Greg's Blog

Painting and eating :)

2008-06-26T13:15:00.000-07:00

So at the end of last week Karen and I painted her and soon to be our condo. I think it turned out really well With the help of friends we got it done in two and a half days. I will put up some pictures of it soon. Of course since I was painting I did'nt have time to exercise and really did not need to because of all the hard work. I also ingested a few more calories to supply all the extra energy i needed(I write this with a slight sarcastic smirk on my face)... OK really I ate bad and just didn't exercise. But with a few bike trips to Moscow and eating well I am back on track and have the 240 barrier in my sites.
Oh and by the way on a completely different note there are only 37 days to the wedding. Ok so maybe they are slightly connected :).

weight update

2008-06-12T11:38:00.000-07:00

Get your own graph at skinnyr

Two Memorable Mornings

2008-06-11T13:56:00.000-07:00

So during the past few days I have had two of the most memorable and unique "wake up calls" I've ever had. Saturday night I stayed over at Karen's sister and brother in laws house in the Seattle area. We were over on "west side" as we call it up here to go to a friends wedding (Congrats David and Shelly!) I had a great time hanging out with my future in laws and their dog Rocky. Rocky is a rather large Golden Lab and really enjoys having visitors over. I woke up on Sunday morning to the sound of my bedroom door opening and hearing the familiar jingle of a dog chain. "oops" thought I must not have shut my door all the way. I was sleeping on a very comfortable inflatable mattress so I was right at dog level. So I opened my eyes so I would be ready to block the cold nose treatment that I was certain was coming my way. I saw Rocky standing across from me on the opposite side of the bed I was on wagging his tail and looking happy. Thinking I was out of "danger" I said"good morning Rocky". And as if waiting for a cue Rocky vomited his breakfast on the pillow across from me. That's right up came the Kibbles and the Bits. Then as only a dog can he danced around a little bit (like he was proud of himself) and ran out of the room. I was stunned, after a lifetime of living with dogs I have never experienced anything quite like that. To say the least, I was fully awake:)
The second morning was shocking but in a different way. I awoke Tuesday with the usual argument with myself about working out or sleeping another 10 minutes. This morning working out won so I got up to get myself a bottle of water so I could head out and as I past the window in my living room I saw white flakes falling from the sky. I initially thought it must be from dandelions or something but when I looked again my wost fears wee confirmed, it was snowing. And I don't mean a small flurry that would be gone in 10 minutes less, I mean it was dumping pretty good. It continued to snow all morning! It was ridiculous. This Is JUNE! So I shelved the workout for the day and watched a video. Honestly I would prefer a dog barfing on my pillow.

A correction

2008-06-03T13:13:00.000-07:00

So I realized that I was not wearing the same thing for my first "weigh in" as my last two. So I deducted 5 lb.s off of my original weight. I thought it was to dramatic to be good.

losing weight

2008-05-31T15:28:00.000-07:00

So I am on a mission to lose a few (ok more than a few) extra pounds. and since I've been a bad blogger and not updating Im going to log my progress here. I found a pretty neat program to help me do it via graph. So here we go.

Get your own graph at skinnyr

We got a website

2008-04-11T19:02:00.000-07:00

Karen and I have a info website about our engagement and our upcoming nuptials. So check it out and check back because it is a work in progress.
Here is the site
http://www.momentville.com/gregandkarenswedding

I'm engaged!!

2008-03-29T21:10:00.000-07:00

So today I made the big leap and proposed to my girlfriend Karen Lichtenberg, and she said yes!! I took her to the coffee shop where we had our first date. Unbeknownst to her I had reserved the back room and wrote "will you marry me?" on one of the walls (it was a chalkboard) and placed some candles in the shape of a heart. I had her close her eyes, led her into the room and then, as they say, popped the question. Here are some pictures of us and the ring. I have some more pictures and stuff that I will post later.

Holy crap there is a bunch of snow!

2008-02-01T11:33:00.000-08:00

So right now we have close to 2 feet of snow on the ground here on the palouse which from what I am told is the most in over a decade. WSU and UI have been closed the last two days because it is just too hard to get around. Here are a few pics I took to give you an idea.

These next couple are what the guys in the house did with their snow day yesterday.
I was impressed. I particularly liked the pirate flag. Nice touch :)

more open Mic.

2007-11-05T13:43:00.000-08:00

Learning to Fly - Tom Petty

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Unwound - Don Schaffer

Open Mic Pics

2007-11-01T17:04:00.002-07:00

Here are a couple pictures from open mic night last week

Open Mic.

2007-10-28T14:56:00.000-07:00

I have been hosting an open mic night every other Friday at a coffee shop right next to campus, One Way Books. So far it has been a success and a lot of fun. Here are a few songs I performed this past Friday warts and all:). Enjoy!

The Beatles

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Calling out Your Name

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Paul Simon

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Waltz in Em

2007-10-16T22:10:00.001-07:00

Here is a piece i have been playing for a while and finally recorded. Hope you enjoy it.

My Mocha

2007-09-30T15:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I made a mocha from scratch for the first time in years. Thats right I frothed my own milk, ground my own beans, and mixed it all together by myself. Starbuck's eat your heart out. Here are some pictures from my barista revival:).

Wazzu students make the headlines

2007-09-27T16:53:00.000-07:00

My brother found this article in the Seattle Post Intelligencer about some WSU computer science students "thinking outside the box"
All I can say is good luck guys.

God Provides

2007-09-12T15:32:00.000-07:00

So this past week both I and the ministry have received large unexpected financial gifts and without going into detail I'll just say that they were both very well timed. God is good! To say that more than a few prayers were answered would be an understatement. As an added plus we have been able to make some upgrades to some equipment around the office, including computers. So as a result I am typing this post on a Dell laptop computer which is a huge upgrade from my Gateway Solo-5150. Plus I am now able to set up a little recording station at my house with my old desktop computer which is something I have been wanting to do for quite awhile. I'll say it again, God is good!

New Guitar Music

2007-09-08T19:18:00.000-07:00

Wow long time no post. I guess time just got away from me. So here is a "new" piece I've been working on. I put the quotations on since this piece of music is neither new in the sense that it was composed recently nor is it new to 98% of people on this planet. It is merely new to my fingertips. So here is a link to "Canon in D" by Johann Pachelbel.

http://gregpavydavis.com/gallery/v/guitarmusic/canonind.mp3.html

Tap Metronome

2007-07-17T12:50:00.000-07:00

Bounce is a free program that you can use to find the tempo of a song. Just play the song and tap out the beat on your space bar and it will give you the tempo. A good worship leading and general musicianship tool.

Pictures from the Hike

2007-07-03T16:11:00.001-07:00

The pictures form the Rialto Beach Hike are up in my gallery.

Last weekend and this weekend

2007-07-01T18:44:00.000-07:00

So hiking last weekend was a blast. I left my camera at a friends house over in Port Angeles so as soon as I get it I'll put up some pictures. Hiking along the beach was absolutely beautiful and despite the fact that we hiked 7 miles or so a day it was very restful. One slight correction to my last post, we hiked north up the beach instead of south. Also during our last stretch I hiked through a rain forest for the first time, and to complete the experience it rained on us :). It was actually refreshing after a long hike.
This weekend Karen's (my girlfriend's) sister and brother in law came into town. We ate out at quite a nice French restaurant in Moscow on Saturday night and on Sunday got to hear Karen speak at church, and I must say she did a great job. This afternoon we went to see the new die hard movie and it was great. You get everything you want from a die hard movie lots of action, big explosions, and some great one liners. On the productive front I finally put my bed frame together after a month of sleeping on my mattress. Ahh ... the joys of bachelorhood :).

Cape Alva - Rialto Beach!!

2007-06-19T14:24:00.001-07:00

This weekend I'm going hiking along Rialto Beach In Olympic National Park. On the map I will be starting up above Ozette at the top of the green strip and going down to about where Mora is, it's a total of 23 miles. I am pretty excited I have not done any "real" hiking in a few years. Thursday I'm going to be driving over with some friends to Port Angeles and start hiking Friday morning and finish up sometime Sunday. Besides the opportunity to hike along the longest undisturbed/or wild beach left in the U.S. I will get to hang out with some friends and Chi Alpha alum that I have not seen in while so it should make for a fun time.

Back from Argentina

2007-06-04T09:47:00.000-07:00

I got back from our missions trip to Argentina last Thursday and what an amazing trip it was. We had two teams go down making a total of 18 people all together. We spent the first few days together in Buenos Aires getting briefed and prepped for the rest of the trip and getting acclimated to the Argentine culture which was very European feeling. It turns out that nearly 95% of the population are 2nd or 3rd generation European immigrants. Kissing is a big part of the culture there as well when you enter a room you greet everyone there (in social situations mostly) including people from both genders. In Beunos Aires you kiss only one cheek however in much of the rest of Argentina you kiss both, which can make things interesting when silly Americans like myself don't know which cheek the other person is going for!! Luckily, there were not any mishaps :).
We visited several churches in B.A. ranging in size from 5,000 - 25,000, Argentina and in particular Buenos Aires has been in what many people consider to be a revival since 1982, so getting to experience the churches there and meet some of the pastors which have been a part of what has been happening there was a great privilege and opportunity. God is definitely doing some great things there.
After about 3 days the two team split up and traveled to different towns in the provinces of Argentina. My team traveled to Mendoza and Steve's to Cordoba. It took us 14 hours on a bus to arrive to get to Mendoza. the busses we traveled on were very nice chartered busses with seats that practically turned into beds, meals, and movies to help pass the time. But despite that 14 hours on a bus is still 14 hours on a bus! As soon as we arrived our hosts picked us up at the bus station and took us to one of the churches we were going to be working with to feed us lunch and to let us know the plan for the week we would be there. Up to that point all i had really been told is that we would be helping to reestablish campus ministries at the universities there. Being the leader of the team I met with the pastors organizing the trip to get "the scoop" and I was quickly overwhelmed. Daniel one of the pastors asked me what my vision was for the trip. I told him to share about Christ with university students, share the vision of campus ministry with churches, and to help the churches in the area start something that will last long after we leave. He said" great i want you to preach every night you are here." i was originally told that i would not have to speak so i had nothing prepared and only 5 hours till the first church service with no free time in between. Its one of those situations that really helps you learn how to pray a little better:). one of the other pastors hands me a phone without any warning and tells me that I am live on the radio. By the way i don't speak any Spanish so I am doing this all through an interpreter. I was also told that we were going to meet with the government and be given the equivalent to the key of the city, as well as be interviewed on the local television station!
To say the least they kept us busy the next 3 days. Usually we would start the day at 8 or 9am and would not get back to our hotel till 1 or even 2am the next morning! During much of the days we would be taken from meeting to meeting at different high schools, university's, churches, or government officials with out really knowing what was next until 15 minutes before. this was particularly fun at the high schools and universities where we would talk about a topic like alcholism, drugs, family violence , or eating disorders and we would not know the topic until 30 or so minutes before we arrived there. Luckily God definitely had things figured out in advance because we always had someone who could speak on each subject competently. Also we were able to speak openly about god in the schools and a large number of high school and College students accepted Christ and/or asked for more information on the campus ministry that was starting and churches in the area.
one of the big high lights of the trip was getting to meet with governing council and president of the City of Maipu. They gave us each signed copies of legislation that they passed honoring our group for coming. They gave us free reign to go into the high schools and share on the subjects I talked about earlier and openly share about God. They also pinned each one of us with the official seal of the town, gave each of us a special bottle of wine (that area of Argentina is known for its wine), and gave me as well as Patricia (the Argentine Lady who was helping me lead the trip) a medal. At the end of the meeting I got to pray with and for the council. To say the least I and the rest of the team felt highly honored.
While we were definitely kept busy we were also treated many of us felt like royalty. Many times they would provide us with lunch, dinner and breakfast and we would not have to pay for anything. The food was absolutely amazing( one of the primary staples of Argentina is beef, and boy do they know how to prepare it!!) On our day off they took us white water rafting and gave us a tour of a winery. We also got to go into the Andes mountains and got to visit a large chocolate factory that supplies much of South America with very fine chocolates and candy. The people there were amazingly friendly and accepting and really opened their hearts and homes to us.
After a week in Mendoza we headed back to Buenos Aires to meat up with the other team debrief a bit and spend a little time exploring the city before taking off back to the U.S.
This trip was with out a doubt very challenging and stretching for me. Leading a team in a place where I do not know the language and having to do things on the fly. I learned a bunch about myself, and it really stretched and grew my faith. It will definitely be an experience that i will be "digesting" for a long time and one that i will definitely remember for the rest of my life.

Andante op 44 nr 16 - by Fernando Sor

2007-05-02T15:21:00.000-07:00

This a peice I have been working on for the past month or so Hope you enjoy it.

Argentina

2007-04-03T23:25:00.000-07:00

So wow my mom pointed out to me the other day that i did not post on my blog yet that I am going on a missions trip to Argentina. What can i say, Im guilty as charged. On May 9th I will be leading a group of 7 college students to Argentina . The first few days of the trip we will be in Buenos Aries after that we will travel to the city of Mendoza to work with helping establish a campus ministry at the university there. We will be traveling back on May 26th. So heres a pic of my team.

From left to right Weston, Cheri, Phil, Asher, Me, Christine, Jenni, and Aly

French Lullaby

2007-04-03T23:17:00.000-07:00

So here you go my first musical post.

Podbean

2007-04-03T23:12:00.000-07:00

Podbean is a great way to post audio or video or almost any other media file on a website. They also host a blog for you.