THE SUMMER 2004

The days are waning, my summer vacation is almost over. I'm not looking for sympathy here, I'm just stating a fact. Those who know me, know I've been on vacation for the last 10 weeks whereas a lot of people get 2 to 4 weeks off a year. School is starting on Monday and it's back into the groove.

The nice thing about the longer vacation is that I am able to accomplish some projects around the house and also take a "going away someplace and not just stay at home" vacation. Though I have found that even though I love going away to different places for a "vacation". This going away wears me out. I need two or three days after we get home to rest up from the vacation. Those who agree, raise your hand. Thank you.

Will this deter me from goin on other vacations? Hell no. I'm gearing up for our next getaway when my wife, Divadeb & I go away someplace nice and romantic, just the two of us to celebrate her birthday. This comes at a nice time as it's on October and all the leave have turned colors. Beautiful time of the year on the east coast.

We went out for supper last night for our annual "Going back to school" supper. A nice time away at a nearby restaurant (one of our favorites). We decided we should do this more often. Like every month.

BACK 2 SKOOL

Those who know me, know I'm a teacher, those who don't........I'm a teacher. A music teacher. I'm starting my 27th year and looking back, if I wouldn't have had some burnout in my career I would be looking at retirement pretty soon. But as it happens, between those burnout years selling insurance (yep, seems a lot of teachers turned to that) and relocating to another state (the best move I ever made), I still have about 10 years of teaching to go.

Now you may think I'm being "sour grapes" about all this, I'm not. Right now in my life I am having the best time teaching. I enjoy my job, the kids are great to teach and I work for a great school system. Ten years will go by quickly.

I will be the first to admit that I'm not the greatest teacher in the world nor am I the worst. My philosophy is that kids need to learn to enjoy music for what it is, they need a little fun in their lives and to learn about music at the same time. I have found that the things I remember best are the ones where I had the most fun. So I try to make my classes fun. It is nice to have former students come back to you years later and remark on a certain song or songs they had learned and how much they enjoyed it. Now that's what teaching is all about.

MARCHING TO......

I love a good march. No, I'm not talking about the month, I'm talking about the music. I grew up on Marches. My Dad was a music teacher so I heard a lot of marches and when I become a music teacher he would always ask me what Marches I was playing. I always had a march in my music concerts as I knew my Dad would be in the audience.

Sousa was one of my favorite march composers and again I got a lot of this from my Dad. Sousa wrote a "mean march", not easy to play by any means and to play it correctly as Sousa had wanted it to be is even harder. I sometimes wish I would have pursued a study in Sousa as I know very little about the man or his music. All I know Is that I like the Sousa march.

Sousa made the march popular, he was the Beatles of that era. My Dad actually played trombone under Sousa's baton when he was in college in Grand Forks,ND, I remember him telling me about how Sousa would give the downbeat to a March and his hand moved very little after that. Just a small up and down movement. Now, that's control.

eBay eBites My eButt

I am a Mac user and not a bit ashamed of it. I learned on a Mac and I'll continue with a Mac as long as there are Macs. I know there are a ton of PC's out there and there are some features that are nice on the PC but nothing beats my Mac. The only thing I regret is that my Mac isn't always compatible downloads for PC. They are for PC only. That bites!

I list items on ebay on a regular basis but I cannot use any of their downloadable listing/toolbar products as they are all PC based. I pay the same rate to list as everybody else and I understand eBay is doing well so why not have their programs for Macs also? C'mon, spend some of those bucks and get a Mac programmer. I just might be able to sell more product which in turn makes eBay more money. Think about it.

THE PAVING OF ROUTE 55

I have the "heartbreak of Psorasis". No big news to those who know me, I've had it for a good 20+ years. I've learned to live with it and it probably bothers others more than it bothers me. It is mostly on my legs now though it'll pop up anywhere and I mean anywhere.
There are many treatments out there for Psorasis and I've probably used most of them. The newest is injections, twice a day and it'll clear it up, but at the same time it knocks the dickins out of you T cells and therby you are more suceptible to infections and cancer. Plus, like anything else, you quit using it, the Psorasis comes right back. So it's not a cure.
This isn't for me, even though they say the risk is low, I would be in the group that would react to it. My luck is so bad that if I were to play a game of Blackout Bingo and I was the only playing and they drew out the last number in the roly poly basket I still wouldn't win cause I forgot to fill in my free space.
So I will pass by the injections for now, but what I have done (and I pass this on to those that may possible read this little blurb) is get in salt water (the ocean is great) and sit in the sun. I also use a tar based lotion on the psorasis and sunbathe in front of a UVB light. This works for me.
I also tried there new foam, which is cool, no smell, no greasy feel but what I got from use of it over a period of time are broken blood vessels on the arms which to me look a hell of a lot worse than psorasis ever did.
So I will continue to pave ol route 55 cause that was I smell like after I apply the tar based lotion to the posrasis. Hey! you get used to it.

OK I'M STUPID STUPID

Now I am not the most intelligent person in the world nor the dumbest in the world, but do you think that for the life of me I can figure out how to get my surround sound system to work, I know part of the problem is that I have an ancient TV with none of those fancy colored RCA inputs, All I have is the attenna hookup to the TV, and somewhere between the box to the receiver to the TV I lose it. Well in fact I never had it and I figure it's that the new digital world won't mix with the old analog world.
Now perhaps I would have done better if I wouldn't have pieced this thing together, but in interest of trying to save a buck I went this route. Never again. I need to learn to buy the whole package and not piece by piece. Don't fear I will get it to work before I turn 90 or else...........the whole she bang goes on ebay!

Meander Here, Meander There

It's been quite awhile since I've posted anything and it's not that I haven't done anything, it's just that I haven't felt inspired. So to get inspired I figured I would read some other blogs and see what they are inspired about. Guess what? They aren't much inspired either. In fact some are scraping the bottom of the barrel, kind of like what I'm doing right now. Cause I'm not inspired. So maybe this will break the writers block.