Memorable Musings of a Musical Mind

SA Journal #5

2011-08-16T03:48:00.000-07:00

7/26/2011, 7:15AM, Quiet Time

Lord, remind me to continually be aware of areas I can be a witness to you. Whether it's an encouraging word to a team member or praying with someone who's dying or debating/conversing with someone who needs Jesus and is fighting Him.

Would you also reign in me today? Would Your Holy Spirit take me over so completely that I don't do or say anything that isn't from You or for Your purposes. Teach me how to listen intently to Your voice and lead me in all my ways. Remove any fear, anxiety, or apprehension I may have about any situation I find myself in today so that I can love everyone I come into contact with, with Your love. Show me people the way You see them. Let ther continue to be unity in the group, remind us to continually put You ahead of our wants and desires. Let us serve Your purposes. Also, let the Children's Home people (Megan and Dara) enjoy themselves, teach well, cling to Your strength, and love on the people who this culture has given up on.

Vingercrawwl Highlights
1st Room at the School: Anna, a student with a fantastic voice. "Let us go and praise the Lord" prayers to use her talents to glorify God.

2nd Room: To proclaim Christ as boldly as Jan does is something I want. To continue to push/pursue. It's too important! The spirit is moving in this class, and it's such a priviledge to proclaim Christ openly in a classroom!

4th Room: I'm so proud of my wife and the bravery she's displayed to be vunerable to a group of teenagers she doesn't know!

5th Room: Over the board-"Compete with Total", on the door-"One Day is One Day" (Luke 9:23)

1st House in the Village: Awani-dying of HIV, husband has already passed, two adult children don't visit her. Very proud of David to follow the Holy Spirit's guiding in the situation. I need to continually pray for her even after this trip.

Fun to watch Ashton and Pat with their "fan club"

Got our servant's heart tested (as well as physical strength and attitude in stressful situations) when we had to repair two flat tires, one with a bicycle pump!

Beautiful sunset.

SA Journal #4

2011-08-16T03:36:00.000-07:00

7/25/2011 Evening Journal

Amazingly enough, I'm ready to sleep again. The dizziness I'm experiencing hasn't fully gone away yet, but food helped. I'm looking forward to spending time tomorrow in the mission field that Jan and Erika have worked so diligently in. It was a treat to sit and eat dinner with them tonight. The opportunity I got to sit and pick their brains about the ministry was a priceless one.

I'm praying that I lean not on my own understanding tomorrow, but on the Holy Spirit's. I want to be bold, I want to show faith, I want to be humble, I want to listen, I want to serve. I also desire to be supernaturally rested so I can do everything God has called me to do. I ask that my wife would get rest and be energized and that anxiety would melt away from her. I've asked for weeks for God to give me something impossible as well as for something that is undeniably Him, and I feel I may get an answer to both those prayers tomorrow. I pray the God would continue the unity of spirit that is in our group, that Caleb's aches from his fainting spell would ease. I'm asking that God would give Kayla and I a deeper bond and direction in growing our family, and to keep Brenna safe and happy. God, show me the next step after Africa's completion. Give me boldness to ask the hard questions, because if it truly matters as much as I say it does, then nothing, not even my fear, apprehension, and insecurities can stand in the way. Continually remind me that it's not about me or my preferences, but about Christ's goals for me. I am a slave for Christ.

SA Journal Entry #3

2011-08-05T14:03:00.000-07:00

7/25/2011, 1:00PM, Bela-Bela

Highlights from today include listening to the Graceland album on the way to SA, hearing Ladysmith Black Mambazo over the PA after touchdown, and meeting up with Jan and Erika at the airport. This was a huge relief to finally see someone you know and knows you and is as excited as you are for the journy we're about to embark on. Also enjoyable driving through Johannesburg and Pretoria on the way to Bela-Bela, having Jan tell us a little about what we were seeing and the culture surrounding the city. Very cool also to see the embassies of the different countries including the US. The two traffic differences we saw were that there is not a lot of room in between lanes (3-5 in.), and when there are taxis that are vacant, they incessantly honk their horns to let people on the street know they're vacant.

I'm having dizzy spells and have felt physically uncomfortable for about a day, but am still excited to be in SA. The unity of the group is still high, but I am concerned that the trip is turning more towards a tourist trip than a mission trip. I'm praying that God would give me strength and bravery to engage people on thigs that matter (including those on the team). I can't wait for group time tonight as well as our first prayer session!

SA Journal Entry #2

2011-08-05T13:49:00.000-07:00

7/24/2011, 1:30PM, London, Baby!

Well, the 1st leg is complete. Sleep was attained and nerves weren't awful during the flight. I'm finding a bit of a struggle to stay planted in the Word so far. Right now, it feels more like a trip than a missional calling. At this stage of the game, I think that's okay, but before too long we're going to need to get our game faces on and prepare ourselves for the work Christ has for us all. It's been enjoyable for me to see and be a part of conversations we've had in the airports so far. I'm praying for boldness to be able to start some conversations myself. We met a wonderful couple flying back to England and I'm kicking myself for not asking them for prayer requests. God, increase my boldness. Airports are always a challenge for me because of the people-watching aspect. God, let me pay attention so my heart is guarded. There is continued harmony in the group, but there is potential for clicks to form. I'm trying to find where and how I fit into the group. This is a fine line I find myself walking between wanting to find my place in the group and wating to be part of the entire group and spending time with everyone.

One of the highlights while sitting at lunch were watching Fawlty Towers, listening to Rolling Stones, and finding irony in the fact that the song is Sympathy for the Devil.

SA Journal Entry #1

2011-08-05T13:19:00.000-07:00

While we were in South Africa, the mission team was strongly encouraged to journal for two main reasons: 1)to have a recording of what happened, 2)to see how God moved during the trip. This is my first entry.

7/23/2011, 7:00 PM, Houston Airport

I'm really excited and aprehensive for the trip to truly begin. I've been pleasantly surprised at the level of harmony and unity from the group so far. Although we're tired (not nearly as much as we're going to be), everyone is in a good mood and enjoying one another. A few are concerned over flying because they've never done it before, and for that I'm hoping to appear braver than I actually am.

The trip over was crammed, but enjoyable. The back seat of Ashton, Caleb, Kayla, and Beth were entertaining, more from lack of air conditioning than anything else. I was in between Jason and David and between the three of us fashioned some simple devices that passed air back to the back seat. After that, they were quieter and happier.

1 Cor. 10:12-Therefore, let anyone who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.
God, remind me to remain humble and destroy my prideful heart.

February?!!! Really?!!! But It's Hot Outside!!!

2010-08-02T15:34:00.000-07:00

Okay, so for those who thought I fell off the face of the planet; I didn't. For those who thought I was going to complete the Decade in Review post, it's over; move on.
So, there are a few things that have happened since February.

#1: Home Sweet Home

In April of this year, we finally became people who allow a bank to own the place where we live! We love the space that we now have in our new house, and while we miss the excitement of being on "main street" and certainly miss our neighbors, we do love that we're in a quiet part of town where the fire siren doesn't wake Brenna up every time it goes off, we love not having to worry about bugs (now it's snakes!), and as I said we do love all the space we have now. It seems like everything has a place now.

#2: Short Term?
When I started the job here in the bustling burg of KC, Kayla and I both thought it was going to be a resume filler as well as a job that would provide for the needs of our family for a one to two year period. I am now about to enter my 4th year of teaching at KCJH. That's twice as long as the max time I was thinking we'd be here. I love the kids I get to work with, I love the teachers I get to work with, and now...

#3: A New Era
I've got a new co-worker this year. I think that our personalities mesh well together and hopefully that will translate into success for our students. He has also been teaching for almost as long as I've been alive, so I'm hoping to also continue learning a lot from someone who's done it a lot.

#4: Miscellaneous:
I turned 30, Kayla had an anniversary of turning 30, Brenna turned 4!!!, my parents and brother came for a visit, we lost a wonderful lady, Kayla got an iPad, I got an iPod Touch and had a very relaxing trip down to the mosquito infested coast of Texas.

#5: Nothing says "Happy Anniversary" like ????
Kayla and my (and Billy and Stephanie's) anniversary is tomorrow (magic #8), and to celebrate, Kayla is going to work, I'm going to band camp and it's bath day for Brenna. Woo-Hoo!!! It seems like celebrations were a lot more exciting when we were younger. Thank you, I'll take that walker now.

And that's all the news you need to know. Hopefully it won't be another half a year before another blog post! I mean, I'm bound to break a bass drum head or something, right?!

Thoughts on the New We Are the World

2010-02-13T06:36:00.000-08:00

1) Who in the heck is Justin whatshisface? And how in the world did he get Richie's part?

2) Liked how they kept Michael's part, and how Jamie Foxx brought Ray Charles into it.

3) It's painful watching anytime Celine Dion tries to outsing anyone.

4) People complained about Wyclef singing off key, and while that's true did everyone forget Willie Nelson's part in the original one?

5) Someone else's comment: Funny how when we need God the most, he's left out of this song.

6) Liked guitars and the rap added, just a natural addition in my opinion.

7) The group idea of a chorus and harmony is very foreign to these people.

8) Good chord selection for the rap selection (same one used in Michael's verse 2nd appearance)

9) Very little chorus filming, a lot more of individual singers.

10) Every list has to have 10 things, so here's number 10: WHO THE HECK IS JUSTIN WHATSHISFACE?!!!

The Decade in Review Part 1

2009-12-31T15:32:00.000-08:00

Well, the decade began for me living by myself at my parents house, attending my second college, and living in Atlanta, Georgia (one of the largest cities in the country); and ends living in a rental house, married to my beautiful wife with my beautiful daughter, teaching band in Karnes City, Tx. (what I'm sure is one of the smallest towns in the country). Quite a difference, and ont all for the worse! Here's a few other things we said hello and goodbye to in the first half of the first decade of the new millenium (this is a really lenghty post, and if you just want to peruse it I've outlined several different categories in BOLD, enjoy!):

News:

2000:The decade started out with Y2k and the supposed end of the world. Do you remember the panic the media tried to incite. The oddest thing for me was that they seemed to know about the problem for almost two decades, and just at the end they decided to deal with it. Thankfully for us, no one even noticed.The first news story of 2000 that I recall fairly well was the IED ( a term that was unfamiliar at the time) that was blown up across from the New York Stock Exchange. It's interesting to me that as we look back over the past decade we can see all different kind of warning signs of worse events to come. From the files of "that didn't change very much" in April, Microsoft loses it's case and is declared a monopoly. Also, in April the Waco event of this decade occured when young Elian Gonzales was ripped from his home in Miami and taken back to his biological family in Cuba. Who doesn't remember that photograph of the man with the machine gun taking the young boy? In May we welcomed our 1 billionth person to the planet in India. A story that no one other than my Dad remembers, in August the HL Hunley, a Confederate submarine is raised out of the ocean. In October, the USS Cole is attacked by Al-Qaeda in Yemen. A true precursor of the violence to come. An interesting point from those that think that we will soon all be living in space: the end of October of 2ooo is the last time there is not someone living in space, there has been a constant human presence in space since. November is probably the most news-worthy month of the year as it started with Iraq not allowing in weapons inspectors, continued with the closest election ever for President of the US, Hillary Clinton is elected to the US Senate (the first First Lady to win public office, and also probably one of the first that had to move to the district she wanted to represent), Bill Clinton is the first sitting President to visit Vietnam. In December we first learn a word we will all come to dread: Chads. And finally for 2000, from the "you learn something new every day" file: a group called the Texas 7 broke out of a maximum security prison that is located according to Wikipedia, just to the north of Kenedy, Tx. It's actually in Karnes City!

2001: January of this year led off with one of those stories that shaped the decade when Wikipedia opened it's proverbial doors. Further in that same month, George W. was sworn in as the 43rd President of the US after much controversy that some will still argue over if given the opportunity. In March we were reminded of Chicken Little's warning: The sky fell a little bit when the Mir Russian space station fell from the sky. To conclude the greatest terrorist attack of the previous decade, Timothy McVeigh is put to death in June. In July the world's first self-contained artificial heart is implanted. It really is interesting to me how quiet the news world seems looking back on it for this year. It's as if we've either forgotten all the other news in light of the magnitude of what occured on that September morning, or everything else is blocked out of our minds. That September morning definitely changed our world forever. I remember the walls of photos, the flags that flew everywhere you looked, the fire and police workers all around the country collecting money, the big name benefit concerts and the church attendance soared. That last one didn't seem to last as long as the others, huh? The end of the year is categorized by events linked to that one: anthrax scare, plane crash in Queens, the signing of the Patriot Act, Shock and Awe, and one that can loosely be linked: the fall of Enron. Remember that the field the Astros played on was named after that company? Oops!

2002: The year of the palindrome. I don't know that that holds any significance, but people remember it. In January, the Euro is introduced, I believe it has surpassed the dollar in value, but I could be wrong. No Child Left Behind is signed in January much to the pains of educators everywhere. Thankfully it's up for renewal this next year and they have promised to take educator input and as we all know politicians are known for nothing else other than keeping their word, right? Daniel Pearl is kidnapped and killed within the first two months of the new year. March would bring the US invasion of Afghanistan. Followed soon by the trial of Andrea Yates who was convicted of drowning her own children and sentenced to life in prison. Also, news I don't remember, but is interesting due to location: there was a 125 car pile up on I-75 near Ringgold, Georgia. Yeah, I'm not sure where it is either. Probably somewhere where you wouldn't expect a pile up of that size. The Queen Mother dies and is buried in April. Jimmy Carter meets with Castro as the first President either in or out of office to meet with the dictator since 1959. Queen Elizabeth celebrates her 50th anniversary as Queen of England in June. An assassination attempt against the Afghan president occurs in September. In October, Congress approves a bill that allows the President to utilize the armed forces against Iraq. This provided years of campaign fodder for the people in office and the ones trying to get into office. Also in October, the Beltway Sniper spreads terror throughout Washington DC. Bombs are set off in two nightclubs in the Far East. The Homeland Security Act is signed into law possibly due to a Republican-led government. The end of the year is categorized by people searching for Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. I think they're still looking, but they're probably being used against our forces in Afghanistan.

2003: In February, the space shuttle Columbia reminded us all of how dangerous space travel really is, and for those of us old enough to remember, it recalled memories of the Challenger. The SARS outbreak occurs at the end of the month. It's interesting to think about all the different illnesses and outbreaks that have occurred this decade without taking over the world. Invasion of Iraq occurs in March, and I think you can argue about it all you want as to whether it was the right decision or not, but I think we're live in a marginally safer world without a ruler like Saddam Hussein in power. Before the a month had taken place his palace was under American control. Had we realized the fight we were in for, we probably would have been more cautious. Especially since the speech given next month by the President which was probably the largest public relations mistake in recent history when he spoke with the banner behind him declaring "Mission Accomplished." May spawned more tornadoes in one week than any other on record in the US with the final total at 393 over 19 different states. The summer kicks off with the capture of Eric Rudolph, the mastermind of the Olympic Park bombings of 1996 and many other bombings. He was caught in the North Carolina mountains, where he had been hiding for over a decade. That was by far the biggest story of the summer however, as Martha Stewart is indicted for obstruction and using specific information to increase stock profits. It also came out that Martha wasn't the nicest chef in the kitchen. In other court news, the highest court in the land upheld affirmative action in colleges also in June. In July, a scandal broke involving a CIA-operative who had her cover blown by a Washington Post reporter, but really when compared to the last President's scandals, this one was very tame, athough it did put a woman's life in terrible risk. The summer continued with the skyrocketing of oil prices causing us the first signs of our economy maybe being in trouble, and it being a daily reminder for those of us who bought gas about three times a week! In October, one of the stories you would only expect from California (or possibly Minnesota): The Terminator became the Governator! Still a little strange, as was this story: Rush Limbaugh was an analyst on ESPN for like 3 weeks, before he opened his mouth too much for the guys there and was asked to leave. Shortly thereafter, he admitted he was addicted to painkillers. In November a total solar eclipse is seen in Antarctica....by one person; he wrote it down on Wikipedia so we would know about it. The year concluded with several stories including Saddam Hussein being captured, mad cow disease breaks out in the Northwest, a Christmas Eve bombing attempt is thwarted in Madrid, and a massive earthquake occurred in Iran killing over 40,000 people.

2004: This year began with the scream heard round the world by one very enthusiastic Howard Dean. I'm not sure he's crazy, but I am sure he screams like a girl and has provided right-wing radio hosts with a sound bite that has lasted almost a decade! The next month brought a life-changer for peoples all around the world when Facebook was founded originally as a college networking page. Lord of the Rings: Return of the King matches the most Oscar wins for a single film with 11 wins, although I think that some of the wins are for the film trilogy as a whole. The vigilence of the Spanish people towards terrorism led to 4 trains being bombed in Madrid killing 190. Just as serious was the prison abuse in Abu Ghraib. A different kind of sad occured in May when the last episode of Friends aired, on the plus side it was one of the best final episodes I've ever seen. In May, the dedication of the National World War II Memorial occured. In my opinion it was an outrage that it took so long for one of the bravest generations of people to have a monument to their vast accomplishments in the face of such hatred. In June, we laid to rest a national treasure and a man of great integrity, President Ronald Reagan. The 9/11 commission finally releases its report in one of the largest books I have ever seen on a book shelf, and people actually buy it. On July 4th of that year, the groundbreaking for the Freedom Tower took place, however it has yet to be complete. George Bush wins his second term in office in November. Once again, the year ends in tragedy when a tsunami hit the small island of Sumatra killing officially nearly 187,000 people, but there are still over 40,000 people unaccounted for.

2005: The year kicked off with the launch of a small internet site where you could share your videos with your friends. The name of the site? YouTube. Still one of the only places you can go to where you can see The Star Wars Holiday Special. For a story that hit a little too close to home was the Brian Nichols case where he was going in to be tried for rape, turned swiftly into a murder of three people including the judge who was hearing his case as well as his escape from the courthouse. He eventually ended up at the home of a young lady dealing with her own demons, but seemingly brought Nichols to the Lord through reading to him from the Bible and from Rick Warren's "The Purpose Driven Life." I still remember watching the news on that day and everyone in the state seemingly looking for the man. For some reason I was in the metro area that day visiting my parents and seeing the signs telling what type of vehicle he was driving; quite bizzare. Ten days later, the worst school shooting since Columbine occured in Minnesota. At the conclusion of March, the biggest story was centered around Terri Schiavo and how a person should be allowed to die. At the end of May it was finally revealed who Deepthroat was, due to him wanting to let his identity be known before he passed away. In July, we return to space for the first time since the Columbia disaster. They probably could have asked for better weather when Hurricane Katrina came through and was a disaster in every sense of the word: from the actual natural disaster, to the way it was handled by various government factions, to the sites that were lost or severly damaged in historically rich New Orleans. This was shortly to be followed by Hurricane Rita where all the people who had fled New Orleans then had to flee Houston. The effects were felt in a more practical way in Georgia where I almost had to pay over $5 a gallon for gas when pipelines were destroyed. Later in the year, news again focuses on the CIA leak from a few years prior and trying to determine who was leaking information. Also at the time, newly wed Prince Charles and Camilla visit the US.

In Sports:

2000: Trouble for all Braves fans when Time Warner, AOL, and Turner all merge and ruin any chance of any one caring about actual baseball operations being in charge. PS-This was also the last time the Braves appeared in the World Series. The Super Bowl went to the very end of the game with a tremendous stretch by a Titans player who almost broke the plain, but just missed and the Rams won the game.

2001: The first World Series played in November due to 9/11. Derek Jeter becomes Mr. November

2002: The Patriots win over the heavily favored Rams and begin their dynasty.

2004: Michael Phelps almost makes history with 6 Gold Medals, but falls short of the record by winning two bronze medals. The Montreal Expos are purchased by Major League Baseball. The biggest sports story of this year by far was the incredible winning of the World Series by the Boston Red Sox. Not only did they win, but they beat the Yankees in 7 games to do it, also down 3-0 in the series. Hollywood couldn't write it any better, don't believe me, see "Fever Pitch"!

2005: Lance Armstrong wins his 7th straight Tour de France and retires from racing. There's more from him later, too.

In Technology:

These aren't in any particular order, but here's my list of technological advances that have been made in the past decade:

Google, Wikipedia, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, blogs, iPods, mp3 cell phones, iPhones, smartphones, texting, HDTV, plasma screens, LCD monitors, Wi-Fi, Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, 3-D Movies, CGI, Motion Capture, and Pixar really perfects their craft.

In Music:

David Crosby helps Melissa Etheridge have a baby. Santana ties Michael Jackson with 8 Grammy Awards in one night. Metallica fights Napster. Bubblegum Pop music is in full swing with boy bands galore (N'Sync, Backstreet Boys), two feuding girls who were the best of friends on the new Mickey Mouse Club (Britney and Christina), and one group who I actually enjoyed their follow-up hit (Hanson). dcTalk takes an Intermission. Eminem releases his Marshall Mathers album and again falls into controversy, but the album is solid. Albums that had an effect in 2000: Radiohead, Outkast, and again U2.

In 2002, American Idol debuts and changes the face of music for at least the decade, and probably beyond. It would be an interesting study to find out how many people released albums who had at least made it to Hollywood week, and I'll always wonder if I would be good enough to make it. Also in 02, we had a shift begin with Avril Lavigne releasing her first album. The pendulum begins to swing towards rock once again.

In 2003, it was discovered that Pete Townsend and Michael Jackson both have troubles with enjoying the company of little boys too much. I wonder why it is that we forget about Pete, but don't forget about Michael? I guess it might matter if your black or white. I also discovered that playing a little Norah Jones makes it easier to set a mood, if you catch my drift.

In 2004, Luciano Pavarotti performs for the final time in an opera. Later in the year, Dave Matthews had a "crappy" time on the road. Ashlee Simpson gives a Saturday Night Live performance where she pays tribute to Milli Vanilli. Green Day makes a tremendous comeback with their album American Idiot.

2005 was the year of the huge benefit concert: The tsunami benefit concert was the largest outdoor concert since Live Aid, Audioslave performed the first free outdoor concert in Cuba ever by an American band, and of course Live 8 is the biggest concert of the year. We were also fortunate that year to have Jars of Clay release another album. Also throughout this decade, worship music took huge leaps forward with bands and worship leaders such as Chris Tomlin, David Crowder, Hillsong United, Matt Papa, Casting Crowns, Third Day, MercyMe, Newsboys, 33Miles, and groundbreakers Michael W. Smith, Stephen Curtis Chapman, and Amy Grant.

In Films:

2000-Gladiator and Cast Away, Star Wars Episode I

2001-Harry Potter I, LOTR I, Monsters, Inc., Shrek

2002-See the above ones, as well as Spider-Man and Star Wars Episode II

2003-LOTR III, Finding Nemo, and Pirates of the Caribbean

2004-The year of sequels in that all but three of the top ten films for that year were sequels (The Incredibles, The Passion of the Christ, and Shark Tale)

2005-Chronicles of Narnia, Star Wars Episode III, King Kong, Madagascar, Hitch, and Batman Begins.

Deaths:

2000: Charles Schultz, Tito Puente, Carl Sigman, Steve Allen, Victor Borge, Julius Epstein

2001: Dale Earnhardt, Stanley Kramer, William Hewlitt, William Hanna, Joey Ramone, Perry Como, Anthony Quinn, John Lee Hooker, Jack Lemmon, Chet Atkins, Aaliyah, George Harrison

2002: Dave Thomas, Waylong Jennings, Howard K Smith, Dudley Moore, Chuck Jones, Milton Berle, Billy Wilder, Layne Staley, Robert Urich, Lisa "Left Eye" Lopez, Sam Snead, Dee Dee Ramone, Ted Williams, Alan Lomax, Lionel Hampton, Stephen Ambrose, Jam Master Jay, Joe Strummer

2003: Maurice Gibb, Nell Carter, Ron Ziegler, Mr. (Fred) Rogers, Hank Ballard, Robert Atkins, Earl King, Noel Redding, Robert Stack, June Carter Cash, Johnny Cash, David Brinkley, Gregory Peck, Strom Thurmond, Katharine Hepburn, Buddy Hackett, Barry White, Buddy Ebsen, John Schlesinger, Bob Hope, Sam Phillips, Gregory Hines, Charles Bronson, John Ritter, Robert Palmer, Jonathan Brandis, Warren Spahn

2004: Reggie White, John Barrymore, Christopher Reeve, Rodney Dangerfield, Fay Wray, Rick James, Marlon Brando, Ray Charles, Ronald Reagan, Tony Randall, Estee Lauder, Pat Tillman, Jack Paar, Captain Kangaroo, Jerry Goldsmith, Elmer Bernstein, Ellis Marsalis, Janet Leigh, Ken Caminiti, Johnny Oates, Artie Shaw

2005: Johnny Carson, Sandra Dee, Johnnie Cochran, Anne Bancroft, Luther Vandross, Peter Jennings, Alfred Reed, Don Adams, Rosa Parks, Richard Pryor.

In My Life:

Finally, the reason you stayed around for this post for this long: Here's what happened in the first part of the decade in my life:

2000-Moved back to Athens, met Kayla in October, she wrote in her diary that she would marry me in December

2001: Realized on Sept. 11 that I would marry Kayla, attended her brother's wedding in Dec. and asked her parents if I could have their blessing the next day

2002: Proposed to Kayla on Jan. 12, married on Aug. 3, 2002 spent the best week of my life to date in Newport Oregon of all places. Graduate from Truett-McConnell with Associates.

2003: Began going to Compass, as well as Emmanuel College, begin in a SG in October

2004: Compass leadership staff leaves

2005: Compass begins to rebuild and we get more involved, Kayla gets pregnant in July. Trip with my family to Washington DC. I complete my degree program in December.

And if I missed anything, just check out this link.

Finally Something Blog-Worthy

2009-09-02T19:58:00.000-07:00

So when you're a band director, you generally get a lot of junk mail in your box at school generally about using a particular company to sponsor all your school trip needs, or letting you know of performance opportunities around the state, or telling you about fundraising opportunities, but occasionally you come across a magazine or catalogue that you actually can use. I came across such a publication this week and am actually considering putting some things on my Christmas list to have for my students as rewards, books to read to make me a better teacher, or games I can use when I have to have a substitute teacher, but nothing, and I mean nothing prepared me for the following item:

That's right, it's a toliet seat shaped like a guitar. And please note that you can have it in either electric or acoustic! Now, I know that I'm all for putting music in and around your home and extending that to include decor, but I feel that if you think the best way to remind yourself of how much a music lover you are by making sure it's a part of your potty routine, then you may have a problem and need to seek professional help. The best part about finding this little slice of musical heaven was that on the very same page, right below this item was the following sign:

Now, if you're like me (and sometimes I hope you're not), your mind went to a logical conclusion. It was only after my wife pointed out that this sign could hang on any door did I even consider that it went anywhere other than that same potty door. I had a great laugh over this one, that there would be someone somewhere in the world that would have that sign hanging on their restroom door while sitting on a guitar-shaped toilet seat was an image that I couldn't pass up blogging about, and since nothing of consequence has occurred at school yet, I took this as my blogging opportunity (don't worry, we haven't had an away game, and I haven't had to move any percussion equipment yet, so there's still time to hear a funny story from football season). I have also come to the conclusion that one reason for my lack of blogging this summer is due to the ease of using another website.

I found myself many a time over the summer formulating a blog post only to have it come down to one or two sentences that could easily be explained through a status update, and therefore had no need of a full blog. One blog I did think about posting, but I don't have any pictures to go along with the experience, was how surreal it was for me to take my daughter to my parents house over the summer and stay in a place where I spent a lot of time as a young boy. It was very strange to see her doing a lot of the same activities in the same place I did them when I was around her same age. Thanks for sticking with me through this drought of time I call summer (the hottest on record for San Antonio in over a decade, thanks vortex of dryness!), and I'm sure like I said that with school starting back the musical musings will be coming with more regularity.

The Saga of Taken, and the Obligatory Obituary

2009-06-29T04:11:00.000-07:00

About a month ago we received a free trial offer from Netflix where we could get 3 movies out at a time for 2 weeks, so naturally we signed up for it. We were enjoying it, although if we lived anywhere close to where there is a Blockbuster, we would probably do that one because you can trade them in at the store for a little more instant gratification, but I digress. One of the first movies that I wanted to get was the Liam Neeson movie "Taken" because I had seen the trailer and it looked good to me, even though Kayla doesn't really like thrillers, I had convinced her to watch it with me. You can imagine my excitement when I got the e-mail from Netflix saying that the movie would arrive at my house within a day.

So I go out to the mailbox the next day and sure as a sunrise (not sure that's an actual saying, but I'm using it anyway), there was a DVD in the box and I brought it in without really examining it because it's been over 100 degrees every day for the past week here and I didn't want to stay out for longer than I had to. Now, I must again remind the reader that we were allowed three movies out at a time and the next one on our list was one a DVD that Brenna had picked out to watch (you can probably see where this is heading). For one reason or another, Kayla and I didn't get a chance to watch my thriller that night, and so it came as a little bit of a shock to me to get an e-mail in my inbox the next day from Netflix telling me thank you for returning "Taken." A little confused, I go into the kitchen where we had been keeping all our cinema bounty and took a good look at what I thought was "Taken" only to discover Brenna's Little Einsteins DVD. While Brenna was elated, I was let down to say the least. So seeing that Netflix had received a DVD that we never did, I added it to the list again in hopes that it would arrive before our precious two weeks of free movies was completed.

Fortunately for me, about four days later I got another e-mail from the Netflix people saying that they had shipped "Taken" to our little address here in Karnes City, which made me think that if there was one person assigned to our account, they were probably thinking, "Okay, this movie may be good, but is it really a rent twice in one week good?" To which I would respond in words to unkind to write here, so I'll proceed with my story. We get the DVD in the mail the next day and I examined the envelope in the heat this time to make sure I wasn't going to have to call these people and tell them it's probably a good idea to keep customers by sending what they ordered, but they got it right this time and so I rushed back into the house before the sun could melt off my skin, with plans to watch this movie that night, so that either Kayla didn't have time to lose her nerve, or we had to send the movie back unwatched because our two weeks were running out very quickly.

I put the movie into the DVD player that night, and I should have realized it was not going to be an easy watch when I went to check out the special features and the one trailer listed wouldn't play. (Side note: Why go to the expense of including a special features tab and graphic on a DVD just to have one lousy trailer on it? Seems more cost effective to not put it in there and get my hopes up that there would actually be something interesting there) So we start the movie and everything is good for the first 50 minutes or so, and then the darn thing catches and I can't get it to do anything but stick right on the screen it's on. I can't rewind it, I can't fast forward it, I can't skip to the next chapter, I took it out and tried to clean it off, I did the old NES approach of blowing inside the DVD player, I even tried to go to the main menu and skip ahead two chapters and try to backtrack, and nothing worked. Now, this movie is only about an hour and a half long, so when you get fifty minutes in you're pretty much invested into the story and you want to find out how it's going to end, so the solution Kayla and I came up with was that I would go to our trusty Redbox at the Wal-Mart down the street and get it from there, even though it meant I would have to drive back out to the store the next day to return it.

So I go out there and get the movie (it always amazes me that people take their kids to WM regardless of the time, seven kids under the age of ten at 10:30 at night, moving on...) and get back, get it set to where we were and continue watching. About ten minutes from the end of the film, the same thing starts to happen again; it starts to catch and freeze. So, once I had recovered all the pieces of the remote control that I had chucked across the room I went and took the DVD out of the player, cleaned off a few smudges and finally finished the movie. It was a decent movie to be sure, but after all the hassle I'm not sure that God wanted us to see that movie. Maybe next time, I'll save myself the trouble and listen to Him. One more thing before I let you leave...

While this picture really creeps me out, I can only think how much more creepy it would have been had it been taken in more recent years. At least here, he still looks human. All I really have to say about the passing of the King of Pop is that it disturbs me that so many people in the news coverage have described him as an idol. Makes me kind of think we may be in for a smiting from the Almighty. And while I'm sure that he was totally messed up in the head, he did bring joy to millions of people, and revolutionized pop culture as we know it and not too many other people on the planet can say that. I pray that he knew Jesus before he left, and I pray that his family will find Him through this process.

We're begin the long road back to Georgia today to visit family and friends, so I'm sure I'll write more in the coming days, stay tuned!

Mixed Bag

2009-06-17T08:26:00.000-07:00

This post will be just what I've titled it because there have been so many random things going on in our lives these past few weeks that I don't know how to link them all, maybe it will come to

me by the end of the post. Before we get started, can I say that it is pretty upsetting to me that I've only got about 5 weeks left on my vacation on this summer. I guess I have to remember that not everyone gets a summer vacation.

VBS:

So last week, Kayla and I were in charge of VBS music for the second year in a row, and it was really defined by one specific moment, follow this link (if it doesn't work, go to YouTube and type in "vbs 2009 gonna follow you) and imagine my wife doing the opening motions. My lovely wife is known for a lot of things: kindness, a great smile, teaching little ones really well, and taking care of a thousand things all at once and making it look effortless; but one of the things she hasn't quite mastered is the art of "cool dancing." Not that I did too much better, but every time I saw her doing that first move, I couldn't help but crack up. Fortunately for her I didn't take any video of her dancing, so you're left up to your imaginations.

In the end, we had a lot of fun teaching the kids and got our first glimpse of the difficulties that my grandmother must have dealt with teaching my dad in her classes. Brenna was old enough to be in the youngest class this year, but every time she came to us for music she didn't want to sing or do the motions, no matter how much we encouraged her to. We did manage to keep her with her classmates and not attached to us. She seemed to get the idea by the end of the week when the class performed for the parents, because she did all the motions and sang. We have also been singing all the VBS songs this week. It amazes me that she is able to sing on pitch most of the time, especially if she is singing with someone else. I won't call her a musical prodigy, but it is definitely in her blood.

In all at VBS we were told there were 50 commitments made by the kids of one sort or another. Pretty amazing that something begun back in the 1800's can still impact eternity in this day and age.

Facebook:

Or as I call it "summer crack," because I have spent all summer checking that silly website numerous times a day seeing what all my friends are up to and telling them what's been going on with us. I don't visit the website hardly at all during the school year, but with all the time I have where I don't really have any responsibilities to attend to, I have to fill the time somehow. And just like in life, it seems to be my goal to see how many people I can get to think I'm funny through my status updates. Hopefully I'll be able to dial it down some over the next few days, especially since we'll be leaving soon for...

Georgia:

That's right, the annual summer trek of the Jones family back east will be getting underway in about two weeks. We're driving all the way there which may be a little bit more tricky this year than the last time we did it because we won't be able to drive like we did last time with Brenna being a little older. I'm really looking forward to seeing everyone, but also really relaxing. It seems like for some reason that you don't relax as well at home as you do somewhere else. We're going to see some fireworks, visit with my family (including my grandparents from Virginia who haven't seen Brenna in person since she was a few months old), go to the zoo, probably go to the lake near my parents, and also go to Athens where we'll see our best friends in the world and go to our home church! That's why I'm packing the PS3! But before that, we have been blessed by Kayla's parents with...

Cousins Camp:

Brenna will be spending an all expenses paid trip in Houston visiting with her cousin from San Antonio, courtesy of her grandparents in Houston. That means that Kayla and I will have a whole week to ourselves free of the responsibilities of a 3-year old, so of course Kayla and I are going to fill our time by running errands and working! Maybe we'll find some time to ourselves to be a couple.

Swimming Lessons:

Won't say too much about this, other than to have you check Kayla's blog for all the misadventures Brenna and she have had trying to see if Brenna can learn how to swim.

KCFBC:

Those initials stand for Karnes City First Baptist Church, where Kayla and I are members. We haven't been terribly thrilled with having to attend a small-town church, mostly because the environment hasn't been what we got at our church in Athens. We have survived and thrived, though working in any capacity that we could to try and feel better about it. We have recently gotten a new pastor, however, and it has really changed the way the church feels to us. He is challenging and innovative and really wants to work to make an impact on the community as much as we can. He and his family are also wonderful in that they are right around the same age as our family and for the first time since we've moved here I feel like I might possibly have a friend that I can relate to and that will help me grow spiritually. So things are rocking along well in that area.

Well, if you have made it all the way down to the bottom of this post, you are to be commended, so here you go:

They'll never take our "FREEDOM!!!"

Make sure you read the fine print

(if you can't read it it says "also the bridge is out ahead.")

I've taught this kid before.

I've done this to kids before.

Or, our best lead just went in the crapper...

One of the (Many) Things They Don't Teach

2009-06-03T21:31:00.000-07:00

Sorry for not updating in a month, but the end of the year was more hectic than normal, which I'll get to shortly (see next post). First I wanted to explain the title for this post.

This past Saturday night at around 3:25 in the morning, I received a text message from one of my students that stated the following: "Did you hear about Sergio?" Sergio is our percussion instructor who also graduated from the school two years ago and was attending college to be a band director or percussion instructor once he got out, but was having a great time working with our students on the upcoming shows for next fall and winter.

Having just completed the school year, my phone was on vibrate and I didn't hear that I had gotten a message until around 6am when Kayla heard or saw my phone doing something and checked it out. I had a bad feeling about that message, but decided to wait until around 8 to call about it. I called my student and he told me that the young man had died in a car crash around the time he sent the text message. Apparently he was leaving a graduation party and was t-boned by a drunk driver. It did not help that he was also under the influence of alcohol.

The reason I titled the post like I did was that I have spent my entire time this week trying to find words to help kids when there are not words to be said. I attended a rosary service yesterday and his funeral today and at both services I had students who would collapse into my arms sobbing because that's all the pain would allow them to do. I have done a lot of praying over the last few days and just been seeking out how I can help these kids learn to deal with the tragic loss of this individual that they idolized. I wish having attended his funeral today and with it being summer I would be saved from some of the tough times these kids may be heading for experiencing feelings they don't know what to do with and me not knowing what to do or say to make it better or help them process it, but we have a percussion camp scheduled in two weeks that this young man was going to lead. That task has now fallen to the band directors of the two schools involved to not only work on music, but also on the very difficult lessons of life and death and how to use it to maybe let them see God's hand at work in it.

I also got a little frightened when I attended the services for this young man because when the family was allowed to speak to the congregation, they spoke of how music was his life and how it really defined who he was, and I was frightened because I know that someday that could be me. Not to say that having music define my life is a bad thing in itself, but I want it to be said of me when I leave this earth that my music was only a means of drawing people closer to Jesus, that they might be saved because of something I sang or played or in doing so they would be in more of a mindset to make that decision. Or in my daily working with these students that they would be able to see that my real boss is nowhere physically on campus with me, but He's in my heart and His eternal light is shining through me. I'm going to make more of an effort to make sure those I come into contact with see those things in me (which is one of the reasons I wrote it down in this blog).

So, if there is anyone out there who has suggestions on how to make the grieving process easier to understand to teens or has literature on it, I would be greatly interested in it. I just want to be prepared in case one of my kids wants to talk. And they really should teach a class on this sort of thing.

The Results

2009-04-11T08:54:00.000-07:00

Sorry it has taken me so long to update those of you who check this blog on the continuing trials and travails of this little journey I'm on, but it's been a little crazy at work and I haven't had any time until now to sit down and blog about "the rest of the story." So here we go:

The collection appointment I had contained only a few interesting points: The first was I was early for my appointment by an hour, which turned out to be a good thing since my appointment for the deposit was in this building:

That's right, it was a Cox (no pun intended) radio station! It was also up on the 13th floor, which if you know me was a fantastic place to do this so high up in the air and all. I'll spare everyone the details, but I will mention that there was a note on the door of the room I was in that stated that the magazines were for the patrons and were not to be removed from the rooms, this included the cleaning staff. Thought that was humorous myself, but I digress.

So later that week, I had an appointment with the urologist where I got the following results: He told me everything was normal except for two areas: First my motility was pretty low, my sperm don't move too well, and second the shape of the sperm was a little off.

TRANSLATION: My sperm are fat and lazy! They are living in their mom's basement becoming a level 32 warlock on World of Warcraft with a cheeto stuck to their face. My guys are allergic to anything that requires them to move anything more than their "thumbs" Their in clothes that haven't been washed in three days, but that's okay because that's the last time they cleaned themselves too. They're excited at the possibility of getting their own Discovery Health Channel show about how they get from the couch to the potty. I think you get the picture. When I was told this immediately, I had an image similar to this one in my head:

So there you have it, I'm working on getting my guys in shape and then we'll see if we're destined to have kids.

Some other family news that's going on currently or has gone on since the last posting: Kayla's having minor surgery on Friday, pray that she'll be okay (you'd have to ask her about the procedure, she's explained it to me a few times and I'm still not quite sure I get it), nothing to really be worried about, but again something that will hopefully help us get pregnant. Westin was sick last week, better now. And Kayla and I both got new phones: Kayla's LG Shine and

My Samsung Eternity

Last bit of info and then I'll get out of here: Brenna's birthday party will have a barnyard theme. Happy (or Hoppy) Easter everybody! And remember the reason we celebrate is Jesus rising from the dead, not Cadbury Eggs (although we're thankful for those, too).......so that's where my fellas get it from.....

Some Things....

2009-03-16T18:13:00.001-07:00

You just have to blog about. A word of warning: if you have stumbled across this page without knowing me, or you don't feel you need to know all the intimate details that make up my life, please feel free to check out any of my other posts, but this one is going to get quite a bit personal.

You may not know, but Kayla and I have been trying to get Brenna a sibling for about a year now. The major roadblock has been that the doctor we have here is unwilling to provide us the shot we took last time to get pregnant for several reasons which I don't have the time or desire to get into at the present time. Suffice to say that I had the most awkward and unusual experience of my short life this past Thursday. Why has it taken so long to blog about this experience, you say? I think once I explain this visit in its entirety, you'll see why. So what I went to see a urologist in San Antonio (because we are in the smack dab middle of the back woods here and don't have anything near that type of doctor here) for a general analysis to see if something with my "boys" might be the cause of why we have been unable to this point to get pregnant.

So once I arrive in at this office and hand in my insurance information to the front person and then ask about going to the restroom because I've been on the road for an hour and a half, and they inform me that they will need a "sample" and might as well get it while I was in there rather than wait for the doctor to see me. That enough should have been enough to send this right up to the top of the awkward doctor visit list, but apparently they were just getting started. Did you know they actually have instructions in these bathrooms on how to pee into a cup? Did you know there are diagrams? At this point the ladies reading this are saying, "well yeah!", but I'm guessing my fellas are as surprised as I was.

So I get called back and after a few minutes of waiting I meet with the doctor who after some pleasantries tells me to please "drop your trousers and let's have a look." Now for some of you this might be a part of your normal everyday routine, but for me that was the continuation of the strangeness, but I think the weirdest part was either he was so detached or I was that it really felt like it was myself checking things out in the basement. How bizarre is that?

Anyway, after the initial exam he informs me that he wants to take some blood samples and orders a testicular ultrasound. Just in case you were wondering, not nearly as interesting and exciting as an ultrasound when there is a baby involved. The tech comes into the room to draw my blood and two things had me a little concerned: first-they drew a lot of blood, enough to make me feel a little woozy, and second was the way they wrapped my arm up once the blood was out. Apparently men are too macho to earn a band-aid, we're cool enough for neon gauze like the kind pictured to the left (mine was neon green), and she wrapped it with so much and so tightly that if I had been asked to play my instrument at that point in time, I wouldn't have been able to!

So up next was the ultrasound. I go into this room where yet another guy tells me to drop my pants (an all-time high for men telling me to take my pants off), and he informs me that my ultrasound will be "audited" by a female tech who is learning how to take the ultrasound. They proceed to begin the procedure like I'm not in the room, but fortunately for you my ears still worked and I found out that they have to use really warm KY jelly so that the "boys" don't shrivel up and they can take good pictures, they also use A LOT of the stuff for some reason that was not explained. They then take pictures of my guys from all different angles occasionally giving me a heart attack by saying comforting things like "oh, that's interesting...", and "do you see that right there?", and my personal favorite: "Huh!" The entire time I have two thoughts going through my head: 1) no wonder we haven't been contacted by other intelligent life, because honestly, what intelligent life would do this to one another, and 2) Please don't let Jesus come back with my fellas hanging out for all the world to see, I just think when I meet my Creator I would like to be wearing pants in some form or fashion. Anyway, they finish up the exam and tell me everything looks fine, but they would like to see me for a semen analysis in a few weeks followed by a follow up exam the week after. So, as uncomfortable as this may have been to read, it's kind of like therapy for me and really what is a blog if not therapy for the writer? Stay tuned for more squirm in your seat action!

Holy Cow!

2009-03-05T15:16:00.000-08:00

Don't say I didn't warn you! It has been an incredibly busy month for me, and sadly for my family who I feel don't even recognize me anymore. I have finally come to the completion of the largest part of my busyness. TMEA Convention is over, UIL Concert Contest and Sight-Reading are complete, and next week I will have a few days of well-earned rest. Unfortunately I do have a winterguard competition this Saturday and church on Sunday which is always busy, so I don't really get a break until then, but that's alright. So without further ado, let me get you caught up:

The convention was not nearly as big of a deal as last year. Highlights include a concert b

y the combined trombone studios of Texas Tech and Baylor Universities, a seminar weighing the positives and negatives between a small school and large school atmospheres and teaching in both, a performance showing how there is a rejuvenation of silent films and putting new music to them, a concert by the herald trumpets who play at all the President's major functions, and a seminar on how to use iChat to have a composer come to your rehearsal. Lowlight was sad to say the Fellowship of Christian Musicians breakfast, a few reasons why: 1) no breakfast, 2) gripe session about modern worship music practices, 3) gripe session about parents, and finally 4) no useful information on how to start a FCM chapter at your own school. I actually ended up walking out of the room, I was so frustrated. The rest of the convention went well, but there was nothing terribly spectacular about it. In fact, I left early so I could come home and clean the entire house for my wife for her combined Valentine's and birthday presents. All in all, a pretty good weekend. Which led into...

UIL Concert Contest and Sight-Reading competition. We prepared for this for three weeks after the Convention, including having a clinician come in and work with the kids one day followed by a pre-UIL competition the same week, and culminating in a concert for the public on Sunday and the actual event on Wednesday. It was a little tricky because we had standardized testing on Tuesday before the event, so I didn't have a chance to have a rehearsal with my kids the day before we actually went. Fortunately I work with some great teachers who sacrificed having their kids for a majority of the day so we could have an extra rehearsal. We went and played before some really tough judges earning our group a III-III-III rating in the concert portion and a II-II-III rating in the sight-reading room. I say the judges were tough because I feel my group deserved a II rating, but they only handed out a Superior (I) rating to one band yesterday among the forty or so bands they heard. High school went today and earned a II-III-III in concert and an impressive feat in the sight-reading room earning a I-II-III rating. Which means that one judge thought you did a superior job while another felt it was just an average job.

With that done, I'm hoping to reconnect with my family over the next weeks and have my headaches that have been a constant companion of mine for the past two to three weeks due to stress I hope.

Well, like I said in the previous post I do have enough to keep me busy through the remainder of the year which is quickly approaching. And not only at school, but also at church where I'm still leading music every three weeks and doing music for the youth every week. Kayla is also working on getting talks every week. Hopefully, we'll get through it alright and have some fun while doing it and somewhere along the way I can reconnect with my wife and daughter and not be so exhausted when I come in the door every night. Well, that's all for now, almost. I did forget to mention the horrible feeling of homesickness I had at the beginning of this week when we saw my friends back in Athens enjoy a rare snowstorm of between 4 and 9 inches on Sunday while I had to suffer through 90 degree weather here in the desert! It was made even more painful as the pictures started to show up on blogs and facebook of some of our favorite people in the world playing with their children. I guess that's the price we pay for having a job, which I'm very thankful for! Okay, that's it. As always I hope my blogging will be a bit more consistent, but you'll just have to stay tuned and find out!

It's the Most Busiest Time of the Year!

2009-02-09T19:16:00.000-08:00

So welcome to my craziness! Over the next month or so (until March 5th when Band contest is) I have one open weekend where I am not doing anything related to the band program. Not only that, but for my wife's birthday I will be celebrating with a Band Booster meeting; for my birthday I will be celebrating with a Band clinic. For Valentine's Day weekend, I will celebrate not with my loving bride, but with thousands of fellow Texas music educators at our convention and (lucky me!) with some of my students from school who are considering this same crazy life as a career when they graduate from high school. This is on the heels of craziness from the past few weeks as I prepared along with my jazz band for our Solo and Ensemble Festival this past weekend. As of the last rehearsal, I thought I was going into the performance with a solid III rating (average), so I was surprised when the results finally came back and it was seen that I along with my little band received a II (Excellent) rating! I was bursting with pride for my little band, they really did outdo themselves. I'm not sure I can take very much of the credit, other than having a little bit more control over what we played this year as opposed to last year. They did really well!

So, let's continue on with the craziness that is the end of this school year. So after the convention and band clinic, I get to load up my 53-person 7/8th grade band and travel up the road to a school near San Antonio to have a pre-UIL concert where we will receive comments before the actual event. Next up is the Concert Contest for both the 7/8th grade band and the HS band. Once that has concluded we've got the 7/8th grade band preparing for their regional honor band concert auditions and performance. Then we've got a spring concert to get ready for followed by the JH solo and ensemble festival and concluding with the band trips, banquet and graduation. All that seems like it should keep me busy for around a month, but in actuality it's from now to the end of the year. That's why at one point in this blog I said it's crazy to the end of the year because it will be here before I know it. Well, now that I've caught you all up, once again it's time to go and I'll let everyone know how the great Texas Music Educator's Association Convention goes!

Happy New Year!

2009-01-22T08:16:00.000-08:00

Been a while, huh? Sorry about the lack of updating, but it's been a combination of not too much going on and when things did happen, not having time to write them down. With that lame excuse out of the way, let me be one of the last to say HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! Hope yours is off to a good start.

As for why I'm writing my blog at 10:30 on a Thursday, I'm at home with a mildly sick little girl. I was going to title this post differently due to that fact, but my lovely wife beat me to the punch with her blog. It has been a good few weeks with regards to life in general. I was able to finally get some new shoes last weekend since mine had been slowly falling to pieces. I also enjoyed some time off with my family because of the Karnes City Stock Show, not MLK day like the rest of the country.

Oh, don't tell me you're not familiar with the famous KC Stock Show? It's not what my friend Billy thought that all the kids gather around and play the stock market game, it's actually showing cows, pigs, chickens, horses, goats, etc. for ratings and ribbons. AND, because it involves so many of the kids in the schools, and some of the teachers, and it happens to fall the weekend before MLK day, we take off the Friday before and not on the Monday designated to honor a man who changed the course of American history. No, we here in Karnes City feel that livestock are more of a relevant and important thing. I'm really just teasing, but that's how it feels a little bit. It might feel that way because I grew up 60 miles from where the man worked combined with Texas still not feeling like home, but I guess that's the way it goes.

One of the more blogworthy events that I haven't had time for is my family coming to visit us. The final night of our Christmas visit in Houston we had no more room in our inn: My mom and dad, my oldest brother BJ, me, Kayla, Brenna, Annie, Westin, Kayla's mom and dad, and grandmother Nena, Kayla's brother Aaron, his wife Liz, their son Tanner and daughter Avery, and their cat Joey! We were full to the hilt. The next day my family came to KC with us to begin their Christmas/New Years visit. What's the best way to kick off not seeing family for 6 months? Why to break your host's television of course! I'm just teasing my brother, but our television did break and we had to spend the first few days tracking down a new TV for us. Thank goodness for Craig's List! I was a little anxious about it as well, because some of you will recall the largest gift I received for Christmas involved the use of a television. So not only had I just waited about a week to use my Playstation, then I had to wait another three days until I could play it because of not having a television! It ended up okay, though. While my family was here we got to spend the better part of an entire day in San Antonio. We got to go to the Riverwalk and the Alamo and had a really good Mexican lunch followed by a really fun river boat ride. They also had a chance to go to Goliad to see some more Texas history that has Georgia ties. If you want to learn more, ask my dad. We had a good remainder of their trip, even though it was too short. It always makes me sad when they have to leave or I have to leave, but I really enjoy the time we're together.

Well, now you're caught up and here's what's coming up: the fabulous TMEA convention, Kayla's birthday, my birthday, and as always it's Concert Contest Season so you know I'm busy! I promise I'll do a better job of keeping this thing updated! Thanks for stopping by!

And To All A Good Night

2008-12-25T21:57:00.000-08:00

Let me start off by saying I hope everyone has had a wonderful Christmas this year. We've certainly been busy around this Houston household, let me catch you up!

Let's start at last night, Christmas Eve. Kayla and I decided to go to a friend's church here in Houston (hey Bryan!). They did one of the coolest things I've ever seen done in a church service, let alone a Christmas Eve service. They started this running scroll on a screen with someone reading the words as they scrolled up towards the ceiling, the basic jist of the message was that Jesus was just an ordinary person, that all the Biblical testimonies were falsehoods and that Christmas doesn't really have the meaning that people ascribe to it, then this guy reading gets to the bottom and says something to the affect of "that's what I believed until I allowed Jesus in and He turned everything upside down," from that point, the scrolling words went in reverse and all the falsehoods were turned into truths as he read the same script backwards. It was really a great highlight of the service. The music was phenomenal, which isn't that difficult to do when you're associated with a fine arts academy as part of your community outreach. They did have a horn section on stage, and I really would like to be able to do that in a church setting at some point in my life. I think it would be great fun and a great way to use my talents to praise the Lord. Speaking of the "reason for the season...."

It gets really hard sometimes with all that goes into the Christmas season to remember why it's important in the first place, that God humbled Himself because of His great love for us and became fully human and yet fully God to die for my sins and save me from eternal separation from Him. That still blows my itty-bitty mind every year when I allow myself to think about it. How anyone can say that God is just some cosmic cop is one that misses the creativity in His plan to save all of mankind and reconcile us to Him. I don't claim to fully understand it, I'm just thankful He did it! I love singing the carols at this time of the year and we were so fortunate to be able to attend the Casting Crowns concert a few weeks ago and were really able to worship through those several carols we sang. It's sometimes tough for me to worship through Christmas carols because the words have become so familiar that I lose the power in them, and that was something that because I heard them in a new arrangement didn't happen this year.

Okay, so for the more superficial portion of Christmas, I was truly shocked this Christmas morn when, while I was sitting with Brenna helping her open her presents, I get one that is set before me that is obviously a box. In my head I'm thinking it's just a book or some clothes or maybe the shoes that were on my list. Let me set the stage a little more for you: for the past two to three weeks (although some would say it's been since before Thanksgiving), I have been a pain in the rump because I've been kidding about getting a Playstation 3. I've actually been kidding around quite a bit and just being annoying like only a middle child can. So anyway, back to this box. I tear off the paper and go into a little bit of shock because sitting in my lap before me is a brand new PS3! I still can't believe that I received one for Christmas. I'm sure the pictures that were taken of me when I realized what it was was a pretty good reward for those that worked so hard to procure one for me. I don't think it will match the Herbie car picture for those of you who know what that is, but I bet it came pretty close. I also received two games to go with it, one that I have talked about before, and one that I played a prequel to at my friend Billy's house and looks to be really awesome, but I have to exercise some restraint in my playing or I'm sure I'll get put on restriction! I'm only half-kidding about that by the way!

The Christmas season ended in a wonderful way for us this evening, when Kayla, I, her brother and his wife went out on a double date without kids to see Marley and Me. It was a fantastic movie, and since I haven't read the book in a long time, I thought it was very well done and stayed as close to the book as any movie can. We thoroughly enjoyed our time out together and look forward to getting to do it again really soon (hear that Mimi?!) Anyway, Christmas is now officially over and now all I have to look forward to are some special visitors from Georgia who I'm sure are trying their hardest to make it to us in an expeditious manner. I really can't wait to see them, and it really will be the best gift of the season to have them here for an entire week! Well, here I'll end this week's opus with a line from one of Brenna's current favorite books: Merry Christmas to All (you can look at the titel of this post for the rest!)

What Else am I Supposed to Do?

2008-12-19T04:03:00.000-08:00

So, what do you do when you wake up an hour earlier than you're supposed to on the last day before Christmas break? You blog, of course. Sorry it's been so long in updating, but it's also been very busy. Here's the rundown since Thanksgiving:

Christmas at the Park:
Went very well. Kayla's parents brought Brenna's cousins Tanner and Avery down to come to this event that's held every year in the city park, where the band (who used to march in a parade) plays Christmas carols, there are local vendors to sell things like bead necklaces and crafts, and Santa rides in on...wait for it...the city firetruck! You've got to admit, it's pretty fun for the kids to see all the flashing lights and the loud horns and everything, but that's pretty redneck! Anyway, it was right in the middle of the kids naptime, so Kayla and her mom came to support me and the band, then went back to get the little ones so they could have their pictures taken with Santa Claus, which of course included Kayla's mom because who wants to sit on an old man's lap with a beard down to his belt by themselves?! The day was a success.

Christmas Concert:
This went off better than expected especially when you consider some of the behaviors of the students the Friday before which was our last rehearsal, combined with a brand new sound system, and the fact that all the members of my jazz band hadn't played together until they got out on the stage! When we listened back the next day, there was very little to pick on, the kids really stepped up to the plate and did an amazing job. The only weird thing was that I (the assistant band director) conducted three quarters of the concert. The only group that I was not responsible for was the high school band. Kind of strange, but it turned out alright.

Concession Stand #1:
So the next day, I didn't get a chance to have a well-earned rest from a job well-done, instead I got to help support our band some more by helping with the concession stand as a fundraiser for the band. It actually wasn't that bad, other than it was a fourteen hour day. The alternative was worse, however. This day was also the day for Region Band, which for some unknown reason was like four hours away from the school, so I actually got it a little better than my co-worker who got back into town around 12:45 in the morning.

Concession Stand #2:
So not only was it bad enough having to run a concession stand once in a week, I had the priviledge of doing it twice, because for some reason I am a sixth grade sponsor and they had the concession stand that Friday. That one was a little bit longer because we went from right after school until after 9pm because it was a tournament. I survived just in time for:

Veterans Program:
The high school band the next morning (last Saturday) attended a wreath laying ceremony at a veterans memorial that I wasn't even aware KC had. We played three songs and then were free to leave. This was actually a very nice thing to attend. It always amazes me to see the veterans of all the wars represented. There was even a gentleman there who had served not only in WWII, but also in Vietnam. I can only imagine the horrors that man has seen and I wanted to thank him for protecting my freedoms, but I didn't see him after the ceremony was over. After the program finished I finally got to spend some time with my girls for the first time since Thanksgiving. We went to the park and had a great time with a dog that was one of the sweetest I have seen since my dog Dolly was alive. This dog let Brenna hang all over her and played with her and didn't seem to have a care in the world about the two year old terror that was following her around. I contemplated taking the dog home, but we didn't know if she really belonged to someone and there was no real way to find out. We had a blast, though. So the next day was:

Christmas Cantata:
I'm a little torn when I report on this one, because the choir at church has some great potential to be a fantastic little choir, but there is not someone in the church with the formal training to work them into shape other than me. I'm still praying to make sure that God wants me to take over the Music minister job at the church and add that onto my already full plate. However, they sang alright with their troubled vowels and everything. The cantata basically consisted of several specials strung together and some carols from the hymnal, but I did get a chance to do a solo, which apparently affected a lot of people. I sang "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" by Casting Crowns, and found out that people were still talking about my performance two days ago. It makes me a little wary, because I know that God has gifted me with amazing musical abilities, but at the same time I know that I'm not even the best singer in my family! I know that I have to watch out or I will be quite prone to having an over-inflated view of my talents which God gave me anyway. I did have fun singing the song and explaining the story behind it. If you do not know it, check out Casting Crowns website here and find out the story behind the song.

So now we are finally into the last day of the last week before the long break which seems is long over-due. I am glad all our concerts are done, I am glad to see some family this next week and I am glad to be able to get out of town for a week. And one heck of a Christmas present is on its way to me and it'll be here by the end of next week: My parents and older brother BJ are coming to visit us here in the great KC and staying through New Years Day, so I can finally watch a UGA game with some people that actually want to watch it (Thanks sweetheart, I know that you try and like the Dawgs as much as you can, but it's not the same as when you have a vested interest!). Anyway, thanks for bearing with me through the blog drought of '08 and I will try and "talk" to you guys again through the rest of this break! Merry Christmas!

The Week That Was

2008-12-02T19:06:00.000-08:00

Yes, for those that aren't aware of who the gentleman is beside Kayla, that is Mark Hall the lead singer for Casting Crowns after the concert where all the performers from the concert met those with "backstage" passes. This was a little misleading because the meet and greet actually took place after the concert and at the top of the convention center/arena/meeting place thing rather than actually backstage. We really did have a good time with some friends of ours from Georgia and with Kayla's parents. We loved getting to hear Casting Crowns perform, but they were the headliners for a concert that featured six different either performers or ensembles, including: Michael English, Natalie Grant, Avalon, Denver and the Mile High Orchestra, and PureNRG. While we enjoyed most of these groups perform, it was a lot to pack into one concert.

Here were the final thoughts on the concert from my perspective: Denver and the Mile High Orchestra should have won "The Next Great American Band" last summer, those dudes can play! I am still trying to convince myself that if I practiced enough I could sound like they do (I'm not doing a very good job selling that line to myself.), Michael English has one of the best male voices I've ever heard, Casting Crowns should have played more (it was a wonderful worship experience with them, it was just over too quick), I've heard much better renditions of O Holy Night than the one I heard on stage, I think the kids (Pure...) were lip-synching I just can't believe that you can have that steady of a tone whilst doing a backflip, they still have some kinks to work out in the spotlight and balance departments, and probably the highlight of my night (other than getting to spend it with my wonderful wife on what felt like a semi-date) was getting encouraged and reminded of how much influence over lives I have as a music teacher. I got to have a pretty significant conversation with the drummer of the Denver group and the story he told me just reminded me to see my tough kids as a challenge rather than a problem.

Here are a few more pictures from the concert:

It was a very beautiful set and the stage lights were done very well. Christopher, if you read this, I noticed the lights and it was all because of you!

Wrap-up for the rest of my life right now: Thanksgiving was very fun in Houston; we got a Christmas tree tonight which Brenna thoroughly enjoyed, I realized that I have been doing a lot of talking about Santa and trying to get Brenna to not be scared of Santa when we see him again, but not a whole lot of talking about Jesus. I am now making a conscious effort to mention the reason for celebration of this season a whole lot more. We had 11 kids out of 17 that tried out make it to region band, and 4 kids advance to area including my bass trombone player. The 4 kids are a little misleading, though because 3 of the 4 were automatic advancers due to the lack of further competition (meaning they take two to the next round and there were only two who tried out). I have two concerts this weekend a concession stand on Monday and Friday of next week, a Veteran's Day program on Saturday next week and singing in the Christmas Cantata on the 14th. I'm sure I'm busy past that, but I'm too scared to look further. Right now, I'm just making sure my 6th graders can all play the songs together at the same time and it sound like something that might be recognizable to a loving, supportive parents ears. Pray for me! I'll let everyone know how it's going when I get a chance to breathe!

DAAAAANG!

2008-11-22T17:41:00.001-08:00

East Bernard-42, KC-0. High School football season is finally over! Kinda sad to see them close out the season that way, but I don't feel too terribly bad, because.......

My mother-in-law not only won us tickets to the concert, but also won the grand prize of twenty additional tickets, dinner at the venue and a "special guest" scheduled to appear (we're guessing that's meeting the band). Next Friday is sounding more and more fun than the one before it! We have two days of school before our much-needed break and I'm also doing music at church this Sunday. Keep me in your prayers that I'll make it through to see this concert!

Hey, Somebody's Gotta Win

2008-11-20T20:10:00.000-08:00

I bet you thought this post was going to be on another subject, didn't you?

My mother-in-law is a fantastic lady. She was trying to do something fun, silly, and nice for Kayla and I while we were in Houston this next week for the holiday other than making us Thanksgiving dinner. She knows that I've been working really hard these past few weeks and Kayla and I have not had a lot of time together due to that, so she heard on the Christian radio station in Houston that they were having a contest to give away tickets to a Casting Crowns concert that was going to happen while we were there, and had us call as well as call herself to try and win us tickets. Anyway, she called us tonight and told us to listen to the radio via the internet and try for the tickets, at the same time she was going to try for them as well. Well, Kayla gets on and is sitting on hold for five or so minutes before the line goes dead and she assumes that it wasn't our time to win. Two minutes later, Kayla's mom calls and tells us she's won the tickets for us. So, as long as the football team can manage to lose tomorrow (everyone is still praying, right?), Kayla and I will be on our way to a concert at the end of next week!

Quick update on the game, we're playing that great Texas powerhouse: East Bernard? We're playing in Victoria, TX. which is again a little over an hour away. I have to drive the trailer because my counterpart has to drive the bus. And, it's an early release day because apparently everyone is either involved in or is going to the game. I'll keep you all posted!

Dang...

2008-11-14T22:19:00.000-08:00

Badgers-38, Randolph-28. 31 points scored in the first half, first touchdown on the second play of the game (after we deferred!)

And to add insult to injury, there were sustained winds around 30 mph. Our tuba player actually popped himself in the mouth with his mouthpiece because the wind blew his instrument backwards.

So now, everyone is clear what I need you to do, right? Pray that the Badgers DON'T win this next Friday. I'm in need of a full Thanksgiving break in the worst way, and won't get it if these guys can't get their act together and not play like a team! More updates as they happen!

Two Topics, A Long Time Coming

2008-11-11T15:02:00.000-08:00

I know it's been a while since I updated this thing, but hopefully after I finish this blog it will be a little clearer as to why it's taken so long. So, let's back up to the last post for a moment: I'm happy to report there were no injuries or major issues with the entire band program performing Friday night two weeks ago. Everyone seemed to have a good time and the best part of all is I didn't have to worry about a marimba. The following Sunday kicked off a whirlwind week for the Jones clan. I led music on Sunday morning at the church here, and we actually did a closing chorus that not only wasn't in the hymnal, but also had guitar accompaniment! I'm telling you I thought that I was shaking things up a little, but it would still be manageable. Little did I realize that the choir and accompanist also didn't know the first hymn I chose, which is a favorite of mine. It was an interesting morning, but it didn't really compare to the evening when Kayla and I along with a few other people helped to relaunch the youth group at our little church. We did four praise choruses, used powerpoints, and did a NOOMA video (can you tell I have just recently learned how to use the link button?). We had a great night and had ten kids show up. The following Monday continued our whirlwind week and I was out of town all day from 7:15 AM until 11:15 PM at the state marching competition with about 25 high school and middle school students. An exhausting day if ever there was one. Tuesday was a bit of a break because all the classes finished the movie we started on Monday due to the absence of band directors, but Kayla and Brenna went to San Antonio because of errands that needed to be run, so we didn't get to see one another even though we have finally reached the end of marching practices on Tuesdays. Wednesday was a normal day, except Kayla and Brenna came back into town around 5 o'clock in the evening and had to be at church at 5:30 in time for Kayla to work, so we had a hurried meal as a family (the first in almost a week) and they rushed out the door. Once the program Kayla was working in concluded, I met with the guy who's helping me with the youth music from 7:30-9 to work on music for the following Sunday night. Thursday, I had a junior high game, which meant that not only was I in charge of over 50 middle school students to play at the game, but we as a school were also on pep rally schedule which means my lunch period is eliminated to make time for it. I was able to get home to eat, but it was during Brenna (and Kayla's) nap time. Friday was of course the high school game, which was over an hour away, so I didn't get home until after midnight. Which concluded our whirlwind week, and leads into the second topic.

I was able to spend a wonderfully restful weekend at home with my girls this past weekend. We didn't do anything but bum around the house. Kayla and I rented a movie for Sunday night and I really just enjoyed spending time with Kayla and playing with Brenna. I really miss my girls and I hate sometimes that I have chosen a job that keeps me from them for such long stretches of time. I'm telling you, Thanksgiving holidays can't come soon enough. The only possible fly in that ointment is if the football team keeps winning and we have to play the Friday after Thanksgiving. So, everyone pray that the KC football team loses just one more time! Not to sound against the school or anything, but I haven't had a break since Labor Day! Next up: Three weeks until the Christmas Concert. It's also a double whammy because we have two concerts in two days, one is a concert in the city park for the community and the next day is a concert for the band program. Last year these concerts were a week apart, but this year they fall on consecutive days. I'll try and do better about keeping this thing updated, because I know how much you guys miss it when I am unable to!

PLAYOFFS?!

2008-10-27T16:06:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qZzqrhJ7Y0

The guy to the left is Jim Mora, Sr. and if you follow the link above, you will get the joke behind the title of this post. That guy was truly an original in the world of soundbytes! Yes it's true, the Mighty Badgers are for all intents and purposes on their way to the playoffs. We beat up all over our latest competition last Friday and there's basically no way to avoid going. So, I will at least be stuck with one more week than normal of hauling all kinds of equipment all over this God-forsaken state and unloading, reloading, herding, disciplining, playing, joking, marching, watching, etc.

On a happier note (say a C#); Kayla, Brenna, and I took off on Saturday afternoon for a trip to Sea World. This was some much needed family time after a week of not being home very often. In fact, I feel very guilty that I'm spending a ton of time with other people's children and not very much at all with my own. I realize it has to be this way during this time of the year, but I still don't like it. Yet another reason to dislike HS football season (notice I said HS football, did you see the UGA-LSU beatdown? Makes me nervous for next weekend, I digress...)

This week Kayla and Brenna leave on Thursday morning for a great trip that I am glad to say I don't have to be a part of: A Quilting Show weekend! I don't see how that could be any fun at all, but she (Kayla) really seems to enjoy it and appears to have a knack for all things sewing. If you have one of her creations, you know what I mean. Anyway, they are gone until Saturday evening, so that means that I get to be a bachelor once again for a few days. However, you shouldn't have to worry about me getting bored or slothful (not sure if that's a word, but I'm going to act like it is) because on Friday night I will be in charge of around 145 band students ranging in age from 11 to 18. Quite a task, but I think I can handle it. I'll let you know how it goes!

Let's Get Ready to RUMBLE!

2008-10-21T19:09:00.001-07:00

So I couldn't decide what to call this one, so I finally chose to do them in an order that counteracts one another. We had another fight at school today. I say another because it's the third or fourth one we've had in about three weeks. I think it's just getting to the time of the year when kids are getting a little cabin fever and strike out at one another. Anyway, this one happened right as I was taking my assigned kids out the door from lunch. Fortunately, most of my kids had already left the lunchroom, but I still had to deal with a few stragglers who wanted to stay and watch the spectacle. That's really the part that I find unsettling about all the fighting that happens at our school: when we've had these fights break out, we haven't had any kids try to step in and break it up. Mostly we get kids that crowd around with their cell phones in hand trying to catch something to put onto YouTube. It's pretty frightening that they won't even stop to help their fellow peers or the teachers try to break them up. It's like they've spent too much time watching the talk shows and think that's how life is supposed to be. What a world we're living in. The more that I'm here, the more I think we're in the cycle of civilization where we're getting ready to fall flat on our faces so that God can humble our country. Speaking of God...

My classes were watching Finding Nemo today and answering questions about the music (it was the day after marching contest, I didn't feel like teaching too much, okay?). It's very interesting to me the things you notice as you watch a movie in the same section six times in a row. You tend to pick up on a few things you didn't really notice were there. I wanted to call this part: The Bible According to Nemo. For anyone who's seen the movie, you probably remember when Marlin and Dory (left) are at the trench that the moonfish just told Dory to swim through, not over. Marlin describes the trench as having "death written all over it," so he decides to swim over it. When Dory objects, but doesn't remember why, Marlin distracts her by telling her he saw something shiny and it just went over the trench and they should follow it to see what it was. If you remember the movie, what happens next is they get caught in a forest of jellyfish and Dory ends up hurt to the point that she is scarred from the encounter. Does anyone see where I'm going with this? How many times do we as Christians have God tell us something that is for our own good (either through His voice or someone He sends to us), but doesn't necessarily explain why it's for our own good, we get to what He's warned us about and either we get distracted by someone else or we let somebody talk us into thinking we know better than what God's told us and decide to go our own way because it looks easier? Then often times we end up paying a high price for our disobedience, when we would have been better for having listened to God in the first place. Just a thought. Go back and watch that part of the movie and see if you think I'm right. Like I said, when you watch a movie six times in a row, you pick up on some things you might not have seen before. And finally, the reason I watched a cartoon six times in a row...

Marching contest went okay. It was pretty hot when we went onto the field at 2:15 to play, and we had gotten to the school we were playing at about two hours earlier, so we had some time to not only get set for what was about to happen, but I think some of our kids had two hours to let nerves settle in on them really good so they didn't perform as well as they have in the past. Their nerves came through in their performance and we ended up with a III rating. For those not of the band world (or those who've forgotten because it's been a while since their kids were in band), a I rating is the best, a V rating means you should've stayed at home, so we were right around average. I think, however, if the judges had been at our game on Friday, we would have received either a I or a II for that performance, so it's all about how you perform when you need to, and we didn't do as well as we could have. Anyway, thanks to everyone who was concerned for my kids and how they did and thanks for all the prayers.

One final thing, homecoming went okay, as I said before, the halftime show went really well. The next two weeks get a little busy for the Jones family here, as I have a junior high football game, two high school games; one of which will showcase our entire band program from 6th-12th grades (all 150 students), Kayla has a quilting show she's going to in Houston with her mom, I'm leading music at our church for the first time on the first Sunday in November, and that evening Kayla and I along with some others from the church are starting the youth group back at the church that hasn't had anything of significance at the church in several years. We're going to try and take it in a Compass-type direction, so we're pretty excited to show the kids there are different styles of worship than just standing and singing hymns and listening to a speaker, so I'll try and keep everyone posted here about our goings on, but it's going to be a little crazy. I'll type again soon!

Marching Contest and Other Miscellaneous Updates

2008-10-13T13:40:00.000-07:00

Sheesh! I go for around a week without updating this thing and you people jump all over me! You know, sometimes I have to actually live my life before I can blog about it.

I'm just kidding, although this past week has been really busy. I don't think I've made it to the computer more than twice. Why, you may ask? Because this past Saturday was pre-UIL Marching Contest. This is the warm up to the main event next Monday for the actual UIL Marching Contest. In my opinion it's a good and a bad thing because you get one final run-through of all the things you need to work on with actual judges telling you where to start, but at the same time you work so hard and put so much in to just have to get yourself up and ready to go about a week later. The same principle applies to the UGA-FL game followed by the UGA-AUB game. You get yourself so hyped up for one that there is often a let-down for the other. I'm extra worried, though because we earned third place at the competition and our color guard earned the "Outstanding" award. I hope we can keep our kids focused for one more week.

I would say we've got one more game to fine tune our performance, but that's not entirely true, because it's time for one of the oldest traditions in HS football this week:

That's right! Homecoming. That means a week of trying to get our kids to stand in an arch or a heart or two columns or some other kind of sappy shape so that around 10 kids from the football team and the cheerleading squad can come down the field while we play freakin' "Beauty and the Beast" or "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" or some other kind of Disney crap ballad forty-thousand times until finally announce a winner and put the rest of the court out of their misery. Can you tell I'm ready for HS football season to be over? By the way, in case there are any of you out there who are unsure how I feel about marching season, let me be clear: I HATE MARCHING SEASON! I'm just glad I was able to get that off of my chest and can now go on with the remainder of the season which is only about another month long so long as the football team does their job of losing enough games to feel good that they accomplished some of their goals, but not enough that I have to go to anymore games!

On another, happier note:

I received Brisingr as a gift for allowing my wife to travel to Houston to help with her grandmother and mother and general clean up from the hurricane a few weeks back and finished it today. It is somewhere in the ballpark of 750 pages and I finished it in just over a week from when I got it. The worst part to me about getting new books that are a part of a series is that you are so excited to get the next chapter and then you breeze through it because of your eagerness and then you have to wait another three years for the next installment to come out. I remember reading the Left Behind books and wanting to tear my hair out because they kept continuing it. As a matter of fact, the joke in my family was that the rapture was actually going to occur before they finished the series. I did enjoy the book immensly, however and am always amazed that someone can write that much at such a young age, even if it is heavily influenced by other works of fantasy. Now I'm back to my annual reading of the LOTR trilogy until probably Christmas when I will receive another influx of books.

I think that about does it as far as updating for me for now. I had an in-service today, but I think I've said all I need to say about in-services in a previous post (http://nathan-musicalmusings.blogspot.com/2008/08/thank-lord-for-good-in-services.html). Hope everyone is well, and I'll let you know how HOMECOMING 2008 goes!

Reasons to Pause and Reconsider Teaching College

2008-10-04T22:31:00.000-07:00

"After years of alleged misconduct, school chancellor John Wiley (13) placed the band on probation after a bus trip to Michigan last month apparently turned into an outbreak of Nerds Gone Wild. The school said band members "routinely engaged in hazing involving alcohol and sexual behavior."

The above quote was from an article written almost two years ago. The following link will take you to a story posted almost two days ago: http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/news?slug=ap-wisconsin-bandsuspended&prov=ap&type=lgns. I've always said that when I get far enough into my career, that I would like to teach in a college music department. My reasons for this are chiefly that the majority of the students actually want to be there instead of being forced to go, the talent level is more advanced than at middle school age, and I could have more thoughtful conversations about music and how it works.
It seems, however, that I have glossed over the one HUGE downside to this line of work (see the above stories). It's not quite like teaching middle or high school students where if they do this kind of thing you can have get their parents involved immediately, or tell them they can't walk at graduation or some other type punishment. I'm sure these things are done at the college level, the difference is generally speaking these thoughts don't enter the minds of middle and high school students, and if they do the kids are too afraid of the consequences to act on their thought because those consequences are immediate due to mom and dad being right there. Put several hundreds or thousands of miles between mom and dad and said scholar, and the consequences of your actions don't seem as immediate and therefore are not really something to be overly concerned with.
Another aspect of this story that concerns me is the conduct of the assistant band director that is mentioned. It's something that is becoming all too common in the teaching field, I'm afraid. Although, more often than not, it's with a student, not a colleague that the teacher is involved with. These are some of the things that scare me as a teacher. To be wrongly accused because of some action that was misconstrued or a flat-out lie. It's one of the reasons I'm always super careful when talking with and dealing with students especially outside of regular class times.
On a different note, I was without internet here for about three days this past week. It's amazing how much e-mail and facebook junk can accumulate in your inboxes when you don't clear them out almost daily. I was happy that it only took me an hour and a half of phone time to get it back up and running. My girls were gone to Houston this past week, and I missed them dearly. We're all back together now, and we don't really have any more travel plans until the end of the month when Kayla will go to a quilting convention. Sounds like a rip-roaring time to me, but who am I to judge, I go to marching competitions! Speaking of which, we have our first one of those on Saturday, followed by the actual UIL event the following Wednesday. I'll let you know how we did. Guess that's all for now. Happy beginning of Fall from South Texas where it's still over 90 degrees during the day!

Two Absolutely Unrelated Subjects

2008-09-25T16:58:00.000-07:00

For those of you who don't know or have forgotten, I am somewhat of a Star Wars fanatic. In the past few years, this fanaticalism (I just wrote it, so it must be a word) has grown to the point that I see spiritual references any time I watch Star Wars, sort of like when I watch Lord of the Rings or read Chronicles of Narnia. All these stories can be used to portray Christian ideals and ethics. Anyway, anytime something new Star Wars comes out or is on television, I feel a compulsion to watch it (ex: Family Guy Star Wars episode, Spike Channel's Tuesday night Star Wars nights, and just recently on How I Met Your Mother at the end of the movie that the two main guys have just seen it says "121 awesome minutes later, and I could totally relate). The newest craze for me revolves around a new video game called The Force Unleashed. I don't know if it's because we never really had a video game system growing up, but ever since I've moved out on my own, I have loved playing video games. In fact, some of my fondest memories of post-college in Athens involved having a poker and game night at my friend Billy's house. This game looks really awesome. The only downside is that it's only being released on actual video game systems like the Wii and Playstations, and I only have my computer to play video games on. I have been asking my lovely wife half-jokingly for over a year since I found out this game was coming out for one of these video game systems, and now that I've seen some of the game footage on YouTube, it makes me want to step up the asking even more. Christmas is only around the corner after all.

The downside to all of this is that I have a tendency when I get a new game to not bother with anything else until the game is completed. Not doing chores, not keeping myself clean, not furthering my mind, not spending time with my wife or daughter, not anything but the game. This is not something I consciously do, it's the same thing if I really get into a book; the story usually just hooks me and I have to find out how it ends. For this reason I can see why my wife does not want me to have a Playstation or a Wii or even a PSP, but the call of the game is growing stronger!

On a more serious note (Part Two of the unrelated subjects if you bother to read the title of this blog entry), Kayla and I have finally joined First (only) Baptist Church of Karnes City. We have attended this church since we moved down here last October, but we both have had to wrestle with the dogmatic act of "walking down the aisle" to become members of a church. After having been to Compass and taking a class where you are walked through what the church believes, how they feel you should live your life and represent their church among other things, to then do something as trivial as walking down an aisle without knowing any of that information had us both a little concerned. It's not like we weren't already a part of the church (if you recall we did a VBS class over the summer, and I recently provided the special music for a service), but we felt it was finally the right time and did it this past Sunday. The hard part now is the focus has shifted a little bit towards me, or at least it feels like it has; let me explain:

The lady that does the music at the church is a volunteer and has to be somewhere between 65 and 75. She has no formal music training, but she has been willing to lead the music and prepare the choir to sing every Sunday. This is fine and dandy (except she doesn't conduct a correct pattern, which causes me every Sunday to look at my feet instead of at her), except, since I sang those few Sundays ago, every time we've seen her she tells me all the reasons she can't lead the music for too much longer: her eyesight is bad, it's a trouble for her husband and her to drive from where they live to church several times a week, how she's exhausted from working with the choir, and so on. These conversations always end with what feels like to me that she's ready for me to take over all her duties on the following Sunday. Now, maybe that's just me and maybe it's actually true, I'm not sure.

I know I could do this job and I know I could do it well. I also know that I would get some satisfaction out of it because I would be able to guide the music into a more contemporary style. The stumbling block for me is where I'm struggling right now and that is the position is a volunteer one. For the work that I want to do, it would require at least 10-15 hours a week and I am a professional in the field, so I feel that I should have some compensation. At the same time, I realize that I wouldn't be working for myself or even the church, but for Jesus, and that's a position that requires no other payment. But, on the other hand, Paul tells us in the Bible that we are to pay our leaders in the church so that they might be able to live and support their families. On the other other hand, though, it's not like this would be my full-time job or that I'm not already earning a paycheck. But when I think about it another way, any little bit of money I could earn extra for my family would help us to live without having to go paycheck to paycheck.

And that paragraph right there is why I don't allow myself to think about the possibility of taking over the position right now, because I haven't found a way to sort out my questions or concerns yet. Any comments and help would be greatly appreciated, especially of the Biblical source. The reason I ask for them is just like I feel the call of that game drawing me closer, I feel the call of this position in the church drawing me closer.

What do you know, these subjects weren't as unrelated as I thought. Also, if you have made it this far into the post, you are to be commended and I won't make you read any further. Hopefully, the post this weekend will deal with the exciting bus adventures I had today at school. Stay tuned!

Potpourri (Part II)

2008-09-22T00:25:00.000-07:00

I was originally going to call this post: Hey Na, Hey Na, My Girls Are Back, but then we had so much stuff happen over the weekend, that it didn't seem to cover it all, so we'll go with the current title and no picture again. So let's get going:

My girls did make it back from their week-long excursion back East on Friday night, and it really brought a smile to my face when I saw them coming from the stands at the high school game. I hadn't really realized how much I had missed them until I saw them coming to see me. I knew that I had missed them, but I had also been so busy during the week with a re-scheduled evening rehearsal, getting fundraiser stuff for the band in, two pep rallies, and helping the band boosters run a concession stand, as well as changing the entire half-time show so the elementary school could recognize some students. It made me laugh out loud when I looked into the stands and saw my daughter dancing her heart out to the band's music on the field! I wish I had a picture; maybe next time.

So, I get home on Friday night, almost Saturday morning and have to turn right back around by 7:45 Saturday morning to get to the band hall so that kids can come and get their instruments for the parade the band had to march in for our little town. This is a parade we did last year, and I've got to say it was much easier this year, simply because I didn't have to drive down from San Antonio to attend it. It does make me laugh, though, because the parade route can't be more than 3/4's a mile long. And we have the whole town come out for it. When we marched by my house, we had a full crowd and it lightened my heart again because I look over and see my daughter dressed in a full cheerleader uniform for the Dawgs! It also made me laugh because we had a crowd out on our lawn, from our one family of friends here, to our drum major from last year who had graduated and her boyfriend, to the elementary music teacher and her family. It was just good to see that many people at our place to watch the parade. Once I arrived back home, I also saw that my wife had on a UGA shirt and she had gotten a new one for me in her travels. Before she left on her trip she told me that not seeing Brenna dressed for gameday on Saturdays somehow didn't feel right, so she remedied the situation while she was in Athens. It brought joy to my day, because I realized that after eight years I had finally converted my wife to the closest thing to a UGA fan that I'm likely to get. It only took moving to TX to get it! The rest of Saturday was pretty normal. Fortunately, Brenna took a long nap, so I was able to recoup some from the quick turn-around with band duties. We did get to go to the reason there was a parade: The Lonesome Dove Festival, where they did a jousting presentation and we saw a horse that was something like 22 hands high! The horse was huge, the presenter said within the next six months he was going to break the world record for the world's tallest horse currently held by his older brother. We rode a small "choo-choo train" in Brenna's words, we saw some llamas and some goats, and late that evening our neighbors even brought over some dove for us to try. It tasted like chicken to me, but I am by no means a food critic.

So, Sunday rolls around and Kayla is having a difficult time getting going because of what feels like a small head cold, so I take Brenna and we listen to music on the computer. She makes me laugh because once I played some of my movie music for her because I couldn't think of anything else to do with her and she was getting bored, so we sat in the chair and listened and now it's one of her favorite things to do with me. I love it because she gets to share in my life's passion and she loves it because she learns how to "play" all the instruments she hears, and Momma loves it because she doesn't have to watch Brenna. So, we all get to church and get to the end of the service and Kayla finally decides we need to join the church. We had actually decided this back over the summer, but she's adamantly against having to walk the aisle to do anything other than go to the altar to pray. But, we walked the aisle and spoke with the gentleman who is soon to be the interim pastor and joined the church. So we get home after all the excitement of hearing several of the older church ladies express how it was about time we joined and how now I need to help with the choir, and the choir director telling me again for the third week in a row that I need to take her job (More on that later this week), and Kayla immediately goes to lay down. Her little head cold has turned into a serious sinus infection, so I'm in charge of Brenna all day, which is fine because I haven't seen her in a week. So, we have a pretty uneventful day and we go down to see Kayla who only got out of bed long enough to go to the restroom and she tells me I won't have to stay home from school because she might feel better, and in the meantime she can't get out of bed. So, I'm staying home from school tomorrow to give her a chance to recover some energy because I don't think you can take care of a two-year old from your bed. I'll let you know how it goes, but now you're caught up on the lengthy and eventful weekend! Everyone have a great start to your week, I'll be watching my daughter!

Potpourri

2008-09-12T20:29:00.001-07:00

As the title suggests, this post covers all sorts of things and as such I couldn't think of any one picture to put with it. Without further ado, here we go:

As I sit here typing, I'm reminded how fortunate I am that Hurricane Ike chose to not pass this way and my wife was largely spared the worry about how the pets and I would handle our first hurricane by ourselves having never been through one before. On the other hand, her parents and Nena live in Houston, so she still has some worrying left to do, I'm sure. Both Kayla and Brenna are safe and sound in Georgia, although in different areas from one another. Kayla is with Billy and Stephanie, helping out with Baby Elijah, and Brenna is having a grand time with Nonnie and G-Daddy, and BJ, Matt and Tasha in the north Georgia mountains. They will be reunited after the weekend to finish out their trip.

The strangest week I've ever worked is finally over, and possibly the strangest part of all occurred last night, when the KC Badgers won their first game of the year after having their backsides handed to them for two straight games. Maybe they should play every Thursday. Key word being "they," just let the bands show up on Fridays still and have an exhibition, without all the mediocre football getting in the way. We did play against one of the stronger band programs in our district last night, though. I always like to hear them because they are able to produce a "wall of sound," which is something easy to talk about and incredibly difficult to put into action. It's good for our kids to hear bands of that caliber, I just wish there were more in the district.

I'm still envious that Kayla gets to go to Compass this Sunday. They are slated to baptize somewhere in the ballpark of 100 people over the next few weeks, and Kayla gets to be there for the first service. I just wish that the church we attend here would show some fire in the way we do church. There is a sweet spirit in the church, but there is no real urgency to reach lost people, or to make the service applicable to everyday life. That's not entirely true. Over the next few weeks, we have a person filling the pastor's spot who does George Washington re-enactments. In fact, he attended the RNC as George Washington and was asked to give the opening Invocation at the start of the convention. He is a very good speaker, and tries very hard to give an applicable message. He will probably be the only reason I'll go to church on Sunday.

My Movie Music classes took their first "Quest" for me today (combination Quiz and Test), and so far have scored really well. All have shown marked improvement over the first quiz I gave them. They weren't able to take the entire test, because we had an early release day today due to the hurricane threat. That meant that I only had my kids for around 30 minutes each period. In that time, however, they were able to complete 3/4 of the test. Really excited that they've done so well, and super excited that hopefully next week, barring water pumps breaking down, or football games getting switched, or hurricanes coming to tear everything apart we should be starting actual movie music!

I'm trying to decide whether or not to stay another year here in KC after this year. When I first took the job, I was considering it to be a 3 year job, that way I could take an initial 6th grade class, and move them all the way through Junior High. I thought this would give me a good gauge as to how effective I had been with them and if they were learning the skills I wanted them to learn. What I was not planning on was having to deal with my co-worker. The first year together, we had such a difficult time together, that at the end of the year, I was contemplating making this year my last year. She was not the only reason, there's also not a lot of cultural or social opportunities for Kayla and Brenna here. The new plan was to put my resume out to a few schools over the Christmas break, and start at the TMEA Convention to begin looking for a job in earnest. The only thing that has changed about the situation is my co-worker has been much better this year and we have gotten along a lot better. Now, I realize it's only 3 weeks into the school year, but we've been working day in and day out together since the beginning of August. So now, I'm trying to decide whether or not to go back to the original plan of 3 years, or continue with the new plan of ending my time at KC this year. Any prayers for guidance would be greatly appreciated.

I think that's about all I have. I've taken care of most of the things on my list for hurricane preparations, and I'm ready to ride out whatever comes this way. Although I think it will only be above average winds. I'll keep everyone informed of all the goings on this week with Kayla and Brenna being gone. Should be an interesting time. Go Dawgs!

Batten Down The Hatches!!!

2008-09-09T22:09:00.000-07:00

This has got to be the strangest week I have ever worked in my entire life. So we get to school this morning and it's already going to be a packed day because of the unexpected half-day yesterday as well as other reasons we'll get into in a moment and we get an e-mail from the higher-ups that states that due to possible inclement weather (see the picture to the left) on Friday night, that the Varsity football game will be moved from Friday night to Thursday night and the JV and JH games will be either cancelled or postponed for this week. Heaven forbid that here in South Texas we actually cancel a football game for the 0-2 HS squad.

Now for most people in the school, the change of a game to one day earlier is not that big of a deal. The football team has one less day to practice, but they're out there every day, and you've got to arrange for all the concession stand food to be delivered one day earlier, as well as make sure all the fans know of the switch. All of these things are relatively easy to deal with. The hard part comes when you're in the band and you only practice one night a week, and you're preparing a feature for either the "drill team" or the twirlers that has to change because we were going to involve some elementary kids that won't be coming, AND it's Band Parent Night! Things are just a little tense here in the great Karnes City. Add to that the fact that a huge storm is projected to hit land 80 miles away from us and it's a wonder we haven't just called it quits for this week!

As if this weren't enough on the plate of a band director this week, we also had our band drive today. This is an event that is called something different in GA, although I can't remember what we called it, where the 6th grade students come and pick up their instruments and books so we can begin the long process of teaching them to play their instruments. This is a lengthy process of meeting with parents and answering as many questions as we can about a great many subjects, as well as keeping the excitement of the 6th grade student under control, compounded with keeping the other JH/HS students out of the band hall in order for the band drive to go smoothly. Added to this chaos are a sound board training for an hour in the middle of it in the auditorium, and after school HS marching practice and the threat of inclement weather and you've got one pooped assistant band director. As if that wasn't enough, at the conclusion of HS practice after 9 pm tonight, we somehow got a huge bullfrog loose in the band hall tonight. You know you teach in the sticks when you look out your office window at a student trying to keep a bullfrog from leaping his way underneath the keyboard instruments!

And oh, by the way, this is the week I chose to surprise my wife and child with their trip to Athens to visit friends and help with their newborn child! At first I thought I had put them on a plane on the 11th, but they go out on the 12th. Not that I think anything would have happened anyway, but it still just feels wrong to get on an airplane on the 11th of this month. I wonder if it will always feel that way. So anyway, I'm trying to get the house and belongings hurricane proof as well as flood proof should it come to that. Any suggestions on how to accomplish that efficiently and speedily would be greatly appreciated. Remember I've also got two pets with me as well. I just hope that I don't have to evacuate and have to load the pets into the Honda that has no air and minimal space for anything at all, not to mention a leaky trunk! Ah well, that's the excitement that comes with living here in the beautiful sweltering wasteland that is this particular part of Texas, I guess. I'm really rather envious of Kayla and Brenna who get to look forward to evening lows in the low 70s and 60s next week, while I'll continue to die in the low to mid-80s at night. I'll keep everyone informed as best I can from my little corner of the world through this site, Facebook, and if you're lucky enough a phone call or two.

Now I'm off to bed so I can prepare for the end of my week hoping you'll join me in saying prayers that nothing else out of the ordinary happens this week.

Two 4-Day Weeks in a Row?!

2008-09-08T12:36:00.000-07:00

That's what you get when the water pump in your town decides to go out overnight, leaving your school with no water. Technically it's a half-day because most of the kids were out of school by 12:30, but I'll take it any way I can get it. At the same time, I'm a little torn, because I have a lot of things going this week that I need to work on the kids with, not least of which includes the beginners getting their instruments and giving a test to my music class on Thursday. Not to mention Kayla and Brenna leaving for Athens this week. Not the most opportune time for water troubles, but maybe the kids will be in better moods this week because of it.

The weekend went pretty well. No broken instruments or students, although I did get a scare when the bus in front of the Suburban/trailer full of instruments I was following slammed on their brakes and I wasn't sure if I would get my load stopped in time to avoid an accident. The bright side is I'm the only one who knew how close it was. No one else in the vehicle seemed to notice. Saturday was great because the Dawgs won in impressive fashion, although I was very disappointed in ESPN's highlights that didn't show Mr. Moreno doing his best Superman impersonation (Able to leap tall defenders in a single bound!). Sunday was a fabulous day! I got to sing at church (A Casting Crowns song called "And Now My Lifesong Sings," or as Brenna calls it the "Hallelu" song.), then our friends the Djzuiks' (sp.?), sounds like Juke's took us out for lunch and we had an excellent time with them, followed by an exquisite nap of two and a half hours. Then Brenna and I came in to the computer room and listened to movie music until dinner, and Kayla and I finished out the night watching Coach Carter as well as some extracurricular activities (wink, wink). All in all a very good day!

Then came Monday morning, and I felt like the kid in the book "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day," because I woke up a little on the late side, which caused me to change my ringtone on my phone by the time I made it to the shower. I jump in the shower expecting to take a 7-minute-er in hopes of getting back on track, only to instead be met by a small trickle of water and had to fill up a Houston Astros cup several times before I could wash my hair and body completely. All this time, I've got a shirt in the dryer because I didn't have time to iron it, and it didn't look that bad. I bring this up, because the dog wanted to go outside when I went out to put the shirt in and I wouldn't let her because it was still dark and I didn't want her barking or getting into a tussle with whatever might have been out in the back yard. So, I get out of the shower and grab a pop-tart to sit down and scarf it before I have to get dressed and out the door, I make my way into the living room and there is a beautiful smell that greets me of doggy-poo all over the rug. Apparently she either really needed to go, or was really mad at me for not letting her out. So I clean up the doggy-poo and finally get out the door just in time to make it to school. The band hall is a disaster because we got in so late from the game on Friday night that people just dropped their stuff and went home (including me), so I didn't have any time to clean it, I didn't have any time to work on the other forms I was getting ready for the day, or time to work up an outline for my movie music class, so I was geared up for a bad day.

Turns out even the bad ones can be alright, all it takes is a broken water pump.

Missing Athens

2008-09-02T22:10:00.000-07:00

I couldn't decide if those not from Athens would be able to tell that the famous Redcoat Marching Band over on the left was making the Arch from Athens. Here's a little history lesson courtesy of wikipedia about the UGA arch:

"Perhaps the most notable North Campus fixture, though, is the cast-iron gateway that stands at its main entrance. Known as "The Arch" (but often erroneously pluralized to "The Arches"), the structure was patterned after the the Seal of the state of Georgia, and has faced historic downtown Athens ever since it was erected in the 1850s. Although the Seal's three pillars represent the state's three branches of government, the pillars of The Arch are usually taken to represent the Georgia Constitution's three principles of wisdom, justice, and moderation, which are engraved over the pillars of the Seal. There are multiple legends about walking through The Arch: one has it that if you walk beneath it as an underclassman, you'll either be a 5th year+ senior or you will never graduate from UGA. Another legend claims that should you walk through The Arch as a freshman, you will become sterile (as told in some freshman orientation tours)."

This is just one of the few things I miss about my hometown due to being so far away from it. Athens will always be my home, it was where I was raised, where I met my wife, where we found a church, and where we had Brenna. I have lifelong friends there that I miss dearly, and of course there's the college. Now, when I talk about the college, some of you would say, "he's about to wax poetic about the football team," wait and hear me out. While I am quick to remind everyone here of the virtues of the athletic department of UGA (men's basketball SEC champs, gymnastics champs, #1 football team, 2nd in college baseball, etc.), what I really miss is the feel of Athens. It was a funky little town that had its own vibe about it that can't really be explained. People were always friendly, if a little wierd downtown. We also had the opportunity to take in some of the best culture around for rock-bottom prices, whether it be a show, a concert, or an art exhibit. These are some of the things that we just don't get here in the little 3,000 person town of Karnes City, and if I go to San Antonio, those rock-bottom prices are nowhere to be found.

I was reminded (as I normally am around a holiday) of how much we gave up when we left Athens. I called one of my friends (Hi, Billy!) over the Labor Day holiday to see what was going on with our friends, and everyone was gathered in the small town of Comer for a cook-off between two of our friends (Hi, Jake!). It sounded like everyone was having a great time cooking, laughing, and growing closer together. We talked about how church was going and how they are doing church in new and creative ways, which is hard to hear when I'm stuck doing all 6 verses of "Just As I Am" every Sunday and listening to sermons that have exactly three points that I could come up with on my own. Not to say there's something wrong with that, it's just not as easy to get excited about. That coupled with not being around when the town comes back to full life with the return of students after a short summer break just makes me sad. Not to say that I don't think we're right smack in the middle of God's will being here and doing important work with the kids from the great KC, but I wonder if I'll ever not miss my home.

The Magic That Is The First Football Game

2008-08-29T23:47:00.000-07:00

Well, almost....

It would have been magic except for a few minor glitches. Namely, the game was an hour away, it rained, there was mud everywhere (even the ponchos), there were band ponchos, the football team lost, and oh yeah, we broke the marimba. Now if you don't know what a marimba is or what one looks like, I have provided an image out to the side here. You can see how the largest resonators to the far left stick out almost longer than the wheels, well let's just say that when you take this monstrosity of a percussion instrument down two loading ramps (think like the ones they use to put a car onto a transfer truck), those resonators just might hit that ramp, and then everything on the blasted instrument falls apart. Now, I'm not saying that happened to our marimba because if you were to look at our marimba, you would see that it is in perfect working order and plays like a dream. However, if you had seen me holding pieces of something that looked like a marimba during the halftime show instead of being on the field watching my kids perform and then joining our one special student to make sure he didn't get too excited in his playing (more on that later), you might have other thoughts, but you weren't there, were you? This might bring another scenario to the minds of some of my kin that occurred way back when I was in high school that also involved a pitched percussion instrument, but we'll leave the past buried, and just say that neither of these instances are my fault.

Now, to my special student. I really feel a little sorry for this kid, but he doesn't make it easy to feel that way for him. He's a kid that has some physical and mental issues, but at the same time he functions at a relatively high level, to the point that oftentimes, he knows how he is acting and how it affects others. That being said, this student may have to find alternate transportation to the football game, because I fear for his safety from his fellow bandmates if they have to endure another marathon trip with him in their presence. He's just got one of those personalities that people don't put up with over long stretches of time. He didn't bother me tonight in this regard. What got me almost yelling at him was when he came up to me in the middle of a song and asked me about what note he should play in the middle of the song we were doing at the moment. And this wasn't like I had rest and we could talk about it right then, no, he comes up to me as I'm playing the melody of the song and asks. When the song ended and I was able to hear his question about his note, it was one that he couldn't even play in his wildest dreams and he KNEW it! I was upset with the boy. Anyway, that was my magical night "under the lights" here in Texas to kick off year number two. It's 2AM (I must be lonely-Matchbox 20), and I'm about to eat some dinner, and then get in bed. Thank the Lord for the long weekend! Next week is a two-hour bus drive, I can hardly wait!

Today's Funny Story

2008-08-26T21:36:00.001-07:00

So, I'm teaching my film music class first thing this morning and I'm going over a worksheet I've created where the students have to fill in the blanks while I talk. I've just finished the first set of blanks to fill in and like the studious teacher I am, I ask if there are any questions I need to answer before we go on. I have one student who raises her hand. Now, normally I would be expecting a request for the bathroom, or to go to the nurse, or anything else other than what the class is about. This is for two reasons: First, it's 9AM and the kids aren't up yet, and second, it's just fill in the blank. Anyway, I call on this girl and she actually has a question for me:

Are these underlined words supposed to be blanks?

I had given her the teacher copy with all the blanks filled in, instead of the student copy.

1st Day Back!

2008-08-25T18:52:00.000-07:00

I thought I would start this entry off with some cartoons, they always seem to make the situation better.

I'm not sure I could have asked for a better first day, and it's very nice to be able to have a second first day. Of course I mean a first day for a second year in the same school. The kids were very pleasant and we were able to get the information to them that we needed to.

The only problem I had with my day was my own fault: I had a list of things in my head that I wanted to accomplish before school started. They included watching some trilogies, playing some games to completion, and finishing all the summer books I set out to read. I was so determined to complete the task of finishing my self-imposed booklist that I stayed up until 1AM to complete the book that I was working on. I woke up between 6 and 6:20, ready to face the day, but I am paying for it now. My poor wife had to deal with our daughter this evening for probably an hour because I couldn't keep my eyes open. So, I will not make this mistake again, I hope. I plan on going to bed here in the next half-hour or so, so that I can be well rested to go back tomorrow, when the real work begins.

It always seems easy to me to plan lessons for the first day, because the kids are filling out forms, telling what they did over the summer, and getting all the paperwork that you got ready to go the week before and before you know it the time alloted is up and they're off to their next class. Tomorrow, and every day following until sometime around the last week, the real work of teaching begins and continues. I look forward to the challenges and am really excited about all my classes.

The updated numbers as of today (the counselor told me they would change tomorrow) are as follows:
Percussion-16
Movie Music 1-5
Beginning Band 1-30
Beginning Band 2-28
7/8th Grade Band-52
Movie Music 2-19

That's a grand total of 150 students that I get to see and teach personally out of a school of around 300. That's not including the 40 or so high school band members who I also assist with. Don't anyone ever say band directors have an easy job. Hope everyone has a great Tuesday!

About to Start the Marathon!

2008-08-21T21:05:00.000-07:00

Sorry, there just isn't a good picture to go along with 6th grade orientation and 7/8th grade picking up their schedules, so you'll have to go without.

Yes, today after 7 hours of grueling in-service meetings (more on those later), we had to get energized and peppy enough to match the intensity level of the rising 6th graders who were on our campus today getting themselves acquainted with the school layout and important places on campus they needed to be aware of. It really wasn't that bad, I had a few flyers to hand out and a few parents had questions they needed answered, which if I didn't answer sufficiently, they made it seem like I did. Shortly after the 6th graders were off with family members to find their respective classrooms, those of us fortunate enough to teach more than one grade level had to book it back over to the auditorium for the 7/8th grade orientation meeting and collecting of schedules. What my mother said on her blog a few days ago (http://gabbysblog-keyofdjonz.blogspot.com/), has really rung true with me over the past few days. Simply put, we teachers and to some extent the students on campus are very accomodating here at the beginning of the schoolyear. Give it a few weeks of seeing no one other than each other, and this great mood of comeraderie and cooperation begins to give way to short fuses and major stresses! Enjoy it while it lasts is all I can say! It was really fun to get to see all the kids we had last year again, though and I'm ready to begin making new mistakes this year. That was one thing TBA taught me: it's okay to make several mistakes in one year. It's not okay to make the same several mistakes year after year. So I'm looking forward to making brand new mistakes!

Did I mention that I have 52 beginning band students and 52 7/8th grade band students? Did I mention I have a percussion class at 8 in the morning that I found out today is not comprised simply of beginning percussionist, but also of high school percussionist? Did I mention I have 5 music class students in my first film music class of the day and 18 in the next? For an average class size that hovers somewhere in the 15 student range for most teachers at my campus, these are huge challenges that I'm going to face this year. I just hope that I'm up to the challenge and that my co-worker can exercise some patience, and also allow me and the students to maintain a feeling of dignity in her discipline and corrections of teaching methods. The idea of dignity in discipline is something that has been preached over and over again during this inservice time.

Check out the smooth segue: Speaking of in-service: I had to give a presentation this morning on the National Middle School Association's goals for middle school level education. We only had yesterday morning during in-service to work on it, and it wasn't that hard. Mostly it consisted of taking bullet points and putting them into your own words. The section I was responsible for was only around three pages anyway. What I was not expecting is the reaction I received from my colleagues once I finished speaking, which has led me to think that maybe I put on an act when I teach versus when I'm around other people. When it was my turn to speak, I just got up and presented my information, but I tried to make it relevant to the audience as well as bring my own sense of unique humor to the presentation. Well, either I was an amazingly dynamic speaker, or my colleagues had never seen me so animated before (take your guess as to which one you lean towards), and I had at least 3-4 people come up to me afterwards to let me know they thought I did a really good job presenting. Maybe I'm a superhero with an alter-ego? Probably not. Definitely not.

It also made me laugh to realize how new teachers (beginning teachers) sometimes overdo things when they first start to teach. I can laugh, because it's me, and every other teacher in the world when they first start out. Case in point: The presentation I was a part of this morning was among the junior high non-core subject teachers like band, art, and PE. The high school had a similar project with a different book, they were supposed to each take a chapter or two and break it down and have it prepared for a presentation this morning. So we junior high teachers finish and sit back down and allow the high school team to go. This lady (girl?) stands up who is a first year teacher, a new teacher to the district, and graduated from here not too many years ago. Folks, that is three strikes against you if you're working to be taken seriously, so I can understand why this young lady acted the way she did (you'll see). The first words out of her mouth were: Can someone help me pass out these outlines? This would generally be a normal request and one that would not cause snickers among the group of teachers that worked on these presentations, however we had been instructed that this didn't have to be very high-tech, that our principal just wanted the information out there for the faculty, and that we were by no means to feel that we needed to do a huge presentation, like a powerpoint, if we simply wanted to write down our thoughts and present that, it would be just fine. So this young lady proceeds to hand these papers to the group, and then goes to the computer and pulls up her powerpoint presentation. She then spends the next 20 minutes explaining not only what I'm sure was her chapter responsibility, but also those of just about every other chapter in the book, knocking out what any other group had to contribute. Not that the other group of coaches minded all that much, they just kept on telling her that was basically right, and she was doing a fine job! No one can tell these coaches they don't know how to look a gift horse in the mouth. Anyway, she did a fairly good job, but I just had to smile, because I know she was trying really hard to be taken seriously by a faculty that largely taught her in high school. I wish her all the best, and realize that I'm not that far away from her.

I also am realizing more and more each day that there has to be a balance between the enthusiasm that needs to be brought to this type of job in order to be effective, and not to overdo or out-think what needs to be done. We as teachers have a tendency to make a very simple problem or project very complex when we don't need to, and it's definitely something I'm planning on watching out for this upcoming schoolyear. Which starts promptly at 7:55 on Monday!

Kayla, Brenna, and I will be at a wedding in San Antonio this weekend, for some people that I don't know, but I hope the food will be good and that I'll be able to rest up some before this long marathon race begins!

Thank the Lord for Good In-Services

2008-08-19T20:14:00.000-07:00

In my short (some would say extremely short) teaching career, I can say with some confidence that there are some times when we have specific "training times" which should be labeled as "blocks of wasted time I could be spent doing anything else that would be more worthwhile for myself, my students, and the whole population of educated people in general." These times are typically called in-service opportunities. You don't often have a choice of whether or not to attend these in-service times. There are a few instances, however which should not hold the same connotations as the phrase "in-service." In fact, if I had my way, we would call them something like "Theft Sessions," or "How to Be A Thief." I would call these as such because you come out of them with a truckload of ideas for your classroom that you put no effort into whatsoever, yet the presenter expects and frankly would be offended if you didn't use them as such. (By the way, if we've got any other terms for the dreaded "in-service" or "Theft Sessions", I would love to hear them)

Today's in-service was one of those Theft Sessions. I was a little wary going in, because the lady that spoke to us is a huge Harry Wong fan, who was teaching before Harry Wong came out with all his stuff. However, this means that she met us as close to the door as possible and had us introduce ourselves and shake hands. This also meant that there was some group work time planned. Each of these things are issues with me, because I'm the type of person that likes to hang back and check out my surroundings before I am forced to join in with everyone else. It's how I've survived in such good shape over the past 28 years. Back to topic, I was also wary of this lady because she was a theater person and we were in a very small space. Now don't get me wrong, I love theater people. I have several friends who work in the theater world, but at times if you get too close to them (in a physical sense, not emotional), they tend to be incredibly overbearing, because normally they are trying to project a character all the way to the back of the theater. This works in a theater setting, not so much in a classroom with 15-20 people in it. So here's this lady who is larger than life, but to the trained eye of a performer, you can see she is also playing a part, and it makes you distrust her a little bit because you know she's only playing a character and not being genuine.

As the day wore on, however, the initial facade faded some, and she was very able to connect with our small band (no pun intended) of non-math and non-science teachers. She was a fantastic reader, she read us several of her own compositions which were delightful to listen to. She also was a presenter who had taught for almost 40 years in the classroom, so at the end of the day, she was really able to give us practical uses for almost every conceivable subject area. It was very refreshing because as a music teacher, I feel we are somewhat left out in the cold in these mandatory meetings because the focus is on the classroom teacher and on how to arrange desks and check student written work and other things of this nature which are very difficult to adapt to the music classroom setting. For those who don't realize why this is an issue, let's cover these two very shortly: written assignments are basically not done in band or choir, because your final portfolio of work is available for the public to hear and you actually invite parents and community members to come and judge. Arranging desks (which we don't have) is also very difficult, because children are generally seated according to what instrument they play or what voice part they sing. Now I realize that I can adapt that somewhat, and I have in the past, but it took a lot of thinking time and work on my own to come to a satisfactory conclusion that worked for me, and it had nothing to do with what I was told during one of these in-services.

This presenter was not like that at all, she made a very conscious effort to include the fine arts classes, and seemed to try very hard to validate us as an actual subject which is another fight we have to fight sometimes, not so much with teachers although there are a few, but more with students who don't realize they can actually fail band if they don't do the assignments. Anyway, back to this presenter. She also helped me gather ideas for my upcoming general music classes this next year as far as classroom managers and keeping students on task when outside of my room, but doing work for my class. It was very nice.

One last thing about this presenter. She had all of us write on an index card an adjective we would use to describe the types of teachers or teaching we would like to do this year. Take some guesses on my word, and I'll post it in the next blog. The hint I'll give you is it has to do with one of Compass' core values. The exercise we did with it involved mixing all the cards up and redistributing them, then having the "students" match the cards back up with their owners. It was a wonderful way to get to know each teacher a little bit deeper, and at the end of the exercise, we could have written all of the words up on the board and had a fantastic list of words to help inspire us throughout the year. (That's my mini-theft session, if you can use it, take it! One thief to another!)

The last thing I'll say in this blog has to do with the picture that I chose to attach to it. The reason I chose it is because it's the hokey, never gonna put it up within a 50 yard circumference of my classroom kind of one-line, no thought went into it kind of dribble we get fed at an in-service that the presenter thinks is very profound and that makes me sick. Now, I realize that my mother who teaches 5th grade is probably going to read this and before she gets to this part be looking elsewhere on the Internet trying to find it so she can either put it up in her room at school or at the house, but that's because that sort of thing will work for her and I hope that if she ever did an in-service, excuse me, theft session, she would never use this thing to close her time. It would be something truly profound, practical, and easily adaptable to any subject............ You won't find any of that here, so just keep on walking, but thanks for reading all of the post. I'm sure there will be more tomorrow!

There's Got to Be a Better Wake-Up Call

2008-08-18T19:59:00.000-07:00

So, I've got to find out who it is in the school district I've offended and what I can do to make it up to them. If you notice the picture to the left, this will be my teaching style until sometime around December of this year. We (the head director and myself) decided that because of the usual large numbers of students who want to play percussion, that this year we would offer a percussion class, freeing up these students to not only play percussion, but to also play a wind instrument. What I didn't count on was an entire class of sixth graders.......at 8AM in the morning.........with 19 (NINETEEN, that's a one in front of a nine!) signed up to take the course. Did I mention it's at 8 in the morning, does anyone remember that I am primarily a night person, not a morning person? Did I also mention that these will all be students who think that percussion consists of doing just what this kid is doing in the picture: hitting things as long and as loud as you can to see how annoyed you can make anyone around you, with the ultimate goal of achieveing the pose of the listener in the picture?! How ridiculous!

In other news, Kayla and Brenna made it home safely, the house has been cleaned, I took another shower, and finished Star Wars last night before I went to bed. Life is about to return to regularly scheduled programming for the Joneses. At least, the crazy sort of schedule we keep during marching season.

Can I just take a moment, speaking of marching band, and brag on my kids just a little? These kids have been truly amazing to watch these past three weeks. They have come to the rehearsals we have had and worked their tails off to get things ready for this upcoming season. The head director stated before the first rehearsal that she wanted a marching trophy this year, and I've got to think that if they maintain this pace, they will put themselves in a very good position to attain one. There have only been a few gripes and complaints, and for the most part there has been a great deal of focus placed on completing the assigned tasks as efficiently as possible in order to earn time spent doing other things. I'm very proud of them all. That doesn't mean that they haven't already started to drive me crazy over some things, but overall I've been very pleased.

Okay, it's getting late (school-schedule), and I need to head off to bed, so I promise to keep everyone informed of the goings on during pre-planning this week and the first week of school next week. I know my Georgia teachers that read this are ready to smack me upside the head for that one, especially when they know that I get out around the same time they do at the end of the year. Just keep that in mind when you're off on Spring, Fall, Christmas, and Winter breaks, while I'm slaving away in the constant heat down here!

PS, I apologize for the scrunched-up look to this blog, I can't make it post with the divides I want it to. It's pretty annoying, but if I can endure it, you have to as well!

The Final Week of Summer (For Real)

2008-08-13T22:39:00.001-07:00

So my last week of summer vacation was supposed to end about two weeks ago when I started band camp. Little did I know that the head band director I work with had other plans. She wrote an amazingly simple, yet effective drill for our marching band, mix it together with kids who are really willing to work as hard as they can, and you end up with the following: instead of three days working from 10 AM-8 PM, three days off with nothing to do but see how you can accomplish the least amount of productivity into such a short period of time.

Did I mention Kayla and Brenna went to Houston this week to visit her parents? We did this because I wasn't going to be home anyway, and it was a good time for them to visit before school got back into session for Kayla's mom as well. So not only am I allowed to indulge myself in my odd sleep schedule (see writing a blog post at one in the morning), but I'm also allowed to play computer games to my heart's content, as well as complete my final bit of "film research" for the summer by completing the Star Wars double trilogy.

Now I realize that some of you who read this are thinking, "Boy, if I had one more week of vacation left and I knew I wasn't going to get another break for three months, I would probably spend it preparing for the upcoming classes I had to teach to set out a syllabus, a schedule of events, and make sure I had my first few weeks of lesson plans done." To those people, I say: "When you have three days of waking up at 11 and going to bed at 4, there's plenty of time to fit it all in." Yes, I realize it's a lie, and I'll probably not even make it through half of the things I actually need to accomplish, but I have such a hard time getting motivated when I'm here by myself. Which leads me to my final point.

If I had not gotten married to a fabulous woman (See post on 8/3/08), I would almost certainly be a very lazy and unkempt man-child. I say this because in the time since my wife and daughter left town, I have logged roughly 14 hours of sleep, eaten fried food for every meal since Sunday, not shaved, bathed twice, gotten out of my pj's only to go to two days of work, and logged the remainder of my time between the computer and the television with a few breaks for the call of nature. To all the guys reading this, don't hate me because you can't have this glamour, and to all the girls, be thankful I found time to feed our pets! I love bachelorhood, but I think if I had it all the time, it would destroy me. I did get productive a little today and cleaned the house just a bit, and I do have a few work things to do tomorrow, which should insure that I put on some shorts that I don't sleep in. As far as that list that's shown above about all the things I need to do, I'll get to them at the end of the week, I'm sure. And if not, well.....

Kayla and Brenna will be home Friday!

The Great Motivator

2008-08-12T00:08:00.000-07:00

This will be short since it's way past my bedtime, but I fell asleep upstairs. I just wanted everyone who wasn't a teacher to realize that sometimes we as a group will do or say anything that motivates our students to acheive heights that they would not think of otherwise. One of these instances came up for me today. The kids had a new "thing" they were doing today that they thought was the most fun and coolest thing they've ever done before. Give them a few weeks and they will move on to something else they think is the greatest thing since sliced bread, it's just the way kids operate. Anyway, they kept asking me to join them and here's where I may have gotten myself into some trouble. I told them that if they received straight ones at their marching contest, that I would do this thing for them. What is this mysterious "thing", you ask? Well, rather than tell you, let me show you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlHLCOLSThI

Of course knowing how great I am, it will probably turn out more like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QB32oCrl__0

My only hope is that they forget I made this promise when they move on to the next thing, or openly root against them to succeed when we go to marching contest. At least there is new motivation there now! I probably won't have to worry about it (famous last words). Maybe I should stop fooling myself and start thinking about my wardrobe? Ideas? Leave a comment!

Why couldn't I have gone into music performance?

PS: If the links don't work, e-mail me and I'll tell you what they were, or navigate you to the site.

I Am The Height of Fashion

2008-08-08T20:14:00.001-07:00

I really hope that the people on "What Not to Wear" don't ever send a crew down to Karnes City, because if they do, I'm in trouble courtesy of some of my family. Let me preface what I'm about to write by saying that I love all my family and I love receiving gifts from them. I also love that they care enough for my well-being to see that I look good, or am comfortable or not about to pass out from heat stroke in the Texas heat.

Having said that, the first of the two pictures to the left of this post are the two latest pieces of clothing I have received in the past week from family. One is a pink shirt that I am assured all men wear now, and I should join the crowd. While the picture to the left is somewhat different from what is residing in my drawer right now (i.e. no collar buttoned up to the lip, no shirt sleeves that come down to my bulging forearms), it gets the point across. I now own a pink shirt that is suggested I wear to work....where I teach middle school and high school......band..... in a blue collar town. Now as I said before I am extremely grateful to have received anything at all, but I have yet to gather the courage necessary to wear my pink shirt in public. Maybe in the new year. And it won't be a problem that it's a short sleeve shirt because the average temprature here in winter is like 75 degrees!

This second picture is a creation called "cool ties." And while they do look quite distinguished from a fashion point of view, they are also practical! These little ties have beads inside of them that act like a heating pad in opposite. You put this thing in the fridge for up to an hour to soak in some cold water, take it out, wrap it around your neck, or as this picture suggests, your head, and it will keep you cool for hours at a time. I love the idea, unfortunately, on the actual "cool" scale, it ranks just above the fanny pack. Very versatile, very handy, comfy, yet it begs for the wearer to be publicly ridiculed. Let's remember where I work again. Now we begin to see the problem. I'm not saying that I won't wear mine (it came custom made with music notes!), but I will say that it will have to get pretty hot for me to bite the bullet and slap it around my neck, probably not my head, unless a Rambo type situation presents itself. And let's face it, that's entirely possible, I mean I've already done a Jack Bauer, right?

Anyways, let me close by saying that I do truly appreciate my gifts and I hope that if you gave me one of these articles of clothing, you will see that I'm just picking on you guys, and I do it because I love each of you more than words can express. Thanks for caring about me to the point that you would take time out of your day to make sure that I had clothes on my back, but let's hope that the fabled "fashion police" is just that, a fable.

A Strange, Sad Day

2008-08-04T22:57:00.000-07:00

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a huge baseball and college football fan. Well, I have spent the better part of two nights now awake past my bedtime because I'm trying to get more information on a certain baseball event: the sudden passing of Skip Caray, longtime announcer and television personality for the Atlanta Braves baseball team. Now, I may not have been the biggest Skip Caray fan, in fact, I thought several times when I heard him do call-in shows that he was downright rude to the callers. However, he was one of the reasons I fell in love with baseball at a young age. He made it possible for a 7 or 8 year old to sit through a 3-hour game with little complaint because he helped you understand the game as well as made it interesting to listen to. And to those of you who heard or saw those games in the mid-80's, they were everything but entertaining and interesting! It's odd to be affected so much by a man I never even met, but I felt like I knew him through spending so many summer nights listening to him do the games. One thing he was the absolute best at was calling the game the way a fan of the team would, calling the Braves "we" and "us", and if they were doing great, giving memorable calls and praise, and if they were terrible, either making light of the situation (i.e. calling the forthcoming double play because that's how bad we were), or getting downright mad when we weren't playing up to expectations. His voice and personality will surely be missed. Thanks for the great calls, Skip!.....

Larry Munson's immortal, right?

Happy Anniversary!

2008-08-03T21:14:00.000-07:00

To my lovely wife:

You are by far the most beautiful of God's creations. How you came to choose me over all others is something that will boggle my mind until my dying day. You are the most intriguing person I have ever met, who continues to challenge me, to make me a better person than I would be without you in my life. Your support of me through the years through good times and bad has been invaluable to my well-being. You have one of the sharpest minds and greatest senses of humor of anyone I know. I love how we can speak entire conversations without saying a word, or how we can sit in comfortable silence. Thank you for your trust in me to lead our family and to listen to God's voice. Thank you for your trust in me. I praise God each and every day that I get to wake up next to you. There is no doubt in my mind that you have been placed in my life to be a daily reminder of how good God is to me. You understand me better than anyone else I know and you accept me fully knowing more of my faults than anyone else. Thank you so much for dedicating yourself to God, to me, and to our daughter. I love you more than I will ever be able to convey in words, actions, or song. I'm so glad we were married and I look forward to each new adventure we take on together in this life and the next! I love you!

The Following Takes Place Between 9:30 AM and 10:30 AM

2008-08-01T09:02:00.001-07:00

Previously on "24":

Pat: "I need you to see how secure my plant is, you're the only one I trust to do this, if you are caught you are on your own, your country cannot help you."

Jack (me): I accept this prestigious mission, sir.

So my friend Pat asked me last week if I wanted to help him test his factory's security procedures. He promised to pay me (for a teacher this is a helpful piece of info.) so I told him sure. What he wanted me to do was try to break into his plant any way that I could. I met with him yesterday for lunch where I received information on what they considered to be weak points of entry and also where I was to drop my package if I succeeded. What we didn't go over very well was an exit strategy. This is something I realize as I'm frantically trying to leave this place without getting into some trouble that I couldn't talk my way out of, or if I came across someone who was a shoot first, ask later kind of person. For my mother and grandparents who read this, I did have all kinds of documentation should I not be able to talk my way out that would ensure that I would be able to leave the plant without being "taken down" or arrested.

So anyway, I go in and try to hit one of their weaker points that we had discussed earlier, after around 20 minutes, I decided to give that up, so I proceed to the front desk and use the old, "I have to go to the bathroom" trick which works every time. If you are a teacher, or a student, you are very familiar with this technique, I'm sure. It goes something like this: "I have to go to the bathroom" Translation: I am fed up with being right here and want the opportunity to wander around at my leisure and see what sort of havoc I can raise without being under the watchful eyes of anyone in authority. So, I go to the bathroom, and am a little concerned because the receptionist's desk looks directly down the hallway and she can see when I leave. Fortunately, she was not at her desk when I stepped out, so I was able to continue on my way.

I make the drop, and head out to leave. If you remember, towards the beginning of this story, this is the weak part in my plans. I head out towards a gate I know is coming up in hopes of finding it magically open and I can just walk out and be on my way. I know I don't want to go back to the front because I'm pretty sure the receptionist would rip my head off before waiting to hear my explanations. So as I'm walking, I hear someone behind me who is obviously trying to get my attention, so I employ yet another technique I have learned from my students, the "unless you call me by my full name, I will pretend I do not hear you desperately trying to track me down" technique.

I make my way to the gate which is not magically open, so I head for an open door and tell the person there that I am trying to find my way back out to the front and that I got separated from my party, he kindly points me on my way, and viola (not the instrument, but the French saying), I'm back cozy at my house having completed my mission.

I must say, I did receive a call a few minutes ago from my friend Pat who let me know just how close of a call I had because they were already looking for me before I left the property. I must say though, that I am very grateful to Mr. David Baldacci, Mr. Jack Bauer, and my students (past and present) for allowing me to take on and succeed in a mission of this nature.

So TBA (Texas Bandmasters Association) convention went really well at the beginning of this week, the only downsides were the name, which I covered in the last post, and the fact that Brenna and Kayla were unable to accompany me due to potty training. It would have been fun, they had free babysitting, a game room, a barbecue night, a luncheon for spouses, clinics on finances for the spouses, and several other enjoyable things for the whole family. It was kind of a way for all the band directors and their families to come together, have some fun, and learn some new information before we began this crazy thing called the school year.

The one interesting, out of the ordinary, event that took place was when I went to get the signature of someone who worked at TBA so I could get credit for doing my professional development hours. I go down to the booth they tell you to go to and no one is there, everyone has already left for the day, or so I thought. I see this one elderly couple coming out of one of the offices off to the side of the area, and go to ask them if they know of anyone who could sign my sheet. It turns out that this couple is the one that the entire convention is honoring for their service to TBA by having a reception as well as having a piece commissioned in their honor and performed as a world premiere at the convention. I was able to talk with them some in what I hope is a memorable way in case I need to have him as a reference at some point. All in all a good trip. Now it's on to band camp in earnest next week with outside marching and everything, so I'll be sure to keep everyone posted as much as I can.

And to those of you who would worry that I might give up the life of an assistant band director for the glamorous life of a secret agent spy, don't worry, I just finished shaking!

The Saddest Thing in the World...

2008-07-25T23:01:00.001-07:00

Well, probably not, but it's really sad if you're a teacher. And even worse if you are a band director. You've probably guessed it, the end of the summer. How have I managed to live the last remaining days to their fullest knowing that I hit the ground running next week with Texas Bandmasters Association (TBA) Convention, followed by a month of band camp, you ask? Why, by playing video games until all hours of the morning, checking Facebook (which my wife has newly discovered), and blogging at one o'clock in the morning when any sane person would and should be in bed, especially when they've got a wife as hot as mine to snuggle up beside! Ah well, at least I'll be a little productive tomorrow when we go to the grocery store and I mow the lawn. I've also been able to spend quite a bit of time with Brenna, who has been in a Daddy kind of mood this week. Kayla seems to think it's because she can sense marching season coming and knows that I won't be around all that much until November or so. But hey, at least I am gainfully employed! That couldn't be said at this time last year for those that remember. Alright, let's backtrack just a little bit now...

Yes, Texas does have such a thing called the Texas Bandmasters Association. I don't know, to me, if you're going to have a title like that, you should at least pass out super-powers to go with it. I mean, seriously, what band director wouldn't love to be called a bandmaster and have superpowers which entailed having any ensemble you listen to play in tune (particularly beginning band, yikes!). Okay, maybe that's just me, but it's like we as a group don't realize how dork-ish we already are, we've got to make it worse by calling ourselves Bandmasters? I digress...

I'm really excited to work on lesson plans for my general music course this next semester which will focus on movie music. I'm still trying to figure out what shape I want the course to take, but the beautiful thing is I've got an administration that is allowing me the opportunity to do it. I really do enjoy my job when I don't have to deal with certain people. I'm also hoping that because I'm not still a rookie teacher here in TX, and I do have my certificate that I can show to anyone because I finally finished paying off the loan to get it (not really, but it did cost something in the ballpark of $500 to certify myself here, because apparently my GA certification isn't good enough for the big, bad state of TX.), that I will be able to gain some ground in the respect department, now that I don't have to learn so many ropes this year.

This last topic will pertain to the next job I have. While I may have to live in the town I teach in when I change jobs, even though I prefer to live at least one town over, I refuse to live on another main street of the town I work in! This past week, I had some very sweet students of mine (I do type that with sincerity and not sarcasm), stop by to see where I had been over the past two weeks and to make sure everything was okay, which I appreciate. What I don't appreciate was the fact that they stopped by 15 mintues after Brenna's bedtime, so imagine if you will having our sweet-dispositioned doggy yapping at the front door, while my wife is diving under covers because she has already gotten herself into her pjs, I never left my pjs, because let's face it, it's summer, trying to answer the door without waking my sleeping beauty and act polite, but not too polite to the three teenagers who I found on my doorstep. TIMEOUT: I'm very glad that the people who read this blog pay no attention to grammar, as I'm sure that's one of the longest run-on sentences I think I've ever composed. TIME-IN: (Nice Saved By the Bell Reference!) If I don't say it, no one will, since you people are apparently allergic to leaving comments! Follow up this little situation THE NEXT DAY with some of the same students who came during nap time to borrow the phone to call a friend about a dog that may or may not have died! Just a few of the reasons I will not be living on main street in the town I teach in at my next job. Tune in next week for a full report on the Monumentally Epic Gathering of the BANDMASTERS!

I Feel the Need...The Need for.....Blogging?

2008-07-19T18:51:00.000-07:00

So our trip is quickly coming to an end, and I'm starting to feel a little torn. Torn because I'm feeling the need to get back and get to work on what I want to accomplish in this upcoming school-year, but I also enjoy getting to spend so much time with my family. Brenna is certainly starting to feel the need to return as well, she's been asking for Annie and Westin and to go to Brenna's house all day today.

I was able to go see Hancock today. A good film, but it could have taken just a few more minutes to delve into some details that they chose not to go into. I'll spare those details until a later date to give everyone an opportunity to see it. Will Smith is a good enough reason to go see this movie. Having said that, I would give it a 3.5-out of 5, good enough for a matinee, not good enough for the prime-time price.

I get to play trombone for my parents church tomorrow, and I feel that I really should have taken a few weeks out of my summer to practice some. Now don't get me wrong, I don't sound like some of my students or anything, but I don't sound as good as I know I can. I'm very fortunate that my parents are friends with the band director here and he was gracious enough to loan me his personal horn to play. I'm looking forward to playing with my mom as she accompanies me. It's very nice to have someone who I don't have to practice hours with because we've played long enough together that a few short practices are all we really need to work off the rust.

I think that's about it. I'm still thinking about some of the ideas my friend Billy brought up to me for Compass' new series, and mulling over what I want to say, so stay tuned.

The Time Has Come (and Past), and Come Again

2008-07-16T19:43:00.000-07:00

I feel I need to apologize for the lack of posts to this blog in the past few months. The end of the school year was quite hectic, and right as summertime finally arrived, our faithful computer of five years finally bit the dust. We then went through a few more months of getting the computer repaired and back in our hands, so here at the end of the summer break (yes I have to go back on the 28th of this month, even though the kids don't return until the 25th of August; more on that in a moment) I felt the need to update our life.
So the end of the school year went well, and felt even better knowing that I would be employed at the same location when the next school year came around. In Karnes City we had a very warm spring-time, except for the one day in late April when the temperature dipped down into the 50s and the wind was blowing at around 25 mph. Needless to say this was the day we chose to have our concert, which wouldn't have been such as issue if we had not had it in the park! We also had the bright idea of making it the longest concert of the year with each group (HS concert band, JH concert band, 6th grade beginner band, 5th grade recorder ensemble, and the jazz band) all of which played around six pieces each. It was one of the most uncomfortable days I have spent in a performance situation. Hopefully next year will be neither too hot or too cold.
After the concert, the end of the year went well without too much drama. So we got to June and promptly sent our little one off to Houston to stay with her grandparents so Kayla and I could finally celebrate our 5 year anniversary almost when we're ready to celebrate our 6th year of marriage. We went to South Padre Island and had a wonderful time. We took a sand castle lesson and basically got an opportunity to reconnect with one another in a way that we haven't been able to in quite some time. Pictures of our excursion can be seen on Kayla's blog (http://www.meeplusthree.blogspot.com). One of the more memorable experiences we had was on our way home getting stopped in a border patrol checkpoint. The one question the officer asked us was "Are you citizens of the country?" of which we replied in the affirmative, and as we were driving away we found it odd that he didn't ask us which country we were citizens of. "Yes sir, we are citizens of the country, of course that country is Denmark, but whatever..."
We were also able to fill time in June through helping out in our local church by putting our musical expertise to the test in leading the music for Vuh-Vuh-VBS (for those that did the SBC version of Vacation Bible School, that's a little inside joke that I hope is humorous and brings back fond memories. I know it will for Kayla if no one else). We had a wonderful if exhausting week and it's always fun to interact with kids as they get to know Jesus through music. There's just something within most of us that draws us closer to God when we sing to Him than in most other forms of communication. I may be biased. The sad thing for me was that during the time leading up to VBS, we would have people come up to us either before or after church gatherings and tell me how glad they were that I was going to be leading the music for Vacation Bible School, when in all actuality it was my lovely wife who had volunteered and done all the leg work and taught a vast majority of the classes, but because of my position, people expected that it was me that was in charge. Fortunately after the week was completed my wife received some much needed "mad props" for all her hard work. UN-fortunately, our little one's schedule was thrown to heck through having both parents working in VBS and staying in the nursery each night. The first night was the worst. You can read more about that adventure again on my wife's blog mentioned above. Needless to say she did not get back on a normal sleep schedule until about the end of the first week of July, just in time for....

Over the River and Through the Woods...

2008-07-16T19:06:00.000-07:00

So my child had just gotten back to a normal sleeping and daily schedule and we take her on the trip from Karnes City to Houston to Nashville to Epworth to Comer to Epworth again to Nashville again to Houston again to San Antonio to Karnes City in a whirlwind two weeks! We left our house in Karnes City on July 6th and will return on the 22nd in the early evening. And yes, we have spent time in each of the cities listed above. We drove from KC to Houston on the 6th and stayed with Kayla's parents until Tuesday morning, the whole while having our daughter running a 103 degree temperature daily, but we thought it started to go down when we left for the airport where we flew into Nashville because the tickets were $2oo cheaper than flying into the ATL. My parents picked us up and we drove to their house in Epworth. We spent time with them from the 8th until the 11th filling up our day with adventures to the local library, park, and neighbors house where we picked blueberries and apples right off the bush and tree. Now if that doesn't sound like a lazy country summer afternoon, I don't know what does. We left from my parents house on Saturday morning on what could possibly be our most fun and our saddest portion of our trip. We drove down to Athens to spend time with our wonderful friends the Neals and their new arrival, go to our home church (www.compasschurch.com), and spend time with our old small group. Along the way we saw my oldest friend from school, Kayla's horse guru, my grandparents, cousins and aunt and uncle, a few horses, and several of our favorite haunts in Athens.
I was also able to participate in one of the events I miss the most being so far away from Athens, the Compass Creative team meeting. This simple act of allowing myself to be creative in a church environment is one thing that I have sorely missed in our new surroundings. There are no real creative opportunities in the church setting we're in right now, other than possibly having a say in which hymn we sing and which verses we do. It was nice trying to figure out how to utilize video, painting, music, dance, and other creative expressions alongside title-ing upcoming series' for optimum impact as well as remaining biblically based.
Back to the trip. We spent what seemed like much too little time with Billy and Stephanie Neal and their new one Elijah with Kayla helping out Stephanie through reassurance and providing companionship as she is becoming a wonderful new mother, and I assisted Billy in becoming a new dad by sitting my child in front of a television while he and I played our way to saving the galaxy. Don't worry Kayla, it was only for one Curious George episode! We left today with much sadness. It is always very difficult to leave such good friends, especially when we don't have any as special to us where we are now. We can, however rest secure in knowing we are where God wants us to be. We have a few more days here with my parents followed by another trip to the Nashville airport back to Houston, then we go to San Antonio for lunch with Kayla's parents and aunt and uncle, then back to KC, where I will try to enjoy the last week of my summer vacation.
Starting on the 27th and 28th I get to attend the TBA (Texas Bandmaster's Association) convention in San Antonio, followed by a full month of band camp. To me, this seems excessive, but maybe that's how they do it in Texas. I certainly hope not; I don't think I can live with my summer so short. Anyways, now you're caught up and hopefully I will be more diligent in my blogging duties. I've said this before, and will say it again for those who have made it all the way to the end of these long blogs, please leave comments even if they are "I've read your blog." Just so I can know someone, anyone is reading this. To all those we were able to visit with during our travels, we were so happy we got to see you all and we dearly miss you (more than we will ever be able to put into words), and thank you all for your hospitality. I can't speak for the rest of my family, but you guys are what will always make Georgia home. Talk to you guys soon!

What a Week!

2008-03-17T14:46:00.000-07:00

Let me start this blog by saying that I am thankfully on Spring Break this week, and so I survived this past week. For those that didn't know this past week was Concert Contest for my region. This is like the playoffs for band. If the playoffs didn't actually play against anyone but themselves, and had instruments, and were being conducted by someone, and were getting comments and being judged. Okay, so it's not exactky like playoffs, but it has the feeling of excited nervousness that comes when something big is about to happen. Anyways, my kids were fabulous on the week leading up to the performance. I had very few discipline problems and was able to get really focused. Unfortunately, that meant late nights where I couldn't get to sleep because I was thinking of things that needed to be fixed in the music, as well as still having to teach three other general music classes and two sixth grade classes of students who didn't participate. It also doesn't help to work with someone who gets really, really stressed out about two weeks before the performance event. So, like I said, life was a little rough this past week; but I survived and I was proud of my kids. They got an average rating, not any worse than they received last year and actually did a little better. The high school also did well. Anyway, I am taking a well-deserved break this week. We'll go to Kayla's parents house in the middle of this week and barring having to travel to San Antonio for the birth of our first niece, we should stay there through Easter. Should be fun. Hope everyone else is doing well!

Getting Ready

2008-02-28T20:58:00.000-08:00

For those not from Texas, those letters stand for University Interscholastic League. To me it sounds like a superhero fighting team, but here it's the governing body for all things related to after-school and extra-curricular activities. As such, all I'm working on at work right now is getting my 7/8th graders ready to perform at the UIL contest where we will get a rating based on how well we play, and if it's a good judge, some constructive criticism. We have something equivalent to this in GA, but it's just called Festival. Anyways, UIL has a 19-page rulebook (FRONT AND BACK!-Sorry, had to slip in a Friends reference), for just this year's rule changes. Apparently, they change the rules each year in order to keep current. We have a concert next Sunday (3/9) as the final preparation for the UIL contest (3/10). Sorry there isn't any more exciting news to report. Hopefully all will go well, the kids will do well and feel good about their performance, and I won't have to worry about finding another job this next year.

One side note: I will be the first one to tell you that living here in TX is not as grand to me as everyone told me it was supposed to be, but to live in an area that is near a die-hard basketball town (San Antonio), and nothing else has left me longing for my two favorite sports: college football, and pro baseball. Fortunately, we live in a digital age, so I am able to keep up with the Braves and the Dawgs via the internet, but it makes me sad that I can't come home from church this summer, put on a baseball game that I care about the outcome and take a little nap. Probably just me, but it does make me sad. That's about all for now, as always, comments are appreciated!

The Big Bad Texas Convention

2008-02-20T15:11:00.000-08:00

So, I just finished attending the Texas Music Educators Convention this past week in San Antonio. I really enjoyed listening to Tim Lautzenheiser speak (twice!). For those of you who aren't band dorks (and I'm guessing all of you are not), T.L. is the guy who wrote the band book my students use. He is an amazing motivational/reminder speaker and advocate for music education in this country. Did you know that 90% of all music students who go to college graduate? 90%!!! This in contrast to several universities who have sports programs trying to scrape by with 50%! Anyways, I also got to hear Sir James Galway speak and play (world-reknowned flute player, Kayla was very jealous!). The exhibition halls were quite large. They also included one college I didn't expect to be there. That's right, folks, the U of GA was there to recruit high school seniors. I immediately stopped by their booth, just to tell someone that I'm from Watkinsville and have them know where I'm talking about. It was pretty thrilling for me. In the halls, you had people selling instruments, fundraisers, music books, books on music, prizes, food, etc. Basically anything you could need to run a successful band program. Other than the exhibition halls being huge (these are two warehouse type rooms at the San Antonio Convention Center) and getting to hear Dr. Tim speak twice instead of once, it was basically the same experience I had last year at GMEA (Georgia). I did get to hear a wonderful rendition of Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" performed by the Texas Tech orchestra. We were also able to stay with Kayla's brother and sister-in-law, and Brenna got to see her cousin. It was a good trip for all.

On the spiritual front, I've been studying the book of Romans since I heard Mark Driscoll give his thoughts on Predestination and used Ch. 9 to support most of his claims. I realized that I hadn't ever spent too much time in that book of the Bible, so I'm checking it out and God's opening my eyes about a lot of things.

Other than that, it's been a pretty quiet week. Just trying to survive through the concert contest season with a co-worker who feels her entire career lives or dies on the performance. If you know me, I've already talked to you about this and I don't need to expound any more than that. That's all for now. I've got to go get Brenna, I've left the Veggies to babysit for me while I catch up on much-needed blogging. I'm such a bad parent, please don't call DFACS! Thanks!

So Much I Don't Know

2008-02-10T08:25:00.000-08:00

So there were two major events this week in the world that is Nathan's. Both happened within the space of a few hours, the first occured while listening to a podcast of Mark Driscoll out of Mars Hill Church in Seattle. He was talking about predestination. Now, I'm not one who believes in predestination, otherwise God wouldn't have given us, His creation, free will. However, Driscoll was making very valid points until he got to the main meat of his sermon and he started using the term "some". At this point, I stopped taking notes and went straight to my Bible to try and determine if anywhere in the translation I had did it say "some" in the passages he was using. I couldn't find any, but I haven't had a chance to search other translations, or the original text. My gut tells me, however, that it doesn't ever say "some." What I do know is that there is definitely so much I don't know about the topic. I'll get back to you guys on this.
The next event that goes with the title of this blog happened yesterday in Arlington, TX. I attened a conducting symposium and was reminded of several good habits to continue and other techniques that I had never thought of that need to be added to my repetoire. Again, though, there is so much I don't know about what I do. The good news is I learn so much everyday, that hopefully I will know a bit more than I do now. That's the goal of professional life anyway, right. Okay, read and discuss.
On a side note, it's Kayla's birthday today (2/10), and I've really enjoyed watching Brenna all day follow mom around and say "Happy! Happy!" which is the only word at the moment in the phrase "Happy Birthday" she can say. The really fun part will be next week when it's my birthday to look at the confusion that will surely be on her face as she tries to comprehend that my birthday is as close as it is to Kayla's. My fear is that the next week, she will try to assign a birthday to anything else, because Sundays must be birthdays! Anyway, that's the life of this Jones this week. Talk to you guys later!

Wake Me Up, When September (Oct., Nov., Dec., Jan.) Ends!

2008-02-04T15:08:00.001-08:00

Wow,

I hadn't realized until I was on the phone the other day with a friend of mine that I hadn't updated this blog since last summer! Oops, I forgot one of the reasons people might want to read this is to keep in touch with what's been going on with the Jones family! I will try to do better than one post every five months! Bear in mind that this entry may be a little long due to the length between entries.

Since my last entry, I have been working as the assistant band director at Karnes City HS and as the head director at KC Junior High. We've already had several performances and I've had many successes and "learning experiences" as their teacher. The latest of these was solo and ensemble festival this past weekend. We travelled on a bus for an hour to get to the location and then I went in with the Jazz Band to play our selections to get our rating and comments. We went into the room with a woodwind ensemble from our school as well. When we got done and I had begun to help other students reach their room assignments on time, one of my jazz students came up to me and said, "Mr. Jones, did you see we got a III rating!" A freakin' III! Are you kidding me?! I don't think I was as upset at the fact that we received a III (which for you non-band dorks is an average with II being above and a I being superior), but that the woodwind ensemble that went before us got a II! I even asked some of the kids who were in both if they felt the ratings should have been reversed, and all said yes.

I digress...We're now working on getting ready for our Concert Band Contest, so I'll try and keep everyone up to date as far as the progress goes there.

On another note, we had TAKS testing last week, which is basically Texas standardized testing, so I was stuck in the gym for all but one day last week. This enabled me to listen to some really outstanding podcasts that I had been neglecting since my job got so hectic. It really makes me miss a church like Compass in Athens when I'm able to hear the podcast and hear some of the dangerous steps they're taking as a church this year. I also thoroughly enjoyed Mark Driscoll's take on God's sense of humor and Village Church's trip through the Gospel of Luke. It also reminded me of just how far I've drifted from God as far as quiet time with Him in study and prayer. I have begun this week to try and remedy that. Downside being that my new wake-up time is 5AM! At least it truly is "quiet time!"

Kayla and Brenna are doing well. They are a little (lot) bored here with no stay at home moms in the area really and no groups to participate in. In fact, the other day, Brenna was getting bored and asked to go to Wal-Mart (the only place to go around here) to quell her boredom. If you want to know more about their daily lives, check out Kayla's blog at: http://www.meeplusthree.blogspot.com/. It really is fun to watch our daughter grow. I think we will only be here in the great KC for a total of three years. It's a good time to have on the resume, I should be able to gauge what I've taught the kids I've had, and I will have had the opportunity to learn more tricks of the trade. It's not that we don't love the people here, or the kids, Lord knows they're fantastic (especially after last year), but there's just nothing here to truly plug Kayla, Brenna, and myself into this community.

Okay, I may have rambled for enough this time. My parting thought will be that it's the beginning of February, my birthday is coming up in 12 days (28 this year), it's 83 degrees outside (gotta love south-Texas weather), bring on the baseball season! Talk to ya'll later!

Application is the Key!

2007-06-07T11:20:00.000-07:00

It seems like all I'm doing with my free time is filling out applications these days for jobs for the upcoming school year. I wouldn't mind it so much if one of two things would happen: either (A) I got a job and wouldn't have to fill out anymore stupid applications, or (B) all the applications I fill out would ask all the information in the exact same way. Now don't get me wrong, all the applications I fill out ask the exact same information. The thing that drives me up the wall is the way they ask it: Put in your SSN with dashes, put it in without dashes, give us your references address, no give us their phone number, no tell us how you know them, no tell us where they grew up and what their favorite flavor of ice cream is. However, this is the only way I've ever gotten a job, so I'll continue to fill them out. What a way to spend a summer!

iTunes Highs and Lows

2007-06-01T15:02:00.000-07:00

I've got to let everyone know how much I love and loathe the iTunes store. I love how you can go on and peruse music or podcasts for hours at a time, you can normally see music from any group in any genre you feel like. This would generally be a fantastic thing, especially for one who is now into his summer season with nothing else to do, but as with most things in life there is a catch: There's always more! Let me explain myself. Let's say I went on to look for music from a band I really like, such as the Foo Fighters, I'll find a song that I like, but being on a fixed budget I can only select one or two songs. Still, this is not the big problem, the big problem is iTunes lists bands or songs they think you'd like according to your selection which leads you to more songs and before you know it you've spent $300 on songs when you only meant to spend $2! I think I'll just buy stock in the company and be done with it, at least that way I can recoup some of my losses!

Memorial Day

2007-05-28T19:15:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone in internet land. I've finally succumbed to the dark side of the internet and begun a blog. Despite the title of this blog, the first entry will have very little to do about music if at all. I just had dinner with some neighbors of mine one of whom was looking at our hostess' commemorative plate of the flag raising at Iwo Jima made famous by Joe Rosenthal (even though it was the replacement flag). I asked him if he had read John Bradley's book "Flags of Our Fathers" about the flag raisers, and he replied that he hadn't had a chance to read it, but it was okay because he was there! As you get to know me, you'll realize one of my passions is US history, and so to eat dinner next to one of the bravest men in our country's history during one of the most terrifying times in history was slightly jaw-dropping. He told me of taking a transport of troops to the beach and watching the large aircraft carrier ships behind blowing huge chunks out of Mount Surabachi and of the 39 men he led onto the beach and the two that survived. I sat enthralled by his stories and it reminds me that you should always get to know your neighbors because you never know what heroes there are a few yards from your doorstep if you take the opportunity and initiative to go meet them. Happy Memorial Day to everyone who reads this and thank all of you who have served, are serving, or will serve our great and glorious nation in the name of freedom!