tomorrow. glorious tomorrow. when i return home and get to be with my wife and kids. so excited.

the liveblog is finished. 50 posts in 3 days. lots of pictures, videos, and inside info. today we’ve had over 600 unique visits to the site. yesterday it was over 700. I feel like it’s been a major success all around and I’m really proud of how it turned out. I’m sure something similar has been done by some band, somewhere, but for me this was kindof unprecedented. I took a local set of radio gigs and a small show in Houston and turned them into a national story. not that the whole nation was paying attention, of course, it’s just that people from all over the country could follow along as if they were there.

When you have a band like Caedmon’s Call, where the personalities of the folks in the band are just as important as the music, then any chance you can get to showcase those people off, the better. That’s why i think this liveblog was so important, and that’s why i consider it to be a success. We’ll see what first week and first month sales look like, and even though i know that i had basically nothing to do with them, i will surely beam with an ounce of pride if the numbers are good.

but more importantly, i’m going home tomorrow. freaking awesome.

i’ve got over 3 posts up in the past 2 days…i am tired and wired beyond all comprehension…and there’s still one more day to go.

the liveblogging has been a blast. it’s been so much work, but i’ve loved every second of it. if you get some time and have nothing better to do, go over to caedmonscall.net and scroll through the photos, videos, and commentary that i’ve got up there from the past few days.

48 hours from now i’ll be home…can’t wait for that…but i’ve still got one day left of blogging for caedmon’s, so i’ll enjoy it while i can.

so i woke up at 4:45am this morning and made my flight with a few minutes to spare.

I’m here in Houston now and I’ll be liveblogging over at caedmonscall.net for most of the next 3 days. i’m sure most of you aren’t really into that so much, but if you are, feel free to go check it out.

i only got a few hours of sleep last night, and the next 2 nights don’t promise to be a whole lot better after glancing at the schedule. but i’m sure it will be a blast.

i’ll try to pop in on here from time to time if there’s anything exciting to note.

already missing my family, that’s for sure. kylie starts first grade tomorrow…which is nuts. parker will be in 3-days a week preschool. cant wait to hear all about it.

…back to the live blog…

alright, so i need a catch-all blog post to update everything that’s going on…

+ leaving for Houston on sunday morning and pretty excited about it. I’ll be meeting up with Caedmon’s at the airport and spending most of the next 4 days with them liveblogging on caedmonscall.net about anything and everything related to their CD Release on Tuesday. It should be a lot of work and a lot of fun. The work will be trying to come up with enough quality content to keep posting fresh things to the site. I’ll be snapping pictures, asking questions, and trying to give readers as much of a feel for what it’s like to be around the band as possible. The fun will be in just hanging out, because to a man (and woman), everyone in the band is good peoples. I’ll be missing Erica and the kids something fierce by Thursday, but I’m sure it will go by quickly.

+ The other good news related to all this is that once my Caedmon’s duties are finished on Wednesday afternoon, I’ll be chilling with my friends Buddy and Chelle down in Dallas for the night. I’m looking forward to seeing their family and all the kids who are at CFNI in Dallas from our church. It will be a nice break between the madness of 4 days with Caedmon’s and the awesomeness of heading home to my family.

+ I was approached by one of the founders of armchairgm.com to post some of my sports-related articles on their site. I hadn’t heard anything about their site before, but it’s pretty cool. Think of MySpace meets ESPN meets Facebook meets Al Gore. They claim to have hundreds of users submitting stuff that is read by thousands of readers, and a quick check of their popularity on Technorati confirms that they are widely read. Users submit articles, which are voted on and commented on by other users, gaining you points and trophies and such truck. I’ve submitted two pieces so far, and both have received some favorable responses. In fact, my one short commentary Bass Ackwards (that i had posted on the Burnside Blog last week) is currently the most popular article on the site over the last 3 days (scroll down on the right-hand side for that list). So that’s pretty encouraging. I’ll continue to generate sports content over there, i suppose, because it’s fun to see my work being so well-received.

+ I’m supposed to be getting my Martin D-35 back from the shop today. It’s been down in Nashville getting some major reconstructive surgery for the past few months. Andy Osenga (of Caedmon’s fame) was my middleman for the whole shebang and he says that the guitar is playing, feeling, and sounding, better than ever. I’m really excited about getting it back.

+ got Madden 08 for the Wii this week. Haven’t played it much, but it’s been fun when i have. Parker’s actually been playing it more than i have. The great thing about games like Madden and Tiger Woods is that for the Wii, they build the game so that it not only offers advance levels of play for gamers like me, but it offers easy modes of play that my smart 4-yr old can use. Bravo, Nintendo.

+ saw Derek Webb play a set at Purple Door on saturday and really enjoyed it. He played a few of his electric guitar driven tunes on acoustic and it gave them a nice feel. Derek totally pulled a Tony Campolo when talking about Africa and how we ought to be offended by the poor quality of life that our neighbors in Africa are living in. He said something to the effect of “…6500 Africans are dying every day from the diseases in the water they drink and from the mosquitoes that carry treatable diseases and many of us don’t give a shit. In fact, most of us are more offended by the word i just used than we are at the fact that so many of our neighbors in Africa are senselessly dying every day.” ouch. what is effective? yeah, i’d say so. I mean, i think it zinged a lot of us there. Hopefully it moves us to do something about the situation.

+ I took my last golf lesson of the summer last night. I feel really happy about the fundamental changes in my grip, posture, and swing that i’ve made over the past few months. This fall and into next year i want to play more and make those changes habitual and routine in my swing. I think I’ve set myself up to be a much better golfer as i play more, but time will tell. My goal for next summer will be to break 90, and like Yoda said, “Do or do not…there is no try”

so what’s new with you? if you’ve got something to share, give me a quick update in the comments section…

a friend of mine sent me this link to a mind profile website. You’ve seen these before, I’m sure. 20 questions followed by a summary of your personality.

I’m quite convinced that these summaries are written in such a way that no matter what you are like, there will be just enough vagueness in them that it will ring true to you. That’s not to say that these things are complete bunk, but color me skeptical.

Here’s what my profile said about me:

Bryan, you possess an interesting balance of hemispheric and sensory characteristics, with a slight right-brain dominance and a slight preference for visual processing.

Since neither of these is completely centered, you lack the indecision and second-guessing associated with other patterns. You have a distinct preference for creativity and intuition with seemingly sufficient verbal skills to be able to translate in any meaningful way to yourself and others.

You tend to see things in “wholes” without surrendering the ability to attend to details. You can give them sufficient notice to be able to utilize and incorporate them as part of an overall pattern.

In the same way, while you are active and process information simultaneously, you demonstrate a capacity for sequencing as well as reflection which allows for some “inner dialogue.”

All in all, you are likely to be quite content with yourself and your style although at times it will not necessarily be appreciated by others. You have sufficient confidence to not second-guess yourself, but rather to use your critical faculties in a way that enhances, rather than limits, your creativity.

You can learn in either mode although far more efficiently within the visual mode. It is likely that in listening to conversations or lecture materials you simultaneously translate into pictures which enhance and elaborate on the meaning.

It is most likely that you will gravitate towards those endeavors which are predominantly visual but include some logic or structuring. You may either work particularly hard at cultivating your auditory skills or risk “missing out” on being able to efficiently process what you learn. Your own intuitive skills will at times interfere with your capacity to listen to others, which is something else you may need to take into account.