Dave Johnson

the weekend that was:
- saturday was a long day; early last week it soon became apparent that my double header with jim bailey wasn’t going to happen so it was time to switch to plan b. plan b involved picking rosie up at what felt a ridiculously early, for a saturday, 7:40 am getting some petrol and driving down to exeter for the event which was to celebrate the 1100 aniversary of the diocese of exeter. it was outside in a marquee which felt a bit like a sauna when a hundred or so kids were jumping up and down.  jim did great especially as this was his first outdoor gig in sometime and the heat really shouldn’t be underestimated. current archbishop of canterbury dr. rowan williams was a guest visitor. all to soon it was time to say goodbye to jim and most importantly rosie and head back to worthing ready for sunday morning. eddie izzard’s classic “glorious” and radio one/one extra’s tribute to the late michael jackson kept me occupied on the way home.

- sunday also felt an early start. this was the first sunday without steve and the first opportunity to show that i’m ready for extra responsiblity. setup felt a little sluggish and with martin smith and our very own gospel choir leading worship it meant more to do than normal. we did, however, get there and it all worked (apart from a few squeaks from feedback). the afternoon was a chance to chill out a little bit; there was no F1 and while I was waiting for rosie to arrive back from bristol i took the opportunity to watch some more of glastonbury 2009. i still haven’t had a chance to watch spinal tap’s set in full. when rosie did get back it was great to spend a few hours relaxing without anything crazy to do – just relax. then the second episode of top gear which was just hilarious.

where i am at the moment: at home sipping coffee

on my to-do list this week:
- send out the weekly newsletter to our subscribers
- work out which bits of sunday can be used as a talk and upload them
- prepare several dvds of joe gisbey’s roots series
- make some music with jim bailey

procrastinating about: nothing.

book i’m in the midst of: this months top gear magazine?

music that seemed to catch my attention this past week: been listening to little boots debut album “hands” for some intelligent pop and david crowder*band’s new single “how how loves“, taken from forthcoming album “church music” to inspire me in the studio.

next trip: more travelling round the uk this week. head to leicester on thursday for 3 dates and then on to bournemouth with american worship leader roy fields. far more details over on davejohnsonmusic.net.

how i’m feeling about this week: good

the weekend that was:
- saturday felt a great day, rosie and i went to chichester in the late morning for a look round. though somehow we ended up in the bishops palace garden (don’t worry it’s a public place) before taking the drive south to the witterings – it wasn’t all smiles. west wittering beach charges a whopping £5 for parking whether you visit for 5 minutes of 5 hours so we turned round and continued the drive round the coast to east wittering where we found a free parking space to check the beach out and have lunch. in the evening we watched epic movie and i can honestly say i’ve not laughed so much at a film for a while.

- sunday was back to normal after a very chilled out sunday last week. i was back on engineering duties at arun community church. from my perspective everything sounded great – the band sounded great quite rocky (reuben, josh and joel you can congratulate yourselves). it was great to see to groups of friends have their (jon & kirsty jolly and mark and becky yates) children dedicated. then norman barnes talk got me thinking, what is community? it kind of fits into a post that’s been sat around for a while, that i may have to revisit. the highlights of sunday for me were the british grand prix  (shame that jenson button couldn’t record a home win but what a race) and the return of top gear to uk screens (for uk readers i’ll put a link to the itunes version when it comes out)

where i am at the moment: in rustington approaching the end of a huge run of burning cds

on my to-do list this week:
- send out the weekly newsletter to our subscribers
- upload sundays podcast
- prepare several dvds of joe gisbey’s roots series
- take a long look at sunday mornings (hopefully more on this in a future post)
- get my ipod car stereo refitted
- send my driving licence off for renewal
- make some music with jim bailey
- work on davejohnsonmusic.net

procrastinating about: why do you need to renew your driving licence every 10 years?!

book i’m in the midst of: forms count as reading don’t they?

music that seemed to catch my attention this past week: still been listening to paramore’s “the final riot!” it’s a really well produced album, it’s going to take something big to stop it being played.

next trip: double header with jim bailey coming up first to exeter and then to portishead near bristol

how i’m feeling about this week: good, wishing life would occaisionally slow down so i could have a little rest

the weekend that was:
- saturday was split pretty much in two; after the crazy drive of friday afternoon, saturday morning was spent relaxing and preparing for a meeting about an outdoor event then a bit of shopping and finally meeting up with dan lush for chinese food. the rest of the day was spent at the durham centre preparing for their first evening worship event. more event details will be found on davejohnsonmusic.net shortly.

- sunday was, for the most part, a more relaxed day after a well deserved lay in rosie and i paid a visit to pet and ali’s church, emmanuel church, in durham where rather than just being quiet we joined in with the childrens work that they are running. to the surprise of both of us we were invited, along with pete and ali, to stay for the students lunch which was an amazing thing to see; a church reaching out to the large student population by providing food and buses. sadly in the afternoon we had to head back down south so that rosie could be at work for monday morning.

- monday, i thought i should probably include monday seeing as it’s now tuesday. after a bad nights sleep due to my room being the same temperature as a sauna and because i’d booked monday off as annual leave i managed to achieve only two things; a small amount of shopping at tesco so that we can eat for the next few days andcontinue some music work with jim bailey. i think more details will start too immerge on davejohnsonmusic.net soon.

where i am at the moment: at home, thinking it’s definately a shorts day for work working out exactly what i have to do today.

on my to-do list this week:
- send out the weekly newsletter to our subscribers
- upload sundays podcast
- record a talk from international china concern’s david gotts
- get a broadband migration code and set up a new o2 broadband account
- prepare a quote for this large outdoor event
- attend a meeting about a large outdoor event

procrastinating about: how much 3d modelling is really hard when you don’t have enough time to learn the program before building the model.

book i’m in the midst of: none but maybe that’ll change with the release of iPhone 3.0

music that seemed to catch my attention this past week: the drive to durham would not have been possible withou paramore’s “the final riot!”

next trip: it’s all local for me this week

how i’m feeling about this week: summed up in two words – cautiously optimistic.

the weekend that was:
- saturday was a quiet day. after having eaten far to much at one of worthing’s new indian restuarants, zaman, i spent a few hours watching two and a half men season 2 before finally getting up picking rosie up and heading off in to worthing town centre where she ran lots of errands and i tried to decide between a freesat box, blu-ray player and xbox 360 – to which i still haven’t made a decision. the evening was spent watching some new tv shows – i’m particularly liking new comedy “mumbai calling”

- sunday was pretty crazy. church, parties, f1 and chocolate fountains cover all the bases.

where i am at the moment: in the office burning cd’s and planning the rest of the week

on my to-do list this week:
- burn a shed load of cds for people before i go away on friday
- create four DVD’s of joe gisbey’s roots series
- work more on my new website; davejohnsonmusic.net
- weekly podcasts and newsletter
- reinstall 4Gb of RAM back into my macbook and watch the performance increase hugely.
- digico sd7 training
- work in the studio with jim bailey

procrastinating about: not having enough time.

book i’m in the midst of: really can’t find any time to read a book, however have been reading the digico and foh online websites

music that seemed to catch my attention this past week: i’ve not bought anything but enter shikari’s new single “juggernaut” has been in my head

next trip: durham on friday to visit friends and be a “lampey” for the day.

how i’m feeling about this week: it’s going to be busy

the weekend that was:
- the entire weekend was devoted, in all honesty, to  one thing; the bigchurchdayout. at wiston house in steynning. saturday consisted of getting all acc’s equipment into a 7.5 tonne truck and move it 12miles up the road to a big tent, getting it out the truck and setting it up. once it was setup it looked like acc in a tent. the day wasn’t without it’s issues namely the dimmer fire. after a line and monitor check it was over to the main stage to look at the vast amounts of d&b j-series that wigwam had installed, along with the digidesign d-shows on foh and monitors. there was a bonus that we stood around the main stage area long enough to be offered a higgidy pie which tasted great. sunday started early with simon and i heading up early to catch a few sound checks but as they were delayed meant we actually got a brilliant breakfast from the staff at the house, who as a side note did a great job of feeding crew and artists all weekend, before delirious? sound check. upon returning to our, hot and sticky, tent we set about wiring things up for the j247 team during the team briefing. in all the chaos of the day i managed to catch up with friends, eat, see israel houghton and delirious.

where i am at the moment: at home looking at the rain falling from the sky.

on my to-do list this week:
- burn a shed load of cds for people before i go away on friday
- send dimmer rack back
- the final roots podcast
- prep for the two jim bailey gigs this week
- buy a new domain name

procrastinating about: getting a bigger lense for my camera. period.

book i’m in the midst of: all the reading i’ve done recently has been the vast quantity of email that i get.

music that seemed to catch my attention this past week: again two albums this week both from ministry of sound. chilled part 2 and uncovered

next trip: london on wednesday and northern ireland on friday

how i’m feeling about this week: i think it’s going to be busier than last week.

the weekend that was:
- saturday was, in many ways, was a great day of rest. a very relaxed morning led on to an afternoon of, mainly, window shopping. i say window shopping because i don’t think that either rosie or i bought anything; not even a drink. the evening bought the last meal with my parents before they headed off to romania (at some silly time sunday morning). the evening also bought our first “shopping” trip and the eurovision song contest. i’ll cover first things first. while my parents are away rosie and i are, attempting, to cook entirely for ourselves (and my gran) we won’t be resorting to any ready meals. so, with this in mind we headed over to tesco’s in shoreham and shopped. i suppose i really should mention eurovision; i am a fan and i thought that russia did a top rate job in creating a memorable event (that i thought looked great on bbc hd). it was also really nice to see the uk’s entry actual achieve a respectible 5th place on the night.

- sunday was an unusually great day too; setup team 5 (of which i’m duty manager) really put in a great performance and apart from some minor technical problems, that will require some ongoing discussions, we got setup and packed in totally unity and harmony meaning that stress levels were kept low and we did it fast.the afternoon bought beautifully grilled bacon, the big bang theory (which on UK TV always sounds slightly higher pitched (especially on channel 4 hd, ideas anyone?), and a tripple bill of e.r. there was a slightly scarey moment when my car stubbonly refused to start (still don’t know what caused that, but it’s ok now) and my herby chicken with winter seasoned potato wedges and steamed vegetables was a great start to my cooking for the week. evening was chilled and quiet; rosie and i watched saturday’s britains got talent .

where i am at the moment: in the office having had an amazingly productive couple of hours at work which were preceeded by an astonishingly productive hour at home.

on my to-do list this week:
- more PAT testing
- sort out an SMS service for the churches prayer and setup teams
- order a dimmer rack
- the weekly podcasts
- prep for bigchurchdayout
- clean the house
- bigchurchday out the actual event

procrastinating about: the idea of adding a friday thoughts weekly post in addition to the monday update post. thoughts?

book i’m in the midst of: the most recent issue of youthwork has arrived and has been a great read. it’s really helped me stay in touch with youthwork trends while i took some time off to explore other opportunities.

music that seemed to catch my attention this past week: two albums this week; deadmau5’s 2008 album “random album title” and the prodigy’s most recent album “invaders must die”

next trip: bigchurchday out in steynning

how i’m feeling about this week: erm, not really sure, it’s going to be really busy.

the weekend that was:
- saturday started early, got hectic, and finished late. what on earth do i mean by that? well today was the wedding of some friends of ours in angmering. however, i got the job of rigging the reception venue…confrence style. with the wedding due to start at 1pm rosie and i finished at 12:10 leaving 50 mins to: get fuel, eat and get changed. we achieved it just; finally arriving with moments to spare. after a great service the church de-rig started which considering the time the wedding finished seemed to take an age. and then…the phone call…i needed to take the radio mics up to the reception venue. we arrived with a few minutes to spare to wire in the mics before the sit down meal began. back home, eat, chillax (just a little) and then head back for the evening reception only to find that i got to de-rig the reception venue too. after that was done i managed to find some time to sit down and catch up with friends.

- sunday felt like it kept a lot of the momentum from saturday. 7:30 was not pretty. church setup went ok, down on numbers but generally good. afternoon consisted of flopping on the sofa with rosie watching the f1, disapointing to see force india finishing so lowly but good to see jenson button winning again, and then catching up on mythbusters and the apprentice from the sky+ box.

where i am at the moment: sat at wickbourne having fully understood that i’ve achieved a huge amount today which is why the post is so late.

on my to-do list this week:
- lots of PAT testing
- work out how to burn 90 minutes to an 80 minute cd
- more podcast work
- more cd burning
- write a basic iTunes guide
- bigchurchdayout planning

procrastinating about: nothing, been spending a lot of time thinking about the future.

book i’m in the midst of: none. tv really is such a distraction.

music that seemed to catch my attention this past week: only one song has; skream’s remix of la roux’s in for the kill available on iTunes on the “in for the kill ep”

next trip: nowhere, its a quiet week.

how i’m feeling about this week: having made a few decision i’m actually feeling quite good.

the weekend that was:
- saturday was a really great day rosie and i headed over to brighton for a lovely chilled out look round. there was a bit of a discussion over twitter over the best place to eat. we finally opted for subway, though personally i don’t think i’ll be having the meatball marinara any time soon, before heading to cult (home of one of my favourite brands superdry), white stuff and o’neil. inside the centre it was to see the future location of the apple store. after a look round and rosie getting a dress for another wedding next weekend we headed back along the coast to shoreham for a look round tesco and m&s.

- sunday felt a bit of an odd day; in the middle of a bank holiday weekend was a work day for me, and obviously all church staff. as well as being a work day it was also a kickstart sunday. church really marked the beginning of the big push towards the first bigchurchdayout we have finished the main teachings on the book of john and are covering a few loose ends before heading onto the book of acts. after church rosie and i made brownie, watched the two pivotal episodes of brothers & sisters while i serviced a dell inspiron mini 10 . which has got me thinking about getting my own netbook (probably the mini 9) and turning it into a hackintosh.

where i am at the moment: in bed with a lovely cup of cafetiere coffee watching some mindless rubbish on E4 and wishing i had a strong freeview signal because then at least i could watch dave!

on my to-do list this week:
- upload acc’s first vodcast
- edit and upload the normal podcast
- send out the weekly newsletter
- burn a shed load of cd’s
- edit the second vodcast
- go and see the new star trek movie (yes, i booked tickets for the preview day)
- have an important meeting

procrastinating about: are my live and studio mixes good enough? in all truth i’ve been slightly beating myself up about it.

book i’m in the midst of: have been reading the latest issue of youthwork magazine and working on my amazon wish list.

music that seemed to catch my attention this past week: two groups this week; one cool, one tragic. i’ll let you decide which is which. firstly marmaduke duke’s new single rubber lover from there sophomore album, duke pandemonium. secondly the saturdays debut album chasing lights .

next trip: several trips this week; one minor, one major. star trek on thursday. bristol on friday. wedding on saturday. hmm…busy.

how i’m feeling about this week: it’s going to be a short week but i’m feeling pretty good about it in all honesty

the weekend that was:
- saturday has become a bit of a chilled out day now that rosie works. we use our time to catch up on tv programmes stored on the sky+ box (like tivo for all the americans who read the blog), and generally relax. before launching into two hours of ER and brothers and sisters we headed over to shoreham’s tesco extra complex for a general look round both tesco’s and m&s.

- sunday also was a great day; it could be said it was a day of firsts at Church. a young person gave the childrens talk and while they need to refine the skills it was great to see some new blood getting involved and giving. we also had a new adults speaker. austin wade, who spoke on john 21 and the character of simon-peter following the ups and downs of his faith. going from being the number 1 disciple to seeing jesus brutally crucified and returning to his original trade of being a fisherman. the afternoon was also great after watching the F1, rosie and I headed into a sunny and warm worthing to walk on the beach, play the 2p machines on worthing pier and share a McFlurry.

where i am at the moment: in the rustington office trying to do several jobs at one time due to staff sickness, but feeling as if i’m actually failing.

on my to-do list this week:
- put an upgrade in an old machine and then reinstall the operating system/associated software
- re-rack and rewire a whole load of equipment
- film and, minimally, edit the first in a new series of teaching led by links international’s joe gisbey
- PAT testing
- order a new office router
- transfer a whole load of wedding footage from DV tape to Hard Disk

procrastinating about: the future

book i’m in the midst of: still working my way through god’s gravity but haven’t read any for over a week

music that seemed to catch my attention this past week: it’s almost been a music free week. i often find after i’ve been immersed in loud music for a few days i don’t want hear any music for a while.

next trip: nothing planned this week.

how i’m feeling about this week: positive, as long as the sun returns otherwise certain things could be very difficult.

the weekend that was:
- saturday was the last day of epidemic life 2009 at bath city church. it was a great time with worship being led by ryan baker-barnes and dani miché. rosie and i really enjoyed the confrence and it was great to get to know some new people as well as linking up with people we already knew. after a late finish that was followed by a two hour drive to southampton to catch up with friends the robin’s – 2am is not fun….

- sunday after a great nights sleep on a sofa we got up and headed to the am service at new community church in southampton. it was really interesting to be present at the start of a new teaching written by one of revelation church chichester’s pastors, roger ellis, called “God’s econnomy”. finally made it back to sussex mid-afternoon to catch up on the f1; a red bull 1 + 2 followed by a brawn gp 3 + 4 was a great result for racing fans. i’m quite gutted that force india didn’t get any points adrian sutil was ahead of current world champion lewis hamilton with 8 laps to go but crashed out in what were very wet conditions.

where i am at the moment: sat in wickbourne wondering how its taken me 24 hours to write this.

on my to-do list this week:
- catch up on last weeks work
- start converting all the wedding stuff to standard quick time files

procrastinating about: last weeks confrence

book i’m in the midst of: still working my way through god’s gravity

music that seemed to catch my attention this past week: no particular albums have jumped out at me though i have been enjoying some singles namely; i’m not alone by calvin harris, mercury summer by fightstar, superstylin’ by groove armada and, lastly, omen by the prodigy.

next trip: the horizon looks just a little bit quiet for the next few weeks

how i’m feeling about this week: good. it has the possibility of being a nice week.