Holy Cow!

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!