Ken

It's not very often that I use an exclamation point in my blog heading. Especially since I've been using all lowercase letters and to use proper grammar seems out of place ...But last night's cafe was worthy of an exclamation point. We featured two local artists -- Dustin Shey and Gregory Page. Both did a fantastic job. Dustin went solo, just him and his acoustic guitar. I first met Dustin back during the pre-launch days of LifePoint. It was good stuff.Gregory Page is the first artist I've invited to the LifePoint cafe that I hadn't first met in person. He's very well-known in local music circles and I can see why. He brought along an awesome female vocalist and a violin player. He himself started off with the ukelele and then went to the acoustic guitar. It was fantastic ... in spite of our demon-possessed sound system that seems to…

I'm really looking forward to tonight's LifePoint Cafe. We're hosting Gregory Page along with Dustin Shey. Page has worked with Jewel, Steve Poltz, Jason Mraz, AJ Croce, and many others. He's the first artist we've hosted that I haven't met first in person. I've only listened to his music online. It ought to be a great show!

A new Shakeys Pizza Parlor opened near our house. It's the first one I've been to since growing up in Peoria. We used to go this Shakeys on University in Peoria. It even had a player piano and you could pick the songs it played. Nothing but fond childhood memories.So you can imagine my excitement to have a new Shakeys nearby. The excitement had greatly dissipated during the 50 minutes it took to get two mini pizzas. The whole time I kept thinking about this article in USA Today that talked about the new ovens Papa John's is installing that can bake a pizza in four minutes. Shakeys must have running low on coal.

Ok, I could have blogged last week but the simple truth is ... I didn't want to. Well, actually, I had things I wanted to blog about but I didn't want to take the time to do it.I spent last week in Orlando at the National New Church Conference. It's a gathering of all kinds of nutty people -- people who have started a new church or who are considering doing so. Either way, you're a bit nutty.It's hard to describe the conference's atmosphere, or mojo as the Seattle crowd would say. Electric. Passionate. Creative. Risky. It was either the Holy Spirit or the air conditioning, but I felt more than a few tingles.Speakers included Mark Driscoll from Mars Hill in Seattle, Gene Appel from Willow Creek, Ed Stetzer, Dave Ferguson from Naperville, Larry Osbourne from North Coast, and a dude from Walt Disney Co.There were about 100 people there…

We left this past Monday to drive to Lake Havasu City to see friends from the Bay Area. For our Monday route, we chose the charm and beauty of Barstow and Needles. For our theme song, we chose Jay Farrar's "Barstow." "By the time we make it to Barstow, we'll be more than halfway to _____." Those of you who have been to Barstow and Needles can fill in the blank. Those of you who haven't been to Barstow or Needles, save yourself the trip and use your imagination.We arrived at Lake Havasu on Tuesday and had a great visit with Curt and Kim Russell (and John and Jake). We knew the Russells from our church days in Walnut Creek. Curt works for PG&E and recently took an assignment in Needles. Needless to say, they live in Lake Havasu and he drives about 35 miles to work. He's overseeing the…