you know - stuff

So my new office opens Monday. Five (5!!!!!)days from today. My shortest work day this week was 10 hours. But we're all excited.

The brass quintet probably has it's first gig - we just need to confirm we can all make it. It's a big fundraiser, so we're looking at playing to potentially over 2,000 people . Kind of an intimidating first gig. Can you say "exposure".

I actually took some photos - mostly on St. Patrick's Day. Now I just need to post them.

Have been doing lots of music stuff lately and am absolutely soaking it up.

My current state of being in three words: happy, busy, tired

one of those nights

I don't usually do general recaps of my day. But Saturday night is just begging for it - there was too much weirdness.

I met some friends for a little session of working out some Irish tunes - me on bodhrán, Julia on whistle, Doug on guitar. Holly was supposed to join us on fiddle, but she couldn't make it. We had lots of fun. Of course. We were playing music.

After playing around for awhile, we headed off to Byrne's. Our intention was to check out the Glengarry Bhoys. There was no band. We heard they had to cancel because their vehicle with all of their equipment was stolen. As a musician, that's an absolutely horrifying thought. Sure, you can have insurance to cover the money lost, but sometimes you form weird bonds with certain instruments, and that's hard to replace.

Since there was no live entertainment, we decided to maybe go up to Flannagan's because Doug had a friend who was playing in a band there. On the way to that bar, we all got the early munchies. So we went to the Taco Bell drive-thru before the bar.

This is where we discovered that Julia can't order Taco Bell, because she doesn't understand the menu. Doug & I were quickly able to identify 2-3 items for ourselves, and after about 5 minutes Julia elected 1 chicken soft taco.

This led us to tease Julia about not knowing how to eat Taco Bell. She then pulled in to Wendy's to look over their menu, and decided against anything on it. Next in line was McDonald's. She decided on a grilled chicken wrap.

So with chicken soft taco and grilled chicken wrap in her hand, we pulled into Flannagan's parking lot. Julia then conducted quite the detailed analysis between the two chicken products. Surprisingly, no one had even a pint to drink before all of this.

Then we discovered that Doug's friend's set was already over. So instead we headed to this bar and pool place called Fats, to play Screw Your Neighbor/Survivor/3 Person Pool (all the same game). It was our luck that Fridnay night was karaoke night. They actually bill their karaoke night as "The Worst Karaoke in Town". At least the pool tables were on the opposite side of the building from the "singing".

After 3 games (we each won a game), we decided to go get bubble tea or something like that. The bubble tea place was closed, but in the parking lot was McDonald's, and who can resist a delicious ice cream cone around 12:30am? Not us!

So, um, The End.

why do middle class kids get such esoteric degrees?

Helen posted a great comment on one of my recent posts about life.

I decided to just make a new post in response, because there's some good stuff in there.

So, "Why do middle class kids get such esoteric degrees?"

I think that was obvious - because that's what we were supposed to do. Especially my particular age bracket (I'm 30). Those of us from lower-middle-class families (there used to be such a thing) saw the future. And the future was with your degree. Our parents were stuck in jobs that paid the mortgage, but they couldn't move up in life because they lacked that magic degree. It didn't matter what the degree was in, it mattered that they (didn't) have one.

We didn't see the market flooding with other kids with degrees with little practical application. We didn't see the recession. We didn't see that we might actually have to pay our own mortgage someday.

Beyond that, I think there's something ingrained in Americans that makes us all dreamers some level. The most logical, realistic people I know still have dreams of doing exactly what they want in life, even when those things are "be a rock star" or "save the world", and they are 40 years old.

I also think this is why so many people have "mid-life-crisis". They have a hard time accepting that their life is as middle-class and mundane as their parents.

I read a line in a Douglas Coupland novel that talked about how middle-class people are doomed to be forgotten by history. If you're rich and/or famous you get to write history. If you're poor you will at least be discussed in history, and you have the opportunity to do something outrageous to change your situation.

When I talk about a day job (or night job, as the case often is), I'm not necessarily looking at it as "I'd rather make money playing music". I have played music as long as I can remember, and I will always play music. I'm looking at the day job sucking time away that I would rather be doing music. 40-50 hours a week at work I can't be practicing or performing. Plus all of those hours outside of work that still get spent thinking about work, instead of thinking about music. It's unintentional, but sometimes you just think "oh, crap, I forgot I have to do this tomorrow". You can replace "music" with whatever your real passion is in life. For my friend Helen, it's art (and she's damn good). For you it might be photography or cooking or skateboarding. I have the growing desire to spend much more of my time doing music than I am currently able to spend.

Ultimately, I believe that people are essentially the same people all of their lives. They say people don't change - and this is mostly true. Sure, you might have a life changing event, a religious experience, an epiphany, something that makes you look at life differently, or be nicer to people, or change some behaviors. But who you were at 5 years old - that's the real you.

At 5 I was fiddling around on the piano, just starting to get into music, I loved playing with friends, I was adventerous, and I didn't have much use for practical matters. At 30, I'm fiddling around with bodhrán, I'm playing music in a couple groups, I seek out opportunities for adventure, and I still hate dealing with most of the practical aspects of life.

We're all just trying to balance the reality of needing the day job with the drive to do what we love. Lately I've just been having more drive and less acceptance of reality.

goal!

With the post, I officially completed one of my goals on 43 Things.

My mission was to blog every day for a month. I built in the week I was out of town, so that was 5 weeks. And I did it!

adrenaline rush

STB and I just finished watching the movie Crank.

Mostly I liked it. The camera work was a little edgy without being obnoxious. There was a definate level of humor to several of the action scenes. There was some creative use with subtitles. It was fun. It moved fast.

The only thing holding back from really enjoying it was the filmakers' treatment of women in the film. Not that it was out-of-the-ordinary for an action movie with a gangster kind of storyline. But the women were mostly only there as pretty decorations, and maybe for sex. Almost the exact same movie could exist without the use of women at all.

I don't always mean to analyze everything against a feminist (or other) perspective - but it tends to just jump right out at me.

I will say, just watching the movie got me kind of keyed up.

full day

This is what today looked like:

Took STB to get bloodwork done

Showed up at work, where I did lots of work-things, including training, supervising, managing, and driving around

Came home and cooked dinner from a Betty Crocker box and it sucked. So we made sandwiches instead.

4 minutes before I was supposed to leave for quintet rehearsal, our horn player called to ask if I wanted to bring my bodhrán over for after-rehearsal jamming.

Went to quintet rehearsal, where I played not too great and my lips decided to act like they could only play 3 notes all night.

We then hijacked our trombone player & a bottle of her wine, went to the horn players house, made a fire, drank wine, jammed on bodhrán & fiddle, roasted marshmallows, talked about music, music school, religions, and parapsychology.

My brain is too mushy to think of anything interesting to post tonight.

it's better than the bar scene, except there's no beer

I didn't know what I was going to post about.

Until I saw my friend decided to expand his girl-seeking efforts by making an OkCupid! test to see who can rock his world.

Go on - you know you want to.

living life

I met up with friends on St. Patrick's Day - and one them was actually just some guy that went to college with me, and was a few years behind me, and we never really knew each other except to say "oh, yeah, you were a (instrument) player".

(Although now we have spent several hours together, and will probably get together for music stuff in the near future thanks to our mutual friend).

I didn't just go to college - I went to a conservatory of music. I started playing tuba at age 12, and around age 14 started getting a little serious about music, and by age 15 I knew exactly what I wanted to do with life, and I fully expected that by this time (age 30) I would be a performing, sometimes-teaching, tuba-playing fool.

As the Smithwick's and our conversation flowed on St. Paddy's day, we talked about how our particular conservatoy of music (and probably lots of others) kill something in your musical creativity and development. So many students drop out completely, or transfer away, or at least change their major. (We call ourselves "ex-cons". I changed my major for these very reasons).

It can take several years to find yourself happy with playing music again, in situations you enjoy and find at least a little lucratively satisfying as well.

As you wind down this life path, you find yourself with some weird day job that you may or may not care much about - the steady paycheck and health benefits keep you there; that day job allows you to play music.

I realized that we all tell ourselves this- we are all on some level accepting of the reality that it's just easier and in several ways smarter to have a day job and benefits. But we are all also kidding ourselves when we think that we're okay with it - that we will be happy doing it for 40 years while we just do some music on the side.

I wonder at what point I'll finally break, and have to just take a giant plunge, and dedicate myself 100% to music. I know that when I do that, I'll be happier than ever, and probably poorer than ever, and I'll wonder why the hell I waited so long. Maybe I'll hold out until retirement, and have enough in my 401(k) to have made the waiting worthwhile.

bodhrán!

It's official... I totally *heart* playing my bodhrán. It's the same kind of feeling I had when I finally got my hands on a bass - the moment of "wow... I should have done this years ago when I first wanted to...".

I think hitting something is also satisfying some weird primevil urge.

This kid has posted some better-than-decent bodhrán playing on YouTube - so if you keep seeing me post about the $%^&* thing and don't know what I'm talking about - check it out.

happy st. paddy's day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

You can find me celebrating here

enneagram

I can be a sucker for stupid online tests. So here we go:

(The Quick & Painless ENNEAGRAM Test)

7 - the Adventurer
Your Enneagram type is SEVEN (aka "The Enthusiast").

"I am happy and open to new things"

Adventurers are energetic, lively, and optimistic. They want to contribute to the world.

How to Get Along with Me

* Give me companionship, affection, and freedom. (especially freedom)
* Engage with me in stimulating conversation and laughter. (don't bore me)
* Appreciate my grand visions and listen to my stories. (people relate through stories)
* Don't try to change my style. Accept me the way I am.
* Be responsible for youself. I dislike clingy or needy people.
* Don't tell me what to do. (seriously, i am the definition of independent).

What I Like About Being a Seven (this test needs to get out of my brain)

* being optimistic and not letting life's troubles get me down
* being spontaneous and free-spirited
* being outspoken and outrageous. It's part of the fun.
* being generous and trying to make the world a better place
* having the guts to take risks and to try exciting adventures
* having such varied interests and abilities

What's Hard About Being a Seven

* not having enough time to do all the things I want
* not completing things I start (I thought that was my ADHD)
* not being able to profit from the benefits that come from specializing; not making a commitment to a career (because my dream career is musician - and I play tuba and am learning bodhran - not exactly practical)
* having a tendency to be ungrounded; getting lost in plans or fantasies
* feeling confined when I'm in a one-to-one relationship

Sevens as Children Often

* are action oriented and adventuresome (I did spend a lot of time in the ER)
* drum up excitement
* prefer being with other children to being alone (I could play in groups or alone)
* finesse their way around adults (my friends parents' always adored me, and the friends would be allowed to do anything if I was involved)
* dream of the freedom they'll have when they grow up

Sevens as Parents (completely not applicable as I will not be producing offspring)

* are often enthusiastic and generous
* want their children to be exposed to many adventures in life
* may be too busy with their own activities to be attentive

I wonder how much of this relates to my being an ENTP?

saint patrick

Two days until St. Patrick's Day!

I'm protestant (and don't recognize saints as some churches do), and really only 1/2 Irish, but I love the guy.
Why is St. Patrick so cool?

#1 He wasn't Irish, and actually spent his initial time in Ireland as a slave, and he still decided the Irish were worth saving.

#2 He wasn't a beaurocrat. He wasn't an evil priest taking advantage of his people. (He was never associated with any specific church).

#3 My favorite thing about St. Patrick is that he didn't try to eradicate the Irish culture or their rituals, even the pagan ones. Instead he incorporated much of their culture and beliefs in his teachings. The most common example of this is the "celtic cross".

quick music update

My bodhran arrived today! I have to go study lots of websites on how to play it properly. And hope that my friend who is involved in some local Irish dance & music sessions can hook me up with an experienced player.

Yay! Music!

sonic adventures

Today I had my first experience with Sonic.

For the past 2 years we've been enticed with commercials on television, showing off these impossibly tasty-looking burgers, dripping with cheese, and other good bad stuff to eat. Until this past February, there were no Sonics to be found anywhere near Columbus.

Today I had a training class nearby the new Sonic, and of course we had to eat lunch there.

One of our lunchmates unwrapped his burger, and of course we had to see if it looked nearly as good as on tv (because it never looks like it does on tv). Except - it looked exactly like the burgers on the commercial!

Cherry Limeade - yum.
Extra long chili cheese dog -yum.

It's a good thing I live on the other side of town.

the official st. patrick's day invite post

St. Patrick's Day 2007:
the 4th (or maybe it's the 5th?) annual Columbus kick-off breakfast

Just because you're not as Irish as me doesn't mean you can't party with me. This year's celebrating of St. Patrick will commence:

Saturday morning Bailey's for Breakfast
March 17th
Claddaugh Irish Pub
(front street - in the brewery district*)
8am-11am - ish


Join us for breakfast, or just the Bailey's. It's the best way to make sure you're up and at the parade! After breakfast, we'll head up towards Broad St.


St. Patrick's Day Parade
11:45 am - Broad St.


After the parade, the party continues. Come out to Fado Irish Pub @ Easton to watch Julia perform Irish dance! She's on from 2-6pm.

While it's not definitive, I currently expect to end the evening at Byrne's Irish Pub in Grandview. Join me there to close out the great holiday!



If you need any more details, leave a comment, email me, or hit the cell.

*I do realize the humor in the Irish bar right in the heart of the German
brewery district.

**Be responsible. Designate a driver. Take a cab. COTA. Whatever. Just be smart.

happy day

Apparently moving the time change back to March has confused the weather gods, and they think it's time for spring. Sweet. It's warm and sunny, and supposed to be 68 degrees tomorrow.

Today is STB's birthday. We started celebrating yesterday. (Saw good music from Megan Palmer).

I just ordered a bodhran. I've been saying I want to learn to play for months. What better time than the present, right? So I found a cheap one online and $50 later I should have one (and a case) in 2-3 days.

I have to go play outside now - the sunshine is calling my name.

the vinyl lovefest must end

If you missed it, I'm a music geek. (And, also, just a regular geek). I'm the first to confess this: I spend more time thinking about, reading about, talking about, and playing music than anything else in my little universe. This includes reading several geeky online music boards. Lately, on every single one of them, the subject of records - good ol' vinyl - has come up. And several dozen people espouse their love for vinyl, and talk about searching out all kinds of rarities, and how great vinyl is.

This is a wake up call: vinyl is not great. Here are 5 reasons why you should get over the vinyl lovin':

#1 - Sound quality - This is the biggest reason. People who tell you that music sounds better on vinyl are nuts - or they're just trying too hard to be cool. It just sounds like music on vinyl, with those annoying scratchy record player sounds. And, if it's an old recording, you get the bonus of lots of detracting background noise. The only people who have any reason whatsoever to enjoy this sound are baby boomers, and that's for nostalgia and only nostalgia.

#2 - The album cover artwork is pretty. But it wasn't "killed" by CDs. There were these things that were quite popular for several years called cassette tapes. These little beauties have covers approximately 2x4" in size - try placing any overly artistic images on that. CDs also contain album art. Whether you like it or not is subjective, but I've seen more bad vinyl album covers than good ones in my lifetime, too.

#3 - Several of these vinyl-lovers buy records, and then use modern day technology to transfer the files to their mp3 libraries, for listening on their computers and/or mp3 players of choice. If you're telling me vinyl is superior sound quality (which it's not) then you should be anti-mp3, because that's completely compressed sound quality. And if you're looking for digital files, you're going to not only get better sound quality from a CD, but also you will save space and money, and not look like a pretentious poser.

#4 - Cost. Vinyl is usually more expensive than digital these days, because it's a novelty and harder to find. And because the people who think they're getting something special are suckers.

#5 - You don't even need vinyl to scratch anymore, if you're into that. You can get digital files and equipment that make all the neat sounds without tearing the crap out of the record you just spent way too much on.

The ONLY reason I can see buying anything on vinyl is if you collect music and it was ONLY released on vinyl. And even then, you should be able to download it from somewhere - this is the internet.

house icons

So on some websites, there are these fabulously addicting things called icons. It's been a long while since I've made time for them. Color me inspired this week. Because I just made 5 in about 45 minutes.

I might as well post them here for your amusement. And I think this is the end of House posts for at least a couple weeks.


Standard LJ icon usage rules apply. All the cool kidz are doing it:
1. Comments are love - please comment if you take any
2. Credit if used
3. No hotlinking



1. 2.

3. 4. 5.

quote of the day

"I never thought I'd say this, but I need to hire a white male. And I can't find one!"

- My African-American, female, sits on special diversity committees, boss.

I'm having flashbacks to college. I went to a small private university. My freshman year approximately 94% of the student body was white. As at just about every learning institution, everyone was required to take a cultural diversity course. My class was filled with upper-middleclass white boys who whined every week about how they were becoming the minority and how tough they had it and they wanted to know when we would address their issues. I wonder how many of those same boys are job searching and can't get hired now "because they're white".

now public

Anyone familiar with NowPublic.com?

After a quick perusual of the site (like, maybe 1.5 minutes) I deduced it's a "news" reporting site that takes submissions from just about anyone who registers for an account. The stories are broken out much like in a traditional newspaper - world news, local news, areas of interest. The format is bloglike in that readers can leave comments. There are some citations.

I received a request today to post one of my photos along with this little story.

Thoughts, opinions, and general ramblings are welcome and encourged.

we all have a little fangirl inside

I think my inner fangirl may cause my head to explode tonight.

House is new, which is usually enough to make Tuesday nights happy. Tonight guest stars both Kurtwood Smith and Dave Matthews.

Dave Matthews is of course THE Dave Matthews of Dave Matthews Band fame. If you're thinking that they are just frat-boy drinking music, then you're only partially right. I thought that, too, until a friend made me listen to Before These Crowded Streets. Then I saw them live. And then I signed up for DMB fangirl.

Kurtwood Smith has been in a lot of stuff for a lot of years. He's probably most known for his character of "Red" Foreman on That 70s Show. As Eric Foreman's dad, he was always threatening to kick everyone's collective asses. (personal favorite quote: Your ass has a "vacancy" sign and my foot is lookin' for a room!).

And, if my fangirlyness wasn't already satisfied, Gomez is featured at the end of the episode, too! I got into the band because of House.

Is it 9pm yet?

fried cheesecake brains

My running streak with posting every single day was thwarted by evil computer gnomes last night. I sat down to blog, and the internet didn't want to work. Everything was connected and blinking away correctly, but after 4 or 5 minutes I gave up.

While I was on my travels, one of my colleagues and I tried this new dessert; fried cheesecake. Neither of us was impressed. The little nuggets of cheesecake were turned into a soft, mushy-melty, warm consistency from the deep-frying.

Yesterday my brain was about that same consistency, so you didn't miss any intelligent blogging. I promise to post something for real later tonight. Unless the little evil computer gnomes are back out...

book club

Read This Book: Not for Ourselves Alone : The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.

I'm a book lover, I enjoy history, and I count myself among educated feminists. It seems natural I would find the book interesting, but I'm surprised at how much I learned. The authors did a great job of focusing on the "woman suffrage" movement and balancing it with the culture and other events of the times. You will read about how the woman's movement begins through acts within the abolitionist movement, and then how and why the two paths divide after much time.

As I was reading the book I kept thinking that Americans need to read it. They need to know and understand what it took to simply give women the vote, much less any kind of equality in any simple aspect of their lives.

It's got biographical information on both Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, but also on lesser known heroines (and sometimes even heros) of the "woman suffrage" movement. It gives perspective to the culture and the battles women faced. It also contains excerpts from letters and speeches, as well as a number of photographs.

What I'm saying is, whether you're more interested in sociology, history, biography, or just good reading, you get it in this book... and it's IMPORTANT information.

the return

I'm finally back from my whirlwind tour around the States. In the month of February I travelled to & from:

Cincinnati, Ohio (twice)
Florence/Newport, Kentucky (twice)
Dallas, Texas
Williamsburg/Newport News, Virginia

All of the trips were work-related so it's not like I had the opportunity to just relax and chill. Now I need a vacation from all my travels.

Anyways, I'm back and ready to resume my challenge of blogging every day for a month. I built in the week I would be internet-less, so March 23 is my last required day of blogging. The overall goal is to make my blogging much more regular, which I think will work - once I got into the habit pre-internet-less week, it was pretty easy.