Worst Date Night Ever!

So I want to preface this with clarifying that it wasn't my wife that made it the worst date night, nor was it the dinner, nor the movie..well I'll tell you what happened. So Katie and I decide we want to go see the new Avatar movie in IMAX 3D last night and after checking the showtimes we figure out an evening showing and plan to eat out beforehand. We hadn't been on a date night in several months so we were both excited for the evening plans. I ordered the tickets online and right after I purchased them I realized that I had bought tickets for the Avatar in RealD 3D, not IMAX. That was the first unfortunate event. I was stressing out and feeling like a moron at this point because we were looking forward to IMAX specifically, but it was cool, I finally calmed down and remembered that I could be content in every circumstance and this was no exception. Philippians 4:11 says "...for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. 12 I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. 13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me."

I already have reservations about driving on freeways especially the toll roads in Florida (perhaps some trauma from my mild freeway accident when I was in High School)so I got directions from Mapquest and was fairly comfortable with knowing where I was going if I relied on those directions. I double-checked the directions with two friends that knew the roads much better than I and found that all my Mapquest directions were messed up for some reason. So I borrowed a GPS from a friend and Katie and I were ready to go. We drove to Outback Steakhouse in Orlando and praise God, we had a great dinner. Katie had the Coconut Shrimp and Aussie fries, and I had the 9 oz. steak with mashed potatoes and seasoned veggies. I helped Katie with the fries and we finished eating with plenty of time to get to the theater, so I thought. Everything was good so far and we were like 2 miles away from the Regal Pointe Theater and IMAX when the traffic was backed up from a red light because there was a lot of cross-traffic at this intersection. I am watching the minutes tick by as we are bumper-to-bumper going 2 mph and then stopping. I keep remembering that the worst thing to happen will be that we might not get to the movie early to get a good seat or we might miss a little of the movie depending on how much we're delayed. But we still had a good 45 minutes before the show and we were like 9 minutes from our destination.

We arrive at the parking garage and get our ticket and search for a parking spot. Cars are backing up and others taking their spots, while pedestrians are walking all around to and from cars. It was a madhouse and driving the big green truck, unfamiliar with where my vehicle ends are I was tense. We find a spot and the coast is clear so I am trying to slip in gently to this spot and I slightly bump the car next to me. I panicked, Oh God this isn't happening I thought. I park the car and get out to see the damage. It was like a bad dream, but it would get worse. I had been idling when I grazed the car so it was a cracked tail light and a little yellow mark from the bumper or something. It did have a security system active but it wasn't set off by the jostle. I didn't see anyone in the car or around and we were going to be late for our movie so I wrote a note with my name and phone number and told them I was sorry. We rush to the movie and get there about 20 minutes before it was going to start. There was only two of us so it wasn't hard to find a decent seat and I tried to forget about the awful feeling I had inside because of the accident and did my best to enjoy the movie.

The movie itself was incredible, if there's anyone out there wondering if they should see it, whoo! Go check it out, it's awesome! Dazzling special effects and non-stop action, great acting and cast. It was just unbelievable, I wanted to see it again as soon as it ended. So it ended and we get back to the truck where the vehicle I hit had already left. I just thought, well it's in God's hands now. We get to the exit of the parking garage and to my horror I remember that we didn't validate our parking ticket at the theater. Panicking again I just tried to figure out what to do. Well I'm sure they take credit cards and I had a credit card with some money on it so it would be okay. As I pull up there's a sign that says "Cash or Check only" and that was it. My nightmare was complete. I dropped my head into my hands in despair. What were we going to do? Cars were piling behind us and I explained to the lady that we had just seen a movie and forgotten to validate our tickets at the theater. I had thrown away my ticket stub in the theater, but praise God, Katie had hers and we gave it to her. She looked at me and then at all the cars behind us and told us to go on through. I was so relieved and praised and thanked God for her because she really trusted us just on our word, while I'm sure lots of people try to con them out of paying with stories like that.

From there we filled up on gas and drove home. It was such a relief to be home again, on familiar streets, where I could walk to anywhere I needed to go almost. Katie and I looked at each other smiling and agreed that we just weren't cut out for the world. We should probably just stay out of the big Orlando city scene if we were going on our own, and just stick with our small town Winter Garden life. We watched an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond to unwind, and went to bed.

I believe what the Bible teaches about God knowing everything that will happen to me and allowing bad things to happen so I will trust in Him and rely on Him more. It's like a reminder of how much I desperately need Him. The wrong movie ticket wasn't enough for me to turn my thoughts to God, it just made me stressed out and irritable. Both are the opposite of Christian faith and love. Then the wrong directions so I would rely on Him and trust Him to get me where I was going, again only making me more tense and stressed, relying on myself and the GPS. Then bumping the car is when I finally realized that I was looking and relying on myself and other things that would mess up and fail, and not on my all-powerful God for help. And even after turning to God for that, when the parking garage ticket encounter happened, I panicked and despaired instead of prayed and trusted God. Those are the things that I learned. It just reminds me that I am a hopeless sinner and how much I need Jesus to save me and how much I need God to live in me and work in me.

Band Updates

We have a new, up-and-running website here: www.adamsroadband.com. It's awesome because it has pictures of the band, links to our other sites (facebook and myspace), background information on each member of the band, and all of our recorded music available for listening and downloading. We just put up our brand-new Christmas instrumental album so definitely check that out.

Ever since returning home from our Utah tour in the beginning of October we have been busy learning the 14 new songs for our next album "Enemy of the Cross". Most of these songs were written while we were still on the road, travelling around Utah, so it's exciting to have all new, fresh songs to work on.

The first thing to record are the drums. Micah has already recorded all the drum tracks so now he edits and quantizes (puts the tracks on a grid making everything line up with the downbeat) the tracks and when he's done then next to be layered on is the piano tracks. Then bass, guitar, and finally the vocals. When all of that is recorded then all the additional instrumentation is added, like the choir, strings, and all the other various instruments that we use in our music. Right now the drums are recorded and Jay and I are set to start recording our guitar parts on Monday. Because we both play acoustic guitar we decide who is going to play rhythm and who is going to play lead single-notes and picking parts. We both write a part for each song. It's really awesome to see the songs pieced together. More on that later.