Crashing California

Yesterday was our last day for tracking the drums in the studio before burning everything to disk and taking the "gold" home for Jay to begin playing guitar. Mike arrived early and tracked in the a.m. and then we all came by in the eve. listened to the tracks and made sure that the bass was going to come through the recording o.k. (no buzzing) since that will be the next studio session after Jay gets his Guitars done. There seems to be so much work ahead on the project but it will be good work. and now that we've started, we can't stop =) (here is a partial band picture in the studio, listening to the drums, Mike is at the far left, displaying what displays best -- his attitude, John and myself) This weekend I will be trekking up to Riverside County w/ our worship team to do some training at a Southern California Worship Music Workshop (reminds me of a small Break Forth, tho, no one knows what that is down here) It's so neat to see the guys that we've been w...

So this weekend we went into the studio, Ground Level Sound, in Vista, CA to track drums for our album ... we did four songs yesterday and began one today (Unwanted Man, shown above), but then our producers computer crashed (!!!), so we had to leave early (only one hour after we got there) and he is now in the process as I type of retrieving the files that were lost when his drive became corrupt =(, I feel mostly bad for him, as he literally had a whole month of projects in jeopardy. I've racked my brain a bit today as to why this would have happened, and I have no answers, we're a bit deflated but all the more excited about getting these tracks done. We don't know if our songs from yesterday are o.k. or not yet, but we'll keep you posted, if all goes well, we'll be back at the studio to finish up. Please keep us in your prayers, for the completion of the tracks and album, and our producer too, Alan, his father in law is in the hospital right now with a broken neck...

It's been a ridiculously long time (in my eyes) since my last post, but i do have an amazingly good excuse for this lack of blogging on my part: I have been INSANELY busy. OK, not just busy, but the "stressed" kind of busy where you start to feel the effects on your body and at first you're trying to figure out what's going on, till you realize that your taking on your stress and it's starting to manifest itself with weird unexplainable pains and aches through your system. All these things manifested themselves over the last two weeks as such: Two BIG freelance deadlines on the same day, PLUS a crazy schedule @ JC. We had THE CEO of Nestle (who is most technically, my bosses, boss) come visit our head office (from Switzerland) on Monday past. So, the whole week before, all the VP's were scrambling to make things "pretty", prepare presentations and such, all while last minute like, enlisting Creative Services help. Which needless to say, made ...

This last week has carried with it a Chain of Pacific Storms through Southern California. Because of "El Nino" (warmer Ocean temps this past year) the jet stream has centered itself directly over San Diego and we've been dealt MUCH heavy rain, thunderstorms and TONS of wind ... we even had a TORNADO/WaterSpout warning on Tues and Wed.! We've lost power in our house twice and there is flooding in some older areas of the city and esp. near the coast. We are a bit higher than most, and thank goodness we live on the second floor. The storm surge and swell is making for a VERY angry Ocean. Who says Californian's don't experience winter, has well, another thing coming! Here is some video we shot this morning ... Jay's grumpy! ;) (you can tell, I think he may be one of those people who is completely affected by the sun, and lack thereof) lol Till Next Blog! love, a.

Long awaited lovingly fearfully anticipated expectations take fruition through pain and blood water and wonder love spilling over and under first breath giving spirit a flash of life plucked from eternity to mark earth with her own beauty fragile first born first cries I am alive ------------------------------ (written of our friends who, at this very moment are in labor giving birth to their first girl) ------------------------------ I have had dreams in the past that I have a child. I can't recall whether they've been boys or girls. Just that there is a baby ... and I am carrying it around on my hip ... or hunting for it (which I know, is pretty strange). As I write this two of our good friends are in the hospital having they're first baby, a little girl. While I wait to hear the news of her safe arrival, I can't help but think of, well, babies. I've had so many friends and acquaintances in the last years have their first baby, it inevitably comes to mind. In...

Woah! time flies when you live and get older -- I am right in the middle (literally) of finishing my Break Forth deadline ... just wrapping up changes and will be sending their magazine to the printers tonight ... so needless to say, I have moments in between where I can write, post pics, blog etc ... so, well, that's what I'm doing! This last weekend we played a show on Saturday night at a club in Oceanside called "Pier View Pub/Bubs Whiskey Dive". It was most DEF. a dive ... but, it was pleasantly crowed with people and though the sound was really hideous (next to no monitor and one of those rooms that sucks the sound into various black holes) the crowd was decent. There was the typical crazy drunk, except this time it was a woman, who, besides looking right out of it, almost broke Jay's Gibson and John's Bass by deciding to fall right into them (and the table we were at, spilling drinks breaking glass and getting Kristin, our loyal photog. soaked). There ...

Christmas Day has come and gone yet again for us. To be honest, it was pretty uneventful in this Huzil home. The party that we threw 2 weeks ago apparently had a gift of it's own to give, as Jay and I are still battling colds (though beginning to get better) so are quite a few of our friends who attended!! I feel a bit bad about that, and the running joke now is trying to figure out who came and infected us all! The Christmas Eve service went over pretty well, though it was one of those moments I admit, I didn't really enjoy till it was too late. Too much self inflicted stress for me, it's so easy for me to let my head play games. I was just glad to call it over and finished without any major hiccups. We spent Christmas Day in our PJ's ... Jay got me a new set of hand weights (3,5 and 8 lb) and I got him a book and a new T-Shirt. And that was pretty much it. We had a huge breakfast, with bacon and eggs and bagels, talked with our family then jammed for the rest of ...