beyond the green

Music is such a powerful force in my life. It always has been. My mother worked hard to cultivate that. Most of my childhood memories include some form of singing with Mom. When I was three, she bought me a kid-sized Mickey Mouse-shaped guitar. We played and sang together every night.

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Has anyone else been following Major League Baseball this year? If you haven’t, here’s a quick update:
- 3 players reached the 500 home runs mark (including A-Rod, the youngest player in history to do it)
- Prince Fielder became the youngest player with 50 homers in a season
- Jimmy Rollins joined the very exclusive 20-20-20-20 club
- Tom Glavine reached his 300th win
- Roger Clemens got his 350th
- Trevor Hoffman became the all-time saves leader
- And oh yeah, this guy named Barry Bonds set the new record for career home runs

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Tomorrow, the new Bethel bluegrass band Radar Ray and the Creekbusters will play their first gig. Normally, I don’t get nervous about this kind of stuff. However, usually when I gig, it’s just me; no one else looks bad if I screw up. This is totally different. I have the opportunity to potentially turn five of my best friends into a complete joke in front of what I hope is a huge audience.

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I’m pretty pleased so far with my time here in Berlin, which is already half over! We have German classes from about 9 till 2:30 every day, which gives us the rest of the day to do whatever we want.

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On Tuesday, September 18, I was able to witness my first criminal trial. My presence had been requested for jury duty. All of my life I have heard people whine and groan when they realize they have jury duty.

Not me.

I couldn’t have been more excited. I sat there for two hours while the judge excused people who couldn’t qualify as jurors (for various reasons). One man stated that he couldn’t be a juror because the prosecuting lawyer was his wife’s drum instructor.

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