Someone just asked me to write a testimonial about Club412 so here it is.

I would like to tell you one of the most life changing events that happened to me. I was a loner with only one or two friends in middle school. Near the end of eighth grade my youth pastor had a vision of  2 Timothy 4:1-2 and a place beyond just serving coffee and youth hanging out.

2Ti 4:1  Therefore, I strongly urge [you] before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, the One being about to be judging [the] living and [the] dead at His appearing and His kingdom.

2Ti 4:2  Preach the word! Be ready in season [and] out of season [fig., whether the time is favorable or not], convict, rebuke, [and] encourage, with all patience and teaching.

So he called this place Club 4 1 2 It was an all Christian rock venue. By all Christian I mean only Christian bands played on stage, everyone was welcome to come in and see the show. I was in from the start totally excited about this ministry, finally somewhere I would fit in and people wouldn’t judge me. From this brought my understanding of the difference between arguing and "winning" people to Christ versus just witnessing my love of Christ and sharing my faith with others. It also birthed my passion for live entertainment behind the scenes. I went on to college to get a Show Production degree, where I then went on tour for over 2 years, and now act as Technical Director at the church I attend. I was blessed to work at Club412 shows with unknown bands that have been forgotten to bands like Eisley who played many shows with us. One evening they called us up and cancelled a show to sign a record deal across the country, now they are national artists!  I was blessed to see a friend I had been trying to "argue" into Christianity for 2 years come to a show and hear a testimony from a local band and give his life to Christ that very night. We witnessed to hundreds of kids over the years Club412 ran and many came to Christ in the club itself. It was a place that parents could drop off kids and not worry about drugs, alcohol, inappropriate lyrics, or anything else. I was proud to be a member and contributor to Club412. I would not be the Christian I am today without its ministry impacting my life.

If you have a Club412 story you’d like to share I’d LOVE to hear it! Please leave it in the comments.

"The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one age, called the Third Age by some, an age yet to come, an Age long past. A wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning." - The Wheel of Time

I long to find a way to surrender to the True source
struggling seems to fit me better

bitterness at an inability to control the world and meld it to fit in my hands
sullenness seems to fit me better

wondering at those so few who have let everything go enough to reach it
logic seems to fit me better

acting like a wilder who won’t get over a simple block
when will my journey end
when it really begins

have I been of such strength during my time in the waste that I cannot let such feebleness go to embrace a power so much stronger?
foolishness seems to fit me better

the white tower has opened me to so much more knowledge than I had ever thought I would attain
ignorance seems to fit me better

standing in the shelter of those holding the True power every day
cowardice seems to fit me better

like a novice in white with reverence for goals not yet achieved
when will my journey end
when it really begins

-  a poem by Micah Gafford © 3.12.2008

So, this past weekend was HELL! on Thursday I woke up around 4pm after staying awake all night to take care of Caleb (the new baby) so that Jaime could sleep. 6pm I get to work, the rave ballroom for a mexican dance all I have to do is run lights for 4hrs of tejano music. I set up all the gear the day before so it was a good easy start. Then I get the call, I've gotta get motors, cabling and all sorts of other stuff after this show is over back to the shop someone was coming w/ a truck to put it in. So late in the 1am the band finishes, we load out only what we need.

Now, we get back to the shop somewhere around 3am ish We have to be in Chicago at 8am. That's a 2hr drive w/ no traffic or construction. So the other guy helping me had been awake since 7am and had to crash, he was driving. I unloaded what we had pulled from the Rave, organized what was already prepped at the shop, but I couldn't load the truck by myself, or unload the last couple of items... too heavy and big for me... my boss got 3 or 4 phone calls that night from us saying hey get down here to load the truck so we can leave on time. I find a map to the place we are going and realize that it's going to realistically be a 3hr drive. So now it's 4:30am and no truck loaded no one there to help me... just dumb. if we wanted to be ontime we'd need to leave at 5am so when the time came I called the boss... he's sleeping at home and NOT on his way. So I tell him to get down there... well at 6am he shows up and we start loading the truck, I leave for chicago at about 7:15am.

So... supposed to show up at 8am, we get there around 10:30 or so I don't even remember really. So we get to work and set up a light show for Coheed and Cambria. We just did the conventionals portion so I setup a 90k Lighting rig and have a few problems on the upstage 60k but it's so freakin' late at this point I don't have any real time to fix it... OH! and the stagemanage for this venue, The Riviera Theater, Jolly as in the jolly roger (pirate flag) was awesome, "he was like a military drill instructor" as the guy I was working with put it. He yelled and hollered the whole time he was great... I could totally see people freakin' out and just cracking under this guy.  So anyhow I end up having to focus this rig on the upstage side, normally a local guy does it, anyway I had left my gig bag at the rave so I had no gloves so I got to burn my fingers, but the guy was impressed with how fast and well I could focus a rig. So we finally get as done as we are going to get and the show starts. I didn't run any lights at all, thank God. I watched a lot of the show which is unusual for me but I knew I'd fall asleep and not wake up if I sat backstage the whole time. So, Coheed and Cambria, who I havn't heard of before were awesome. I'm now a fan, not a fanatic one but still a fan.

So we load the show out and drive back to the shop... which concluded my working for 36hrs straight, by the time I got some sleep I had been awake for almost 40hrs.

Well it is certainly much more fun that I would imagine McDonalds being. But I heard something just now that I could not resist posting that the pastor here mentioned. We were talking about Seminaries and some of the classes that you take. He had a course on the Caananites and he said that he still hasn't found a use for it and he keeps trying to get people into Baal but no one ever picks it up... I thought that was hilarious... sorry if it's lame.

So life as of late has been working in the http://www.cedarburgcumc.org/ church office. This is accually my last week here as they have hired someone to permanantly fill the position starting the 23'rd. I have also been working at a print shop for a friend of mine who owns the shop. I ran a press yesterday... yes a PRESS that prints things. Before that I was just doing finishing work like cutting and boxing things up. We've got a 40,000 sheet order going on right now I think, I'll find out when I get in later today. So far shows have sucked I have had the last 2 shows cancelled on me, so The Fray, and Evenescence have both missed out on my presence. Their loss. O.A.R. is this saturday and hopefully they won't cancel the lighting rig on me! So the ballroom of http://www.therave.com/ is where I'll be on saturday if all goes well. Other than that I am still living in an apartment with the wife and kid. They tried to raise the rent on us but I wasn't having it. I have not signed a lease or renewal for anything and keep on handing them the $500 for rent that we've always been paying. They sent an Additional *YOU NEED TO SIGN HERE* letter but that was a month ago and I havn't heard any complaints. *shrug* we'd move out if they asked us to pay one cent over that $500.

Life for me has been fantastic as of late. If you haven't found Jesus Christ as your personal ransom for sins commited/ing/yet to/ and deliverence from the power of sin I suggest finding him. Contact me for more info if you need it... and you do need it!

MUST READS for any christian;
"The Normal Christian Life" - Watchman Nee
"The Second Half of The Gospel" - Dan Stone

Today was long. I woke up at 9:30am with my wife handing me our son. I didn't make out what she said. It didn't take long before Konnor was crying at the top of his lungs. I changed positions sat up, laid down, held him up, held him close, and held him lying down... NOTHING I did was going to matter, he was crying for a reason and that reason was hunger. After a good 15 minutes I come to my senses and walk out into the hall with our son to find out WHY I was handed our child. My wife was making my lunch for work, she's so wonderful. I realize what she was doing and I guess I had a confused look because she said "I'm making your lunch!" (note she wasnt angry just firm tone) I said thanks went back into our room. Five minutes go by and I get up and walk into the kitchen and say here take him my lunch isn't worth this. My ears were ringing by that point. I also had only about 3 hours of sleep.

I had a meeting today at 10:30am with other guys from the church at the movie theater we will be meeting in starting May 28'th the Lord willing. I realized once again that I do know something. With all sorts of questions being asked and I explaining what we can do to solve some issues. Like the processor that they have that takes sound from the 35mm reels is not a balanced audio signal, it doesn't need to be it's a permanent medium. So we only have balanced outputs on our sound console and I explained that we just need to get an "inline" transformer, or a "1 to 1" transformer. The guy from our church tech team writing all of this down said what should I write down. I answer 1to1 transformer. He asks why they call it that and without intent of sarcasm or even realizing what I'm saying I reply that it's because it's a one to one transformer. He smiles at me and I realize what I've just said. I then explain that it's the ratio of the coils on the transformer and how that balances a load through impedance matching.

Yup, I have a college degree.
Yup, I work in a factory that only requires GED or Equiv.
God, please provide work for me that I know you have intended my life for.

Well, on April 2^nd I did monitors for a band called Buckcherry. I dont know if youve heard of them or not. I hadnt but some of their songs were pretty familiar sounding. Well, I was using a really old crappy Crest 800 series monitor console. You know the one that was designed for the KISS tours, the first KISS tours. So finally enough of the group sends crapped out on me and I was kinda freakin out cause I now didnt have enough sends to mix a mere 4 channel monitor rig. So the boss was informed and we pulled a Y2K out a closet dont ask. So, now Ive got one hour until doors, I need to do a sound check with the headliner, Buckcherry, and get the opening acts set up and ready to go. No, no stress at all. So, having never mixed on the Yamaha 2000 mixing console, I was a little confused on some things. Most consoles are similar enough to be able to just make them work really quickly. Other consoles make you program them before you can get a sound out of them. The Y2K falls much closer to the just make them work quickly. The problem is not knowing the layout of the board youre working on. So I test some levels and I am getting levels just fine, but I cant get them to come out of speakers Then I realize ALL OF MY GROUP SENDS ARE POST FADER. So, I look for a post fader switch or something, cant find it, the band is getting a bit pissed, I say screw it and just throw faders up to somewhere close to unity. I dial in mixes for a good half hour until theyre happy enough to not continually complain about something. Finally someone stops by to see how Micahs doing with the 2k I tell them I am just fine but where the HELL is the post fader selection for my channels. Well it turns out EACH INDIVIDUAL group send potentiometer has its own pre/post/insert selection. EVERY SINGLE ONE! Btw there are eight group sends per channel and there are 48 or 56, I forget, channels. Granted Im only using 4 of them BUT! I they are located at the bottom of the tier I dont know how to explain this is text

 [ ]    --this knob controls signal sent to the group
[   ]   --this happens to be the pre/post/insert not that  the send knob is sitting on top of.

Maybe that did it for you anyhow if youre a sound engineer you already know what the hell Im talking about anyway.

To get on with things I find this information out and its only useful to me for the first two bands, since Im sure as hell not going to choose prefader on a mix I just did where the faders are just thrown up to somewhere near unity. That would screw my whole gain structure. So the first band in my opinion was the best one of the night. They put the other two to shame, much better playing great crowd interaction just good, wish I could remember their name

Well the second act came off the stage and I told the guitarist that I was sorry but I couldnt understand what he was trying to tell me during the last song. He told me that everything on stage was feeding back and that it was just totally horrible. Needless to say I was shocked and in pain. I knew that nothing of mine was feeding back, Id been listening to the mixes the whole set in my cue wedge. Well it turns out that the guy running FOH was the same guy that did Buckcherry and is also the tour manager. He had the room so ridiculously loud, the mains were feeding back. I knew that it sounded like crap but I didnt realize it was that bad until I mentioned my conversation to the guy I was working with. He set up FOH and mixed the first band. Well he was pretty disgusted with how it sounded out there.

Oh, and Buckcherry after the first song in there set were just happy, fine and dandy with my monitor mixes.

This is the Yamaha PM5000 I was working on the PM2000 they look pretty much identical. BTW if anyone can find a pic of the y2k online let me know i certainly couldn't.

Well thats a long update so I wont try and cram any more in, except the important stuff.

Konnor, my son, is now 5 weeks old, 9lbs 15oz, and 21 long      ish

Jaime is doing wonderfully and Im starting to get tired of him not wanting to go to sleep, but Jaime is a wonderful and patient mother. Im very blessed to have her!

gaffamly.frih.net

10:12 AM - It's a lie. A kiss with open eyes.