I am currently out on Andrew Peterson's Behold The Lamb of God Christmas Tour. People often ask me what it is like to be out on this tour with my wife and 10 other guys. I will try to describe it.

12/2/08 - Elkhorn, NE

9:00 AM - I wake up. It usually takes me a night or so to get used to sleeping on the bus, but I slept fine last night. We left Nashville around 10 PM last night. The bus is stopped at some truck stop to refuel so I run in to use the wonderful facilities. I contemplate getting breakfast from the Arby's inside the truck stop then decide that I am still stuffed from the Chik-Fil-A sandwiches and fries we ate on the bus last night. When I get back to the bus there are only a few other guys awake. We still have a couple of hours to drive before we get to Elkhorn so I play Wii with Chris Biggs, Andrew Peterson and Ben Shive. It takes us a while to create our Mii characters, then we start a bowling game (which I won). We then start a golf game but don't get to finish it because we pull up to the church on Hole #8.

12:30 PM - Go inside the church and say "Hi" to all of our friends there. This is the 5th time we have played here in 4 years so it kind of feels like home. I go eat the famous Chicken Noodle Soup along with a roast beef sandwich. I was eating with Jill, Cason Cooley, AP and Ben. Andy Osenga set his plate down next to me then went back into another room to get something. We immediately started talking about what we should slip into Osenga's sandwich. See, Osenga is not what you would call a "foodie". I don't think he enjoys eating at all - so when he does eat, he just likes things plain. So we tried to slip a couple of sweet pickles between the two pieces of turkey on his plain bread. It didn't work. He saw them before he bit them. Oh well. I announce that our newly established P.E. class would begin at 1:30 - as soon as people set up their instruments on stage.

1:45 PM - I head to the gym after setting up my guitars to set up for PE Class. I have my official BTLOG PE uniform on. Nobody else is there except for Cason (who was the co-originator of this PE class). Jill and Todd Bragg join us shortly thereafter and we start playing four square. Jill has never played or heard of four square before. How is that possible? Then we start playing basketball - a nice game of 21. Pretty soon we are joined by Osenga and tour newcomer David Henry. Our PE t-shirts have our nicknames on the back. Mine is Gully. Cason's is Styles B. Osenga's is Nueve. David Henry's is Vitamin D. We are joined by Chris Hubbs who shows that he actually has some good basketball skillz.

2:30 PM - We move on to play some Home Run Derby in the gym with a wiffle ball. Although Nueve can't pitch worth a darn, he has a super human ability to smash the ball into left field. He wins the competition. I don't even hit one single homer. This is embarassing for me.

3:00 PM - After playing a few rounds of basketball knockout - we call it a day. Then Dragon Sword (Andrew P) shows up and says he wants to play knockout too. He said he didn't know we were already having PE. That is not true. I was very clear about when the class would start - but decided I wasn't going to go around and force people to come to class. They would just be marked absent. Anyways - we started playing knockout again.

3:20 PM - Speaking of knockout - we followed that game with some good old Dodgeball. It was me, Dragon Sword and Chris Hubbs against Todd (Hot Toddie), Styles and Chaos (Ben Shive). Within the first minute of starting the game - due do a weird series of events - Chaos ended up accidentally pegging Dragon Sword directly in the eyeball from about three feet away. Our first injury of the tour.

4:15 PM - We start the sound check. Dragon Sword is wearing a patch over his right eye because the church nurse said the throw from Chaos bruised his eyeball. This only serves as a reminder to Chaos that he hates sports.

5:30 PM - Head to dinner. I am not really hungry - partly because I ate lunch 5 hours ago and partially because I had approximately 8 chocolate chip cookies since then. The dinner was great, though. Cheesy potato casserole, Pot roast and salad. Just what I needed. I skipped dessert because I just plain didn't have any room. Bebo (Rebel Jesus) apologizes for missing class. He said he didn't realize when it was happening. I said I understood, but he would still have to be marked absent.

7:00 PM - Show starts. I play The Secret and Holy Flakes in the first half of the show. I wish I had more new songs - but I am just in a major writing slump.

9:30 PM - The show is over. It was great. It is always great here in Elkhorn. I pack up my stuff, talk to a few folks and then head back to the green room to find some pizza. Yummy. Covered in meat. Just what I needed.

10:45 PM - Rebel Jesus and I storm the men's restroom with the dodgeballs and repetitively peg Styles as he is getting ready to take a shower (he still had his clothes on). He ends up hiding in one of the stalls for cover.

11:30 PM - heading out on the bus. Someone finds Darjeeling Limited on the TV and we start watching it. I enjoy the movie except for the times when the satellite freezes up. I am feeling very tired though. Barely make it through the whole thing - then head to my bunk where it is lights out while some of the other guys start watching some David Gray DVD.