the Seventh Inning Stretch

Today is my last day of class before finals. (maybe you already saw that on Twitter) With less than seven days left before the summer I am building with excitement from every direction. The next seven days are certainly going to be a stretch to the end.

Friday (that's today)
Biology, Spanish, Philosophy, FREEDOM! After class I am leaving with Klayton, Wes, Justin and Jake to mix a show for them tonight. To be honest, I don't even know the name of the town we're going to, which helps the heart keep worry-free. There is a full-band service tonight, and two acoustic sets tomorrow. A couple of us will head back to Arkadelphia tonight, leaving Klayton & Wes to do the Saturday sets. ALWAYS excited to mix, always willing to mix for the LORD.

Saturday
Morning rehearsal with FBC Arkadelphia. They have me play drums, acoustic guitar or djembe from time to time. Not sure which one it will be this week. Again, a good way to keep the heart willing.

Saturday night Aubrey and I are getting to hang out with Taylor & Jamie. If you remember about a month ago Aubrey & I did photography for their wedding. We're looking forward to having a fun evening with our friends.

Sunday
After I play for FBC Arkadelphia, Aubrey and I will grab a bite to eat before I hit the road. I'm driving to Conway, AR to hear my favorite band, Jars of Clay. More importantly than hearing them is getting to hear their new drummer, Jake Goss. Jake is my favorite drummer, joining up with my favorite band. PUMPED? Understatement. Phillip coming from up North to meet me there. I'll get back in Arkadelphia around 7:00pm, and hit the books for my first day of tests.

Monday
Starting out strong with Biology and Philosophy finals. My only day with multiple tests.

Tuesday
No tests. Would have been nice to bump Philosophy over to today, but I can handle it. There are people with worse schedules this week. I'll be thankful.

Wednesday
Spanish final, 1pm. My most dreaded test. I told you I'd be thankful for double-test Monday, no-test Tuesday. Now I am. No-test Tuesday will give me an entire extra day to prepare for this Spanish final. I'm shaking in my boots on this one.

Thursday
10am Oral Communication final. I have to present a paper on the non-verbal communication in the baseball movie, "the Rookie." A piece of cake after my Spanish test, but not exactly a joke.

My parents will be here waiting at the door for me to get out. As soon as I finish my presentation, we've got to get this dorm room gutted. HSU mandates that all dorms be clear by 5pm Thursday. Shouldn't be a problem with both my parents here. I'm thankful that my Dad was willing to take off from work to be here.

And then I'm HOME FREE (sorry for more baseball jokes, I've been watching the Rookie a LOT!) I'll be in Bentonville most of the summer, with plans all over the place, but that's a different post for later. Thank you, again, as always, for reading this blog. I appreciate you.

Two and a Half Years

In the fall of 2006, I was enrolled in a Pre-Cal/Trigonometry class at Bentonville High School. About a month into the class we had our first test. The next day someone had sat in my seat, and someone had sat in this girl's seat, so we just sat down together. We got our tests back. I got something like a 64% on mine, she got something like a 68% on hers. DANG. This test was a killer. Mr. Mayer said everybody bombed it, and we could work with our seat partners to do corrections that he would accept.

So me and this girl started working through the embarrassment and fixed our tests. She was nice, so the next period, I just went straight to the same desk instead of my old one. She did too.

A few weeks of talking. Her iPod was broken, I fixed it. I felt like a nerd. She was on Facebook, I wasn't. She felt like a nerd. Turned out we went to the same church. I never saw her at the youth stuff though, so I asked her to come Wednesday night. She did, (first sign she liked me) and after the service, I asked her out for ice cream. She called her mom, here's about how that went...

Aubrey: "Mom, can I go out for ice cream?"
..................
Aubrey: "No it's not a group"
..................
Aubrey: "It's Cameron"

BOOM. She didn't say "it's this guy from my math class", or "Cameron Magee from church", or "a friend" or any of that junk. She told her mom, "it's Cameron". (second sign she liked me).

We went and got ice cream. I got ice cream there so much Donny knew me. We talked for an hour and I drove her back. We were out of school Thursday and Friday.

Cameron: "What are you doing tomorrow?"
Aubrey: "My mom and I are going to the Craft Fairs"

So I decide I like the craft fairs all the sudden. I go to pick her up and her mom suddenly 'doesn't want to go'. hmmm... Third sign she liked me.

A few weeks of dating, and it was LEGIT. October 28th, 2006, on the way back from a Roller Skating date, we were driving back to her house.

Aubrey: "do you want to come in and meet my parents?"
Cameron: (oh dang oh gosh oh no), "sure!"

*pause*

Aubrey: "Soooo.... Are you my boyfriend?"
Cameron: "I am if you're my girlfriend" (or something smooth like that)

BIIIIG SMILE

I held her hand three months later and we were SET. Two and a Half years later, we are still together, and stronger than ever. I'm not going to lay out a timeline here on the blog, but just take my word for it. It has been two and a half years of great fun, great trust, and great growth. Now, after our first year at College, we are more mature than ever individually, and our relationship is at it's absolute best, every day when I wake up. Aubrey makes the start of each day the greatest day of my life. I love you Aubrey, I can't wait to see the places we'll go!

Wrapping the Semester UP

As we near the end of the semester, I'm feeling a great peace about the inevitable stress ahead.

I keep my life blocked out into iCal events, running off a nice tight scheduled calendar through my mac & phone. My calendar knows that every Tuesday at 11am, I go to News Reporting class. After class today, I opened my calendar and told it to delete this event. Today was our last class of the semester.

The window that popped up was a nice reminder of the closure I needed. A simple mouse click on "Delete All Future Events" let out an involuntary sigh from myself. What a relief.

After finishing classes for today, I only have Wed, Thurs & Fri left. Next week is finals, four days, four tests. As a final break before the storm, I am going to see my favorite band play on Sunday.

When I was seven I got my first CD Walkman, and only had one CD. It was Jars of Clay's "Much Afraid". Luckily, CDs don't wear out like Cassettes, because I wore that thing OUT. It is going to be a really special thing for me to get to see them live this weekend.

Phillip was running audio for them at a show last year and let me sneak in to sit behind the board with him. Phillip is the man, in case you forgot.

I can't find anybody to go with me, but it'll be fine. I can't wait to hear my favorite drummer play for my favorite band. Jake Goss replaced Jars of Clay's most recent drummer two days ago. Jake is all over the road with the group now, including his stop in Conway in five days. I CAN NOT wait. My level of pumped-ness is almost dangerous. Sunday will be a treat, preceeding a week of tests, followed by FREEDOM. After my last test Thursday morning, I am FREE TO RUN for the Summer. My anticipation and yearning for the end is drawing up to a high level of excitement. I will be in Bentonville Thursday night.

Aubrey is stuck in Arkadelphia for 48 more hours. The OBU band plays at the graduation ceremonies held Saturday morning, after which she will be free to go. I can't wait for the 114 days of Summer to begin. I've got a full plate of fun waiting in iCal for me, and a lot of accompanied blogging to follow. As always, thank you, thank you for reading!

cmSticks

If you remember back, I've been building these multi-rods for quite a while now. I have built tons of sticks, slightly improving each pair. Not a single stick (rod) has broken. Even the little baby "terrible three's" have held up to everything I've pushed them to.

After so many pairs built, I've finally built a final pair that is perfect. This pair of "terrible three's" is LEGIT.

Lightweight for quick smooth playing
Loose for a wooden sound
Guaranteed not to snap
Two-Tipped for a crackle and a pop
3-Rod configuration for quieter cymbals
Strong Gaff Tape construction

I like to use mine in churches where the drums need to be an element of worship and not a booming centerpiece.

Starting to sound like a salesman. Maybe I should be a salesman. Maybe I should sell these. They're my stick of choice about 85% of the time, why not?

OK, it's official. These are for sale.

I can make a pair for fairly inexpensively. Let's call it $7 a pair. That's sounds pretty good I guess. There's not more than five bucks in cost for each pair, so that's probably good. Great. I'm in business now. Buy a pair of sticks, you'll love them.

Better come up with a slogan.
"Play for Him, not them"

I'm pretty sure nobody makes these. I hope not. I hereby declare cmSticks a custom product created designed and manufactured by Cameron Magee out of his dorm room operation.

After finding a solution that works for me, I have just made my first "product" pair. I'm boxing them up right now to send to a drummer friend of mine to try out. If he likes them, I'll get more serious about them.

uFeature: Gretsch Catalina Club Jazz

I wanted to post something so you could hear what the kit sounds like. Phillip and I spent over three hours tuning four drums, and I had to do better than just write about it.

Here's about 45secs worth of video for you to hear the kit. The camera's little microphone doesn't do a fantastic job of representing the sound of the drums, I wish it did. Also, please understand this video is not designed to bring attention to myself. I am not a drummer, I only want to broadcast the kit and the cymbals. This is a Grestch Catalina Club Jazz, with Zildjian A Custom cymbals. Again, I am not a drummer, only a worshipper. I hope you like the new kit, I love it.

They are staying at home while I wrap up these last two weeks of school. I will most likely have to do some tuning tweaking when I return. I'm sure as those heads seat and break in, they will likely de-tune themselves a bit. But again, I have no idea what I'm talking about, so we'll just run with that. Thanks for reading & watching!