and thanks for caring.

I'm out of the sling

I saw the Orthopedic on Thursday, I had more Xrays taken and I was so excited to post them here.
They made a CD for me of all the images that they have so far created of me with their Xray machine. I brought the disc home, put it in my laptop, and got asked by windows if I wanted to burn items onto the blank CD that I had just inserted. I was thoroughly disappointed. I called them; they apologized and are mailing me another disc.

So, instead of seeing it, I'll describe it for you.


The screws are pretty impressive, and they look like... screws.
In the picture they look like #8, ¾" philips head Sheet Metal screws from Home Depot. (Probably the stainless steel variety that come in the green bags.)
The plate looks more like a chain, or a series of OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOs all strung together, twisting slightly as it wraps around the contour of my collar bone. Actually, now that I think about it, it resembles a piece from an Erector Set that I had when I was a kid.
The main break is a visible crack with a screw horizontally through the bones, not the plate. (Imagine if you were to join two boards end to end by "toe nailing" them with a screw.)
The rest of the screws are at all different angles, looking like half of a double helix DNA strand.
I totally forgot to count them! But, in my memory there were seven.

The surgeon said that everything looks great, it is healing very well, and that I can start physical therapy now. Two times a week for four weeks! That's a little disruptive when you live an hour and forty-five minutes from town. Hopefully I can figure out a way to get instructions and do some of that up here on my own.

I'm out of the sling and feel like like I'm back to normal. I have to keep reminding myself that I'm not back to normal, that I can't lift stuff, and that I still have to avoid hugs and slaps on the back and back packs, and pulling the blanket of my bed up with my left hand, and sleeping on my left side... those things hurt.

I can take a shower now.

Today the doctor removed my bandages and gave me some new ones.
Smaller ones.
Water resistant ones.
I can take a shower now.

A Story To Tell

The trick to finding ideas is to convince yourself that
Everyone and everything
has a story to tell.
I say trick but what I really mean is challenge, because it's a very hard thing to do. Our instincts as humans, after all, is to assume that most things are not interesting. We flip through the channels on the television and reject ten before we settle on one. We go to a bookstore and look at twenty novels before we pick the one we want. We filter and rank and judge. We have to. There's just so much out there. But if you want to be a writer, you have to fight that instinct everyday.

~Malcolm Gladwell, What The Dog Saw, and other adventures.

Back home

Just got back from the hospital.
Sugery went very well, I'm still quite groggy.

Plates And Screws Are Coming Soon

Jocey and I are heading down to Fresno to spend the night along with my parent's at my mom's Aunt and Uncle's house. Then I go into surgery bright and early, 6am, at the Fresno Surgical Hospital!

"American Gothic" or "Why He Wasn't Smiling"

The Xray was from the day of the crash, They took more Xrays yesterday, but I don't have those I'd be curious to see them, because this photo of my bruise is from today and it looks like the pieces of bone have changed angles.

Broken

I visited the orthopedic surgeon today.
They took at least twelve more X-Rays, bending my arm into painful positions to get a good view.

My hand is only badly sprained.
My scapula is fine, just badly bruised.
But, my colar bone is broken into multiple fragments.

On Monday I am scheduled for an hour and forty-five minute surgery to install a steel plate and screws to hold everything together.
Today, I did all the Pre-Op check up today, EKG, Blood Tests, etc.

the crash and what followed

I crashed on my motorcycle at around 5 pm. Allan, Karley and I were riding on a trail that we've been trying to explore across from Princess Meadow. Just about a mile out on the dirt and I caught a corner a little wide and hit some small, freshly cut sapling stumps that were hidden in the soft turfy needles and cut bushes. My bike flipped up, I think that I had both wheels off the ground, barrel rolled over to my left, then crashed down, landing on my left shoulder, with the motorcycle still between my legs, slightly above me. I must have landed on one of the stumps, cause it cut my jean jacket open quite cleanly just over my shoulder blade.
I found myself out in the middle of the trail, with the handlebars bent and dirt in my mouth. I got up quickly and tried to lift my bike when I realized that something was quite wrong. My body was making strange bone on bone clicking noises and the bike was not lifting. I felt my collar and sure enough, the bone was broken and overlapping with itself.

Karley and Allan rode back to camp and brought Karley's car to take me back, and Allan rode my bent up bike home for me. I changed out of my riding gear, we found Joce, stopped by the infirmary, then Karley drove us an hour and a half down to Taco Bell for dinner then to St. Agnes Hospital's ER. We didn't get done there till 11:30pm, and with a stop at Walgreens for the prescription, didn't get back to Hume till 1:30am.

I'm back up at the cabin now. I do have a broken collar bone, a "gnarley fracture" according to the nurse. They sent me home with a shot of morphine in my butt and a prescription of Norco, hydrocodone. I'll have to see a specialist and possibly go into surgery to get plates and screws on Monday. Meanwhile, I'm trying to sleep, propped up on a pile of pillows in my bed so that I don't roll over onto my shoulder. When I got back up here, I found that Allan had made up my bed and gotten a fire started so the cabin was warm. I'm going to miss having such a great roommate!

Thanks for praying for me. Please continue to pray as I see more doctors and learn to live these next six to eight weeks without the use of half my upper body.
My job just became way more difficult... everything just became way more difficult. I typed this all with one hand. It's amazing how important of a role that little thin bone has for the functioning of the whole body! I'm glad that I have good friends and live in a community where we can be learning these lessons together.

My first one

I'm on the way to the ER with a broken collar bone. I guess I'll have
to wait till next spring to finish exploring that trail on my
motorcycle.

--
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path
and leave a trail. -Emerson

"Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things
you didn't do than by the ones that you did. So throw off the
bowlines. Sail away from safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your
sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

--- Mark Twain

Adventures in Singapore

We split the team up into three different groups led by Rich, Allan, and me, then set off on the train into the city to find some dinner and adventure.


Ours was fairly unadventurous, with good Indian food on the Boat Quay, a walk along the river near The Fullerton Hotel in the Financial downtown (is there any other in Singapore?), and a quick visit to the Cultural Arts Center where a Ballet was under way. Then we left, Rachel, one of our team members behind in a bathroom and didn't realize it till we had made our way through a whole different mall and walked about a mile! We returned quickly and found her with a drink at a Chocolate Bar.

Changi Airport, Singapore

Yup, still the best airport in the world.

We're waiting at the gate for our flight to Los Angeles.
Yup, still the best girlfriend in the world.

Jr. High Camp

The students are out playing Au Fong right now! There's great weather... warm, not too humid. I can hear the frogs croaking all around me, the frogs, the crickets chirping, the occasional tuca lizard, the screams of the kids yelling MEDIC!!!, dodging swirling socks, and chears as they collect points for their team.

I've come down with a head cold, probably from the constant change of enviroment from the warm humid outdoors to the cold dry air con indoors.

We only have one more full day with these students. Pray that we make the most of every opportunity that we have!
Check humeinternational.org for pictures, videos from last week, and more.

to be more

We are just finishing with our first full day of camp. I'm lead counseling and running media stuff for Chapel. It's pouring rain right now, and it's warm, quite warm. The rooms have increadible air conditioners, which helps get rid of the sweaty humidity, but freezes me when I'm trying to sleep at night. I think my throat is getting a little bit sore.

Everything's going just fine here. The rooms are over crowded, but it works to have 320 students... I guess.

I wish I was a little more excited. I'm feeling a bit down and disconected.
I want to be more than just doing my job.

strange tasty tea

In Singapore

We just arrived in Singapore, at the Changi Airport. It's a huge, beautiful airport. Local time is 2:10 am on Wednesday the 14th. It's hot and humid outside. We wandered around for a while as a group, trying to figure out what gate and terminal our next flight will be leaving from. Now, we have six hours to kill.
I don't think we're going to leave the airport. We have a longer layover here at the end of the trip, so we'll head out into the city then.

We walked past a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf in Terminal 3. I think it was closed. Hopefully we can find an open one before we leave.

The flight was uneventful, the food was better than most of the food I've had in the last couple months.

Joce and I watched Ice Age 3, an episode of Top Gear, and The Proposal.
Kyle Kerchner is wearing a red white and blue headband and a brownish flannel shirt with the front pockets stuffed too full. Jocey likes her new backpack. Charles loves the free internet for his iPhone. Rich took Ambien and was knocked out for most both flights. I'm tired of carrying all the in-case-the-checked-video-equipement-doesn't-make-it-I-have-25-pounds-of-extra-equipement-to-make-it-through-the-week carry on back pack.

Till next time...

Sightseeing Victoria

Canada Photos Day 1

It's been a great 30 years.

A big Thanks to everyone who made it happen!

First-Ever, Slow-Mo Surfing in HD

For the upcoming BBC nature series "South Pacific," filmmakers rigged a TyphoonHD4 to shoot above and underwater HD in gorgeous slow motion.

(Be sure to watch that clip in HD.)

Shooting a frame rate 20x the speed of normal HD (I'm assuming that's somewhere around 480fps if the standard HD cam shoots at 24fps), this camera/documentary was apparently the first to capture the underwater spiraling vortices of huge waves at such incredible quality. Cameraman/technician Rudi Diesel calls one moment in this clip "probably the best shot" of his life.
I can't imagine the intensity of shooting surfers riding 12-foot waves from a vantage point directly beneath the action. But in slow motion, the scene is incredibly serene. [BBC]

Hume:SD Staff 2009

The Last Full Day of Hume:SD

One more Rec Video and a WrapUp to finish before tonight's meeting. Then I make the DVDs, tear down the set, and pack it all up for Mexico.

Hume Apparel

The new Hume Apparel Website is up and running.

Look hard and you might find me in a several of the pictures.

Also, I'm excited to see that you can buy DVDs through this website.
It's a step in the right direction. Hopefully, soon, you'll also be able to purchase and download our videos to your computer.

http://humeapparel.com/

getting a final audio mix on Act 4

This is taking me much later into the night than I wanted to go.

I have to drive to San Diego early in the morning.
Early, as in a few hours from now, early.

Jocey and I were going to eat breakfast together at 6:15 before I left at 6:45.

Now Sarah and I are up in the Hume Studio at four in the morning trying to direct audio edits while TJ and Carl work their magic.

Sometimes I feel like the world is going to end, but really we couldn't ask for better people to be up late with working on stuff like this.

THE BUSES ARE HERE!!!

I can hear the sound of campers voices outside my office window.

The opener starts in less than five hours!

The Morning Before The First Day of Camp

5:30am and still working on videos.

Sometimes when we work all night,
the greatest way to begin the day

...is to actually watch the day begin.

It helps that this is my favourite lake.

Does Evil Exist?

Thanks for the link, Sarah.

Light is what leads you home.

It's amazing how a simple dictionary can be used to communicate so much spiritual truth.

Thanks, Mr. Noah Webster...

In the dictionary

Best Thing That's Happened Today

via Jon Upson's Twitter:

• @Leslie321 said YES!!!!!! about an hour ago

Jon Troast house concert at The Pearsey's!

Sunday, May 10th, 2009
100 Concerts in 100 Days
The Pearsey's Living Room
Escondido, CA
Open to additional guests.
If interested, email- rkpearsey@pmbx.net or call 760-715-4625. Cost is $5.

Then,
Two day later, Tuesday, May 12th, 2009.
He'll be playing up here at Hume Lake.

Without You Knowing - Jon Troast



Visit his site for more info
http://www.jontroast.com

Videos from Hume: Japan, Shorebreak 2009

Videos from Hume: Hawaii

Sometimes Fresno...

you surprise me

COMING SOON

to a theater near me

That's a Wrap!!

Hey Rube!

Hume Lake Summer 2009 Video

Production is complete.

Post Production begins tomorrow.

I came back up to Hume and was greeted by a fresh layer of snow and freezing temperatures, then closely followed by much warm welcoming from many friends.
It's good to be back.

LAX

I'm back in CA again. I think that I just had the worst airplane food
that I've ever had with the worst cabin crew. I'm not a big fan of
United Airlines today.
The warm southern California sun feels great!

--
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path
and leave a trail. -Emerson

"Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things
you didn't do than by the ones that you did. So throw off the
bowlines. Sail away from safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your
sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

--- Mark Twain

At Narita airport in Tokyo

I just got off the plane in Tokyo, and am at the Narita Airport with a three hour layover waiting for my next flight to Los Angeles.

I will arrive at 11:11am at LAX, then join the rest of the team when they arrive, via Seoul, Korea, at 11:30am.


Somebody from Hume will be picking us up for the 6 hour drive back to the mountain.

Heading North

We headed toward the north end of the island to a military resort to spend our last day here just relaxing. The weather was beautiful. We visited a snake show, a pineapple farm/giftshop, and hiked up a water fall then drove to the resort. I think we got here just in time. The weather turned nasty, now it's rainy and windy.

Some Photos

Does anybody need anything from Japan?

While I'm over here.
I guess it doesn't hurt to ask.

Checking my work email

This could be dangerous.

Japan 2009

We just finished a week of camp on a small island near Okinawa in Japan for US military kids .

Some Videos

Okinawa

I made it safely to Okinawa. We are on an island starting camp today.
But I can't keep any updates. I'll catch up when I get back to the
military base.

--
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path
and leave a trail. -Emerson

"Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things
you didn't do than by the ones that you did. So throw off the
bowlines. Sail away from safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your
sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

--- Mark Twain

Prayer?

A-lo-ha is part of our community,
Raining down from sun and sea,
Filling me with energy.
We join hands to form a world of Harmony
starting with you and me.
AMEN


So...
before every meal here at camp, the YMCA staff comes up and leads us in this song/prayer. It's posted on the walls, and we got in a little bit of trouble for covering part of it up with our set. I think it's supposed to be a prayer, but who are we praying to? And, what does it have to do with the Young Men's Christian Association?

It's the tune of:
"I may never march in the infantry,
ride in the calvary,
shoot the artillery.
I may never soar o're the enemy,
but I'm in the Lord's army.
Yes, Sir!"

09 Hawaii Camp Photo

Don't bother looking for me.
I'm behind the camera.

Hawaii Day 6, Pictures

It's been a long two days with almost no break.
So, I spent an hour just sitting on the beach in front of the camp.
It's kind of like walking out to the corner of the cove at Hume Lake, with your back to the chaos of camp, and just sitting and watching the still and quiet show that God puts on every second of the day.

I need these moments.

I'm glad that they can be found any where and every where in the world.
Sometimes they are obvious.
Sometimes they are not.
Either way, we still just have to sit, wait, and listen.

I want to live with my eyes open.

Hawaii Day 5, Pictures

DJ Practice



Dance Practice


After the opener

Hawaii Day 6, Camp Day 2

Camp started yesterday.
The Opener happened.
Two sessions of chapel and one rec session have already flown by.
I played DJ at a dance party.
We kept the neighbors awake.
Despite 6 blown breakers, multiple locked doors, and a building with bad wiring, it all happened.
The kids are loving camp and are way into recreation.

I'm still trying to figure out what's going on.

I'm a little frazzled.

Oh, and it's 75º, sunny, and raining right now.
I'm not quite sure how that works either.

The Lost crew is tearing down Dharma camp as I write.
The burnt house, playground, and work shop area are gone.
We're still living in the cabins.

I can see down the curl of the waves from my seat behind the sound board.
Today is a good day.

It's all a matter of perspective.
When we have days were the worst thing that happened was making a wrong turn and ending up in Honolulu on accident...

Well, it's not that bad.
The kids can't see the technical difficulties, and the gospel gets preached either way.
Tonight it's time for decisions.

Hawaii Day 5, Camp Day 1

Camp starts today.
We've been setting up the stage and practicing the opener.

Kids are arriving as I post this.

Hawaii Day 4 Pictures