Occasio

A Day for Kites

I took the off from work early on Wednesday. It was 70 degrees with a slight breeze in the air. All I needed was a couple of little boys, a trip to Longs for some kites and the neighborhood park. Mission accomplished.

 

Back to Bloggin'

I've taken quite a hiatus from blogging in the past few months. What have I been up to?

• I had foot surgery
• I completed my second year of doctoral studies
• I spent a lot of time with my two boys and my wife
• I learned a few U2 songs ("Bad" on acoustic with a delay - very fun)
• I remembered I like sailing and looking at the stars

I'm back, energized, refreshed.

One year on solar power

The Neufeld home has been solar powered for one year! The year has gone by quick and we're so glad we made the investment. Our electric bill for the last twelve months - $145! Of course we're still making payments to our bank for the system for a number of years (approximately the same amount we would have been paying the electric company per month), but, depending on how fast PG&E raises its rates, we'll probably start benefiting from free electricity in about eight years.

As equally impressive, we have reduced our energy consumption by a third. In the previous year we used about 15,000 kilowatt hours; this last year we only used 10,000 (as a point of reference, consider that environmental guru Al Gore used 221,000 kwhs in 2006 at just one of his four mansions; but he's one of the new ecological hipsters who prefer to buy their environmental conscious through carbon offsets rather than practice conservation). It really wasn't hard to find ways to reduce our consumption:

• I bought a Kill-a-Watt meter and began plugging in everything to see how much power each item in the house uses.
• I determined that the ancient freezer in our garage was using something like 2000 kwhs per year costing us $400-$500 annually. The new freezer I replaced it with should cost us about $50 and use around 400 kwhs!
• We've gradually replaced our incandescents with fluorescent bulbs.
• We make good use of our whole-house fan in the evening and morning.
• We use the dryer less by drying on a rack when the weather is nice.
• We only turn the spa on when we know we're going to use it.

By far the three most important changes we made were getting rid of the archaic garage freezer, managing the use of our spa better, and reducing the use of our electric dryer. We haven't done anything all that dramatic and still live very comfortably.

If you want to see an original post with pictures of our system you can read this post.

Nickel Creek in Hanford

 

Tracy and I went to Hanford (40 miles south of Fresno) on Friday night for one of the best concerts we've ever seen. Nickel Creek played for over two hours: Chris Thile on mandolin (gotta be one of the world's best), Sean Watkins on guitar (kinda looks like Frodo, but with killer chops), Sara Watkins on violin. Everyone sang and extra Mark (last name?) played string bass and even danced a jig. We're hooked for life (unfortunately this was their "Farewell (for now) Tour" - but Sara guaranteed they'd see us "down the road.")

The lighting was very low most of the concert but I grabbed a few video clips.

The Fox (12mb), The Fox - low res (3 mb)

Very quick clip of Anthony (3 mb), Anthony - low res (1 mb)

Can't remember the name of this song (12 mb), this song - low res (2 mb)

A few more photos (it was dark and I only had my small digital camera)

Amen!

Daniel is my four-year old. Last night we were trying to get him to leave the outgoing message on our new phone answering machine. We gave him a little bit of coaching but this is all him. We were on the floor laughing....

Anaheim 07

Not much time to blog these days. I've been co-directing the national Mennonite Brethren youth conference, Anaheim 07, March 31-April 3. We've tried some unusual approaches to a youth conference focusing on our Anabaptist roots, incarnational and holistic ministry, and missional experiences (we canceled the typical morning sessions in favor of something we call "ministry tracks." If you're interested you can read more about it at my other blog here.

Too busy

Yikes! It's been over a month since my last post - an indicator that I'm waaay too busy. What's been happening? Here's the run down....

A month ago I was at Fuller Theological Seminary for two weeks of doctoral studies. It was a wonderful course and my head is full of stuff that needs to come out! When I got home I told Tracy that I felt guilty because I had such a good time.

 

 

Three weeks ago we had our annual Ministry Forum at Fresno Pacific University. This year we featured Reggie McNeal. Reggie has spoken and written extensively on trends in ministry. My students had a great experience interacting with him and reading one of his books.

 

Two weeks ago my Methods of Youth Ministry class hosted the Youth Specialties CORE seminar on campus. The students enjoyed seeing a behind-the-scenes perspective from the training seminar. Here's a few of them with the day's speaker, Charlie Scandlyn.

 

Now I'm busy planning for the culminating experience of the spring semester. March 31-April 3 is the national youth conference of the Mennonite Brethren. I'm co-director of Anaheim 07; we'll have 1100 high school students and leaders. In a very different type of activity, we are taking every single teen into urban Los Angeles for a ministry immersion experience - we're not going to serve the poor, we're going to learn from them!

 

That's what I've been up to. I hope to be posting more again real soon....

Michael is 8 years old!

Just a few pictures for those who are interested in my family. I love 'em to death! I can't believe Michael turned eight on Saturday. Michael invited his best friend Neil to a special time at Chuck E. Cheese, the pizza parlor from hell. I was in an especially agreeable mood though, since I had to leave for Fuller on Sunday.

 

Daniel, Michael, Neil (above)

 

I think the boys put 20 tokens into this game

 

Somehow Tracy triggered a special jackpot and got 250 tickets on skee ball (I got four)

 

Daniel (age four) feels pretty important on the Wave Runner

 

Happy Birthday!

Eugene Friesen in Fresno

I went to my first cello concert tonight. Fantastic! I've known of Eugene Friesen for his work with the Paul Winter Consort for years. He also has a strong family connection to Fresno Pacific University. And in talking with him during the intermission I found out he was in my parents' youth group as a teenager - such a small world!

Back to the concert. It was delightful and moving. Friesen played an unbelievably wide variety of music. He started with "Prelude in D Minor" by J.S. Bach and then quickly moved away from the classical era. An odd yet marvelous piece was a duet with a whale, really! The inspiration for this composition was actual recordings of whale songs. While performing this piece he played a recorded track that served as a whale chorus. It was amazing. Next, Walter Saul accompanied him on piano for Debussy's "Sonate," and his brother Milton Friesen played piano with him on several pieces, including "First Ride," originally an improvisation with Paul Halley on piano.

After the intermission Friesen focused on his specialty: Brazilian compositions and influences. These were remarkable to hear on cello. There was an arrangement of three pieces by Waldyr Azevedo which I really must find a recording of. Milton Friesen played piano on these and three others by Brazilian composers (Braz, Nazareth and Lobo). The final selection was "It is Enough" from Elijah by Mendelssohn. It featured Eugene on Cello, Milton as vocal, and Walter Saul on piano. It was a somber piece to end a concert with, but passionate and deeply spiritual. It was a good night for music in Fresno.

On a somewhat related yet sadder note, we say good-bye to a music venue that was way too short-lived. Fagan's Pub closed unexpectedly in downtown Fresno. Carrie Fagan gave it her best shot but it appears that there are too many obstacles to overcome in downtown Fresno. Too bad. We'll miss the Irish music, the Thursday night open mic, the ZooStation concerts and most of all, we're sad that Lunasa won't have a place to come back to in 2007. Thanks Carrie for the effort! Fagan's Irish Pub is no more....

Randon Family Christmas Thoughts

Many family and friends read my blog so I thought I'd focus on a few Christmas moments. For those looking for content on U2 or missional theology, not much in this post, but if you want to know my family a bit better you're welcome to read on.

We try to get together with my parents on Christmas Eve. It seems we always gravitate to Mimi's Cafe for our Christmas Eve dinner. After dinner it's off to the church service at NFC then to my parents' house for presents. Click here for one of those classic "seven year old gets exactly what he wants from grandma and grandpa" moments. We missed my sister Linda and her family who only get to be with us once every second or third year. This Christmas they were all busy throwing up at John's parents' house in Michigan.

The Neufeld's at Mimi's (above)

Michael is seven years old and sang "Silent Night" at our Christmas Eve service at church. I asked him if he wanted to help me lead it the day before. He was adamant that he did not want to do this. I left to run some errands and when I came home there was a note on the door that read: Dear dad, now I want to sing with you. I knew if I backed off he'd probably decide to do it. He's his mother's son. So, as we lit about 250 candles, one-by-one from the Christ candle, Michael sang the first verse in near darkness and then sat down while Jamie and I continued on. Click here if you want to hear a one-minute clip (I'm playing guitar).

On Christmas morning Tracy, Michael, Daniel and I opened presents. Tracy and I counted our Hawaii trip to see U2 as our gift to each other, but it's really getting fun to watch the boys get so excited about even the smallest things. We're pretty simple in our giving but include some of the standard "boy" gifts: Bionicles, K'NEX, the Cars video (no, not the music group, the Pixar movie), art supplies, and bikes (well, Michael got a new bike; Daniel just got Michael's old bike with training wheels added - he was pretty thrilled). The best thing about the boys getting older is that I have fun with their toys too - lots of cool things to put together!

Daniel with his new "art box" (above)

Michael is proud as he can be after finishing his K'NEX roller coaster (above)

We spent Christmas afternoon at Tracy's folks. They live in the middle of a grape vineyard in the heart of central California. Every member of her extended family is a fruit farmer, so we get some of the best peaches, apricots, grapes, oranges, etc, in the world. It's peaceful driving down "grandma's bumpy road," walking along the canal bank, or watching stars at night. It's a simple place that really brings calm to my busy soul. Our Christmas morning tradition at the Brandt house: eating green crepes made by dad Brandt.

The Brandt family (above)

One final highlight. The day after Christmas I let Michael participate in a major rite-of-passage: his first viewing of Star Wars. He has some toys and knows bits and pieces of the story, but has never seen the whole movie. I've been waiting for the right time; this was it. He's a cuddler so we loaded the DVD, turned up the surround sound and crashed together on the couch. It actually took us two nights to watch it. He got completely lost in it. I think that's why I waited this long - I wanted him to experience the fantasy they way I did as a little boy. At one point he said that he could tell Darth Vader was a bad guy by the sound of his breathing/voice. Later he yelled out (I think it was as they were escaping in the Falcon from Tatooine), "Good always wins!" Maybe he can convince me that is really true.... Didn't we all believe that the first time we saw Star Wars?

Merry Christmas. Happy New Year.