Siblings' Handiwork Part 1

Well, I haven't had much to blog on lately - at least anything that would make a good post. So instead of blogging about me, I've decided to start a series of posts sharing some of the things that my siblings have created!

First up is one of my brothers, who has really gotten into building plastic models. Here is his latest one, a P-51D Mustang!

^ Some of the beautiful cockpit detailing!

^ More cockpit detail.

^ Gun and magazine detail.

He really did a fantastic job on this one - and it's only his third model he's built! He did the painting, decals, and gluing all by himself too :-)

~Mac

Balancing Act

Random creative art object:

"Balancing Act"

by Mac, 2011

shoes, bar clamps, wood

Now if only I had a big enough name; it would be worth millions then!

~Mac

DIY eDrum Build: Upgrade!

So I upgraded my eDrum kit this past week:

^ I replaced my old, not-so-good kick drum pad with a vertical pad and an actual kick drum pedal!

^ That gusset supports the pad when the beater hits it.

^The pad.

^ I didn't get a beater with the pedal, so I improvised one with an old marshmallow stick and part of an old bandsaw belt. :-)

This setup looks, triggers, and feels so much better than my old setup!

Special thanks goes to my construction and power-tool loving brother who helped me out on this upgrade and provided tools and building materials :-)

~Mac

Red Carpet!

The movie that I scored - "23:59" - had its world premiere last Friday night!

^ The "23:59" cake at the premiere!

It opened to great critical and popular acclaim, and definitely lived up to the hype :-) Everyone really enjoyed the movie, and the music as well! Now we'll see how DVD sales go ;-)

~Mac

Language and Illumination

I was reading my Bible this morning, and I had one of those "deep thought" moments. It was one of those times where I was suddenly struck in a new way by something very ordinary: reading. It is truly amazing how patterns of lines and curves on a page communicates concepts to a reader who understands them. It made me thank God for the gift of language.

Then I had another insight: I could understand what the words in the Bible are saying on a superficial level, but I am unable to truly understand and comprehend their message by myself. God's thoughts are certainly not our thoughts! Praise be to God for choosing to grant me the illumination of the Holy Spirit. His help is something to truly be thankful for!

~Mac

You Know . . . + More New Stuff

You know you've spent most of a week being creative for hours every day when:

Your brother asks someone what the factors of 48 are and you figure out the first ten or so before you realize that you don't like math that much. I figured I had used my brain's creative side so much that it had shut down :-P It's been a fun week though, and I've composed a lot of music! All the same, I'm taking a composing break over the weekend.

Something else new: faster internet! We upgraded to a 3 MBps connection so everything is zippy fast now. :-)

~Mac

What's New - Projects

What else is new? Hmmm . . .

Well I have a new music project: composing the score for a movie my friends made! (http://godswarriorintraining.blogspot.com/2010/07/lights-camera-action.html) I have till March 5 to finish it, and I'm writing about 12-18 minutes of music, so it's a bit of a crunch. I'm doing well so far though - I've written close to three minutes of music over the past four days. God is giving me lots of good ideas and the skill and creativity to flesh them out! I think it'll turn out very well!

I also got started on a job opportunity - doing slideshows and videos for events. I did a slideshow for a wedding rehearsal dinner last week and everyone loved it :-) Now it's only a matter of people showing interest in having something like that done for them. We'll see where it goes!

More new stuff (hopefully) coming up!

~Mac