A Different Way to Spend Halloween . . . .

Well, the Howard family (and friends) didn't have a "normal" Halloween this year. Instead, we took the kids and 3 friends to see 3 Christian bands at a church in Omaha. The concert was a fundraiser for the church to send a missions group to Malawi, Africa.

We're not sure if the holiday affected the outcome, but probably 200 or less people were there, so we were able to get right up to the stage. The night started off with a newer band from Kansas City called Starlit Platoon. They had a good sound and were pretty energetic.

Afterwards, a well-known Lincoln band called Remedy Drive played. This is a band made up of four brothers. I talked to one of them afterwards and they were just signed by Word records and plan to release their first CD next August.

Then came the highlight of the night - our boys' favorite band Pillar played. We were right by Noah (the guitar player) all night, and were able to watch him close up. Unfortunately the combination of low light and smoke from the smoke machines caused our concert photos to turn out really bad.


Afterwards, however, all 4 members of Pillar came out and talked with the audience. We spent probably 15 minutes talking with Noah, who showed us a few of his guitars and talked amps and gear. Rob (the singer) had his wife and new baby with him. Very cool.

I've included some photos of Josh & James with Noah.



And I thought MY hair was wild during my college years . . . . !

Don't let the dreadlocks fool you though. Noah was a SUPER nice guy. Very friendly and humble. We all had a great time, but I was ready for a little ear rest afterwards. I must be getting old . . . . . .

Viva Las Vegas . . .

Well, I'd hoped to have a post about a recent trip to see Steve Vai in Chicago, but I'm still waiting for pictures, so that one will be waaay after the fact.

However, I did have a short business trip to Las Vegas this last week for the annual PFACC conference. We stayed at the Loews Lake Las Vegas Resort, about 10 miles outside of Las Vegas. Very pretty place. The picture below is a panoramic shot. You may need to view it at full size to get the full effect.

As can be expected, we spent one night experiencing the strip on Las Vegas. We were let off at the Bellagio. After going inside and seeing the sights, we stepped outside and watched the fountains. The picture below is a little grainy as I didn't want to use a flash, but you should get the effect. As hard as we looked, we couldn't find Danny Ocean or any of his friends.

Looking the other direction, you get an idea of how bright the lights are. This replica of the Eiffel tower was pretty awesome.

After checking out the Flamingo pools and some of the strip, I ventured by myself to the Hard Rock Cafe. I found out after I got there that the street that the Hard Rock is on is not as safe as the strip. Needless to say, I took a cab back to the Bellagio.

Come Sail Away . . .

When you think of concerts in Nebraska, Norfolk doesn't usually come to mind. However when our nephew Caleb graduated from college at Norfolk last May, we went to a restaurant that advertised a summer concert series at a local place called Divot's.

Fortunately, we liked a couple of the bands that were appearing on September 2nd, so we headed down for the concert.

The show opened with 38 Special, a southern rock band with a number of 1980's hits.

The men of the family got up close to watch half of 38 Special, then went back for some water and Gatorade and just listened until the headliner.

They were followed by Styx, an "art rock" band whose best known hits spanned the mid 1970's through the 1980's.

This time, mom joined us near the front of the stage. As they started, I caught our first pictures as the sun was still setting. Tommy Shaw was on our side of the stage as they kicked off the concert with "Blue Collar Man". James Young is in the background on the Strat.

As the sun set, the light show was much more fun to watch, however taking clear pictures became a lot more difficult. The band was absolutely fantastic - all the high notes were there for the vocals and guitars were great too! Of course, Josh was impressed by the drummer. If you can see this picture clearly enough, you'll notice that Tommy is playing a clear plastic body guitar (probably a Dan Armstrong). Don't see them too often . . .

The keyboard player even played some Beethoven. Below is one more shot of the band with the light show behind them. I apologize for the graniness, but shooting pictures of fast moving rock starts in dark surroundings is not all that easy . . .

The concert ended with an explosion of confetti. I caught this picture as it began to settle over the audience.

All together, I took about 100 pictures. We had a great time at the concert, and left with our ears ringing a bit. One lady standing by us couldn't believe that our 15 and 13 year old sons knew any of Styx's music. Ironically, the band did a cover of "I am the Walrus" by the Beatles - which the boys also knew and could sing along with.

FYI - I don't think any of us could sing along with any Brittany Spears or Spice Girls songs (and we're proud of it too . . . . )

Catch ya later . . . .

Saying Hello . . .

Well, today was an exciting day in a number of ways. We had a mini family reunion on the Howard side of the family to celebrate Aunt Maxine's 75th birthday. Maxine is my dad's older sister (sorry Maxine - Dad paid me $50.00 to mention the "older" part). As with all of these events - a massive 3 hour picture taking sesssion ensued. It started off with some nice shots of Aunt Maxine with her favorite pipe . . . .

Ooops - wait a second, that was the wrong picture.....

Ah, here we go. Here's a much more flattering picture of Aunt Maxine with my dad and Uncle Bruce (her two kid brothers). Maxine always looks so much more attractive without the pipe and with her hair and makup done up nice.

Hard to believe that the lady in the picture is 75. I personally think there's a typo on the old birth certificate or something. On a side note, my Uncle Bruce (the one on the left) still runs 6-8 miles a day and runs 5K's on a regular basis. I, on the other hand, run to and from my car 3 times a day and eat Special K on a regular basis. Oh well . . . .

The other big highlight of the day was meeting my cousin Valerie for the first time. (Hence the title of post . . . .).

We had a great time talking and getting aquainted. Like her dad, Valerie is an avid runner (she's also competed in the Iron Man competition and lived to tell about it). In spite of my lack of athletic ability, we had plenty to talk about! It was great to finally get to meet her.

Also had a chance to see my other cousins. Although lighting was a bit of a challenge for picture taking, we got a nice group shot (except for cutting out part of Scott's head). Only missing piece was my brother Bill.

Note that I'm the only guy in the front row . . . . some things never change . . . . . . (an old Randy Newman song comes to mind here . . . ) .

All in all a great day. The Fremont Howards had a great time catching up with everyone and helping Maxine celebrate her 75th. Looking forward to doing this again!!

BTW - in case you're wondering, the first picture really isn't Aunt Maxine. It's a recent photo of Keith Richards during the last Rolling Stones tour . . . . . .

;-)

A Winning Day . . .

Well, Saturday found us back at the ball fields. Josh & James had tournament games today and both did great. James' team won 8-2, despite James getting his shoulder dinged a bit near the end of the game. Lora was able to get a good picture of James batting.

In some ways, Josh's game was even more exciting. After taking a pounding for the first two thirds of the season (they lost one game 25 - 0), they came back and nearly beat the top team in their league last week, even though they only had 7 players. Today, they were one player short and still won 19-2. Next week will be interesting!

In spite of all this excitement, Grandpa Don decided this would be a good time to catch forty winks.

Grandpa Don shows his enthusiasm as Josh hits a home run!

The other highlight of the day was a visit from my old college buddy, Mike Carper. Mike & I met at Kearney in 1983 and he was an usher in our wedding. We have lots of good memories of war games, concerts, nachos, movie marathons and other stuff. We had a great time visiting. Mike's knowledge of history and literature are pretty daunting, so there's never a dull moment. I read a bunch of Cliff's Notes right before he came so I could appear somewhat intelligent . . . . .

Do these look two guys you would trust?

Saying Goodbye . . . . .

A sad note from our family. Lora's grandmother, Marie Merriman, died on Friday, July 13th at her home in Lincoln, NE. She had turned 92 just three days earlier.


Grandma Merriman left behind quite a family - 7 children, 20 grandchildren and 40 great-grandchildren. Even at age 91, when you went to visit her, she would fix lunch and visit with you at length. She could recall all the grandchildren and great grandchildren (as well as their spouses) and always remembered birthdays and what you were doing.

At Christmas (often celebrated at her home) she bought individual gifts for all the grandchildren & great-grandchildren. I have problems remembering what to buy for 2 kids.

2 years ago we celebrated Grandma's 90th birthday with a family get-together in Lincoln. The picture that appears above is a favorite picture of Grandma that we took at her celebration.

She will be missed by many.

Wise Guys (and Gals) from the East . . .

Well we've had an interesting week in our basement. We've had 2 sets of good friends visit over the last week.

On Monday, Dan & Carol Bongard visited on their way to Ft. Collins, Colorado. They are both part of Keynote Communications, the music ministry of Campus Crusade. Dan is killer bass player and Carol is a wonderful photographer (hopefully she never views my photos online . . . ).


Rehearsal in Studio B at Howard Studios - Take 7 of "Play That Funky Music"

Anyway, we grabbed a bass amp and set up some our gear and had a jam session with Josh, James, Dan & Dad. We played some worship tunes that we all knew, then things got a little silly and we ended up on a version "Play That Funky Music" by Wild Cherry (with about 25% of the original lyrics) and a good old college try at "Stars" by Switchfoot. We had a great time. Hope Dan did as well. Dad was lucky enough to be out of the camera's eye. We got some video of one song. If we can get it online, we may do so.

On Wednesday night, Dave & Kelle Fackler visited, along with their kids Tina and Andrew. Dave & Kelle are also with Keynote. Dave was the keyboard player/lead vocalist for Flashback. Dave is kind of a jack of all trades, master of most of them. Kelle is a flautist and just a generally great person to be around.

We hadn't seen Andrew since he was about 4 or so. He used to help set up drums & sound in Flashback. One of the cutest kids ever. As you can tell from the photo below, he's grown a little since then . . . .


Andrew Fackler playing his Garrison guitar

I think he got the pants from the leftover costumes from the movie "Castaway".

While we didn't have a jam session, we did get to hear Andrew play a little guitar & drums and caught a little singing from "the fam" as they were going to bed.

The ladies had a nice time talking (see photo below). As was always the case in the past, we had a great time listening to Dave's impressions and just goofing around and having a good time. It was also the first time we'd spent extended time with their daughter Tina, who is about Josh's age. We had fun getting to know her as well. The pictures of Dave & Tina didn't turn out too well (due to the photographer - not the subject matter) - we'll try some others soon.


Lora deep in thought as Kelle waxes eloquently about quantum physics and sub-atomic particles

4th of July pictures - the old fashioned way . . . .

Well, our 4th of July wasn't too eventful . . . . just hung around home most of the day and got things done. However, we ended our day by going to Christensen Field in Fremont and watching the fireworks.

Inpired by my friend Tim in Lexington, Kentucky, I decided to try my hand at some manual picture taking (you know - with the "auto" stuff all turned off).

Now, mind you, the Kentucky Tim has a really nice professional camera made of a titanium/kevlar alloy that shoots at 578 megapixels and has nuclear-powered lenses coupled with laser sightings. (He also has the ability to make colors more vivid by use of ESP).

The Fremont Tim, on the other hand, has a camera he made in Boy Scouts back in 1971, using an old Hush Puppies shoe box (the kind you make with a pinhole) and some leftover Polariod film from 1974. He is also color-blind. To get different F stops, Lora held 4 sheets of black construction paper in different configurations in front of the pinhole lens. Josh had a 5th sheet of black construction paper and ran past us at varying speeds to simulate different shutter speeds. (He collapsed after our 137th picture).

So if you do compare my pictures to Kentucky Tim's - cut me some slack.

Anway, right before the fireworks started, I tried my hand at some landscape pictures. This was one of the better ones of a Fremont sunset - looking west.


After attempting to shoot some pictures at our fireworks display in Deerfield and failing miserably (probably due to using 1968 Polariod film), I did some reading and tried again using some different settings .... er, I mean different sizes and shades of construction paper. This time we got some better results, although I'm still learning.

This was picture 137. Josh collapsed and went into Anaphylactic shock after serving as our human shutter for more than an hour.

Anyway, gotta go here. I'm jumping back into the car to see if Josh has regained consciousness back at the parking lot where we left him . . . . . .

Splash Station Opens!

Well - it finally happened. After about 3 years or so without a community pool, Fremont opened it's new water park - Splash Station on Monday, July 2nd.

The New Water Slides!

Train and Water Tower

Either through bribery or good grades (depends on who you believe), James was chosen as one of the middle school students to "break in" the new facilities. Jacob, one of James' good friends, was also invited - so they got to enjoy the day together.

Jacob and James

In spite of ample sunscreen James left with a little bit of a sunburn after almost 6 hours at the water park. Mom spent her time reading on a chair in the shade! Imagine that.

Here are some links to the articles in the Fremont Tribune:

Kids Give Park Thumbs Up

City Dives Into New Water Park

Dad has had the thrill of driving by the park - I don't think Josh has been there yet either.

However Josh & Dad spent some time in the basement Friday night assaulting their eardrums and learning a Switchfoot tune.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game . . . .

Well, we had a fun night with Mom & Dad and our computer employee friends at Rosenblatt Stadium.


















Unfortunately, we got whipped, but we all had a good time. We started out sitting in the section with our fellow Mutual of Omaha employees, but couldn't resist the great view that Mom & Dad had so we went and sat by them and had this view . . . .





















And to think we could have been listening to KC and the Sunshine band and the Little River Band instead. Hmmmm . . . . . . . .

The last week's events . . .

Been an eventful week here at the Howard household. Our niece Hannah came and stayed for a few days with us. Really fun to have her around. We watched "That Thing You Do" (one of our family's favorites). Just got the new DVD with the director's cut - pretty cool.

We've also been finishing mastering & duplicating CD's for the Nebraska Ambassador's of Music. (As if we don't have enough around here to do!!)

On Wednesday, our team at work went on a Riverboat Lunch on the Missouri (my boss comes up with some pretty good ideas for team bonding . . . ). We had some extra tickets so Lora got to come along. The only mistake is that we didn't bring a camera.

Also, Dad & I finished our first multi-media presentation together. A montage of images set to Ray Charles' "America". They showed it tonight at an event at church.

Been busy reading (or listening, depending upon your perspective). About three years ago, my brother Bill turned me on to audiobooks. Helps make my commute less boring. Currently working on:

• The Afghan (Frederick Forsyth)
• The Korean War (Max Hastings)
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Victor Hugo)

I'm also working to get through the following the old fashioned way (you know - using your eyes . . . ):

• The Devil's Alternative (Frederick Forsyth) - actually re-reading this one
• Celebration of Discipline (Richard Foster)

Probably not hard to tell that Forsyth is one of my favorite authors. Also enjoy Michael Connelly and Tom Clancey.

Tomorrow night finds us at the Omaha Royals for a baseball game. It's actually Mutual's Information Services (aka Computer Nerds) night at the Royals. Sounds like Mom & Dad may join us to add some real live personality to the mix. Maybe we'll take some pictures and post them.

Thats about it for now. Glad to have Bill & Nancy & kids back stateside. If you come visit the blog - please post so that we know you're out there.

Here We Go . . . . .

Well, I've been influenced by some old friends in Lexington Kentucky, so we'll now enter the land of the bloggers. I won't say who the culprits are, but they're hidden in this picture somewhere . . . .

Just got home from our Washington D.C. vacation. We travelled over 3,400 miles and went to:

Indianapolis, IN - (thanks Mike, Lisa, Kelle, Dave & Dan)
Cleveland, OH - (Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame)
Canton, OH - (Pro Football Hall of Fame)
Hershey, PA - (anything chocolate)
Landcaster, PA - (Amish country)
Gettysburgh, PA
Washington, DC

• Ford's Theater
• International Spy Museum
• Capitol
• Washington Monument
• Bureau of Engraving and Printing
• Hard Rock Cafe
• National Archives
• Air & Space Museum
• Vietnam, Korean & WWII War Memorials
• Jefferson & Lincon Memorials

Lexington, KY - (thanks Tim, Mer & boys)

• Toyota Factory
• White Castle
• Movies galore

Bowling Green, KY - (Corvette Museum and Factory)
St. Louis, MO - (Six Flags & Arch)

Yep - we did all of that in two weeks.

Special thanks to Marie for her hospitality. We had a great time in Alexandria.

We were very impressed by the friendliness of people in the D.C. area. Far exceeded our experiences with other big towns. Metro was great too!

Also - Christ Church of Ohio in Cleveland was exceptional. Great preaching and music. If you're in the area on a Sunday, stop in and visit.

Here are a few pictures from our trip:

In front of the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame - Cleveland, OH


Having Old Fashioned Ice Cream in Strasburg, PA

Lora & Tim on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Feel free to post. To all the friends we visited (and our Fremont friends we saw in Lancaster) - thanks a bunch - we had a great time with you!!!

Tim