Yesterday, after jumping out of the shower, the clock read 11:10. I had to wait a minute to solemnly celebrate the moment of full number-ones on the clock to match the the 11-11-11 on the calendar. Just like when the Millennium came and went–11 years ago–I felt nothing!

Tom Harvill 1944-’45

I was fully aware that it was Veterans Day, though. 67 years ago, on 11-11-1944, my dad took a bus to somewhere in Los Angeles and, along with his other teenaged comrades, joined the Navy for the final year of WWII. Dad not only served the remainder of the war, but was called back to serve in the Korean War, too. I am very proud of him.

My mom and dad were married only a short time when he had to go back in to the service. I can’t imagine the horror of many a young bride who suffered the news of losing their loved one on a foreign battlefield, or anywhere, for that matter. Thankfully, my mom never had to receive that news. Dad came back from two wars and, as a result, I was born in 1960.

Thanks dad, and all of the other veterans who served our country bravely and unselfishly. God bless you all!

The recent news of legendary Penn State football coach Joe Paterno’s alleged involvement in a terrible controversy is proof that it’s not too late, at the age of 84, to suffer the consequences of a bad decision…if that’s what the evidence brings to light.

Some people make their big mistakes early in life, and the painful experience creates an indelible impression that helps them steer-clear of controversy later on. Some folks, like a few Presidential candidates of late, and within the past decade, have tried to hide bad behavior, only to have to answer for it when they become a public figure.

I am amazed that Billy Graham, who celebrates his 93rd birthday this week, has been able to uphold his good reputation. I read somewhere that he would have an assistant search his hotel room for female stowaways before he entered for the night. He would also cover the hotel TV with a face towel, weighted by his Bible, to avoid the temptation to make poor viewing decisions.

We all do stupid stuff as kids. I have said things to people (or have not said things I should have) that I regret to this day. I have taken the easy-route too many times. I have sought God’s forgiveness more often than I can count for unacceptable behavior which, in most instances, was done while I was fully aware of it. God’s patience with me is amazing!

The problem is, and I say it again: It’s not too late to mess up a life filled with winning streaks. One bad move and past triumphs get eclipsed by a single error in judgement. It would be wrong to play the judge and jury against head coach Paterno, but it is a warning that each of us should heed: It’s not too late…

Brenda and I were talking this morning over coffee about the Godly way to approach life, especially when we find ourselves in difficult situations, feeling stuck in a rut. Even in the idle points of life we must be active in heart, constantly making decisions on how and where to walk in our journey. Moving forward is the key. Keep walking and find the way out of that stifling chasm!

Psalm 34 is a chapter in the Bible that is rich with answers for almost every area of life. I know it’s tempting sometimes to stop walking, count our grievances, seethe in bitterness and attempt to get even with the people who have hurt us. But the wisdom contained here would encourage us to move on.

Psalm 34:12-22
12 Whoever of you loves life
and desires to see many good days,
13 keep your tongue from evil
and your lips from telling lies.
14 Turn from evil and do good;
seek peace and pursue it.

15 The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous,
and his ears are attentive to their cry;
16 but the face of the LORD is against those who do evil,
to blot out their name from the earth.

17 The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them;
he delivers them from all their troubles.
18 The LORD is close to the brokenhearted
and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

19 The righteous person may have many troubles,
but the LORD delivers him from them all;
20 he protects all his bones,
not one of them will be broken.

21 Evil will slay the wicked;
the foes of the righteous will be condemned.
22 The LORD will rescue his servants;
no one who takes refuge in him will be condemned.

Here are a few things I take away from this powerful chapter in the Psalms:

1. Be quiet (Proverbs 17: 28- even a fool seems wise when he keeps his mouth shut!)
2. Pursue things that promote peace in your own life and in others–in thought, word and deed.
3. Remember that the Lord keeps an eye on His children and, like a good parent, rescues us from bullies in this life (maybe not when we want Him to, but in due time. See #5).
4. God’s kids will experience troubles in this life, but He protects us and leads us successfully through them.
5. God will show justice to our enemies. We must keep walking, and place our trust in Him to rescue us and take care of our foes.

If we keep walking, even if it’s in total faith, we’ll one day come into a clearing on our pathway and realize a whole new universe of opportunities, just waiting on us to arrive.

We are still devouring the candy leftover from Halloween. We only had about 20 kids come to the door this year, proving that the local churches have done a good job stealing the Trick-Or-Treaters from the streets to partake in community fall festivals. The problem with leftover candy is that I just can’t walk by the candy bowl without giving it a stir and snagging my favorite sweets–a billion times a day.

My dad, who is living with us now, admitted to me this morning that he and my mom rummaged through our candy sacks as kids, the night of each Halloween, to confiscate the more desirable delights for themselves. The next morning, neither me nor my brothers ever had a clue that we’d been bamboozled!

My favorite Halloween fare these days is candy corn. My daughter-in-law, Amber, has

upped the ante and added peanuts and candy corn together to make a delectable and deadly mixture of sweet and salty. I am two-thirds through the plastic container she sent over via Josh, and I just can’t say “no” to that pesky, delicious concoction.

The  problem is that, as soon as Halloween is over, Christmas is upon us. Christmas candy is the toughest to avoid, not to mention the seasonal supply of eggnog and boiled custard winking at me from the grocery milk section. What to do?

Even though I feel guilty as the Halloween candy is being consumed, and the fallen sugar-high leaves me lifeless and sprawled-out in the recliner, the guilt of not eating the leftovers proves to be a more formidable opponent. So we just resign and pick through that blasted bowl of goodness till the very last wrapper is tossed. After all, we need to make room for the peanut brittle Betsy’s in-laws have promised us before Thanksgiving!

As I have written before, we live in a city (county, region, etc.) where you can throw a rock from your backyard and hit a musician with a funky, starched “keith urban” hairdo. You might even break the window of a home studio after it bounces off the musician’s noggin! You see, there is a studio in every other bonus room or basement in our city of Spring Hill, Tennessee. You can count me in that home studio demographic, too. (You wouldn’t believe the artists who are cutting records in home studios!)

With this in mind, I want to pass-on some sage advice by fellow studio owner, Joe Gilder, from HomeStudioCorner.com. It’s well worth the re-post.

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3 Home Studio Nightmares to Avoid

You know I couldn’t let Halloween go by without some sort of Halloween-themed post, right? Right.

I’ve had plenty of “scary moments” over the years in my studio. After all, you put your blood, sweat, and tears into the thing, an it definitely hurts when things don’t go exactly as planned.

If you’re just starting out, here are a few things you want to avoid as much as possible. If you’ve been recording for years, you should read this too and make sure you’re not getting lazy. Any of these can happen, and most of them are avoidable.

Losing Your Work

This is one of the scariest scenarios. You’ve been working for months, maybe even years, on a project. You’ve logged countless hours putting together this masterpiece of audio glory.

Then one day it happens.

You walk into your studio, fire up your computer and your hard drive and…nothing. Two hours later you have come to the horrifying realization that your hard drive has crashed, and your data is lost forever.

Now, there’s a good chance the data can be recovered, but it’s not unheard of for the drive to be damaged too badly to recover anything…or the data could be corrupted.

I’ve had this happen to more friends than I can remember. It’s not as “rare” as you might think. The truth is that your hard drive IS going to fail…one day. Are you running your entire studio off of one hard drive? If so, you need to stop what you’re doing right now, find a separate drive, and back everything up. Seriously.

Nothing demoralizes you more than losing something you’ve worked so hard on. The chances of you being willing to start over from scratch are slim.

Always, always, ALWAYS back up your projects. Some folks would say back them up to two different places. At least back it up once.

I’ll be honest, I go through spells where I’m lazy and don’t feel like backing up. But I remember how horrible it would feel to have to do that work all over again, and I start backing up.

There are lots of solutions for backup — automatic backup (Time Machine) and automatic online backup (services like Carbonite). I usually just drag and drop the files to a separate hard drive. Whatever you do, have a system in place and BACK YOUR STUFF UP.

Losing Your Gear

If your interface dies, your studio is dead in the water. Same with your computer. Are you doing everything you can to protect these important parts of your studio?

Taking care of your gear could be as simple as not letting it sit in the back seat of your car on a hot summer day, and making sure you put your condenser microphones back in the case when you’re done with them.

However, there are a couple extra things you can (and probably should) do.

Power Conditioner

If you don’t have a power conditioner in your studio, you should start budgeting for one. You can get a decent one for under $200. I’ve told you before why you need a power conditioner. Power surges are a fact of life. Electronic equipment doesn’t respond well to these, and that little $3 plastic power strip you just found in the closet won’t do much to protect your gear.

You need something that will withstand a powerful surge. I think of it as life insurance for my equipment. And it’s completely worth the investment. There are other benefits to power conditioners too, which you can read about here.

AppleCare and Warranties

If you’re a Mac user like me, then seriously consider buying AppleCare with your next purchase. It extends the warranty coverage out to 3 years, which is a really long time in the life of a computer. I don’t like warranties, and I don’t buy them…except for AppleCare. It could save you thousands if your computer decides to die on you 18 months after you bought it.

Also consider buying more gear from Sweetwater. They’re awesome (and here are a bunch of reasons why I think so), but they also have a free 2-Year Warranty of virtually everything they sell. That’s a big deal. All you have to do is buy your gear there, and it’s included. Very cool.

Losing Your Time

And finally, if losing your work and your gear isn’t a nightmare enough, it can be just as painful to lose your time. What do I mean?

I’m talking about those projects that you are so excited about at first, but then they take you months and months to every complete…or perhaps you never complete them. There are two reasons why this happens:

Poor Planning

If you don’t finish a project, it’s probably because you didn’t plan it well. Perhaps you got so excited about having that first recording session that you decided not to actually listen to the song and do some pre-production on it beforehand. This is by far one of the biggest time-wasters in the studio. If you spend 10 weeks on a song, only to realize that you wish you had rewritten some of the chords, added a bridge, and recorded it 5 bpm slower, you’re stuck. It’s nearly impossible to go in and make those changes after you’ve recorded a bunch of parts.

Take the time to plan out the song. It doesn’t have to be a big, complicated process. Just take a half hour to make sure YOU know how you want it to sound in the end. That way you can work towards that goal.

Poor Goal-Setting

Speaking of goals, you need them in your studio. Another word for goal? A deadline.

Deadlines force you to finish projects. Without them, you’ll just click around the screen, night after night, until the next thing you know it’s 5 months later and you haven’t finished a dang thing.

Set a deadline and go for it!