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December 30, 2011

Shannon’s Top Ten of 2011

by oddwalk — Categories: baseball, catholicism, CSW, family, friends, joke, keytar, liturgy, ministry, music, NCYC, odd, oddwalkia, pets, prayer, random, technology, travel, video, weather, website — Leave a comment

Well, here ends another great year for Oddwalk Ministries. We had the opportunity to bring what we do to a lot of great places:

Granite City, IL – Toledo, Ohio – Mascoutah, IL – Breese, IL – Belleville, IL – Davenport, IA – Washington DC – Buffalo, NY – Fairview Heights, IL – Hazelwood, MO – Albany, GA – Savannah, GA – Merrillville, IN – Collinsville, IL – Indianapolis, IN

We also had a good year with the blog. Here now is my list (chronological) of the top blog posts for 2011. Enjoy!

TOLEDO SNOW – In January , Oddwalk traveled to Ohio for a week’s worth of Catholic Schools Week appearances. Due to the same snowstorm that blanketed most of the midwest, almost nothing went right with this trip. Check out the breakdown.

APRIL FOOLS DAY FUN – In past years on the blog, April Fools Day rocked. This year it just Ricked.

DOG DAYS – While news of the Cerneka family getting a dog might not seem like a strong Oddwalk post, I assure you that my kids would disagree. Now if we can get her to stop eating the couch.

VICTORIOUS! – In May, Oddwalk had the honor of being part of the 45th anniversary of the founding of the Victorious Missionaries, providing music for Mass and dinner entertainment.

CONSUBSTANTIAL?!?! – In July, Oblate Media invited Oddwalk to be part of a video they were producing to help congregations get ready for the upcoming changes to the English translation of the Roman Missal. Additionally, Orin’s new Mass setting, “Ever Ancient, Ever New”, was included in the final product!

ODDWALK vs. AIR FORCE – Our friend (and drummer!) Rick works at Scott Air Force Base in Belleville, IL. Some time in October, Rick tried to check out our website from his work computer. Bad move, Rick! Now he knows just how dangerous we truly are.

JEALOUS MUCH? – What would you do if you were a Chicago Cubs fan (shudder) and the band you had hired for your event were St. Louis Cardinals fans. You probably wouldn’t do much. What if, however, the team you followed hadn’t won a World Series in 103 years and the band’s team was only two days removed from winning their second World Series in five years. Would you consider doing this?

LOVE! – In early November, Oddwalk (and band!) had the chance to record a new song, called “Love”. We all really like the song and took the opportunity to offer it as a free download son our website.

A BIG SURPRISE – For years, Orin and I have attempted to write what we hoped would be the theme song for various National Catholic Youth Conferences (NCYC). How great would it be to have 20,000 people singing one of your songs? Eleven songs later, we’re still trying. :) This year, however, we were honored to have our song, “At Your Name”, included as a communion hymn for the NCYC Closing Mass. Cooler than having all those people singing one of our songs, however, was the knowledge that something we had written had accompanied their prayer during Communion. Truly awesome and humbling.

A NEW KEYTAR SUPERSTAR? – During NCYC, Oddwalk offered a new iPod Nano to the the person (or persons) who could grab one of our keytars and take the most rockin’, most face-meltingly awesome pic ever. These individuals then had to post these pics to our Facebook page. Dozens of pic later, we named a winner!

Here’s to more great adventures in 2012!!

February 7, 2011

Catholic Schools Week 2011: By The Numbers

by oddwalk — Categories: amazing, CSW, odd, travel, weather — Leave a comment

Snowpocalypse! Snowmageddon! Snowtorius B.I.G.!

Mostly due to the colossal blizzard that swept across the country, here’s a statistical wrap-up of our Catholic Schools Week in Toledo and Metro-East St. Louis:

Shows successfully performed: 3 of 9

Flights rebooked: 4

States we visited, not expecting to: 2 (Indiana, Michigan)

States we didn’t visit, expecting to: 1 (Texas)

Airlines flown unexpectedly: 1 (Delta)

Cars rented unexpectedly: 1 (Chevy HHR)

Lessons learned: Avoid American Airlines and ORD at all costs

Hours in hotel: 58 over 3.5 days

Crappy movies watched in hotel: 2

Good movies watched in Theater: 1 (“The Rite”)

Stay tuned, we hope to put up soon a few pictures from the three shows we did get in!

February 1, 2011

Oddwalk Makes the News – Catholic Schools Week

by oddwalk — Categories: catholicism, CSW, travel, weather — Leave a comment

The ABC affiliate in Toledo, OH, WTVG, featured our appearance Monday at St Pius School for Catholic Schools Week! We were in a little segment called “Newsreel” which showed the very opening of our concert, doing our little “I’m a little Teapot/We Will Rock You” mash-up. This school came prepared – we had met one of their teachers in New Orleans at NCCYM in December and had passed along a bunch of stickers, and apparently as part of morning announcements, they have been playing our music every day since coming back after Christmas break! There were even some fan signs – we’ll try to post pictures when we get permissions from the school. For now, check out the video below – we’re in the first 30 seconds or so. Guess which one of us that is in the video preview still.

Unfortunately, the “snowmageddon” (snowpocalypse?) that is traveling across the country cancelled our appearances in Toledo today, and likely will tomorrow. We hope we can get back to STL Thursday to do our two masses and shows in Mascoutah and Breese, IL on Friday! Remind us to tell you sometime about our trip up here. The extremely short version is that we’re never likely to fly American Airlines again if it’s up to us. Ah well, everything’s ok now.

Happy Schools Week, all!

January 26, 2009

Celebrate Service – Catholic Schools Week 2009

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Oddwalk again this year has a pretty busy Catholic Schools Week – if the winter weather cooperates, anyway.

What a great theme this year – lets us really dig into our charism of “Community, Participation, Mission” and the God-given dignity of the human person. How will you celebrate service this week?

March 4, 2008

Thundersnow

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In St. Louis. This morning, just now. Freaky.
Gracie, one of Orin’s dogs, did not like it at all.

The end.

March 3, 2008

Home Safe

by oddwalk — Categories: LA Congress, odd, weather — 1 Comment

But tell us this: why was it snowing when we left, it’s going to snow now that we’re back, and why was it warmer here than it was in LA while we were there?

December 11, 2007

The Great Ice Storm of ’07

by oddwalk — Categories: odd, weather — 1 Comment

As many of you know, the midwest was hit hard by an ice storm this weekend. Many people are without power and therefore (in most cases), without heat as well. We know a good number of people in and around Fulton, including Erin and I, who are having to bounce from house to house in order to stay warm, get a shower, and have a comfortable place to eat and relax. Some people, however, don’t have a home to begin with and are just looking for a place to get in out of the cold. We want to make sure we keep all of these folks in our prayers.

For those faithful Oddblog watchers who don’t happen to live in the midwest, I snapped a few pictures of trees with my phone to give you a sense of the destruction caused by the ice storm. This is representative of the scene around much of this part of Missouri:

This is a small tree just outside the St. Peter parish office and church where I work:

Here is another tree on Missouri’s Capital grounds which is across from St. Peter Church:

Here is the same tree from a different angle. Notice the branches lying flat on the ground. There are thousands of trees just like this one all over mid-Missouri:

Many of the trees were not damaged and were made beautiful with an ice covering. This tree is from Dan and Bobbie Ramsay’s (Erin’s parents) back yard in Holts Summit, MO:

Mostly ice and very little snow means it’s too dangerous to go outside. These conditions can make a tree year-old do this:

Some of us were fortunate enough to not be too strongly affected by these storms. If you can count yourself in that group, please consider making a donation to your local shelter or food bank. This can include money, clothing, blankets, coats, food, etc.

Thanks,

Shannon