I am Flawed, But I am Cleaning Up So Well.

I'm not going to post the Project86 review. It's been too long, it's not fresh in my mind anymore. Sorry. So much has happened in the last week or so, and I'm pretty sure that particular show has been pushed too far back in my mind to pull back out. Sorry, if anyone that reads this blog cared about that.

My current thought process looks a lot like this: alinva;clih oajv ;oa93h ;i cvn ;ao9h ;alivnalci; 3o1 'jadl ka!!!, but I'm going to attempt to pull together a (somewhat) coherent post.

Last Friday, I met my brand new baby cousin, Avery Grace.   

She's gorgeous, as I'm sure you see.

Saturday was my grandpa Baker's 87th birthday party. He got a new lawn mower, my brother shot a raccoon with a 22, Madison & Raegan & I did a photoshoot, I had a counselor talk with Dawn in the midst of 30 people, Aunt Carol's hair was a different color and style every time I turned around, and Lady was beyond thrilled to see me and only me.  In other words, it was perfectly normal :)

 

Papa on his birthday gift to himself :)

 

My favorite dog in the world :) (Also, this pic is SOOC. Oohhh yeah.)

 

My gorgeous cousin Madison...one of my absolute favorite pics from our mini-shoot

 

Bo shot a coon. With Papa's 22.

 

My favorite picture of Rae from our shoot :)

Sunday night we went to the Pistons game.  Jim and Cynthia came with us, so I practiced my Spanish with Cynthia and their daughter Sophia.  Dad had 10 tickets from the people at FSN-D for the suite, so we had lots of food and drinks and such- at no cost to us. Pretty amazing, even though the Pistons lost.

Today I took a Lit exam (it'll be interesting to see how that turns out) and got my Spanish exam back. 91.5% on the Spanish exam, not bad. I get my Algebra test back tomorrow. I'm pretty confident in it.  I did the whole thing twice and caught a bunch of mistakes the second time around.

After Algebra tomorrow, I'll run to the bank, then Emilyy and I will go to TSC to celebrate her birthday a day late.  It's supposed to get up to 80 this week!

It amazes me that my week sounds like it was so full, yet I didn't even touch upon not sleeping, big news, conspiracy theories, board meetings, shock, confusion, hope, renewed friendships, or my new favorite band. Yikes. 

GUESS WHAT?!

Are you guessing?

Keep guessing....

JENNEY IS COMING HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

XD

I Know, I Know.

I know that I still need to post the Project86 part of this review...
But I just wanted to share the terrible news I just discovered.
It seems LION has lost the use of their building, and are canceling all shows until further notice. (aka, until they can find a building.
Blarg.
Also I want Jenney to come home from England now please.

Picket Fence Cartel Tour: Recap & Review part 2 of 3

Part Two consists of Wavorly & Flatfoot56's performances.

Wavorly was the second band to play.  They put on a fairly good show, but for the most part, we were standing and watching.  Their biggest hit, "Praise and Adore," is not really a "concerty" song, so they didn't play it.  They also didn't play my favorite song of theirs, "A Summer's Song."  Since they only have one album, this left them with very few choices.  They played 3 or 4 songs from their upcoming album, and probably the same amount that most of the crowd knew.  The girl standing in front of us was hardcore OBSESSED with Wavorly... they recognized her as "the chick that tweets us all the time."  It was a pretty good set, I probably would have enjoyed it more if I knew their music, but that's my fault.  I'd give it a 3.5 out of 5.

Flatfoot 56 was the next band to perform.  We knew there were some hardcore fans in the crowd, because we had seen several large (muscular, not fat) men in kilts throughout the evening.  Flatfoot came on stage (their lead singer is INCREDIBLY tall, but I'm sure this is common knowledge to everyone but me) and the crowd went CRAZY.  At this point, Bry and I were in the front row, center stage- pretty much the best spot in the place.  When Flatfoot56 kicked into "Loaded Gun," however, the crowd went even more wild... and began to MOSH.

Now, I was pulled SLIGHTLY into the pit at the Underoath show- but it was nothing like this.  Those were mostly small emo boys; these were HUGE bikers in kilts... they could have killed me if I wanted to.  For about the first two minutes, I thought it was kinda fun, I pushed some people back, thought "Hey, I could get into this."  Then it started getting a little more violent, I fell into the girl in front of me, knocked her, down, picked her back up, and promptly knocked her back down again.  I then looked at Bry, who looked like she might die, and pointed toward the back of the room.  The large men in kilts were all too happy to let us go further back (they got our spots).

From the back of the room, F56 put on an INCREDIBLE show.  I did feel slightly more retarded jumping and fist pumping when I actually had room to breathe, but when a LIGHT fell onto a man's HEAD and he started BLEEDING, we knew we had made the right choice.  Loaded Gun was a highlight, as was "The Rotten Hand" (my favorite Flatfoot song), and "Amazing Grace." (Who knew you could mosh to Amazing Grace?)

One of the more amusing parts of Flatfoot56's show was their "battle scene."  As Bry and I cowered along the back wall, they directed everyone to line up on opposite sides of the room.  As the very tall man counted to eight, each person was to pick an opponent. When Tall Man reached "eight," the band started playing and everyone ran and took down their "opponent." It was hilarious to watch.

Part 3 tomorrow: Project86

Picket Fence Cartel Tour: Recap & Review part 1 of 3

On Sunday, March 14, Bry and I headed out to LION in Flushing for the Picket Fence Cartel Tour.  All we knew was that the doors opened at 6, and tickets were $12 at the door.  After driving past the venue and making a very SHARP turn into the parking lot, we walked through the club's (???) big red front door.  Here is a look into what we saw:

The Venue: LION is a brand-new venue (club?) in Flushing.  It's a fairly small space, with a stage at one end of the room, merch to the side, and a ticket table JUST inside the door.  We were skeptical at first, but soon fell in love with the intimacy of this venue.  It couldn't hold more than 100 people comfortably, and there were probably only 50-70 there last night.  We were front and center (literally, I was resting my foot on the stage) for the first two bands, but ended up moved around a bit after the moshing began.

Definition Plexus: This local band shocked me- in a good way.  We said hi to the guys before the show, and found out that they lived about 10 minutes down the road.  I'm not sure if you're aware of this, dear reader, but Flushing, Michigan, isn't exactly known for its happenin' music scene.  I figured a few high school kids would get up on stage and try to scream for 15 minutes while the crowd mostly ignored them.

I was wrong. Terribly wrong.  DefPlex had a sound similar to The Almost.  The lead singer knew how to scream without sounding like a complete idiot, but he could also sing.  Their songs mixed strong vocals with incredibly crisp music, and I could understand almost every word, even though I had never heard their music before.  Definitely a local band that I'll keep my eye on.

I'll post Part 2 tomorrow: Wavorly & Flatfoot56.
Part 3 should be up on Wednesday: Project 86
Aaaand... hopefully some pictures and video by Thursday.

THROW YOUR FISH INTO THE AIR!!!

My legs are sore. 
My lower back aches. 
I think I may have pinched a nerve. 
My hair is piled on top of my head in the messiest, sweatiest ponytail ever.
My mascara left trails down my cheeks,
My eyeliner is smudged all over my face.
I can't dance, but I didn't care at all.
My throat is hoarse.
I'm fairly certain that I lost at least part of my hearing.
Andrew Schwabb screamed in my face and sweated on me.
Normally, that would bother me.
I was elated.
I just chugged a huge glass of water.
I'm chowing down on Taco Bell like a war refugee.
I have a new favorite local band.
L.I.O.N. will be seeing a LOT more of Bry and I.
One word to describe it all:
EPIC




I'll post a full update/review soon, probably after Bry gives me the pictures.
In the meantime, check out Definition Plexus

Playing Around :)

This picture was edited using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, my newest toy :)

I opened the image, converted it to black and white, corrected the black and white, and converted the image back to color. 

Voila!

Copy and Paste, Incorporated

Lady G was here. Right here, on this VERY SPOT. BOOM.

(With permission, quit freaking out.)

If you ever need a Google Analytics code pasted into your HTML, let me know. ;D


Sneakily yours,

-Lady G

p.s. Quin for President.

I Went for a Walk

It was bright and sunny today. Emilyy and I drove home from photography class with the windows down and Taking Back Sunday cranked up. It was beautiful.

After lunch I went for a walk in the beautiful weather, with my camera. Here are the results.

My road

Blue skies, nothing but blue skies

I like playing with my aperture

I live in the country.

The door handles at the old church.

Band of the Week

Underoath. For sure.
My absolute favorite band, Underoath combines screamo with Aaron Gillespie's clean, beautiful face. Whoops, I'm sorry. I meant to say vocals. My bad. I've had the extreme privilege of seeing them live (but only once), and it was the most brutal, incredible, out of this world show of my entire life. Now for the technical stuff. When Underoath formed in 1998, Dallas Taylor was the lead "vocalist." Their music (as seen on "Act of Depression," "Cries of the Past," and "The Changing of Times) was basically just people screaming their lungs out over top of some random blips and bleeps and electronica. Taylor left the band in 2003, and was replaced by Spencer Chamberlain. Somewhere in there, they began mixing Aaron's vocals in with the screaming, creating a cleaner, more enjoyable sound. (My opinion.)

Their lyrics have been the subject of many of my vague blog titles and facebook status updates. "It's all in the way, I say what I don't mean, and mean what I don't." (The Created Void/Lost in the Sound of Separation) "I never told you/but it's all in your goodbyes." (A Boy Brushed Red, Living in Black and White) "Hey unfaithful I will teach you/To be stronger, to be stronger/Hey ungraceful I will teach you/To forgive one another." (Some Will Seek Forgiveness, Others Escape.)

Band Members:
Spencer Chamberlain: Lead vocals, long hair that gets really sweaty and flings all over at shows
Aaron Gillespie: Drums, vocals, gorgeous face. (Whoops. How did that get in there again?) Also the only member of the ORIGINAL Underoath that is still in the band.
Chris Dudley: The sweet guy that plays the keyboard and synth and headbangs
Grand Brandell: Bass. Which is a very important instrument
Tim McTague: Lead Guitar. And AMAZING NAME. And cool beard
James Smith: Rhythm Guitar. And also apparently rather good looking.Note: If you live in southern California, and your name rhymes with "Zennette Haynard," you will probably NOT enjoy this band.

Not so much on the "break" part...

Spring break officially starts at noon tomorrow. Between noon tomorrow, and one o'clock on Monday, March 15, these are the things that I will have accomplished:
Packing. Church. Crossroads. An evening with my favorite people on earth. Breakfast with Madison, followed by breakfast with Molly (and Maggie?). I'll probably only eat one of those. Unless there's bacon. Time with Grandma and Grandpa Baker. A night at Indiana Wesleyan University including: an admissions meeting, a meal, a class with Andrew, staying with Melissa, and a tour. An overnight at Taylor University, including: staying with Ashleigh, a tour, chapel, and an Admissions meeting. A visit to Huntington for a tour and a meeting with Admissions. Dinner with Aunt Evelyn. Two nights with my Aunt Kendra, Uncle John, and Ian. A visit to Calvin for chapel, a tour, and lunch. A visit to Kuyper for a tour and an Admissions Meeting. A visit to Cornerstone for a tour and an Admissions meeting. A meeting with our Peru team. Church at either Sister Lakes or Third. A Project 86 concert.

Here are the ADDITIONAL things that I need to accomplish: Lit homework. Study my Spanish book for a very long time. Learn how to do Algebra yet again. Stop doing so poorly in my classes. Possibly make some form of decision regarding college. SLEEP.

Yeah. Not so much on the break part of things.

Anyway, I'm (hopefully) going to blog about each school I visit, with pictures. Hopefully. My homework should possibly come first, I think.

I hope Cory calls. That would just make my break SO MUCH more interesting. (Cory. If you somehow stalk me and found my blog and read it every day hoping for some mention of your name, that was sarcasm. Really. I can do without 6 calls in ten minutes while I'm trying to plan out my life. Sorry kid.)

I Could Be In Love, If, You Wore that Dress Everyday

Went to NTBI (New Tribes Bible Institute) in Jackson tonight with the youth group. I always like roadtrips, but tonight's was pretty epic. Heart-stirring speaker, music, statistics, an amazing video, and some deep conversations.

I had a chance to talk to a couple of the students for a while. I was looking at the list of all the unreached tribes, and they came up and started talking to us. Pretty cool. I would definitely like to go there after college, I think.

Aaron and I were talking on the way home, about how much it bothers us when people say they "just don't feel called to missions." Everyone is, in the Great Commission. Sure, you might not go to the remote jungles of Indonesia, but you're still called to be a missionary where you are. Just some food for thought.

It's a part of me, though. I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that I am called to full-time foreign ministry. I can FEEL it, whenever someone talks about missions. When a speaker asks who will go, I want to jump up and scream "ME ME ME!!!" The more I fall in love with Jesus, it gets easier to spread the Gospel here, but my intense desire to go "into all the world" only deepens.

Tonight made it even stronger. I just want to scream. I know my grammar is no good right now, and I don't even care. The world needs to know the love of my Savior.

Some hard conversations when I got home, but J's always there to make it better :)Not sure if it showed up well or not... but it was epic.