If you follow my blog at all, you may have noticed that I’ve been particularly quiet as of late. I decided, mostly after the fact, to take a sabbatical from blogging during the month of April.

Hello May. Time to get back at it.

I am considering a facelift for the site as well. We’ll see about that. Either way, I’ll have more posts for you soon. Thanks for reading…

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When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
Thomas Jefferson

The king is dead. Long live the king.

Many comparisons have been made between the death of Michael Jackson and the death of his father-in-law Elvis Presley. I’m sure you’ve seen them and I won’t recount them here. So here’s my prediction:

Within a month, you will begin to see stories suggesting that Michael Jackson is not dead. He couldn’t handle the stress of the new tour. He wanted to drop out of site completely. We’ll see shots of what appears to be clandestine meetings between Michael and his children.

The seeds have already been planted. AP released a story about Michael’s death certificate and stressed that the cause of death was listed as “deferred.” This is obviously because the autopsy had not been completed, but you watch… that’s where it will start.

Also, why did the golden casket containing his body detour from it’s trip to Forest Lawn? No one seems to know where the final resting place is. Could it be?

Don’t get me wrong. I fully believe that MJ has truly shuffled off his mortal coil. This is more a comment on the current society of instant info and our Ethernet-in-the-belly-button lifestyle. Just wait. It’s coming.

>A while back, I posted a couple of shots of my son getting a haircut, before vs. after. I thought I might do the same with my house. We had the trees trimmed today.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

WOW! There’s a house in there after all.

I was reading a blog by Kevin Rose and ran across a fun entry. I thought I’d try it for myself. AT&T Labs Research has a fun text-to-speech site. Enter your own phrase, choose your voice and go to town. I’ve been having a little too much fun.

Here are a few of the voice mail messages I created. Hope you enjoy…

This is the first one I tried.

Here’s a fake iPhone message I borrowed from his site.

I love this voice. Speak loudly.

This is my oops message.

People are always interrupting conversation.

And last but certainly not least, a phrase or two borrowed from my previous life.

Give it a try. I may even bluetooth some of these into my phone and actually use them…

With my new position at Moyers Sound and Studio84, I am beginning to receive a few job requests that don’t fall under our business model (yet). I have just completed a logo for Baby Dave’s.

Allan Durham was in need of a logo for his new restaurant opening in Shallowater, TX. He requested the design to be based on a picture of his father, Baby Dave. Their initial idea was to use an animated, cartoon-like mockup. After several attempts it was clear this approach was not the best. The new direction included a “rough sketch” of Baby Dave’s face and a font style that suggested the country flavor of the store.

Anyone else need any logo work? I’m enjoying this…

I sent a Christmas Card via email this year. If you did not get one… here is what I wrote. God bless you and thanks for reading my blog.

Gary, Sherri, Ashley and Austin wish you and your family the Christmas season’s joys and wonders.

We hope this has been a good year for you. As for us, it continues to be a season of change. This past Thanksgiving marked our 2nd year in Midland, TX. The transition from Corpus Christi has been long and challenging at times, but God has blessed us throughout.

Sherri continues to teach special education at a Junior High here in Midland. She has the “Life Skills” class and I am continually amazed at her level of patience and love for these children, some of which are bigger than her. She had the opportunity to go to a high level training conference in South Carolina this past summer. She was hobnobbing with Special Ed teachers from all over the world.

At 14, Ashley seems to be blossoming. Her first year here in Midland was one of the toughest years she’s had yet, but 2008 seemed to settle her some. She is still heavily involved in dance and would like to find more advanced teachers. As an option, she is adding drama to her list of extra-curricular activities in January. Midland Community Theater offers a high school drama group and she’s excited about adding more drama to her life.

Austin grew 4 feet in two weeks, or so it seemed. At 12, he is now taller than his sister, who is taller than her mother. Soccer has always been a joy for him, but his gentle nature makes it harder for him to enjoy competitive sports where others depend on his performance. It’s especially hard when you are the goalkeeper. As a 7th grader, he had to choose a sport. He is now on the Midland Christian Middle School tennis team, and he brought home 2nd place in his first two multi-school tournaments.

I started a new job with Mission Health Care in early January. After seven months, I left that position due to highly unethical behavior on the part of certain members of the board. That is a story in itself, one that I’ll not spend time on here.

In September, I had the opportunity to reconnect with the Moyers side of the family. This was obviously God’s plan all along. I am now working with my cousin Wally as part of Moyers Sound Solutions. We are an audio/visual/lighting company that designs and builds systems for organizations all over the country, primarily churches. I am also doing a heavy load of design work with Studio84, an audio/video production company owned by Wally.

I am excited about future prospects with Wings Point Ministries, the non-profit arm of Moyers Sound. For years, they’ve been installing new systems in churches. The question always arises, “What do we do with the old stuff?” I will be helping Wings Point provide an answer to that question. Lord willing, we will soon begin collecting old systems that are still useable and making them available to inner city and third world churches. Please keep this effort in your prayers.

Once again, Merry Christmas. May God bless you and yours in this wonderful season. Enjoy the holiday.

The Moyers Family

Next big project is mostly complete. SkyView Helicopters is offering Christmas Lights Tours around Lubbock through December. I had about two weeks to get a website up and put together several print and email marketing pieces. I think it has been successful. Wally tells me the phone is ringing off the wall and there’s a pretty good buzz going on about it in Lubbock. Here is the site if you want to take a look.

Of course, not all that buzz is due to my efforts alone. They’ve worked their tails off passing out flyers, posters and such. And they’ve put together a commercial (which you can see on the front page of the site) as well as a great radio campaign. KLLL alone has done wonders.

So if you’re in Lubbock over the holidays, give SkyView a call. See the lights the way Santa sees them!

On to the next project.

I am really enjoying working with Moyers Sound Solutions and Studio84. For the first few months, I am concentrating my efforts on marketing, trying to catch these companies up to where they need to be.

I have completed my first website for them. It was done for SkyView Helicopters, one of our side businesses. You can see the new site here. As I write this, I am about two days away from completing a pretty deep site for Moyers Sound Solutions… by far the biggest site I’ve done yet. I’ll post that when it’s done.

After that, I have at least two more sites to do. I also have a big convention in November that we’re doing and I am in charge of the booth. Then I have to line up several other conventions, write a couple of magazine articles, line up advertising in several magazines, and that’s just the beginning.

This is all eerily similar to what I did for the Acappella Company from 2000 to 2004. I think that may be why I enjoy it. That, and I get to work from home. No more dressing up for the clients, at least until I hit the road and start doing system consulting and sales.