Decent Day

Today i got up fairly early because i had to work at 10. I left early so I could get some coffee on my way. I used to like Dunkin's Carmel Swirl Latte alot. Now not so much. Granted it is still far superior to anything served at Timmy Ho's, but going to Jitter's and Leaf and Bean recently has spoiled me. The only think better about Dunkin is the price. I got to work about 15 minutes early which was good because I needed to change anyway. It was weird today, work was pretty busy. All of the crazy people were out. My shift was over at 3 so I got some bourbon and sesame chicken with white rice from famous cajun next door. I came home, relaxed for a bit and showered, then I got gas for the van, and then I went to Jitters, got a Grande Carmel Latte with an extra shot of espresso. I read six chapters of Job there and then they started cooking bacon so I left because it was making me hungry and distracting me. I went over to Roberts to pick up my friends for One Thing. A bunch of people piled into the van. I think my favorite night of One Thing was Wednesday. After One Thing, we went to Roberts and headed over to the Hale auditorium for some free pizza and a free screening of Wall-e. I really wanted to see Wall-e so i was glad we did that. It was a good movie. After the movie we walked over to magil. On the walk over we had a spontaneous kind of half snow fight. It was cold. When we got to magil we tried to figure out what to do. Amy got some bored games and we proceeded to the library to play, but that didn't seem like a good spot so we went to miner but that also didn't seem like a good spot so we went to the Voller Athletic center and played Apples to Apples on the pool table. Now I'm home, blogging. I'm going to go read some Job. Only ten chapters left. Next I wanna read Psalms, which works out because it's the next book.

Mitch

Listening To:

A Kiss For Jersey Victims

Hillsong United With Hearts As One

Mae The Everglow

Spitalfield Stop Doing Bad Things

Anberlin Never Take Friendship Personal

Mountain Dew Thursday

At Midnight (25 hours ago not 1 hour ago) I had a mountain dew to celebrate the beginning of montain dew thursday and spent 20 minutes texting everyone in my contacts to tell them happy MDT. Then I read some more of Job. Then I went to sleep. I woke up at around noon. Had some left over pizza for breakfast. At around 3:30 i took something to the post office for my mom and then I picked her up some dinner, then I went to work. I left for work early so I could grab some dinner from Taco Bell, because It's Mountain Dew Thursday and Baja Blast is my favorite. Work was so dead tonight. I probably washed 4 total trays of dishes. I got all my closing stuff done really early. It was a boring night at work. I got out of work on time and drove to Greece to pick up Kyle Sullivan and then we went to Roberts to celebrate MDT with our friends. We need to get back into the themed Mountain Dew Thursday nights, because we just sat around and did nothing tonight. After doing nothing, I drove Kyle home and now I'm sitting at home with my mom watching George Lopez and blogging. I'm about to go to sleep.


Mitch

Listening To:

Spitalfield Stop Doing Bad Things
Mae The Everglow
Anberlin Blueprints of the Black Market
Underoath Lost in the Sound of Separation
Thrice If We Could Only See Us Now

What a day

Let me start off by saying, yesterday I was editing the settings for my blog and saw that I could set my blogger account to email people whenever I update my blog. I assumed that it would just say "mitch has created a new post on his blog" or something, but all it does is send the blog. No intro, doesn't say from Mitch's blog or anything, so for those of you that got it you were probably confused as to why I sent you an email about my day at work...

On to today. My day started off rather slowly. I woke up at around 10:00 and went downstairs for coffee. My parents were supposed to be going to Albany, for my sisters make up jazz concert that was cancelled back in october due to the weather, however, it was cancelled again due to the weather. What are the chances of that... Pretty high I guess in NYS. Anyhow, I did some laundry. I had an appointment for a guy to stop by and look at Alex's 8x10 case that he has for sale, but the guy didn't show up. I haven't heard from him at all. At around 2 my dad and I went to lunch. We went to greece hots. We got garbage plates. Greece hots' home fries suck. After we finished our meal, my dad had a conversation with me about taking the semester off, which i was neither expecting nor ready for. Basically, he just wished I had talked to him before the semester started about taking the semester off. Since I am not going to college currently, I now have to start paying for my car, car insurance and cell phone. I was already paying for gas. Now, the grand prix would be $314 a month, plus $100 for insurance, and then my cell phone bill is $70 a month. That's around half of my average monthly income, most likely more. I really can't afford that, so I proposed that I pay a one time price for the van, and drive that. My dad said he would think about it. We've come up with a deal. I'm going to paint the house and mow the lawn over the summer in exchange for the van. Works out to be around $1800. Not a bad deal. My dad also asked me if I have decided what my next step is. I'm not sure, but I feel like God is calling me to be a worship leader if Red Letter Statement doesn't work out. That means I need to start looking into some formal training for that. I have 7.5 years of drum lessons under my belt, and 9 years of drumming experience, 3 or 4 months of guitar lessons with about 4.5 years of guitar experience. I know a decent amount of chords but I am working on learning more. Elim Bible institute is a possibility, as is Roberts Wesleyan College. I'd also like to hopefully get an internship at The Father's House or possibly another church in Rochester. Hopefully within the next month or so I will be co-leading on a sunday at church, from Rythym electric. I am having a meeting with Larry, Andrea and Luke about it on Monday. Hopefully Denis and/or Pierre will be able to make it as well.

Tonight I went to One Thing worship at Church. John Allison lead tonight. He used to be a D.J. on 102.7 the Light. I liked the feel of worship tonight. Less gospelly... During soundcheck they played the song Once Again by Matt Redman. They didn't end up playing it during the service though. That was somewhat disapointing, but other than that service was great. I want to go tomorrow but I have to work till close. I'll be there on Friday though. I'm working till 8 on saturday, hopefully I'll get out early so I can go.

I want to get a decent acoustic/electric guitar... like a martin, taylor or a gibson, or just anything that sounds decent. I really like jumbo acoustics.



Mitch

Listening To:
David Crowder Band "A Collision"
Chris Tomlin "See The Morning"
Lincoln Brewster "Let the Praises Ring"

Long Day of Work

I woke up at around 11 and got dressed for work. I got to ride in with my dad today since we were working the same hours. Saved some gas... Sweet deal. I worked about 10 hours today so my feet and my back kind of hurt right now. I portioned some salsa this morning, which i enjoy doing. Washed a few dishes in the afternoon. When the morning people left I helped out a bit up front on food. Haven't done food in at least a month, and I haven't done wraps since like my first week. That was interesting. I was stupid though and opened my mouth about how I suck at making food, so my dad said I'll have to learn now. If I had kept my mouth shut, I could just stick to washing dishes which I enjoy. I hate making food for people. I like washing dishes. You can't mess that up. Anyhow, my neighbor Matt Stolte came in for lunch today so I talked to him for a bit. My dad made me a buffalo chicken quesadilla for lunch which was delicious. I took a break today, which I usually don't. I went to Journey's Shoes to buy my sister the shoes I owe her as part of her Christmas gift but they didn't have pink converse in her size in stock, so I'll have to order them. I wanted to send the shoes with my parents tomorrow when they go to visit her... Oh well. It was a pretty slow evening. At around 7:30 i made my self a ham, cheddar and bacon panini, which was pretty good. The quesadilla I had for lunch was better though. The rest of the night was fairly uneventful. My mom just woke my dad up when she went to get the remote from him while he was sleeping in his recliner. Always a good idea. I'm going to go read a bit out of Job and The Unquenchable Worshiper and then go to sleep.

Mitch

Listening To:
Mae The Everglow
The Fray
Switchfoot The Beautiful Letdown
Brooke Fraser Albertine
David Crowder Band A Collision
Spitalfield Stop Doing Bad Things
Spitalfield Remember Right Now
The Almost Southern Weather
Anberlin Never Take Friendship Personal
Thrice The Alchemy Index Vol II: Water

I don't like thinking of titles for blog posts.

Today I had to get up super early because I worked from 8:00Am-1:00PM. The work day actually went by fairly quickly, because i had some prep work to do for like the first 3 hours which kept me busy. After work, I came home and made myself a dang quesadilla. We didn't have any sour cream which was depressing. After taking a shower, I went to Bluebrick Recordings to visit Jesse Sprinkle and return to him the guitar cabs and martin acoustic/electric we borrowed for the Pennsylvania trip as well at to get our Mesa cab that I left for collateral. After Bluebrick, I went to get gas and a car wash. Don't go to the gas station at the corner of paul road and chili ave to get a car wash. It is the worst car wash ever. I think there is still soap on my car. Then I went to church for a worship team meeting. We listened to the people who were at TFHNY this weekend talk about how awesome church was, and then we told them how awesome church at TFHPA was. How awesome is it that on saturday both teams had spontaneous worship sessions, with only a few leaders from each church present. We took communion together, which was awesome, because we haven't done that in a while. Then we proceeded across the street for One Thing. Every evening this week there are worship services at church starting at 7. It was incredible. Afterwards I visited with my Roberts friends and talked to a few people from church. I'm really glad I was able to fellowship with my friends tonight. I just watched a sweet video podcast that Amy Bartholomew made for us of her visit to the recording studio. You should watch it as well.


Red Letter Statement #6 from Sean Pritzkau on Vimeo.

Listening To:
David Crowder Band "A Collision"
Hillsong United "With Hearts as One"
Switchfoot "The Beautiful Letdown"
The Almost "Southern Weather"
Anberlin "Never Take Friendship Personal"
Brooke Fraser "Albertine"
Mae "The Everglow"
Spitalfield "Stop Doing Bad Things"
Thrice "The Alchemy Index Vol II: Water"
Underoath "Lost in the Sound of Separation"

Derry P.A./Home Day 3

Today was our final day at TFHPA. We got to the church at around 9:30 to have breakfast/coffee and to do a little sound check. After sound check we mingled with our new friends and we did our pre-worship prayer session. We started off the set today with Take it all. I knew all of the songs we were playing today so It was alot easier for me to engage in worship. After playing around 5 songs, Larry's dad, Larry spoke for a bit. He told the story of The Father's House Fellowship. How they formed after another church split up. How there has been sickness, members have lost their jobs, husbands have walked out on wives, fathers on their children, yet the members of the church have pressed on through the trials they've been going through. Larry paraphrased a verse out of Job. If you've never read Job, basically anything that could have gone wrong for Job did, but he kept worshipping God and kept his faith, and he pulled through. Knowing what TFHPA has been through, I believe that their hearts are in the right place and they are reaching people, because I believe that everything they have been going through is the enemy trying to get them down. Larry said that he felt like God brought us there this weekend for a specific purpose. I believe that as well. For one thing, their church has the same name as ours. Also, our Larry and Scott gave pretty much the same message yesterday, without talking to each other about it before hand, and because when we left, none of us wanted to leave because of the bonds we had formed with each other. I feel like TFHPA ministered to us just as we ministered to them, but most importantly, God worked in us this weekend. We drove from the church to Larry's house, and then I went straight to New Testament Christian Church to worship. It was my first time leading alone from the acoustic, and I really was able to engage. I feel like being a worship leader could be a calling for my life if touring doesn't work out, or possibly when I'm done touring.

Mitch

Listening To:
Hillsong United With Hearts as One
The Almost Southern Weather
Spitalfield Stop Doing Bad Things
Underoath Define The Great Line
Jon Foreman
Steve Fee
Mute Math
Thrice Vheissu

Derry P.A. Day 2

So today was day two of the trip. We were supposed to get up at like 7:30 to get to the church at 8 but I set my alarm for 8:30AM for some reason, so we woke up to Krystal Simpson yelling at us to get up. We drank coffee and got to the church at probably 8:45. We did some worshipping together and then Sean spoke for a little while. He did a really good job, and nailed his point really well. When things happen to us, we can't let it ruin our day. We need to put our trust in God to get us through. I was able to relate to that really well, because I have bad days alot, and I need to learn to just lay it before God. After Sean spoke, we had an amazing breakfast prepared by Mrs. Moore. Ski Eggs, French Toast Casarole and the best bacon ever. After that we did a "soundcheck." It ended up being us worshipping together, and then Scott, the worship leader from TFHPA talking for about an hour about what or whom we worship. Alot of times, we may not even realize it, but we place things in our lives before God. The ironic thing about it was that about 3 weeks ago Larry and Andrea talked about the same topic at TFHNY. After Scott gave his message, we worshipped some more. Then we went to Dino's Sports Bar for lunch, which was voted the best place for wings in P.A. Sean, Adam, Jim and I each ordered twenty wings. Sean finished 14, Jim finished 16, I finished 18 and Adam finished all 20. After lunch, we went back to Jim and Karen's house and took naps. Sean and I woke up once again to Krystal yelling at us. Then we headed to the church again to practice some songs. Then Larry spoke, and he spoke again on worship, and on what we believe. Alot of times, people say I am a sinner, but it is through Christ's grace that I am saved. By labeling ourselves as sinners, we are setting ourselves up for failure. We need to define ourselves how we should be. After Larry talked we had about half an hour before the worship service started. We had a 15 song set list. It was awesome. I think thats the most we've ever played together. I didn't know about half of the songs, so It was hard for me to engage in worship during those songs because I was concentrating so hard on not messing up. For the songs that I knew, it was much easier for me to engage. The little room that I play in has a window and a fan, and it was much colder today than yesterday, so It was awesome to not sweat for once while playing the drums. After the worship service we mingled for a bit, then we went to Sheetz to get some provisions. Then we proceeds to Larry's parents house to hang out for a bit. Now we're back at Jim and Karen's relaxing. I'm about to go take a shower. More tomorrow when I get home. 

Mitch

Listening to:

Steve Fee

Story of The Year In The Wake of Determination

David Crowder Band A Collision

Chris Tomlin

Thrice

Derry P.A. Day 1

Today was day one of a road trip to Derry, Pennsylvania to lead worship at Larry's parents church. We made really good time getting here. We left at around noon and got here in like 4.5 hours. Sean rode with me and Samson (name courtesy of Amy Bartholomew) , my iPod provided the tunes. Shuffle mode was very pleasing. We stopped for lunch at McDonald's in Cuba, NY and then we continued on. I ran out of windshield washer fluid about an hour and a half after lunch so we stopped to get some. Then  we finished out trek. I find it kind of ironic that the church we are serving at this weekend is called The Father's House Fellowship and we attend The Father's House back in Rochester. When we arrived at TFHPA we unloaded our equipment and talked with Larry's parents for a while well we waited for The rest of our caravan to arrive with the rest of our equipment. My drums sound really bad isolated in a small room, and it was a little difficult to adjust to being so isolated. At TFHNY my drums are isolated, but not completely. We had pizza dinner provided by TFHPA. After dinner we practiced about six songs. I think we are adjusting well to the new room. We practiced 5 of our songs and then TFHPA's worship leader taught us a new song, which I believe was by Chris Tomlin. Tomorrow morning we have to get up at like 7:30Am for breakfast and devotional led by Sean. Then I think we have more practicing or something. Right now we are hanging out a Jim from TFHPA's house. It was very gracious of him and his wife open up there house to us. We're jamming acoustic. 

More bloggness tomorrow. 

So many thoughts...

Lately there have been a ton of thoughts running through my mind. Maybe I'll start journaling. So youversion.com, a website that has a bunch of translations of the Bible has a read the Bible in one year thing. I wanna do it. It's 6 chapters a day, it's already the 23rd so that means I have to read 138 chapters to catch up. Also, a bunch of my friends watch the show lost. I've only seen one episode ever. I want to catch up on that so I can watch it with my friends. This is the fifth season i think, so that means I have alot of episodes to catch up on. I'm going to Derry, Pennsylvania tomorrow with some of the members of the C4 Worship band. It Should be a good time. We'll be there through Sunday. I'll definately post a blog about the trip when I get back. I'm so stoked to hang out with Sean on the drive down. Should be a good time. I want MXPX to play a show in Rochester. I want Blindside to play a show in Rochester. I want every band I like to play a show in Rochester. I'm taking a semester off. My friends are not. They have homework. I don't. I come home from work and I want to hang out. They are all exhausted from school and homework and stuff. I need to go to sleep and then wake up and shower and pack clothes and drums and other necesities.

Goodnight

Mitchell

Listening To:

Jesse Sprinkle Surrounded By Lights
Thrice Live at the House of Blues Anaheim
Underoath Define The Great Line
The Almost Southern Weather
Mae The Everglow
Mute Math
Oh, Sleeper When I Am God
Switchfoot The Beautiful Let Down
Emery The Question
Hillsong United With Hearts As One
David Crowder Band A Collision
Brooke Fraser Albertine
Paramore Riot
blink 182
Anberlin Never Take Friendship Personal
Hawthorne Heights The Silence in Black and White
Hillsong Saviour King
The Showdown Temptation Come My Way
Spitalfield Stop Doing Bad Things
Story of The Year In The Wake of Determination

Mixed emotions

So tomorrow is Day 7 of recording, the final day. I am so super happy with how this e.p. is turning out. It has surpassed anything that I thought we could do at this point. We've had some awesome times together, I've really gotten to know Alex, Adam, Sean, Joel, and Jesse alot better throughout the week. Recording with Jesse has been great. I finished most of my drums in the first day, and would have finished all of them, but I wanted to use an 18" floor tom that Steve Nelson (Nelson Drum Craft) was fixing up for Jesse. The rest of the week has been pretty sweet. It was really nice to be able to take a week off to relax. I came up with a couple things to add to some vocal parts, guitar parts, and midi parts. I also watched more movies this week then I have watched in a while. I have learned that Alex and I have very different tastes in movies. I really like comedies, while Alex likes Action and gory films. I find the fact that we rock so hard that we broke a marshall JCM 900 to be pretty sweet. Let me go back, I was sitting in the lounge watching a movie when either Adam or Alex walked out and said that The 900 stopped working. We were really liking the tones we were getting out of it, and we started talking to anyone who we thought might be able to loan us a JCM 900. Did we loan one... nope, we bought one. We have our own. When we dropped off Jesse's 900 to get repaired at The Sound Source, we bought our own for a pretty good deal. I also experienced mountain dew freezing before my eyes for the first time today. I've heard it has happened but had never actually witnessed it before today. You see, Mountain Dew doesn't freeze until it is opened, and even then, it has to be extremely cold outside for that to happen. Speaking of which, it has been freaking cold this week. Anyhow, tomorrow we're going back to finish up some vocal parts, do some more midi stuff, and tweak anything that we think needs tweaking. I'm going to be really, really sad to leave. I've have an incredible time this week. We're probably going to go back in two or three weeks to mix the e.p. and then we're going to send it out to Jason Martin (Starflyer 59) in California for a final mix down and mastering. We already have a guy named Nick working on some graphic designing (including Album artwork) so we'll get the E.P. pressed sometime in the near future and have a c.d. release show hopefully sometime near the end of March. We are so excited to show everyone what we have been working on.

God Bless,

Mitch

Listening To:
The same parts over and over again....

but in all seriousness:

Jesse Sprinkle Surrounded By Lights
Mae The Everglow
The Almost Southern Weather
Underoath Lost in the Sound of Separation
Underoath Define The Great Line
Oh, Sleeper When I Am God
Emery I'm Only A Man
Story of The Year In The Wake of Determination
Thrice Vheissu
A Kiss For Jersey Victims

Something to wrap your mind around.

Lately I've had alot going on. I've been done at FLCC for about a month now, although I checked out of there mentally almost immediately after arriving. I've been working quite a bit, and it has been nice to have a decent income which I have been blessed with that has allowed me to upgrade some drum equipment and save for recording. I've been hanging out with friends and family alot, going to church alot as always, and Red Letter Statement has been practicing more often than usual. I've also been to more shows lately than usual. It was nice tonight to relax with some friends at Denny's and actually have some really intellectual conversations with each other. It's been a while since I have been asked to state what I believe and why I believe it and then defend it, however when that does happen, it always starts me thinking... Am I really living what I believe? Am I making a difference in this world? Let's pause here, while I state what I believe. I believe that God created the Earth in seven days, and I take that literally. I believe that God created everything on the earth, and created man last, because he wanted someone to have a relationship with. After creating Adam, seeing that he was incomplete, God created Eve, thus, I believe that woman was created for man. I'm not saying that in a shovanist way, I'm saying it in a way that man needs companionship, and God knows that so he created woman. Adam and Eve sinned when the ate the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden, and from that point on, humans, although not inherently evil in my perspective, have been born as sinners. God, as a way to show his love and compassion towards us, sent His son, Jesus to live among man for a short time, and to perform great miracles, and make disciples of men, and to die on the cross for our sins. I believe that on the third day after Christs crucifiction, He rose from the dead. The Bible states that the only way to the Father is through Christ. Knowing this, I have accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Saviour and have resolved to aspire to be like Him. It is an ongoing task, and there are always obstacles, however, He always gets me back on track. I believe that we, as followers of Christ are to be in the world, not of it. What does that mean...? It means being real, relevant and relational, while upholding the values Christ has instilled in me. It means hanging out with friends who aren't fellow believers, while not giving in to what the world has to offer. I believe that many things are good in moderation. There are many things in my life that I have struggled with and am currently struggling with, but I believe that if I put all of my faith in Christ, he will help me overcome these challenges. I am trying to learn that I must sacrifice worldly things in order to become what I believe. In the Bible, there is a man who in his life kept all of the ten commandments. When he saw Jesus he asked what he must do in order to secure his spot in heaven. Jesus said give up all of your things and follow me, but the man left with overwhelming sorrow, as he was of great wealth and was unwilling to give up all of his possesions. I feel that this story can apply to more than just possesions. For examplle, if you have kept the ten commandments but are struggling with an addiction, you must kick the habbit in order to follow Christ. He will help you with it, but you have to be willing to do it. I believe that one day, Christ will return, and those who believe in him will ascend to heaven to live eternally with him. I believe that those who do not believe in Christ will be subject to great tribulation and eventually be cast into the lake of fire. Believing this, I am striving to be a witness to all of my friends, as it saddens me to think that alot of the people who I hold close may be damned for eternity. I want to share what I have in Christ with everyone. I think I hit on just about everything there. Often times its difficult to say the correct things when asked what I believe, but I think that pretty much sums it up. I have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I love him and he loves me. He wants to have a relationship with you as well. Now, a big part of faith is to always delve deeper into things and to always want to acquire more knowledge. I believe God has a plan for everyones life, and I believe that his for mine is to tour with a band, or to be a worship leader, or a missionary for him. I guess I'll just let all of this set in for now.

Mitch

Listening To:
A Kiss For Jersey Victims
Thrice Live at The House of Blues Anaheim
Underoath Lost in the Sound of Separation
Underoath Survive Kaliedescope
Thrice Vheissu
This Day and Age
MxPx 10 Years and Running
MxPx Secret Weapon
Emery While Broken Hearts Prevail