where everything else goes

if i get a life someday, it will be this one 



June 9, 2009

my little jazz musician

  

Thanks to a sound guy with some pretty sophisticated equipment, the middle school jazz band concert I wrote about some weeks ago has been preseved. And the recording is surprisingly good.

I'm attaching an mp3 of the song with the improv solos in it. It's called Baja Breeze.

My daughter has two trombone solos in the song. One from 1:35-1:46 (it's the third solo of the bunch) and another from 1:58-2:10 (the fifth solo).

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June 3, 2009

thank you mr. stephenson

I slogged through less than one half of a ridiculously bad book recently before allowing my "never bother finishing a bad book" rule to finally kick in.

After that I picked up the much longer, denser and therefore intimidating Anathem, the latest novel (it can't really properly be called a novel, it's more like a boulder that falls from the sky onto your unprotected head) from Neal Stephenson. I'm less than a third of the way through it right now, but it's one of those stay-up-later-than-you-should-just-to-finish-another-chapter books. I mean, it hasn't really even got going yet and it's already Stephenson's best work.

This guy seriously ticks me off is what I'm trying to say.

So thank you Mr. Stephenson for ruining my usual routine, keeping me up late, and making me care about characters, and a whole planet, who never existed and never will. 

This is one of the best books I've read and it's all your damn fault!

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June 1, 2009

scribbling for dollars

Because I got kind of screwed over by one of my employers today, I wound up conducting an interview  for an upcoming article during a break from one of the routes I had to deliver. 

I took notes while straddling the column in the front seat of my Teal Tank (green/blue Honda Passport), which I had parked in a convenient church lot on the route.

Pictured are the notes from that interview. I can't read them either. And now I have to transcribe them.

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May 21, 2009

a cool song for anyone whose day is drippy

  

by Bishop Allen, it's called Rain.

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May 20, 2009

obstructed view

This guy is still crawling around my window as I type. He looks kinda
hungry, too.

   

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May 15, 2009

the postal service once again makes me its biatch

This probably won't make a whole lot of sense to you unless you or someone you know works at the PO, but I just gotta unload!

Today I got a text message from another substitute carrier asking if I could do her primary route for her because she was sick. Fair enough... her turn will come again, so I agreed. Plus I knew that because the hours are drying up around here, that I would have an easy day tomorrow. The supervisor had me scheduled for the shortest route (2 hours!) on Saturday.

What I had forgotten to consider is that I am an idiot.

At the end of a very long day made longer by the fact that I didn't know the route I was doing very well, I came back to find a note from the supervisor that said "see me when you get back."

She changed the schedule. Now I'm assigned to the two shortest routes... both of them. Together they take about 6 hours to do. So I no longer have most of Saturday to work on my sermon.

Then she said, "Do your remember Reginald?*" Reginald was a sub that we trained about a year ago. He never quite got it, but he didn't seem too eager to do the kind of work required of a carrier either. He disappeared, but was never taken off the sub list, which means, technically, he was still employed.

So yes, I remember Reginald. And now not only will I be doing two routes tomorrow, I'll also be (re-)training Reginald on those routes... which will take more time, not less. This means I'll probably go over the allocated time and therefore wind up working for free while Reginald gets paid for every second he works.

Everything changes. A schedule is subject to change without notice, even after it's posted, and often while you are out on the route! I was a fool for not remembering that when I gave away my Friday. Now I've lost Saturday too.

And people wonder why I don't like my job.

*Not his real name.

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May 14, 2009

random rockin' thursday playlist

In this Maroon--The Judyabats / 

My Brave Face--SR-71 / 
Business Time--Flight of the Conchords / 
Me--PFR / 
More than Sorry--Ben Harper / 
New Routine--Fountains of Wayne / 
I'm Not Running Anymore--John Mellencamp / 
Golden Slumbers--THE BEATLES, ffers! / 
Main' Some Noise--Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers / 
On Automtic--Michael Penn / 
Shimmering Fields--Matt Costa / 
Got to Get You Into My Life--The Beatles, AGAIN FFERS!!! / 
Angel--Matt Nathanson / 
That Old Pair of Jeans--Fatboy Slim.

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May 14, 2009

more about the little trombonist that lives at my house

Last night, the daughters had a band concert. Our oldest is a pretty good trombone player. At a certain point during the concert, the director announced some awards. I was surprised when he awarded our duaghter with the top award in the band. She's very good, and she works very hard. She practices so much that all of her family members can hum her parts, by heart! But I guess I hadn't realized how good she was.

Later, during the jazz band's set, they did a number that was specifically arranged for improvisations. The director didn't tell the kids who he would be calling on or in what order. He called on Kristin for a solo, she stood up and blew the room away. No kidding! I couldn't believe it. Her solo was so well thought out that I was skeptical that she had improvised, but she insists that she did indeed!

Well, then he called on her for a second solo in the same number, and she hit it out of the park again. I was in shock.

After the concert, the director told me he wanted to speak to my wife and I at some point.

I just dropped her off at school for another concert and was able to talk with this director for a while. He referred to her as the best trombone player in her age group that he has ever worked with and said that we really need to consider getting her out of her beginner instrument and into a more advanced trombone.

He also talked a little bit about her future as a musician. Words like Julliard and Eastman were spoken, and not by me. "Most of the time, I'm trying not to get parents' hopes up too high, but with Kristin, it's different," he said.

My head is spinning.

If you're still reading, thanks for indulging my bragging-parent episode!

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May 9, 2009

stamp this

Today is what the post office refers to as Stamp Out Hunger day. It is the day when millions of unsuspecting people such as yourself put bags of food at the curb and completely ruin your mail carrier's day.

Some say that the worst day of the year is the day after labor day, others say it occurs somewhere in the run up to Christmas. I say the worst day of the year is this day... may it perish from the earth!

And now, I'm off to pick up some cans and carboard boxes of macaroni and cheese that people will leave sitting in paper bags on their wet grass.

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May 8, 2009

and there was silence in heaven and earth for about half an hour

actually, longer!

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