In addition to all that, I told the story of how I came to faith. I talked about being raised in a good, strong Christian home, but never really believed until I’d taken the time to make a mess of my life and then showed how God has redeemed all of that and how wonderfully he’s blessed me. I told 20,000 people I was an alcoholic and recreational drug user before meeting God on a cold, rainy afternoon and then I told them how amazing God was that he could meet a young [punk] kid like that and turn him into a responsible man who’s now a husband, father, and minister. So here is that piece:

See it here in HD.

Beavertail reduction (stupid thing poked me in the love handles)
Stippling of backstrap, frontstrap, mag release, and index marks
Apex Sear installation
MA compliant trigger return spring
Warren 2 dot night sights

1. Christmas Faith Story. Scott Milder shares with us the journey he took to faith.

2. The Christmas Story. Each year we try to do a humorous bit, this year we used it to get us into the Christmas Story:

3. The Solos. Here are the 4 solos sang during our services

A. Glory in the Highest, Jason Castro

B. O Holy Night, Suzanne Davis

C. Winter Snow, Emmy Davis

D. Heavenly Child, Danny Davis (Danny wrote this song and sings it pretty much every Christmas)

I hope you guys enjoy this as much as I did helping make it happen!

1. Breathe
2. Get On Your Boots
3. Magnificent
4. Mysterious Ways / My Sweet Lord (snippet)
5. Beautiful Day / Blackbird (snippet)
6. I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For / Stand By Me (snippet)
7. Stuck In A Moment
8. No Line On The Horizon
9. Elevation
10. Until The End Of The World
11. The Unforgettable Fire
12. City Of Blinding Lights
13. Vertigo
14. Crazy Tonight / Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) (snippet) / Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough (snippet)
15. Sunday Bloody Sunday / Get Up Stand Up (snippet)
16. MLK
17. Walk On / You’ll Never Walk Alone (snippet)

Encore:

18. One / Amazing Grace (snippet)
19. Where The Streets Have No Name / All You Need Is Love (snippet)
20. Ultra Violet (Light My Way)
21. With Or Without You
22. Moment of Surrender

It was a solid 2 hours of U2 and it was amazing…

So, at 5p I quit After Effects and unpacked a bag of make-up and costume pieces and started zombify-ing myself in my office. Jeff and Amanda took some pictures and video of the process, so maybe I’ll have that to add later. There weren’t pictures of the rest of the evening for two reasons – 1. My zombie character wouldn’t have had a camera and 2. My zombie companion did not follow Tallahassee’s (Woody Harrelson’s character in Zombieland) advice. When it came time to Nut Up or Shut Up… I think he shut up… Oh well, I had a great time and plenty of people asked to have their picture taken with me, so that was cool.

I had what was probably one of the least gory costumes – I mean there was no blood on my hospital gown until my IV full of blood leaked all over my hands and I wiped them on my robe. The best costume of the night had to be the Hunter S. Thompson zombie.

The movie was great. It was funny and just gory enough. They had amazing titles – the main character, Columbus (played by Jesse Eisenberg) narrates the film by giving his rules to surviving Zombieland. These rules were always shown on screen as they were either followed or broken in 3D text that lived within the frame and reacted to the action on screen. There was an incredible title sequence of super slo-mo zombie attacks set to “For Whom the Bell Tolls” by Metallica. The credits were done in the same way as the rules, only now people were crashing into and scattering the letters all over the frame. It was very cool.

The crowd was pretty fun – but most crowds of geeks who dress up for events are – I mean, who are they to make fun of someone else?

Lessons I learned:

1. White makeup just doesn’t look dead enough on it’s own. If you want your skin to shake off the rosy hue of life, mix in a little green and just a touch of black into your white… it gives you a gray rotting look that white alone can’t create…

2. For most people – zombie makeup consists of copious amounts of fake blood randomly scattered across your skin and clothing. There doesn’t really even need to be any kind of reason for it.

3. People who run haunted houses are annoying. I literally had nearly a ream’s worth of paper from all the flyers and handouts they kept throwing at us…

4. People dressed as zombies re-creating the dance from Thriller is still funny…

5. A free movie and all you can eat pizza for under $10 is well worth the time and effort to dress up as a zombie.

6. Paper costumes (like a disposable hospital gown) can be a bad idea – especially when the hardest rainstorm of the season breaks out while you are driving to a Zombie Walk… So, have a back up plan (I did, but didn’t need it – see #7).

7. God must love Zombie Walks. The clouds parted and the rain stopped at the exact moment I parked my truck.

Here’s some photos from the event posted to Flickr

Anyway, here’s the set list and some notes on what they played.  As always the music was awesome and the lights/stage show were… basic.  Their pyro was cool (like it always is), but their lighting and stage setup is never real revolutionary or anything.

That Was Just Your Life
The End of the Line
The Four Horsemen
Holier Than Thou
One
Broken, Beat & Scarred
Cyanide
Sad But True
The Unforgiven
All Nightmare Long
Kirk Solo #1
The Day That Never Comes
Master Of Puppets
Dyers Eve
Kirk Solo #2
Nothing Else Matters
Enter Sandman
Encore Jam
Breadfan
Whiplash
Seek and Destroy

Total Running Time: 2:07:38

*Metallica first played Dallas on February 27, 1985 at Arcadia.

*They last played here on August 9, 2008 as part of a one-off Ozzfest.  It was at this show that Cyanide was debuted.

*This was the first time that Dyers Eve was played in Dallas and also the first time that Dyers Eve was played in the US since November 6, 2004 in Ft. Lauderdale, FL.

*This was the tenth time that Breadfan was played on the World Magnetic tour and the first time in 11 years that it was played in Dallas.

*This was the first time that Holier Than Thou was played in Dallas.

Speaker Install Timelapse from Kevin Dooley on Vimeo.

All of this despite the fact that Britain has sweeping and severe gun control which is generally considered to be the strictest gun control in the world.

In addition to this, the UK has more CCTV cameras per person than the communist regime in China – the UK averages 1 camera per 14 residents and each citizen is captured on camera approximately 300 times per day. Check out this article for more info.

So what does all this mean?  It means that nanny-state, oppressive control by the government cannot keep their people safe – but it can keep them docile and under the thumb of their government.  What it says is that there is no replacement for taking PERSONAL responsibility for your own safety and the safety of those you love.

Devin’s First Photo Shoot