Another Absence Explained

Again, I apologize for the lack of blog posts. It’s been so busy and so much fun getting married and getting settled into the ole condo with my wife.

We had an amazing wedding. Sarah and I have gone over the details in our minds several times and there isn’t one thing that we would change. Everything from the Rehearsal Dinner to the Reception was so much fun. We really enjoyed all of it and are super grateful to our family and friends for their help, love and support. Special thanks to Aaron Stern for delivering one of the most meaningful wedding messages ever! Our family has received several calls and emails about how special his talk was and how encouraging it was to them.

And the honeymoon in Mexico was exquisite ( a few pictures below)…except for the part about flying with Continental Airlines. Getting home was quite possibly the worst flying experience in my life. I’ve flown internationally for the last 12 years and NEVER had a flight delayed for 8 hours and eventually canceled…all without telling the passengers what was actually happening. The three people handling passengers didn’t communicate properly with the passengers. They misspoke when they did try. At one point they told us that our flight may be canceled and we wouldn’t be able to fly out until Tuesday at the earliest (it was Saturday).

After they canceled our flight, we were taken to our hotel for the night. Except they sent us to the wrong hotel and it took 2 hours for Continental to get us a shuttle to our correct hotel (the Radison chain is not nearly as nice in Mexico). We slept for 2 hours and then took a cab back to the airport to get in line with 1,500 plus people trying to check in that morning only to find that our flight had been delayed yet again. Our flight crew didn’t even know they had been delayed. They sat in the waiting area with the rest of us waiting without any info! We finally made it back to Houston and tried to fly standby the rest of the day to Birmingham. Third time’s the charm and we got into Birmingham only 24 hours late.

I love my wife so much!! It was so awesome to travel with Sarah. She’s flown internationally as well so none of it was a big deal. In the midst of the craziness and yelling and cussing in the terminals we sat back and laughed at everyone…including the family of 4 that dropped $3,000 to fly to Indianapolis and then drive through the night to Detroit. It was right then and there we made one of our first Worster Family Rules: unless someone is being born, dying or some other life altering situation there is no reason to spend $3,000 to get on a plane.

An Absence Explained

So there has been about a 2 month plus lack of blogging posts from me and for that I apologize. The last several months have been a whirlwind! There’s been lots of design work, purchasing a ring, the start of a new tour and the planning of an unforgettable first trip to Disney World for Sarah that included our engagement.

The big day is on April 9th, 2009 in Birmingham, Alabama. We took some engagement pics last week. Hope you enjoy them.

We also launched our own web page www.Brian-and-Sarah.com.

Venice, Italy

Venice was a really cool city. Picturesque on almost every side. Great food everywhere. I found my new love… Pistacchio gelatto. So good. It’s amazingly easy to get lost in Venice, which we did several times. In the morning we walked by this really cool mask shop. We figured that all of them were mass produced and we’d see more later on in the day. Not true, this shop was one of a kind. Custom hand masks that far exceeded the rest of the shops.  We spent about 90 minutes trying to navigate ourselves back to the shop. It was quite a feat if I do say so myself.

Hand painted masks in Venice.

It was a really fun time, but after about a day in Venice you’ve pretty much seen it. Sunday morning we sat in a little cafe having an early lunch before we flew back to Paris.  It was really funny watching the parade of tourists come off the cruise ships and walk down the cobblestone streets. I guarantee they didn’t have as good of naviagational skills as Michael.  Pictures abound…

Hand painted masks in Venice.

The Bridge of Sighs

St. Mark’s Basillica

Trying to find our way through Venice.

Still trying to find our way in Venice.

I really hate birds.

This and 1866 bridges like it are the perfect reason not to take your stroller bound kids to Venice.

Are we sure this map is of Venice?

We should have stayed here.

Rome

Rome was really cool. The Italians seem to like their graffiti like no other place on earth, but the Collosseum and impressive fountains made up for it. The Sistine Chapel in Vatican City was unbelieveable. I had no idea it was that large of a painting, or the fact that it had so many scenes to it. I always thought that there was the creation of Adam scene and then some flying angels here and there. I was wrong. Couldn’t take pictures inside, so check it out on Wikipedia when you have some time.  I know this is a horrible update on what I did, hopefully I can tell you stories in person. In the meantime, check out the pics…

Disneyland Paris, Part Deux

Here’s a few pictures from my second trip to Disneyland Paris. When you’re in the neighborhood, you have to stop in and say hello.

The Coldplay Paris Experience

Somewhere around my college years, I realized I have spatial issues.  There’s an unseen bubble around me that when encroached upon freaks me out to no end.  Last night at the show, we had floor seats which means we stood in line outside and inside from 4:30pm until 11:30pm when the show ended.  15 minutes before the opening act started, there was a surge forward jamming me up against all those around me.  Bubble encroachment people!! After about 20 minutes of near panic and realizing there’s no way to escape this mayhem, I had to give myself over to it.  It was a fantastic time with some great music and 15,000 of my closest, sweatiest Parisian friends.  Here’s some pics…

Colplay Opening

Blog Neglect

I apologize for the lack of bloggage coming from this space over the last month or so. I’ve been busy with the graphic design side of my life finishing up the event journal for the ENTER Worship Conference and a complete redesign of theMILL’s marketing pieces, playing Wii with the Boy’s, and a couple days of wake-boarding with the Legacy crew.

Josiah destroyed me at boxing.

Brad, Josiah, Dedmon & Kendal racing each other.

Paul rockin it!

Me with my squinty eyes.

Two words. El Capitan! I could get used to that.

Jesse gettin a nice tail off his ski.

The guys...there's a reason my shirt isn't off. I'm as white as a polar bear.

Most importantly though, I’ve been spending quite a bit of time with a new “special friend”.  Her name is Sarah and she lives in Birmingham, Alabama. She’s the most amazing girl in the world…sorry to all of my female readers who previously thought they were the most amazing girl in the world.  You’ve been bumped. Anyway, she’s fantastic and over the last 8-12 weeks we’ve spent a proverbial “pant load” of time on the phone talking and texting.  How much time?  So much time that my cell phone plan has changed 3 times in the last 5 weeks and I’m now a major shareholder in Verizon.  My last bill had something like 2,073 text messages to people outside of my network, usually that number is around 300. My thumbs are sore.

Here’s a few pics from the last time I actually saw her…4 weeks ago. Long distance relationships are not fun for several reasons…but she’s worth it all! And she’ll be here two days after I get back from Paris, Rome & Venice (I’m leaving Tuesday morning). I can’t wait!!

Sarah and I at the Birmingham Zoo.

At the Birmingham Botanical Gardens.

Sarah shows off her Blue Steel.

I already have an idea of all the things we’ll do while she’s in town. How about you?  Any suggestions for her first real “touristy” trip to colorful Colorado?

Bad Decision

Waffle House. 11pm. Orange juice. Waffle with a liter of syrup. Hashbrowns-scattered with cheese, tomatoes, ham, jalapenos and chili. Aye Carumba!

Desperation 08, Colorado Springs

Sunday night wrapped up 8 days of work for the Desperation Conference in Colorado Springs. The set was huge, a crazy mad amount of lights and a heap good time!! Robby Kurtz, the lighting director at my church, came up with the sweet design for the show. 42 Mac 700s, 16 Atomic 3k strobes, 18 X-Spots, 8 Showguns, 10 Moles and 73 ColorBlast LED fixtures to illuminate 500 feet of truss and a Desperation logo stretched inside of 14′ circle truss. Robby and I traded off running sessions. Whoever wasn’t running the show, would call four followspots and controls strobes, moles and occasionally the LEDs inside the truss wall. It was a really fun way to run a show, and the two of us seemed to read each other’s minds during the show. Here’s a few pics from the week.

Here is the recap video that was shown at New Life on Sunday morning.

The Greatest Show On Earth…

I saw this on a lighting forum today and thought it was hilarious and sad all at the same time.