Getting Down To Business

It's that time of year again, when we all go nuts for 3 months, abandoning the better angels of our nature in favor of an over-indulgence in goodies, presents and other good stuff. The Metzner Five are preparing for another season of stuff, some fun, and some more work than pleasure. We have begun work on the CD, overdubbing and the like. Both Shad and I are preparing for our Christmas Programs (that's the nice thing about spouses, they can be used as slave labor whenever necessary - thanks Shad, for all the hours of sequencing, I appreciate you Baby!) I'm looking forward to the ending of one year and the beginning of another, God never stops amazing and surprising us with what He has for us.

UPS delivered the Virtual Studio yesterday! Martin Forenzi (our live recording engineer) finished dumping all of the files from the recording and has shipped it back. So, last night Shad and I got our first real "listen" to the dry tracks from the conference. It was an experience. There were some terrific musical moments, and then there are all the tracks I messed up. We will now be doing overdubbing on the instruments. We can do that here on the Virtual Studio. We are planning to do vocal overdubs later at Martin's Studio in Ohio. Martin did a tremendous job, and I think he might be able to make us actually sound . . . um . . .good. Anyway, work has begun here and we will keep you informed.

Stuff

There is so much stuff. Stuff in my closets, stuff in my car. Stuff to do, Stuff to find something to do with. I clean and it just keeps coming. Everytime I cross stuff off my list, more stuff appears. The good news is, I'm thankful, for all the stuff. I'm thankful to have children to drive me nuts asking for stuff, and having to pick up their stuff, and kissing them and stuff. I'm thankful that when I go to my refrigerator, there is stuff in there, and some of the stuff isn't fuzzy and green yet. I'm thankful that even when I have to do laundry, that we all have stuff to wear (we don't have enough barf bags for me to go naked) And most of all, I'm thankful for the 4 men who use all this stuff. Thankful that I have this time, this moment, this life. There is so much stuff in this life, and at the end we will give an account for all the stuff, the stuff we did, the stuff we didn't do, the stuff we said, and the stuff we didn't say. I'm going to try to remember the important stuff, and forget the rest. . . . And to all our friends and family, I'm thankful for you too, as long as you don't send me any more stuff. Love. . . . and stuff.

Sharkboys

Today was a family day. Aside from Papa's 2 hour stint at the church, doing some sequencing for Mama, the whole day was given over to relaxing, playing, shopping and other family activities. We needed this, and frankly feel that we deserve it due to the last few weeks. The recording seems like it will be a success, and future posts will keep you up to date on all the work. We are now preparing for all the work in the post-production phase. We will be doing some traveling ministy to several of the churches represented at the conference. (this is somewhat surprising to me, I have heard teh dry tracks and I was less than impressed with my so-called skills.) This is always fun, as we enjoy getting to hang out with other churches. Anyway, we bought our boys a new DVD, and had pizza and candy while we watched. We moved the sofa in front of the TV, because the movie was in 3-D. By the way, I'm not sure how "Sharkboy and Lavagirl" ends, I slept though the second half, but the first half wasn't exactly Oscar material. However, I think the kids were thrilled with the 3-D glasses, and that's what really counts. I'm not sure how, but my extremely thin Ethan put away 3 whole pieces of pizza! I don't know where he puts it(I'm placing my bets on hollow legs) He's getting taller by the minute. The preceeding message was a disjointed account of the Metzner5 having family time . . .

Online Photo Hosting

...well, I set up our online photo hosting. If you click on the badge to the left (the box w/all of the pictures in it) it'll take you to the site where the rest of our photos are at. We will try our best to update it regularly. Thanx again for stopping by...

Kickin' It With The Monkeys

We went to the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo on one of our vacation days this summer. The kids had a blast looking at the elephants, the lions, the seals, the tigers, the zebras, the wolves, the giraffes and of course the monkeys. We wanted the boys to pose with this monkey (in the picture) but he freaked Aidan out. So Aidain had to sit next to his older brother for safety. That's the job of the older brother right? Gotta look out for the little ones. The kids had a great day. The parents were about to die after walking for approximately 973 miles (it seemed that way) but we had a good time as well :-) On a side note, we should have our online picture hosting set up soon so you can stop in and view pics. Write more lata...

Album Artwork

This is the artwork that Britt designed for our CD. The "Let It Rise" font isn't quite right, but we're still looking for the right fit. We were going for kind of a funky look. The rest of the artwork on the CD will obviously flow with this flava. Tell us what you think...

Is It Finally Over...?

...well, not exactly. The live capture part of the recording process is over, but I'm only half way up the front side of the mountain. Now the real work begins. Overdubs galore! Fixing keybaord tracks. Adding other instrumentation. Me and my other board player are gonna really clean up the keyboard tracks. I've got a reall tight Brazillian perc player who's gonna lay down some latin flava on a couple of tunes. I'm gonna add a little saxophone work. I've got a guitar player who just finished some session work with Fred Hammond who's gonna be doing some guitar tracks for me. Once all of that is done, I'll be driving to my engineer (Cleveland, OH) to do some vocal overdubs and then final mixdown and post production. That's when we'll throw a little gravy on the whole thing and see how it turns out. Then it's off to the mastering house and then to the duplicators. I'm looking forward to the completed product. I just read my wife's last posting and I'll admit that it is somewhat disturbing :-( I'll keep you posted on the barfing situation...or maybe I won't. The engineer I hired (who is an old friend from back in my OH days) was the man. He really came through for me and I know that in the end he is going to be the difference as to the quality of this project. He does a ton of work with Aaron Lindsey of New Breed. Aaron was actually just in this dude's studio doing some overdubs for Karen Clark-Sheard's new recording. So, we got a legit pro engineering this project. Well, I gotta stop this rambling. I'm back in the office today and have a ton of work to do. Post more later....