Answered Prayers

A couple of months ago I was in a particularly down mood and was getting more and more upset with how life was turning out for me and my family. It seemed that the harder we tried, the more problems we would encounter... it was everything from a lack of financial resourses, to car troubles, health issues, the death of Angie's dad and all the stress that something like that brings.. I remember praying out loud in my truck on the way home from one of my late night shifts at 107.5 the Eagle. It was as if I were speaking to a friend sitting in the seat next to me.. On that drive home, I poured out my heart and prayed for change to take place.. I prayed that God would open my eyes to opportunities to better myself and our situation... and I had a faith that He would do just that.. what I didn't know was what he really had already set in motion that I had not been able to see.

Here's how it all unfolded... A few weeks before this prayer, I was given an opportunity to work part time at 89.3 KSBJ, (the station which uses the slogan "God Listens") I had been a listener and fan of the station for a while.. Angie listened to it regularly.... and a friend of mine from another job had gone to work there and wanted to bring me on to work weekends. After they offered the job, Angie and I decided that I should turn it down, even though it would be a great ministry opportunity for me... We just didn't want to give up our weekend time together. A reasonable decision... or so I thought at the time.

Then, the day I had the conversation with God on my way home from work, I remember reading a facebook post from my High School buddy Tim Allen... he said "If you want God to listen to you, maybe you should start listening to God..." hmmm.
I didn't think much more about the KSBJ job at the time, but this statement kept coming back to mind... Perhaps I wasn't tuned in to what God was telling me. The next day, I had an email from my KSBJ friend again offering to put me on the air in an upcoming opening.... This time I said to myself.. .maybe I should say yes this time... because there is a reason for it being offered again.... I decided maybe God wanted me to give up my selfish desire to have my weekends off... so I should give it a shot and see how it worked out. About a week later, I was at the radio station signing employment paperwork, getting ready to step out of my comfort zone and work on Christian Radio for the first time in my life and ready to give up my free time to do it. That evening after I got back home.. my email had a note in it from another radio friend, JP Pritchard. (former morning news host on KTRH) He said a friend of his wanted to talk to me...and I should call.. so I did. That was the beginning of my association with News 92 FM, the new News station coming to the Houston market in mid November. It was a whirlwind of activity over the coming days... starting a weekend shift on KSBJ... still working a weekend shift on 107.5... and still doing news every weekday on KSEV, AM 700.. Then came the offer from Radio One for me to come work with them on News 92 FM... My wife and I could not believe how quickly it all came together.. and we wanted to go tell everyone how good God was being to us...but we were under a Non Disclosure Agreement until yesterday...so we had to keep it to ourselves... Now I want to let the world know, that God does Listen... but we must listen to Him too. Pay attention to the details of your life and you just may see God's hand moving in your daily life. I had given up on looking for a job.. I didn't send either of these radio stations my resume until after they came to me asking for it.. .how did they know I would be interested? I can only imagine...

I say thanks to all who have offered prayers on our behalf during the past two years of off and on employment and most of all I thank God for being gracious enough to lead me through the tough times in preparation for what I am now beginning.

There are plenty of other God moments in the story... including the way He prepared me for this opportunity by putting me in a position to learn the news side of the business in the past 10 or more years... but I won't go into all those details now....

Thats it for now... just remember, we often have to experience what has been called a Joseph Experience before we achieve what God has planned for us. Joseph was shunned by his brothers, thrown into a pit, sold into slavery and locked up in prison before he was raised to be a leader... I can now see how all of those things have happened in my life as well.

He's still working on me!

Blessings
Kevin

A Life Full of Clutter

I am not what you would call a pack rat, but I do have too much stuff. For some strange reason, I have trouble saying no when someone offers me something that appears to have value or that I might be able to use... some day.

Lets start by taking a look inside my garage. First of all, I only have half a garage because the other half got closed in and became my home studio/office. The other half has my pop up camper stored in it... but you cannot even get to the camper without unloading the top of it and moving things out from in front of it. Its mostly pieces and parts of past or current "projects" including scrap lumber, broken lawn equipment and other assorted items....most of which I will probably never use again and yet I cannot seem to part with them.

Just outside my garage sits my truck.... I could write an entire book about all the things I have in the cab of the truck alone. Boxes (to be used to pack some of the items which are cluttering my studio at this time...) CDs, a blanket, and a variety of other items too numerous to mention. I just don't get it when I see other people's vehicles parked at church or wherever and there is nothing in the seats... nothing to be seen at all.. where is all their stuff. Mine is in the front passenger seat, on the dash, in the glove box, on the console and in the floor both front and back not to mention the entire back seat and then there's this "tool box" in the bed of the truck..
Its not so much loaded with tools as just an assortment of things I couldn't find a place for elsewhere, but that were too good to throw away.

In the bed of my truck I have things I came back from Dallas with that need to be unloaded...(waiting for cooler weather) Actually I don't know where I will put everything... you see I helped my brother move for a couple of days and I ended up with a roll of carpet leftovers... (it looked like it might go well in my studio/office...) I also came home with a ceiling fan (never been opened)... a kerosene heater... great for cold winters in Chicago when the power goes out ... that's what my brother said.. problem is, when power goes out here, its usually hot and because of a hurricane... hmm...maybe I should have said no thanks to that one.... I also have a microwave, a stovetop... (gas) and an oven... these are appliances that were built into my brother's old kitchen...but were replaced to help modernize the kitchen when he was trying to sell the house. They're in great shape but they won't really go in my kitchen without a major remodeling job... Not likely to happen right now.. not to mention we have only electric in our current kitchen... not gas.

Something tells me I'll soon be listing a few items on Craigslist..

I haven't even mentioned the hundreds of record albums and 45's in my closet and my office... I have turntables still.. (but no needles..) so I could still play them sometime... if I can find a replacement needle or two... There are CDs... Problably thousands by now... many I bought.. .many were given to me by friends or are radio station promo copies.... Most never get played... they just exist. Plus I have at least 3 spindles of homemade cds.. the kind you put something on but never labeled...and now you have no clue what is on them.. You probably have at least a few of those don't you? Please tell me you do.. Oh yes, I have an assortment of audio equipment from studios that no longer exist... phone hybrids that would work if I still had a land line to connect them too.... cart machines and a reel to reel recorder, a bulk tape eraser... dozens of reels of old tapes containing who knows what... and then there's a drawer filled with cassette tapes... mostly old airchecks from my days on the radio at Oldies 94.5 / 107.5 KLDE...There are hundreds of them still around.. and I threw away and gave away several boxes of them.

Finally for now, I have a cabinet in the kitchen and a shelf in the laundry room loaded with dark room equipment.. Yes I used to develop my own film and photos before the world of digital cameras and photoshop came along.. But I can't just toss it in the trash.... can I?

Ok so maybe I am a pack rat... but I am not a hoarder... well not a serious hoarder... but I am the kind of guy who will sit in his driveway on neighborhood garage sale day...trying to get rid of some of this stuff... while eyeing a few items that my neighbors are trying to rid themselves of as well... sometimes we have simply traded our junk... They took mine and I got theirs... sounded like a good idea to me at the time but then I realized I was getting nowhere in my efforts to clean up some of the clutter.

I think I will stop writing now.. because as I look back at what I have already listed here... its giving me a headache... and besides, Its only cluttering up my blogspace...

Thank you for your support.

Kevin

Starting the Day With A Smile :)

I started the day with a smile today, literally.

Its not something I would expect to have happen considering all that is going on in our world. Gas prices rising, budget cuts causing teacher layoffs, kids bringing guns to schools, political bickering and blaming on both sides of the aisle. These are tough times.

Even on a personal level, Angie and I have plenty on our plate to keep us worried and working. Her dad has been in the hospital for several days now and they still haven’t figured out exactly whats going on with him. Our oldest daughter Nikki was recently involved in a wreck and her car was totaled… Thankfully, she was not hurt badly but the car is gone and it wasn’t completely paid for yet. Our youngest lives in Long Island, New York. In the same county where officials have been uncovering bodies from a suspected serial killer who preyed on young women. Meanwhile here at home, Angie’s car is in the shop, and the repair bill which was only going to be about $650 may be about to triple because they say she is likely to need a new engine, not just new fuel injectors.

I’m sure there’s more but I think you get the idea.

Even so, I started the day with a smile as I walked out my back door on my way to my home studio in the garage and saw an Easter Lilly almost ready to bloom.

Many of you who know my wife and I, know that we are not good at keeping plants alive. Our grass grows well, but so do the weeds. In fact our grass grows better in the cracks of the sidewalk and driveway than it does anywhere else. Our flower beds are almost always getting attention, but it’s the attention of the homeowners association demanding that we at least try to make them pretty. Our patio is littered with lifeless pots, with little or nothing growing in them. We have the remnants of what used to be a beautiful ficus tree in the back yard… its now a twisted and broken mess of bare limbs and roots that didn’t make it through the last winter. The same story can be told of a huge philodendron in the back yard and what we always called a fiddle leaf fig plant. All dead or dying. But this Easter Lilly is something else.

Just a few months ago, we found the pot that has held this plant for several years laying on its side, with about half the dirt falling out. We suspect a cat tried to bury something there or maybe it was the dog….I gave it up for dead, but it is back. And its right on time. It has been through its tough times in the past year, just like we are experiencing now, yet it keeps coming back each year at Easter to show us new life. Just like everything it symbolically represents. It remains constant each year and renews our faith that God will see us through all the things we face and that we have hope for our future.

Happy Easter

Kevin

A Year Later

I've been working on taxes for the past week or two, trying to get it all completed before the April deadline. As I was entering information on Turbo Tax today, I realized that it has been exactly a year since I decided to focus my efforts on building a business and creating my next "job" for myself. I still keep a resume or two floating around cyberspace and I will occasionally send one to a specific job opening I come across, but for the most part, I am one of the statistics that make the monthly jobless figures difficult to tally at best. I ran out of unemployment benefits and never officially got a new job... So, I am no longer among those counted as "unemployed" but I'm not employed full time either. Its as if I dropped off the radar (almost).

Here I am a year later... now listing my official occupation as Voice Actor, Voice Over Artist, or whatever you want to call it. I make my living using my voice. And the more I study my tax information from the last year, I realize that I have done better than some thought I could do at this. I have not struck it rich... I still get behind on bills now and then and I have had to go beg clients to pay what they owe me so I could put gas in my truck now and then, but looking at the invoices I have sent out, I'm doing ok. In fact, I am now working from home and making pretty close to the same kind of money I was making at my previous job… but without the politics, the stress and the commute.

In the past year I have been able to take my work on the road, delivering local newscasts for radio stations up and down the West Coast and on AM 700 KSEV here in Houston from hotel rooms in Pennsylvania, Boston, New York, among others, my daughter's apartment in Dallas and my mom and dad's home in East Texas. Best of all, my official place of business is in my garage in Missouri City, Tx near Houston. Its amazing what you can do with 120 square feet of space that would otherwise be collecting junk... (I was never going to be parking a car in there anyway...)

I have also been able to do jobs for clients all around the globe. This weekend, I did repeat business for a video producer in Israel. I've also produced scripts for clients in Singapore, India and all over the USA... Technology not only allows that but it also helps me get paid almost immediatly if not sooner by the use of Paypal, I am now the voice of several web sites and internet based presentations, I helped bring life to a portrait by providing the voice of General Sam Houston at an exhibit for a San Antonio museum, and I recently completed recording my first audio book, "The Surviving Spouse Club," by my friend Charles Foster. It is in the final editing stage and should be available on his website soon. http://www.survivingspouseclub.com/

I have invested more in myself during the last year than in my life in general. I joined the Audio Publishers Association and attended their annual conference in New York City in May. It put me in the same room with the people who make audio books come to life from the publishers side and the narrator side of the business. I am already making plans to attend the event again this year. I have also attended several training seminars and webinars hosted by veteran voice talent and coach Bettye Zoller of VoicesVoices.com, and I have spent more time reading about and studying the business of voice over than even I thought I would. My goal? To soak up all the knowledge and information about my chosen career as possible so that I might become the person others turn to and say "I want to do what he does for a living!"

I have also made a lot of new connections with people in the business of Voice Over and am able to learn from them by simply asking questions through facebook or Twitter connections. Its a business full of people who love to share ideas, technology notes, editing tricks and techniques, just about anything you want to know. And even though its a highly competitive business, we all celebrate when someone lands the next big gig and becomes the new Aflac duck or lands a role in a major animated production. I guess it has to be the fact that we all have our own unique sound, so we are not afraid of sharing some of our tips and techniques. So that is where I am one year later... I'm pleased with the progress I have made... and looking forward to the next leg of the journey.

Here's an idea... lets meet back here in 12 months and see where we stand then. In the meantime, checkout the demos I have on my website. http://www.provoices.net/. You never know, maybe at this time next year, I could be your new voice.