I think all is well in the world right now.
I had my piano audition for ... hmm I'm not sure exactly what it is for, but I played for the piano faculty nonetheless. It went quite well. I can't remember ever feeling so prepared for something that I didn't really give a rat's ass about. I remember in first year it was such a big deal, I was playing for people that I didn't know and it was their chance to make first impressions of my playing.... EEK! As the years go by, they know my pianism inside out so it doesn't matter what I present to them at the end of the summer. Aside from that, I played well. I did however make an ass of myself in front of them.... I didn't know how old I was. I told them 23, then I paused and wondered, (outloud) 'am I?.... maybe I'm only 22, I have a birthday" to which they replied "oh, good, did you have it already? In the end, I was too confused to specify my age, so some of them think I am 22, some 23...
That same day, I had a voice lesson with a friend from school. I learned a lot.
I also had a massage, deep tissue, very therapeutic. I hurt a lot.
Ok, so last night I went to a folk/bluesy show featuring an old friend from high school. I don't see her much or really keep in touch, but I try to see a show of hers once in a while(about once every 2 years...) It was good to see her again, and even better to hear her. She didn't pick an easy road but she's doing great!
SO ya, I've decided that I'm going to buy myself a laptop. I was supposed to be able to buy the one my dad uses at work at a discount when he retires, but I guess his laptop is too new, so I'm gonna buy a laptop for myself anyway. Buying it now will help me out a whole lot. All the notation I've been doing for compositions and whatnot is on computer, and its a little frustrating a) trying to write it on the printed out copies from my computer with the rests in the bars and 2)having to run to another room to play something on a piano to see if it works the way I think it should. This way, I will have a computer that I can plunk right on the piano. In theory it will allow me to be much more productive. There's a lot of things to think about in terms of buying a laptop.... they're a fairly chunky investment in terms of my budget at least. I do want something that's portable, but I want something that can be my only computer when I move away. At the same time, I'm fricking cheap.
But ya, Heather and Gareth are going to take me laptop shopping tomorrow, so I can have people who know about things to advise me. Heather is also financially conservative, so she won't let me overspend!
Yay for my sister being engaged!

Well, this is my friend Ogor. I pass by him everytime I go downstairs.
Hmm, I've never looked this closely to the darned crappy plaster job... oh well. You are getting a glimpse into my dwelling!
So I have officially said my good byes to the three close friends of mine that are moving away and leaving me for substantial periods of time. It will probably hit me later this year when I realize how far away they are, but for now I am excited for them, and admiring their accomplishments and success in making it out of the Peg.
I'm very excited to be moving on in my life - hopefully in another city as of next year. Fortunately I have lots still to do in Winnipeg, so it's not like I'm dying to get out of here.
I'm interested to wait and find out where my sister is going to have her wedding... or any of the details really.... She's from Winnipeg, he's from Montreal, well Guatemala originally... but ya. His family is religious, Heather all but refuses to set foot into a church. Nevertheless, we know that there will be a wedding social in Winnipeg, because really... where else has socials!
Everyone out there reading this, or otherwise is invited to the social!!! I will have details when they start coming in!

so yay, I'm still super happy about my sister's engagement.
I have so much happening in the next little while. I have ensemble auditions for school, I have appointments for massage and doctor.
Eeep, I'm fretting my diabetes appointment in just over a week. I know that my control has gone to shit. So I'm taking the initiative to figure out what I'm doing wrong now, before the appointment so that I can forego the sitting there saying I'll try to improve. It always seems pointless that way, and it is because there's not enough time to explain what exactly I should do, and I don't have details for him as to what I've been doing wrong. So the solution is that I'm starting to actually keep track in a booklet what my sugars are, what I'm eating and what I'm taking for insulin. There's a long standing theory that it might actually improve my control....which won't be noticeable at the appointment, but at least it's a start...

I'm so happy!!!

YAYAYYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYYAAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My sister is engaged!
Fiona and I have been waiting for this moment for such a long time.
Ooooh golly, I don't even know what to say, but ya, I'm super excited!

Also, My spider friend has reappeared..... theres a long line of spider friends.... there were quite a few Egors, then I started calling them Igor, and now this one will be Ogor. As usual, he looks scary, but he's still my friend...

So many of my friends are leaving me this week. I spent some time with my soon to be german friend, and my Chinese friend left on monday, and my french friend is leaving on thursday....

The government almost made a worthwhile improvement...

So, it's getting close to my birthmonth which means that thegovernment is getting ready to rape me for driving again.... But apparently this is the last time the government is going to acknowlege that they aware of my birthday. They are switching over to a new system where everyone in manitoba renews their licenses at the same time!!!! gah! oh well, they seem convinced that it won't cause backlogging and general stupidity, so I will give them the benefit of the doubt.
Once immediate benefit is that I only have to pay 18$ at the end of Sept!! Yay me!
I got SO excited when they pamphlet they handed out started talking about this new photocard that you will be getting. I allowed myself to believe that they were switching to a one-piece driver id system... But after checking the website and double checking with a phone rep, it's clear that it will still be a 2-piece id system - just as inconvenient as ever. Especially since they are putting so much effort into this new photocard, it should at least be able to stand as a single piece of id. I understand that for licensing people and police and whatnot, I'll give them 2 pieces, but in terms of just a photo id, I've never understood why you need to give them both parts to be a valid piece of id. Gah, oh well.
It really won't make any difference to me - just another one of Manitoba's gimmicks to make people think they we are effecting real change.... Conveniently, the new picture card has the same ugly Manitoba font that puts it in line with the Spirited Energy branding campaign.

Now on to better stuff. Yesterday I got a haircut... AGAIN! I know, it's getting ridiculous, but I have not enough hair left to get a haircut for quite a while. "So Mikey, why did you get one?" Well Billy, yesterday they were having a fundraiser for both the Humane Society and the Juvenile Diabetes Association - two wonderful causes that are close to my heart and pancreas respectively. With a donation you could get a free haircut by a stylist and a mini massage. I took full advantage of these opportunities and now I have styling hair!!! tee hee I went for lunch with my friend Sandra, and we discovered these flyers so that how we spent our post-luncheon time.

Ooh, I'm applying for a T.A. position at the university. It is for the theory 1 and 2 courses, so it will last the year. And, what better way is there to prepare for grad school entrance exams than relearning the first half of the theory text?!? It will also look good on grad school applications and whatnot.
YAY!

Wow, amazing experience!

I am so happy!
The two things I love most about music and performing are:

Sense of enesemble between performers and
Improvisation

Tonight I had those two in spades!

I remember once having a random improv session with someone that I strongly disliked. While it was happening and for a short while after, I had respect for him and enjoyed the experience.....

Tonight, I was having an experience like that but with skilled improvisers who are good nice and enjoyable people! I can barely describe how elated that left me feeling. This was the group I had mentioned before - primarily dancers but also a few musicians who get together for Jams. In theory it could be scary - 10 dancers, a pianist, bongo player, guitarist, random percussionist and a painter/sketch artist getting together and each improvising something.
I was amazed at how much cohesion there was within the group. Musicians were all doing a great job of communicating within themselves and the music as a whole was speaking to the dancers. At the same time, the dancers were speaking to the musicians and there was a conversation between individuals. Sometimes the dancers were individual, sometimes they came together in similar movements and formed one entity. The sketch artist was drawing images of what he was seeing the dancers were doing and then other dancers would see/dance with the pictures and bring them into the organism that was developing. It must have been about 45 minutes long, but it barely felt that long - every change was organic and it felt like one idea that changed and morphed as the jam went on.

In order to warm up / get everyone to open themselves up we played a game/exercise which was amazing and fun! There were 2 versions which we did and they made everyone feel at ease and laugh.
First - We all stood in a circle so we could see everyone. The game was about passing and recieving. Someone would 'throw' and action and a noise across the circle to another person. The other person would recieve the action by mimicking the motion and the noise. They would then pass another action and noise to someone else.....etc. Quickly, people were laughing and losing their inhibitions and then it was getting too fast for people to realise what was going on and it ended up in a pool of laughter.
Next - A more serious version of the game where you passed the 'tone'. The starting person would hold a note/pitch/sound and then pass it to someone. To recieve the note, you had to emotionally connect with the other person by imitating the gesture and sound along with that person until they felt you were inline with them. Once you had recieved the tone, you would transform it by some emotional reaction in terms of sound and body and then pass it along to someone else.
Both of these activities were amazing. It necessiated direct eye contact in order to communicate who was being sent the action. The second activity also made it so you would try and understand the other person and then take the time to reinterpret the sound.
As you can guess, these were a great starter to get people into the realm of non verbal communication and from the jam that came after, I feel it was very effective.

I'm very excited to do this again next week, and hopefully throughout the year. I'm so glad to have stumbled upon this group!

My sister came in last night from Thompson. I'm so proud of her, she is doing the MS bike tour from Stonewall to Gimli today, and then the return trip tomorrow. She raised about 600$ for such a great cause! And also the fact that she's doing a bike marathon - that's no easy feat.
I got to hang out with her a little last night, and finally got to hear some things about her road trip this summer. My parents also went to Gimli to volunteer for the bike tour.
It is so quiet in the house, and I love that! Since getting back for the summer, my dad has had a lot of days off and my mom's work situation is a little unstable to say the least, so I haven't had many days with the house to myself.
This is nice, but it means I have no car for the weekend. Therefore I had to turn down an accompanying gig at the same church, because I'm not going to wake up super early to bus across the city. I would have liked to have been able to drive tonight, so Jon could be free to celebrate his last few days in Winnipeg/Canada, but I guess we'll have to make do. Other than that, I'm used to the bus, so it's not a big deal.
Tomorrow evening, I'm going to a dance improvisation thing! I met with a couple people from a Winnipeg Dance collaboration group and it went very well. We talked vaguely about the dance community, performing arts in Winnipeg. They're open to having me take part in the jams and some collaboration opportunities too. As I'm sure I have mentioned, I'm very excited about this opportunity for learning and experience.
Yippee

Who the frick decided mornings should start so early?!?

So, it's gawd-damned 8 am in the morning and I don't want to be awake. Nevertheless I realize school will be starting soon and I will have to be up this early on a quasi regular basis....
It's just so hard!! I'm really not a morning person.
To top it off, ten minutes ago, I decided I wanted to have some fruit and I was led to believe that there were bananas in my kitchen...
My mother has gone to a new extreme in her selection of small bananas... If I hold it up to the keyboard, one end on "A", the other end rests on "k" - and those are the outer extremities!!! This is like an uber-contra-plantain!!
This is a sad sad day, in a sad sad world where I hope and pray to golly-gosh that a man's manness is not reflected by the size of his fruit....
On the bright side, today is my last working day of the summer, and I get paid for the last 2 weeks of working - yippee!

I don't want to be a tenor

So ya, this is how I feel right now.
Aside from the personality defects related to being a tenor, I don't like the range thing. I want to go back to being a high baritone.
I wish I had thought of this plan... but it seems like more of a reality than anything... - I should go into my audition for vocal ensembles and just crack all of my high notes, and then they'll realize that I'm really not a tenor... I'm a fucking pianist!!! Why the hell can't I just get credit for playing piano for the ensemble! Oooh, choral accompanimnet - so much better than having to do choral singing. Then I don't have to put so much effort into being insistant about TUNING in the tenor section.
Oh, I'm also hating Photoshop and the fuckness of stupid! argh oh man does it make me angry!
I hate technology with the bloody passion of a thousand fiery corpses!

Well, I had the day off from work and it was very nice and relaxing. Not to say that work is at all stressful, cause it really isn't but today was a very nice day so far. I slept in, which was very nice after last night, and then went for a late lunch with Scotty and Fiona and then came home to knit for a bit. Tonight I'm going to head to the school to take care of some major productivity!
Last night, I went drinking for Scotty's birthday. We went to a local little lounge where they have free unlimited popcorn and then we went for karaoke at the sals, which if I had been sober, I would have been morally opposed to. The only downside to the evening was that even though fiona and I started drinking before going out in an attempt to save money, I still spent about 50 dollars on booze... I can't afford this lifestyle! It was a delightful time with the karaoke... I sang my two standard karaoke numbers:
Tina Turner - Private Dancer
Celine Dion - My Heart Will Go On
of course, liquor makes my performance even raunchier than one might expect, but that's all part of the fun. I dedicated both of the songs to Scotty for his birthday and I think he really enjoyed them... maybe even as much as I enjoyed singing them for him. One thing did strike a chord of sadness in me.... As per tradition dating back to my 18'th birthday, I sing the Celine song in her octave. But ever since I started singing tenor 2 or 3 years ago I've noticed little signs that my falsetto is decreasing. Sadly, I have to admit that I can no longer use my falsetto; my dreams of being a countertenor have been ended.
Anyway, the moral of the story is that I had a wonderful time last night. I woke up this morning with a very minimal hangover, and then we went to the Olive Garden for the all you can eat breadsticks, salad and soup combo - quite resaonably priced and very filling.

Well, I seem to be in much better spirits lately. It seems I have been having bad cases of PMS (Pissy Michael Syndrome, for those who aren't familiar) lately.
As a result, I have neglected to mention some things.
- I am really enjoying my work over the last week and a bit. It is such a contrast to what I do with musical theatre during the year. Previously I had only worked with very young kids who are pretty much only interested in the dance aspect, and they can't really sing and they are obnoxious little hellians. Well, at this camp, the kids are old enough to be there because they want to. For the most part they are reasonably musical and they are really interested in the music and lyrics. It is whole different world when we can move beyond simply trying to sing through the song. These kids pick up so quickly and they have great ears on them. Often they don't even need the sheet music, they hear the melody once and it's in them! Not to say that they're challenging melodies, but its still wonderful, it's just a matter of memorizing the words. Plus, the music they are working with is more challenging, beautiful, interesting... whatever.

-Composing is actually starting to get in motion. It had been very slow moving, not to say it still isn't, but now I'm able to work out specifically what I want for certain effects rather than doing a lot of the brainstorming I had been doing in starting out each of these variations.

hmm, tonight I got my Beethoven sheet music - my sonata in the Henle edition. It's so pretty! well, not really but ya!

Oh, God DAMN am I ever in a pissy mood.
I was fine most of today, but then on my way home after work I got on the bus and I go soo angry!
Nothing specifically happened really. The bus was full, so I had to stand.. but that was fine, I was still happy up til then. I was happy to stand, as sitting on a piano bench for 3 hours isn't my idea of heaven. What got me was the guy in front of me. We were the only 2 standing on the whole bus, so you'd figure he would take his own space.. .but NO!!! the fucker!
I was standing sideways so I could hold onto the yellow bar and look out the back door windows. Those of you who know me well, know that I can get a little clausterphobic in crowds or around people, and today was certainly not an exception. Fuck, he was so obnoxious - standing there- and he actually was inching backwards as time went by. Gah, I just wanted to push him! Add to this the fact that rush hour traffic was moving nowhere so the downtown leg of the bus ride was taking FOREVER!
Finally we got to Polo park and a spot opened up for me in the front row of the upper level on those new fucking busses (don't even get me started on those badly designed chunks of shit-box horse-ass). So the guy I sat beside had his legs spread so much that I couldn't sit full on the seat. Nevertheless, it was still better than standing by that other assy dumb-head.
In my attempt to put my legs/feet somewhere where I could both be comfortable and maintain a sitting balance, I accidentally nudged the leg of this lady who was sitting in the sideways-sitting seat across the back door. She gave me the most heinous bitch face look I've ever gotten.I mumbled "i'm sorry" to her, but that didn't do much.
Finally, I got home, and I just can't stop being a bitch, I have my shit all in a knot because there were tomato seeds in my salad and Canadian Idol is on tv, which naturally makes me angry and gah gah agh!
Anyway, enough ranting, I should stop typing cause mumbly, who cares!
BUT, I'm still fucking waiting for someone to justify to me how red-light cameras are a violation of privacy rights.... I don't care if they are morally right or wrong... I just want to know why and how they violate privacy rights. I simply want to hear a well formulated argument that follows logically.

Oh, God DAMN am I ever in a pissy mood.
I was fine most of today, but then on my way home after work I got on the bus and I go soo angry!
Nothing specifically happened really. The bus was full, so I had to stand.. but that was fine, I was still happy up til then. I was happy to stand, as sitting on a piano bench for 3 hours isn't my idea of heaven. What got me was the guy in front of me. We were the only 2 standing on the whole bus, so you'd figure he would take his own space.. .but NO!!! the fucker!
I was standing sideways so I could hold onto the yellow bar and look out the back door windows. Those of you who know me well, know that I can get a little clausterphobic in crowds or around people, and today was certainly not an exception. Fuck, he was so obnoxious - standing there- and he actually was inching backwards as time went by. Gah, I just wanted to push him! Add to this the fact that rush hour traffic was moving nowhere so the downtown leg of the bus ride was taking FOREVER!
Finally we got to Polo park and a spot opened up for me in the front row of the upper level on those new fucking busses (don't even get me started on those badly designed chunks of shit-box horse-ass). So the guy I sat beside had his legs spread so much that I couldn't sit full on the seat. Nevertheless, it was still better than standing by that other assy dumb-head.
In my attempt to put my legs/feet somewhere where I could both be comfortable and maintain a sitting balance, I accidentally nudged the leg of this lady who was sitting in the sideways-sitting seat across the back door. She gave me the most heinous bitch face look I've ever gotten.I mumbled "i'm sorry" to her, but that didn't do much.
Finally, I got home, and I just can't stop being a bitch, I have my shit all in a knot because there were tomato seeds in my salad and Canadian Idol is on tv, which naturally makes me angry and gah gah agh!
Anyway, enough ranting, I should stop typing cause mumbly, who cares!
BUT, I'm still fucking waiting for someone to justify to me how red-light cameras are a violation of privacy rights.... I don't care if they are morally right or wrong... I just want to know why and how they violate privacy rights. I simply want to hear a well formulated argument that follows logically.

so full of Indian food goodness

First of all, a reminder to Fork that I still expect that response as to why photoradar is an invasion of privacy....

I went for an Indian food buffet tonight with a friend from school. It was good not only because of the food, but cause I haven't seen him all summer and it was good to catch up.

This morning I played a church service. I could get used to this kind of work - not in the sense that I want to work for a church.. cause we all know how I felt about that the first time... Rather, I quite enjoyed the aspect of walking in there 15 minutes before the service, looking over the hymns to play, then starting the service and then leaving. The service was only about an hour long and as I was leaving, I was thanked by many of the little old ladies and other people of the congregation who value the musical element of the service. The work pays very well and isn't all that taxing whatsoever. When I was playing at one specific church and that was my job, I put effort into learning preludes and postludes. Today I simply improvised the preludes and the postlude, and the hymns didn't involve the kind of practice I used to put into learning them for the organ. It's so appealing because I'm getting paid well by the hour for the time that I put in....
In terms of accompanying singers or instrumentalists, they pay you for the time you spend with them and then the performance, but what about the time you have to spend learning the music and rehearsing it on your own, before the other person enters the picture. To do this job dilligently, one might spend 8 hours of their own time and only be paid for maybe just 2 hours that the singer uses you for. As you become a better pianist and gain experience as an accompanist, or even having previosuly learned a piece, the amount of time you need to spend to prepare yourself for the rehearsals and performance decreases - therefore your time becomes more valuable as the years go by.
I'd like to think that this is the stage I have come to in terms of accompanying church services, where it takes me far less time to prepare than it did previously.

Hmm, what else did I do today.... Oh yes, I knit a hat. I'm very impressed with how it turned out and I might wear it as part of my back to school fashion outfit (HA!). Hmm, that reminds me that I should get some new clothes for back to school. Not that it should be time specific, but it is a justifiable time to buy new stuff for meself. Time for Value Village!! Oh and while I was knitting, fiona was eating chocolate and reading excerpts of Cosmo to me! what a life! that magazine is so funny and as if some of the articles aren't risqué enough, but Fi reading them takes them that extra little level of dirty.

Before we knit, Fi and I went to Wallymart to buy a birthday card. I ran into someone who I thought I might never have seen again, and it brightened my day to no end! His name is Regent, and I can easily say that he was the most influential part of my mid-late teenage years. In high school and for a bit after, I worked at a local pharmacy every weekend and a few evenings a week and Regent was one of our regulars. Every saturday and sunday morning all through high school, I would see and talk to Regent. In the summers, I would sometimes see him everyday. He was old, blunt, opionated, stubborn, smelly, funny, knowledgable, and certainly inappropriate at the best of times. As a retired man, he rarely had anything pressing going on so he would always spend sometimes upwards of an hour visiting the staff and customers. While many of the girls I worked with didn't enjoy his company, I always found something enjoyable about crazy ol Regent. I think my favorite quote that I heard so many times, and he probably still says, was "I'm the nicest guy you'll ever meet, and I'll beat the shit out of anyone who says different" or something like that. Anyway, he was an endless source of stories and lessons - even when they repeated themselves over again - during that time in my life. He taught me so much about life and it was great to run into him and chit chat for a very short time.

Hmm, tomorrow it's back to musical theatre! Unfortunately, this sightreading won't be as relaxing as the hymns, but I look forward to the challenge.

Today made me feel very valued as a pianist/musician. When I awoke from my sleeping in today, I had two messages on my voicemail - almost making me regret having turned my cellphone off last night.

Message 1 was from a woman who needed an emergency vocal coaching before going off to Toronto for an audition. Her normal coach was unavailable. This woman had called up the musical theatre goddess with whom I've been working this last week (and this week coming up) and asked who she could call, and she gave her MY number.
There could not be a nicer hint that I've been doing a good job this week.
Unfortunately, by the time I called her back, she had been able to find someone else to do it, but I still felt honoured. The woman did however want to know if I was available in general as her regular coach will be moving away this year, I told her of course!

Message 2 was from my favorite pianist/fluter who wanted to know if I could substitute at a church tomorrow morning. I called her back and was able to do it. Yay for extra business. I haven't done a church service in a while, so it seems about time I go and visit the United version of God.
This message also made me realize that my voicemail message was still set to my 'out of town' greeting - oopsie! I fixed it right away. I wonder how many opportunities I missed because my message has been telling people I was unavailable all summer. I know I had (thought I had) changed it even before I came back to the city.... I guess I didn't select the new message as my current outgoing message or something silly like that.

Hmm, what else to say. I'm not quite as ranty today as last night, but I would like to address the comment I recieved.
The commenter stated that the redlight cameras are a violation of privacy. I was quite dissappointed that she was too lazy to give reasons, as I would be quite interested to hear such a justification. Nevertheless, I would like to present my thoughts on why they are not as such, a violation of privacy.
Firstly, is driving a private action? Perhaps the conversations you have within your vehicle could be deemed private, but I hold that the act of driving is indeed quite the public event. When you drive, you are controlling a large chunk of metal which is maneuvered around public and private property as well as people; out in public. This is why there are laws governing driving.
I struggle to see how the speed cameras are at all involving privacy. They simply measure an action and record those items that take part in said action.
Looking up the word private, there are several definitions that make reference to being 'out of sight', 'intended for one's exclusive use', or ' not available for public use'. I can not logically apply any of these definitions to the act of driving.

In terms of the choice to speed or break any other traffic law, I don't understand how the presence or absence of a person/police official makes a difference as to a driver's relation to the laws. When someone speeds, it is undeniable that there could be a police officer with a radar gun at any point. Is this a violation of privacy?
If so, then why do we have these laws? Or are you only breaking the law if a police officer sees it happening? Does a tree make a sound if it falls in the woods and a police officer isn't there to hear it? Better yet, is a police officer still vegetarian if they don't realize that they've been eating meat in something all along?!?

Once again, I plea to my readers, and especially my commenters, do tell me if I am wrong. but don't simply do it to gloat or to put me down, I am here to learn. I want explanations and reasons for what you think. I do want to know why these cameras are a violation of privacy. Please Please tell me why!

little rant....

so, I've been seeing ads lately that piss me off and disgust me.
-Impaired Driving-
they basically are advertising... if you were drinking and decided to drive, then don't worry about the tons of time and effort that have been put into 'don't drink and drive' ads.... we'll make sure that you can keep your license so that next time you can do some real damage!!
now, before you get all defensive on me, I realize that sometimes machines do make mistakes and it is possible that the breathalizer may yield a higher result than what alcohol was actually present in the blood. BUT - I also realize that at some points, I can drink a few drinks and feel right tipsy, yet my blood alcohol would be within the legal limit.... just as easily as you can have a few too many yet feel more sober than you are.
Nevertheless, I don't want to be a bitch about the technicalities. I'm here to bitch about the fact that it is advertised.
"so what if it's advertised, shouldn't those who are wronged by the injustice of our faulty judicial system have the right to find a qualified specialist who can assure that their innocence is upheld to the full extent of the law?!?"
Why yes Billy, of course they should! BUT if this were aimed at the few instances in which people were wronged, the advertisements would not be warranted, there wouldn't be enough cases in order for the lawyers to go this much outof their way to make themselves known.
Nevertheless, these ads do exist implying that there is a larger target audience - which I am certain are those who are looking for a way out of paying the fine or losing their license and vehicle.
Once again, I realize the fault of my passion on this topic (bitching, that is) and see that I have no proof that all the clients are guilty, and I shouldn't jump to such outlandish conclusions, no siree bob!
Nevertheless, I stand by my disgust at the mere fact that there are advertisements for "Impaired Driving". and why, why does it matter that there are advertisements/!

THE ANSWER-
Do we actually believe that fast food advertisements exist solely for those who are already hungry for that mouthwatering juicy beef slapped between two hot toasty buns leaving you hungry for.... oops, a little off topic... tee hee hee, anyway, are those advertisements only there for those who already know what they want, and perhaps just forgot that they can go out and get it?!? ... I think not!
Advertisements serve many purposes, one of those is to inform the market of what is available from the company paying for the ads. Another equally important purpose, and of more interest to the business sector, is the goal of increasing the client base.
The aim of those advertisements is to reach out to those people who don't even know they want something, and to convince them that there is a want where there was no need before.
This is why I am disgusted. Whether it be the primary intention or not, the advertisers are putting into effect incentives for people to drink and drive, countering the 'dont drink and drive' ads which came before. Where someone should think "I've had 3 drinks in 2 hours, I might be close to the legal limit; perhaps I will call a cab to play it safe", they might think "I've had 3 drinks in 2 hours, I might be close to the legal limit; close enough that I could probably fight my way around the charges thanks to my friends - the pro-drinking-and-driving-lawfirm".

I find this situation quite similar to the traffic ticket specialists who blatantly advertise that they get you off scott-free from speeding tickets. Once again, aside from the possibility that the radar gun was off by however many klicks... mumbly mumbly, it all boils down to people not wanting to accept the punishment for the crime. I'm not here to debate the value of speed limits or safety concerns because I speed just like the next person, BUT... We all know that there are speed limits and we know that there are fines for speeding,at the same time, mostly all of us gamble now and then. The majority of the time we don't get caught and we break the law openly and feel pretty good about it. Then, you get caught and boom it's an outrage and you have been violated. Or even worse those pussy ass fuckheads who claim that red-light cameras are a violation of privacy and shouldn't be legal.... FUCK YOU ASS TWAT! suck it up and pay the ticket.
Oy, now I've gone from mildly ranty, to just plain pissy.
oh well, that should be enough for tonight... I haven't writtena long entry in a while, I hope it has been as delightful to read as it has been to write.

worky worky worky

It feels good to be back to some kind of work. It's getting me back into some kind of a schedule as well as into productive mode for school.
Also the fact that I usually only work in the afternoons is a good schedule for me to be on. Tomorrow though, I work in the morning which means that I will be able to get to the school and the library. I'm not sure exactly what I need to do, but I will find something productive when I get there. Oh yes that's it, I need to take out music for a song to sing for auditions and also book a time for auditions.
Ok, thats a fair bit of stuff to get done tomorrow, yay!

Hiatus is over!

I think the last thong I knit was last summer some time (probably over a year ago).
I'm not sure what happened, but I lost my way, I lost the inspiration that had seen me through making dozens of them.
Today not only did I finish making one, but I taught my friend Fiona how to knit a thong.
I feel like I have made the world a much better place.
However, I need to make sure that my artistic creation of thongs does not interfere with my artistic creation of other things like music.... therefore, once school starts I will limit my thong knitting to the time I spend on the bus or in class.
I need to decide whether I should try to sell this thong on the internet. The last time I tried, I only sold one and it went for such a low price that it almost wasn't worth the effort. Although, I can say that I have officially sold thongs on ebay - which is a redeeming factor.

ok, normally I don't post random dribble like this, but it was too funny to pass up.
You can try it, just go to google or any search engine and type in "(your name) looks like" and see what your results are.
Here are mine.

Michael looks like drag queen in one of Pauls porn videos.
In some of those photos, Michael looks like he's playing naked.
Michael looks like a penguin.

Those were really the only ones that made sense/complete sentances on the first page, but those alone were enough to brighten my day!

I've stopped washing my hair

No, I'm not going for dreadlocks or anything like that. It's not even that I want dirty hair. Rather, I have stopped shampooing my hair, although I still wet it in the shower so that I don't get chunks of say,... birdnest in it. The reason is that my hair is very oily so it can get quite greasy if I don't wash it within 24hours of its previous shampooing, or even sooner. My theory is that if I let the oils build up for a while, my scalp will slow down the rate of oil production so I won't need to shampoo the oils out every day(as I have for the past many years).
Once again, this is just a theory - I'm going to try and last as long as I can before the oily hair drives me insane. But ya, I have relatively short hair at the moment; I certainly couldn't do this with longer hair. I don't think I ever want to have long hair again. Seeing some pictures of me with long hair, and I'm not a fan. I'm enjoying the plyability of my hair with the slight excess of oil though at the moment... I don't even really need gel to make it into a fauxhawk or make the front stand up.
Ok, enough about my sexy sexy hair. I've started reading again, after having given up on that over the summer. I went to bed last night reading some Shostakovich. Not exactly relaxing reading, but it was good. It actually got me riled up about the idea that music and creating music should do some good for the world. All great art should have something to do with the common themes of humanity. He also wrote about the ill of american society and the trend that the arts should entertain and nothing more. It's a little concerning that so much music currently treats entertainment as the only purpose for music. Instances he used as examples are of how Orchestra concerts lose their variety and quality when the programmes are decided by the same people who are concerned with the finances - what they present is dictated by the dollar which is influenced, nay dictated by the flippant desires of how the audience wants to be entertained. His stance is that every programme, ever concert should have something that challanges the audience/listener - it is not a bad thing for the audience even to hate a small portion of the concert....
I agree! If you go to a concert and you like everything, then how can you qualitatively compare one thing to the next... Then you become Mr.Winnipeg and you stand up to give a standing ovation at the end of every performance because everything was good, nothing was bad; but at the same time, nothing was exceptional.
I love this, reading and thinking about the thoughts and ideas of the authors, especially when they are composers and are writing about what I want to do with my life. Yippee!
Anyway, I want to hear some thoughts on the idea of music as a means of purely entertainment.... feel free to comment.

Welcome home mikey!

Well, I wasn't really in the city long enough after my job to feel like I was at home, but now I am here more permanently.
As I said, the road trip was wonderful and it was great to see some family and a wonderful city. The scenery along the way was extraordinary and no matter what I say, I'm glad I went.
With that said, I feel so guilty about having gone. I had wanted so badly to make up for my lack of productivity this summer as soon as I got back to Winnipeg, but then there was a road trip and BOOM! there goes another week and a half of not getting anything done that I've needed to this summer.
Oh well.
But now it is time to get my butt in gear.
Next week, on Monday I start working for 2 weeks with the Musical Theatre Camp. I will be working for just 3 hours a day in the afternoon - perfect timing for me as I needn't wake up early and I still have my evenings free. I will also be doing a few mornings, but that's fine.
Since yesterday I've pushed myself to start working on the Bach Fugue and it's starting to move along...slowly. I think I've done enough work on the Beethoven before the start of the year. Now, I'll just do the upkeep on the 1st and 3rd movements- there's other pieces which I have to learn first , namely the Haydn Sonata. I would love to have that one completely learned for the beginning of school, but it's doubtful - rather, I will aim to learn the finale and make some headway on the other movement. What else, Liszt I think will be one of those pieces that I'll make slow consistent progress on. And the MacIntosh piece, I'll get around to that one later. eep.
Composing - eep, I need to do that too. I've gotten my ideas a little more organized for the variations, and I still aim to have that completed or structurally sound in time for my first composition lesson this fall. I think that is pretty much all I can reasonably expect from myself this summer, but if I can get a start on anything else, that would be wonderful.
Anyway, it's good to be back and I'm excited to go back to school next month. Now I just have to do a lot of work so that excitement is warranted.

so this has been a super-awesome road trip thus far, for a few key reasons:

cheap- we haven't overspent our gas budget! also due to...

family- we haven't had to camp or pay for accomodations yet. After the first night staying at Binky's dad's, we stayed with Jonny in Calgary, my aunt in Vernon, and my cousin in Vancouver (presently). Besides the savings, I'm so happy that we have visited with these people.I rarely see family often enough to even keep up with what's going on in their lives, so a few days with them is a wonderful opportunity!

Beautifulness- Wow, mountains and the West Coast in general are breathtakinglybeautiful! So many pictures of pretty and the trip's not done yet.

In conclusion... I will be applying at both University of British Columbia AND Simon Fraser so as to double my chances of moving to Vancouver. I think I have fallen in love with this city and then some. The only bad thing about the city is the cost of living... but in reality... I can't stay at home with my parents in my home town forever and no matter where I am looking to move, the cost of living is going to somewhat interfere with my.... well, living.

Anyway, that is enough gibbergabber from me for the moment. I will be leaving Vancouver on tuesday morning and in theory, I will be back either late Wednesday evening or Thursday sometime. From there, it's up to Thompson to visit my sister.
well, so much for getting myself well prepared for the upcoming school year....(oopsie)

So, I'm heading out on a road trip tomorrow. We don't have a specific final destination in mind. We know we're going to Calgary to see my friend Jon. If it doesn't cost that much in gas money to make it there, then we might go farther. I have an aunt in BC we might be able to stay with... who knows!
One thing I noticed today was that I don't have a map of Canada to take.... I don't know if Binky does either.... but it doesn't bother me either way. I don't think the directions to Calgary will be too difficult - Take the transcanada west, at Calgary turn right. And seeing how that's our only real destination... I don't think we need one anyways. It's an adventure! On the other hand, I'm sure I could find that one from my road trip last summer if I really wanted to...
Oh well, I did a fair amount of baking today and I found a tent for us to use. A most productive day it has been!
I should get to bed and have a good night's sleep. I still have to pack my stuff tomorrow, and who knows how well I will be sleeping while I'm on the road.

Well, the fringe festival is coming to a close. I was fairly bummed out about thinking I was gonna miss it when I was at work, but now that I was here and able to see it... I didn't really see a lot. I'm going tonight to see one, but I dunno. It's improvised sketch comedy.... which I'm always a little leary about...with good reason. True - it can be extremely entertaining when done well, but I have never seen it done at a non-professional level. True - it can be extremely gruelling and painful when it is not done well. I have a feeling that tonight will be closer to that edge of the spectrum, but I will go with an open mind and at least give it a chance.
I think the reason I'm not jumping at the idea to see more and more plays is that I saw a really really great one the other night. The acting was superb and the writing was wonderful, it was able to call upon strong emotions in the audience without straying too far from the comic goal. I would much rather have ended off this year's fringe festival with that in mind. Oh well.
There's still Folklorama coming up - always a good time with ethnic food and drink and.... hmm, I'm trying, but I'm really not that excited about anything this summer. Maybe this road trip will change things around.
Im leaving sunday evening on this exciting journey, who knows when I will return!

I went to see Ballet in the Park tonight. It's a public display put on by the city's Ballet School and some company members. It was nice to see some of the students performing, as I didn't get to work with them this summer. The show was very nice overall. The thing I didn't like was that since it was an outside free concert, you have a very interesting group of people assembled to watch. A few drops of rain caused lots of people to get up and leave, and if not, they put up their excessively large umbrellas and block my line of sight. We never thought to bring rain protection, so we sat through it. It was rather cool for the shorts and t-shirt I'm wearing, but oh well.
I love this weather!!!! It's so cool for summer! It's perfect sweater weather. I'm thinking I should put on pants and a sweater and go for a nice long walk. I certainly should... we went for a bit to eat afterwards, and then Jenn convinced me to join her in having dessert... oops. I think I'll do some good ol fashioned thinking, or compose one of these blasted variations in my head while I'm walking.... ooh and I can stop off at the park and go for a swing. I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but I love going on the swings.
Well, thats enough for tonight, unless I discover something absolutely exciting to talk about on my walk.

the 20'th century finally caught up with me

It makes me a little sick, but I'm actually using the twelve-tone method.. thats right, I am a veritable dodecaphonist!
I wanted a section to sound random -without a hint of musical intentions. So lo and behold, I asked a friend to put the numbers 1 through 12 in random order, then I proceeded to create myself a matrix to create many different combinations of the notes which I derived from the numbers.
I'm not sure if it will have the effect I am going for, but I figured I would try it.

roadtrip weeeeeeeeeeeeeee

ok, so I know now that everything works out for the best!
I almost bought a car this summer, but i didn't. If I did, I would have spent money on the actual car and then insurance and registration and everything, then I would have been (financially) forced to stay at the Lodge til the end of the summer to pay for it....
As it happens, I didn't but the car - I came home early and have nothing really pressing to do (ignoring the practicing/composing thing) until the middle of August. I have a friend named Binky who wants to travel around .... THEREFORE ROADTRIP!!!!!!!!!!
even better is that she has a car and she's totally cool with the random road trip idea!!!!
We're also both wanting to stick to a almost non-existent budget!! Yay for cheapness!
Oh wow, I'm excited, superduper!
I'm not sure exactly when I'm leaving, but most likely by Saturday or sunday! yippee!

This set of piano variations I'm working on is driving me crazy, well not really, but ya. How is it that I feel like I've made so much progress on it, but when I look at what I've actually written... it's sadly depressing. Grr! But ya, soon enough I will be done with this silly incubation period I seem to be in, and I'll have it marked down on paper.
Ignoring that rather dreary introduction, today was a pretty marvellous day. I took my mom and Granddad and Great Aunt Jean out for lunch and then we went back to their appartment to see pictures of my granddad's trip out east and then we talked for a while. It impresses me how smart my Great Aunt is, both of them really. I've had a lot of experience with older people, and it's frustrating how closed minded and stubborn they can be. But these two exercise their minds and bodies regularly - and I admire then immensely for it. We talked about the state and value of higher education in North America, touched on the situation overseas, and of course we talked about the apparent lack of traditional parenting skills amongst the younger generation these days.
Tonight I went to the neighborhood coffee shop with my friend Cara and her boyfriend Dat. While it was a relatively short night, I always enjoy spending time with them.
Well, it's nearly half past eleven, but I don't think I'm done for the evening. I wonder what further trouble I can get into tonight...

Today I went to the library to take out a good edition of my Beethoven Sonata in order to crossreference it and find out just how bad the one I've been using is. It's not actually all that bad, only a few little discrepencies here and there. Thankfully, it's not like I'm going to have to struggle to relearn chunks of it.
While walking towards the building, I stepped into what I thought was dirt (AKA dry mud), but it wasn't - it was veritable mud (AKA wet dirt). The subtle distinction means that my foot and shoe got quite dirty and my foot slipped, I flailed and screamed and the world was at a loss for not having had people around to enjoy my reaction...
Tonight I hung out with a friend that I haven't seen for a while. It was good, but since I know they read this - I'll point out that I didn't really buy the attempt at a bright mood. There's no need to put on a show for Mikey - but if that actually is an improvement in mood, I'm worried. But for now, enough said.
Before I went out tonight, there were Park family shenanigans - mostly trying to decide what to do for dinner. The end result was me leaving. It was an event of indecisiveness. We were all hungry and it was a reasonable time for supper. When we posed each other the question of 'what shall we make?', noone wanted to make a decision. In order to partially stave off our hunger, but mostly to avoid deciding we made appetizers. I made bruschetta - involving many cutting boards and knives and swearing while my mother went all out and made celery with peanut butter. The bruschetta was alright, but not quite was it should have been like. I think that was due to the wrong type of tomatoes and some pretty tasteless feta, but oh well. I'll try again sooner than later.
That's about all for now.
Ooh, Tomorrow I'm going for lunch with my Grandpa, Great Aunt, and Mother. It will be wonderful, I don't see those first two nearly often enough. I haven't decided where I'll take them, but I'm sure they'll have some suggestions... or else it could be a whole new indecisive adventure!

my hair got shortened

it was haircut day today.
i was excited to go to my baber, but apparently he only works a few days a week now, and he hired two other haircutters who only operate by appointment.... this made me not happy.
Barbershops don't do appointments... it's just the way things are... gosh!
anyway, so that put me off a bit, but mostly I wanted to have short hair for the rest of the summer, so I said screw it and went to one of those ghetto little discount hairchopper places.
Yuck, there was like a 4 year old getting her haircut beside me, and apparently it was causing her some kind of unimaginable pain and torment cause the little shit bag didn't stop screaming the whole time. For fucks sake, the thing that got me was that the mother said she does it every time... fricking shit - then don't cut your kid's hair! or cut it yourself, it's a child that's the perfect age for bad haircuts... give her a fricking mullet for cunt's sake! That's what they invented the Flobee for!
Anyway, no biggie. I don't particularly care what my hair looks like most of the time- ie. the mullet or the multiple times I've let drunk people cut my hair at parties. It's quite short - the only thing I cared about was that the back was properly taperred, which it was, so I am happy. The last haircut I got was out in the middle of nowhere and she didn't taper it at the back, so it already looked like I was going for another mullet... again. I don't think I've had it quite this short since I started the music program (according to my picture id).
That was the productivity of today. I also practiced piano a bit in the late-afternoon/evening. I've made some strong steps forward in terms of the first page of the last movement of my Beethoven sonata. -If only I was this productive everytime I practiced-
Anyway, I think I'm off fringing for the evening.

I love city water

I know it sounds odd, but I really do love the taste of Winnipeg Water.
Out where I was staying this summer, the water was far too salty to drink straight from the tap. The restaurant/bar had a wonderful filtration system that made the water taste much better, but I still prefer the clean taste of mass water filtration with a hint of fluoride. Yummy. Just in case your sarcasm-meter is going off, stop it, I am completely serious.
I had myself a nice little brita water filter so I could drink the water in my little cabin. I also had a kettle fo I could pour the water into that and then into the brita filter - the setbacks of an extremely shallow sink. After not even two months there was a thick build up of salt in the spout of the kettle, and a slime on the inside of the filter basin and on the filter itself. As I didn't have another filter, I washed it off and continued to trust that it was keeping me safe from the natural sludge in the water. It tasted fine enough.
I have been just gulping back the water, now that I am home. With the taste and large effort required to filter my water out there, I was not drinking anywhere near my normal 4 litres of water a day. This is something I have to catch up on over the next little while.
Aside from water, I have also not been eating much lately. The food had been accessible - so no real excuse. It's not just that I haven't been eating much, but I can't eat much. It's not a loss of appetite, I still feel hungry and then eat, but I don't need much to satisfy the craving. I've been getting full quickly lately, which I won't argue with - I'm not gonna keep eating when I feel that way.
Nevertheless, I am no healthier nor have I lost weight this summer - damn the theory I had months ago of being healthy in mind and body...
So far this summer has been a write-off for productivity, but I'm gonna change my ways - you just wait and see!!

I have moved home for the rest of the summer.
Never have I felt so much like the people I was leaving will genuinely miss me.
Anyway, long story short - I had a great time and spent it with great people this summer. I am glad that I worked out of town this summer, and I will miss those people dearly, but I am excited to be back in the city and can't wait to get to work on practicing and composing.
A few weeks back I realized something that wasn't so cool, but I won't dwell on it too much-
Being in say a school of music gives you a lot of friends who you see all the time. It's like highschool, some relationships are stronger just because you have no other choice. It's nice to think that you will still stay in touch with some of those friends after school....
While I was out of town, I didn't receive any phone calls or text messages from the people who I thought might have. I'm not going to bitch about how it wouldn't have cost other people any money to have called me, cause I still had a city number... mumbly mumbly.
It's just that sometimes I feel like the pathetic friend that people only talk to when I call them up. I've thought about just not calling people anymore and seeing if anyone actually does care, but the prospect of being interminably lonely isn't all that appealing. although at times, it does.
This is just in my mind because people I said goodbye to today were very adament about me keeping in touch. More than just something people say, they made sure I wrote down my contact info and stuff - it made me wonder how close you can get to a person in a few short months - or three years?
Gah, too much heft for a post in such summer heat.
I'm back in Winnipeg and all is well!

I was supposed to be leaving to go back to the lodge right about now, but as per usual... plans have changed. My ride back in has decided to stay on vacation a few days longer. No biggie, I just have to take the bus tonight at 8pm. It means I won't be getting back til later tonight, but oh well. We were heading back earlier tonight so that we could go to one of our coworker's birthday celebrations, but if my ride isn't going at all... I won't look so bad for being late.
In other news, I'm sure if it's just because I haven't been using my nightguard for my teeth lately or if there might be some other reason, but I've been feeling quite tense lately. Mostly in the jaw neck and a bit in the shoulders. Anyway, now that I've made a note of it, I will take proactive approach to fix the problem. When I move back into the city, I will also go for a massage.
My friend Jon and I have been planning for a while to work together on some kind of collaboration. We're both actually serious about it, but living in different cities and things to do and whatnot... we've never actually tried to start it. BUT, over the last couple of days, we found a way to work together....separately. The theme/topic of the work is kinda vague, but in the best of ways and the structure of the work will give us the freedom to do whatever we want. The basic idea is that we will each create several segements which will be paired with other segments. As a result, each pair of segments will explore the theme from a different angle.
As you should be able to tell, I'm really excited about this. Nevertheless, I know I'm not going to have a lot of free time to work on it, so it will be a slow moving project, but I think that's how it will be on both sides of the collaboration....
On the other hand, if we can get it finished and put together by January or earlier, I can use it as part of my portfolio for auditions. There we go again... thinking about things that should be far off.... but they really aren't....
Bye for now everyone, I'll see you all when I move home in about 10 days.

This visit hasn't been anywhere near as good for visiting with people. It seems everyone is very tired or down this time of the summer.I suppose it's understandable, and some of my friends have very good reasons to not be available this week, so I won't complain.
It definately has felt different, on account of knowing that I'm not going 'home' tomorrow; rather, I'm going out of town for a little vacation almost. Anyway, it's not important.
I have so much work to do during the rest of the summer. For example:
In terms of composition, I need to finish the piano composition I am working on. For all intents and purposes, I haven't really moved forward on that at all since I moved out there. I also want to have finished reading my orchestration textbook. I won't have to have read it for the course, but it will put me at an advantage in terms of the course, and lower my disadvantage a bit in terms of learning how to compose for orchestral instruments and groups. These two goals represent a bare minimum for what I have to do. I really should aim much higher, but as the list continues, it becomes doubtful as to the amount of stuff I will get done.
In terms of Piano, I have said that I need to have a substantial start on my recital rep, but thats an anderstatement. I need to learn a Haydn sonata for my half Jury/ I have began to pick at it, but not in a nearly picky enough fashion.
Let's take a look at my recital plan:
Bach - French Overture- As a base minimum, I need to have learned the first movement, so that I just have to work on the remaining dance movements. The first movement is about 9 pages. I have worked a fair bit on the opening two pages, but after that there is a rollicking fugue that will take a fair bit of tenacity to get in shape.
Beethoven - Op.101, I have learned the majority of the first and third movements... But I'll be honest, those are the easy movements in terms of technique(this will give me the chance to get more familiar with them, so that I can be very comfortable with them and make my musical intentions solid..... but ya, I need to focus on the technical stuff) The second movement is a fast march and I'm sure it will not be a breeze in the park to learn or play. The scary part is the fourth movement. It's very fast and has a fugue as part of it.... Intimidating, to say the least.
Liszt - Vallé d'Obermann- I've started to make some progress on this one. I think it's safe to say that the intro is ready for a first lesson scenario, and I forced myself to dive into the obviously more difficult sections. I absolutely LOVE this piece. I absolutely LOVE Liszt.
I'm loving all my repertoire of course! The Beethoven I'm listening to right now and it's just amazing how brilliant it is! It was the fifth last sonata for piano that he wrote and the experience and mastery of his craft are just amazingly present!
McIntosh - This is a piece I will be performing with a singer..... thats the first issue I should take care of....finding one.... The piece involves a lot of improvising and coordination... so I don't quite know how to approach the learning process. I think I'm going to treat it as an excuse to practice technique drills (I really really shouldnt need an excuse) so that I have a battary of options available at my fingertips(pun intended).

Anyway, thats the main things I need to be concerned with learning. Although I can't let myself forget that I will have to also learn something for the second half jury... but I'll probably do the same thing as this year, leave most of the work for those pieces til the last minute.
Bargh! too much thinking about the school year that hasn't even come close to starting yet! Oh well, I need to be focussed! yippee!
gnite!

Holy Schomley, it's hot out there!

It's summer!
I'm not really a big fan of the weather in the summer, although I enjoy the feeling of freedom that flows through the air.
Nevertheless, yesterday and today I spent some time outside and enjoyed it a lot.
Yesterday Fi and I went fishing. Humane fishing really... we didn't use bait, we didn't use hooks... mind you we didn't even use fishing line. We took fishing poles and threaded them with knitting yarn. At the end of the line, we attached stuffed toys - the benefits were endless: Everytime we tossed the line out... we brought something back.. well except for the time that fi had given up on the fishing pole and then let go of the string.... The other benefit was that we didnt harm any fish, but we still had the fun associated with fishing. I got some good pictures of the crazy antics that can be expected from fi and myself.
Today, I went for ice cream and then a walk with my friend Kimberley. We walked by the creek, walked across the rocks and then Kim picked some flowers. Kim is leaving in a month and a bit to move to Germany. She is not the only one.
I'm not surprised, but a fair amount of my friends from high school are moving away to exciting exotic places. Two of them are moving to Germany, one to Montreal and then another to Hong Kong. I know it's silly, but I'm feeling a little jealous that I'm going to be in Winnipeg for another year(if not two). It's not that I really have the travel bug, rather I just want to be "away". My summer getaway didn't really fill that desire for me; it felt too static, I wasn't really being productive or developping much. Anyway, thats enough feeling sorry for myself.
Now that I'm not tied down for the summer, Fi and I can go on our exciting road trip to Thompson, Mb to visit my sister. We'll probably go on a weekend so it doesn't interfere with Fi's work. I'm super excited to be able to do what I want on a weekend. All summer I've had to play piano on the weekends, now I can go party it up in the boppin social atmosphere of Thompson, Mb! Yippee! I actually am more excited than the sarcasm there should have veiled.
Hmm, enough typing for now.... maybe it's supper time, maybe I'll knit, maybe I'll watch some star trek, who knows!

Today was the second day in a row of practicing piano.... wow, the dedication that I have just exemplified! As sad as it is... the little that it has been has actually been quite rewarding. Little bits of development have occurred. I'm learning my Beethoven sonata - little by little. Tonight I taught myself the last 16 bars of the piece. I figure you should learn the end of the piece fairly early on in the development stage. People are always most attentive to the beginning and then the end of a piece, so you need to make sure those are nice and impressive. On the odd chance that a person might fall asleep during the first movement and then not wake up til the very end of the piece... I'm set already!

I'm already preregistered for school - long before registration has started. I just told the registraar which courses I needed and she will do it for me. Luckily they she needed to find some random students to register beforehand to make sure that everything is hunky-dory. Now I don't have to worry about my registration date and time or missing it or whatnot. And things are all set, I will be prepared for graduation by the end of the year.
Tonight I think I might practice at the school. I need to be productive and I always seem to run into some people when I poke my head in there. I haven't been getting my regular dose of schoolness this summer... perhaps due to lack of school.
I'm excited for tomorrow. The only point of business while I'm here this week is an orientation for a mentorship program that I will be volunteering in the fall. I'm excited to put my life experience as a diabetic to some good use. I also haven't done nearly enough volunteering over the last while - meaning my whole life, really - so I look forward to getting involved in this project.
I should also look for some work to fill the rest of the summer up. By good furtune, I got myself 2 weeks of work during august with a musical theatre camp with one simple phone call. I should make some more of those and find some more things to do to make money once I relocate back to the city. I'm thinking I might try to find some work as a waiter or something, but with those two weeks in the middle of August, my availability won't be so great. I think I'll stick to finding random music-ish gigs to make some quick cash. So if anyone knows of any weddings or accompanying work.... let me know please.

quick post... I'm sure I'll tell you before you read it here... but I'm coming back in 2 weeks for the rest of the summer. Long story short - the piano thing was an experiment and the result is that it wasn't successful enough of a business venture. I don't think there are any hard feelings on either part, so I'm gonna move home in two weeks time.
At the moment, I'm in town til thursday, so fun fun fun!
This summer has been marvellous so far. I've learned a lot, met so many interesting and exciting people. It was a beautiful place to live for a few months... but I do miss the city.
I haven't been practicing/composing nearly enough this summer... which I must admit also weighed on my decision to move home. I thought being away and in nature would give me some inspiration or something... but no, I was just distracted by the way of life out there: relaxing and drinking, when you're not working of course.
All in all, I wouldn't trade the last few months for anything and I'm excited to see what the rest of the summer will bring.

Well, I'm about to head back to my summer home in a few hours. It has been a wonderful time this week. I saw lots of people, and I made it to two chamber music concerts which were wonderful.
Odd sensation today. In conclusion, I think I don't really appreciate living out in the wilderness. I walked home, maybe 20 minutes, in my suburban neighbourhood and really enjoyed the summer air and weather. To me there is no air fresher than the air you breath after holding your breath to avoid a car's exhaust. I don't feel that refreshed when I'm at the narrows and walking around in the fresh air.... I love the creek I live by - Sturgeon Creek. As wonderful as Lake Manitoba Narrows is to swim in and to watch... I still prefer my little marshland creek. Today I crossed the creek by stepping on the rocks.
I love that sensation of not knowing which rocks are going to be stable, you might just topple over into the water. It will forever remind me of elementary school. In gym class, we would all walk down to the creek and then we'd have to run along the creek all the way down from one bridge, cross the water there and then back to the other bridge to back where we started from. Some of us would always cheat.... there was a little island in the middle of the creek which you could get to by walking on the rocks. Coming up to this area, we would slow down the run and then shave off about 5 minutes of the run by crossing there and we'd play around on the island. It always seemed like a long time, and we'd join the group when the rest of the runners would come running by. Sometimes we'd get caught, but it was always worth the risk.
The same creek also reminds me of my late puppy Rex. He was afraid of water from the get go. He was always the kind of dog that would jump over or scoot around puddles, and giving him baths was always a hassle! One summer, I decided to cure him of his fear (thoughtful me). I took him for a walk down to the creek and tried for quite a while to coax him into walking into the water. I went in and tried calling him.... Obviously that didnt work. I tried pulling on his chain to pull him into the water - he got me back by causing me to fall into the water. The next step was to pick him up and place him in the water. Keep in mind that this was super shallow... maybe halfway up my calves. He would either sit there or try and run back out. I would be supportive and pet him and tell him he was a good boy or give him treats.
In the end, not much changed... he still didn't like the water.
I guess there really is no moral to that story.... too bad.
But, the moral of the set of stories is that I think I call this home. I like the city. I like creeks in the city.
The End

So I called my boss to find out if I can get a ride into the city tomorrow or if I need to leave tonight. I didn't get a certain answer on the ride... but I don't have to work until Sat morning, so it's not a pressing issue. This means that I still have til tomorrow night at 8pm to get a bunch of fun stuff done.
Tonight is going to be a gooder! I am going to the second Mozart concert with Chris and Davey. I have been doing uberwell with the visiting of people this trip.
I was also somewhat productive while I've been here. One of my composition projects for the summer is a set of variations for piano. I now have the theme entered into the computer in a state that is very close to what it will be as a final outcome. I think this will probably have been the most difficult part of the composition... writing the theme. If everything else is going to be based on it, it needs to be just right. The type of variations I am doing are not quite the standard Mozartean ones where you maintain some of the elements and then rewrite it so it's just different enough... rather I'm going to use the theme as a template upon which I will directly mark the changes.
Anyway, I'm starting to feel that I'm going to be productive with composing this summer... but I haven't felt that way about piano. The good thing about my piano practicing is that I am using my time very wisely and efficiently... the problem is that a few hours a week are simply not enough, no matter how efficiently I use them. I just need to buckle down and actually get around to practicing. This year's recital is going to be huge and I need to have a LARGE head start on it.

apparently I've done 200 posts... this being 201.... I missed the celebration.... but it's not like anyone is reading this anyway, judging from the commentary.... So, I conclude that noone cares about the meager happenings of my life.
Nevertheless, I will fill you in.
On the ride into the city, my boss asked me what I had planned, or lined up for my time in the city.... I had nothing... absolutely nothing...
When I got home, I realised that there were a couple of my piano teacher's concerts this week... so boom I have things to do. I spent time with my friend Kimberley monday night. Today I talked with friend Andrea and hung out with her this afternoon and watched some World Cup. These two events have reminded me just how much I enjoy spending time with friends on a one-on-one basis. Groups can be fun, but I prefer the more intimate setting for conversations and chit-chat... whatever. I've bumped into quite a few people today, and as a result, there are many concerts I can attend while in town... oh and tomorrow I have a lunch with workmates from the Ballet.... Perfect timing! the call was on my answering machine last night... if I wasnt in town, I woul dhave missed it, which I thought I would have to anyway, but yay!
I still have all of tomorrow and then possibly all of thursday to fill with fun times with friends and random fun!
This has been a succesful journey into the city already!

It still amazes me that I'm only in the city once ever 2 weeks,. and still I post more often than people who are here all the time. Oh well, I'm in a good mood, so no need to complain.
Basically I have begun to feel at home out at the lodge. The people I work with are like family, but even more fun. My worries about making enough money at the job have been lessened by my boss. Anyway, I think I don't care anymore about that.... I will make enough money to pay for school... and I'll have income coming in next year, so it's all gonna be good, or at least tolerable.
I'm not getting enough practicing or composing done up there. It's not that I can't find the time... I'm just not motivated. There's really no good reason. Boo.
The Jonny Cash book I bought last time I was in town was a big hit with coworkers and some diners... but it didn't do well with the tips. I think that country music is too pedestrian, not in a bad way, but it doesn't give people that sense of "this young man is a gifted musician who should be tipped", rather it makes them think "ah, good times y'all... get me a bottle of whisky and a banjo and I can do this too".
It's a subtle difference.
Ya, my bosses are wonderful. One of them gave me a ride into the city and when I said I was going to be in thursday night on the bus, another boss said "but you don't work til friday evening.... give my daughter a call, she's coming in sometime friday, she'll give you a ride in."
Im glad to be in town. I don't really have anything I need to do like shopping or anything, and I have a day longer than I did last time when I had tons to do, so it's relaxing time! woohoo!

Why driving with my mother is special:

Situation: A car signals and then pulls into the 2 and a half car lengths of space between our car and the car in front.

"Asshole! So you're gonna cut me off?!?! I'm gonna be on your ass like a hemorrhoid!"

Today I had some running around to do. I bought some deodorant, toothbrushes, cookie baking betty-crocker bags, underwear, yet more discount socks, then I went to the sheet music store, I bought lots of country music and the essential Jonny Cash collection... now I will fit in up there. I still had time before picking my mother up from work, so I went and bought a violin. It cost more than I was planning on, but apparently it is a good instrument and will last a long time. I will spend the summer becoming a virtuoso, and you will all be shocked and pleasantly surprised in the fall. The theory is that if I take it with me to the middle of nowhere, at least there will be relatively few people to hear the badness that is sure to ensue.
Grr, I spent far too much money today... but on the otherhand, I have spent next to nothing out at the lodge. If I do pay to eat at the restaurant... I get cheap meals, or a good discount, but I've been cooking my own meals a fair amount of the time. The only thing that i'm spending more money on than I would here is booze... I had actually cut back a lot of drinking lately in the city... rarely at all.. but now there's not much else to do in the country than work, drink or sleep- so I've taken up drinking again. Nevertheless, drink prices are quite reasonable, and I will keep a healthy limit on my booziness.
Anyway, last night something changed. I won't get into details cause it's very fresh, I'll perhaps comment next time I'm in town. I'll just say that I had to do something very difficult. Nevertheless, because of the other person involved, it was not as uncomfortable as I thought it might have been, and I thank them for being such a great friend in that regard. I hope that they were being honest in the front I was shown, as I appologize for any discomfort or awkwardness I caused.
I think that's all for now, once again, I will be in town next around June 12-15th ish. Hopefully I will be able to see more people then. Driving around today reminded me of just how much of a contrast there is between the city and the Narrows. I must admit that I'm still a city boy at heart, but I am enjoying my life out there as a down-to-earth rancher/lumberjack/exterminator/pianist.

well well well, I'm back for a short while!

Just for 2 days and a bit: enough time to catch up on emails, buy some stuff I need, and see the people that I don't get to see when I'm out in the middle of nowhere. Speaking of.....
I am really enjoying my work. When I am not playing piano on weekends, my job duties are incredibly varied. I am doing some retail work with which I am very familiar and comfortable. I have also entered the food service industry as both a bartender, waiter, and extremely short order cook which is new work for me, but I'm learning quickly and am comfortable enough with the work. On the other hand, I've been doing a little bit of manual labour, reminiscent of last summer; and I've even worked as an exterminator.
The work certainly is varied enough to keep me interested. I quite enjoy being a do-it-all kinda guy; a jack of all trades (master of none).
The people out there are wonderful, a great group of coworkers who make work enjoyable. Not just the coworkers, but my bosses (the owners of the lodge) have been wonderful, and they've made me feel at home and very welcomed. It sounds corny, but it's like I'm part of a family there, which is a nice thing when I'm away from friends and family in the city.
Aside from the people and the work, it's gorgeous out there! Everynight I'm treated to a beautiful sunset over the lake. My cabin is within a boot's throw of the lake, and knowing how I throw, that sure is close. Speaking of the lake... I went swimming, it's cold... very cold! But it was great and refreshing and wonderful. Soon enough it will be warmer in the lake, and I will be able to go swimming daily if I want.

While I'm up there, I have no internet access, but you can get ahold of me by my phone or voicemail or text messages. The good news is that I will be coming into the city every 2 weeks. We're going to be doing a 10days on, 4 days off schedule, which should be nice. It will probably always be mon-thursday ish.
Anyway, I have lots to do over the next few days, so bye for now, but I hope to update before I leave again.. if not, see you around June 12'th ish.

goodbye world!

Goodbye,
Im now heading out the door, fully packed and ready to go!
have a great summer!
i love you all, except for some, butI sohuldn't tell yout hat I hate you, momma always said "if you dont have anything nice to say, shut the fuck up!"

it's almost go time!

last minute packing... I tried to get my paycheque this morning, but there was noone in the office... so I don't know if I'll have time to go there again...eep it's out of the way!, but I need the money.. especially if I need a deposit on the appt. or something like that... I don't have many socks, where have they gone?!? I think I might need to buy some on the way out, really! where are they!?! gah.... and theres nothing I like better than fresh new socks... mmmm so cozy! oooh there's excitement in the air. I actually read the newspaper today, I went for tea in the morning before trying to get my cheque, and I read through the Free Press. gah, I didn't like it.
One article was about how our Maestro was ineffective. He made it clear that he wrote it from a non-musician's point of view, and I can understand that. he said he couldn't teel the difference betweent he orchestra under different conductors, and that he never really changed the style of concert as he said was necessary, BUT, having a good conductor inspired the players in the orchestra... which seemed to be the problem when they... say... were on strike when he first came here... so he did fix that up... but now what's going to happen ... oh welllllll

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Wowzers,
time has just flown by this last little while... and tonight...
I'm glad my mom started helping me pack.. I totally lost focus, but ya, stuff still got done.... all thats left is the clothes, which I'll do tomorrow morning.
I need to get my paycheck from the contemp dancers before I leave... tomorrow is payday... so I'm hoping it will be ready in the morning... or that they won't hate me for wanting it first thing... because I need the money. Im going to wake up early to drive my mom to work, that way I will be awake and functional and actually be prepared to leave in the afternoon.
Alas, I should be off to bed, tomorrow is going to be a long day!

I bought a brita water filter and a whistling kettle!
I also bought veggies, so I won't get scurvey right away when I move away!
Gah, finding boxes was a bit of a hassle.... neither of the LC's had them, so I got a few from JackAss, and I still haven't really started packing... oh well. My mom's being very helpful!

Last day in the city

Tomorrow is moving day, which means that today is packing day.
I think I'm having to put everything I should have been doing over the last few days into today.... but packing is always best at last-minute... although I've only ever done it last minute, so that's good enough.
I need to find boxes to put things in. I need to wash lots of clothes today, then there's also the task of digging through the piles of clothes in my room to find my wardrobe for the summer. Shit, I really have no idea what to take, should I take a CD Player or not, and if not, should I bring cds incase theres a cd player up there? Should I bring my keyboard, will there be room in Deena's car, do I care to have it? How many towels do I need to bring?...if I use them after a shower, they're still clean then, so I don't really need to 'wash' them persay....
I'm still wondering.. he said there were pots and pans and stuff like that, so I'm wondering exactly how furnished the appartment is. I'm hoping there will be an iron.
Anyway, it's not too important to worry about these things now, my parents are coming for the Mother's day brunch, and they will be able to bring me whatever I realize I need once I get there, because we all know I'm going to forget something important.

I have a new friend!

For those of you worried about me being lonely and without companionship this summer.... Worry not!!
I bought a new friend today. He's fairly short, but he loves to smile and he will be a great companion. Fiona didn't get along with him today, but I think she's just jealous of my new friendship. I won't tell you much more because I'm going to make Deena wait until we get there before she can meet my new friend. One hint... he loves carrots!
Today was random errands and stuff. I bought new sandals and new shoes. I handed in the CD for the ballet dance and returned a library book to the Millenium Branch downtown. I think with those things done, I am stringless in the city; there's nothing left in the city that I have to worry before I run away for the summer. Everything else I have to do is to make sure I can survive out there.
I ordered what should be enough drugs for the summer, and the food will last for a while. Now it's just a matter of knowing what to take, and make sure I'll have everything I'll need without packing overkill. Anyway, bye for now.

Time is running out!

Today I sent out an email to a bunch of people to let them know where I'm going, so they don't get confused when they can't find me all summer. That pretty much puts me in official preparation mode. All the time I spend is either packing/cleaning or somehow preparing for my departure. It seems everyone I talk to, I'm explaining whats up for the summer, or spending quality time with them before I'm off.
Last night was a good night. We had the final concert of the year with the choir that I sing in. The concert went well, all things considered. Many people were under the weather, or for somereason not in good shape for singing. The concert was poorly attended, but I think the people that were there enjoyed the show. We performed Bach's Peasant Cantata as the closer of this all Baroque concert. People got a chuckle or two out of it due to one of our soloists who did a splendid job of bringing about the jolity and humour of the text... albeit not in an academically fitting Bach style.
After the concert, Deena and I dropped her car off at her place then I changed at my house and we went to Kyle's for his party.
At Kyles, there were the usual bunch of people. It's always fun to see people there. I wasn't drinking cause of Antibiotics and driving, that way Deena could.. and she certainly did! tee hee She is a very cute drunk, what with the rambling and random talking and commentary.
Another highlight of the party was the 'meeting' Jon and I had. We've been talking about a collaboration of sorts for a while. We both want it to happen, so we were trying to think of different ideas, but neither of us is particularly political, or has a major theme that we want to address in an artistic piece... so that's getting in the way. I think it might involve puppets!! or maybe some kind of artistic porn...
I'm going to do the music and Jon will do the visual aspects of the project. We're thinking a video.. but who knows. I'm going to email him now, i think.
The low point of the party was at the beginning.
THERE WAS NO FUCKING SPINACH DIP!!!!!!!! All the dumbass cunts whowere there ate it all!!!! FUCKIFUCKFICIKKCIFIKCIUCKMIFUCK! I told him I wasn't going to be there til later and to wait to put it out... but no!!!!
ARGHS!
And I couldn't even drink my sorrows away due to the soberness of my evening. FUCK!
ANyway, that was the evening. I will be bitter about the Spinach Dip for a long time.

Academically successful year.

Wow,
I'm impressed with myself and partially surprised, but mostly proud.
This is the first year in my university carreer that I haven't recieved a mark in the B area. This is because, I am a straight-A student this year. Not only that, but I recieved two A plusses! Only two of my marks haven't been posted: major practical and chamber music, both of which are going to be A's.
I am very happy!
Today was super busy, but now I'm officially done with Ballet for the year. The senior level class that I play for on sat. mornings.... I'vr been playing for them for over 2 years now... and some of them are moving away and not coming back next year.. or not returning for some reason or another. At the end of the class today, I told them I was leaving for the summer, and they decided to maul me with a group hug. Poignant moment. More than anything, I was actually aware of my role as an educator today. I don't think you really notice that you're teaching people until they are on they way out, and you can look back upon what they have taken from you. This is not even necesarily what they can tell you they've learned:
(Story time)..........
When I started playing for this group of dancers, it was fairly unintimidating because they really didn't care what i played. They never really noticed if I made mistakes or stylistically wrong music choices; the musicality(or lack thereof) they showed was unwavering. Musical jokes that i love (such as hinting bluntly at well-known themes) passed by them completely unnoticed, If they didn't understand the accents in terms of the ballet movements, there was nothign that my music could do to help them.
Today, and this year, it has become a different story. Choices of music and style that I make actually do make a difference in their movements. A girl had been humming/singing "Somehwere over the rainbow", and when I slipped it into their developpé exercise, their was a quiet uproar of giggles.
....................(end story)
It was an incredibly rewarding day at the ballet. For the other class, I still have to rerecord the piano version of "You are my sunshine", as the counting wasn't quite what it should have been. Other than that, the teacher said she really liked what I did with the song, so I should just fix up the one section and it would be great.
AFter ballet, there was a dress rehearsal, which went fine, but it was tense because we might not be able to use the organ for the concert..... eek!
When I came home, I left again quickly to pick up my bound books of music.... finally all finished, so I'm happy enough. I tried shopping for sandals... but frick! 60$ for sandals?!? I think not!
I went to Cara's kickboxing fight tonight. It was great! unfortunately, her opponent didn't show up in town, so she did an exhibition against someone she knew. She was dissapointed, but I still think she was awesome.
Anyway, I'm so very very tired, I'm going to bed far earlier than normal, and I'm gonna love it!
I have SOOO much to get organised and done before I leave, and nowhere near enough time.

So this book slicing up and reorganizing task has proved more complicated and stupid and frustrating than I had planned... actually I knew it would be this way.
I took out of each book, the songs that I want to use. Now I am combining those 5 alphabetically... just a few letters at a time. Sounds simple, but remember that none of the songs are individual...and they rarely lack to a connection to another song - on the flip side of the page. Sometimes I am using the song, sometimes not. The big problem comes when I have a solid chunk of songs being used from one book spanning letters f-h, and then another chunk spanning e-i: so my alphabet goes A B C D E F G H I F G H J K L M.... and so on...
this problem occurs all over the place... so the alphabet is only going to be loosely represented here.. meaning that I will have some major troubles trying to actually find any specific song in my vast collection. Nevertheless, I will find a way, and yes, it will be fun.
Even just getting the book cut apart was a bit of a hassle. One of the places said they only bind the books from start to finish, so they wouldn't just cut it for me..... I was expecting that this had something to do with copyright laws, but no... apparently they just didn't want to help me out. Another place had a 24 hour wait on all jobs... even though it would have taken 2 minutes and I would have left them alone after that... but oh well, they didn't mind losing my business. The store I had called before said they did it.. so all was good, but I went to a differnet location which didnt have the cutter required... so I had to go to the location I called to get it done.
All in all, I will finish this organizing very soon and then take it to be spiral bound into two books this afternoon, and then I can worry about the other stuff I have to do before leaving.
For example:
I need to go to Value Village or elsewhere to buy more semi-respectable clothes so I look somewhat classy as the pianist.
Shit, I just remembered I need to record the music for one of the ballet classes for their end of year performance.
I need to figure out exactly what to bring, and start packing/ or at least getting organized.
I need to photocopy all the classical music I need to learn for next year so I dont have to lug the originals out there.
Eek, I know theres still lots more, but I can't think of it... I'm making a list. this weekend is so busy, I have things going basically constantly:
Tonight, going to an opera and then Nachos at Papa Georges.
Tomorrow, Work in morning, dress rehearsal in afternoon, then Cara's fight in evening.
Sunday, Concert in the evening, then Kyle's party at night.
I have to find time to record that piece SOON, cause ya, that's a necessity and I really should have had it done for tomorrow, but that's not going to happen, so oh well. Maybe I'll do a rough copy to double check the counts, and then record a better version later. ya, thats a plan.
Anyway, now realizing all the crap I need to do, I'm off to get doing it!

So, I heard back from the guy from the summer job today.
I asked him the main questions which were my concerns:
Practice time - I can use the piano in the restaurant 5 days a week between restaurant closing at 8pm and the lounge/hotel closing up at midnight. In theory, this will work out.
Room and board - I would live in a bachelor type appartment with a kitchenette, 200$/month.. so it's cheap. I have to pay for food... 35% off the restaurant food (at cost), but that's still costly, so I will try and live off groceries as much as I can. I really don't crave variety in my eating, so I think I'll do well with living off cheerios and peanut butter.
Wage - they offered me a starting wage of 12$/hr with a guaruntee of 40 hours a week. With R&B considered, its the same as a 8-9$/hr job in the city.
Random other considerations - if I don't have a car out there, I won't be spending lots of money on gas as I have been lately. I will become one with nature out there in the wilderness.

I'm going to treat this as a summer of cleansing. Over the years I have become lazy, overweight and less active mentally and physically by my own volition. I am going to exercise regularly and eat better. With the beautiful scenery and the lake, I'm sure I will have opportunity to go for walks and swim often. I am going to bring lots of books to read, varied books. I'm going to use books as my entertainment. I won't have tv or the computer, so lots of reading.... maybe I can encorporate the reading and the walking...

Investment / Frivolous spending ?

If you know me, you have probably at some point been subjected to my love of School House Rock. Today my love was taken to a new level. Let me tell you the tale.
I went to the music store to make an investment today... I needed more lounge music... and there was a noticeable hole in my "Best of the (insert decade here)" series... I had the 50's-70's.... so today I bought the 80's and 90's. So much more music.. and I'm actually more familiar with most of this stuff! I also found a discount rack and clearance bin... so I bought some other random stuff... mostly individual songs that I might be able to encorporate into my lounge act.... such as Britney's "I'm a slave 4 U" and so on and so forth... theres a reason they were on clearance....
BUT the highlight of my day was when what did I find in the discount PVM racks..... but the sheet music for selections from School House Rock.... thats right... I can go to "conjunction junction' anytime I want now... and I can consult "Lolly lolly lolly get your adverbs here" too! Actually conjunction junction is scored in the DVD for a really awesome sounding quartet of voices... I'm thinking next year at a noon-hour recital....
All in all, I spend close to 100$ on music today. If this job works out well, I can justify that to myself as an investment... if not... I'll cry myself to sleep tonight.... again.
So heres the thing.. I now have 5 books in the decades series... and I am only going to use about half the songs in each(at best). That could make for a large pile of music beside the piano....
At the same time... the binding of the books is done with glue... so they don't lie flat on the piano... meaning it's damned near impossible to play from them....................
::::::: Festival accompanying... David.... book closing.... argh..... eeep!!!:::::::::::::
My original thought was that I should have them rebound... simple enough... they just slice off the glue and then stick a coil binding spiral in it. BUT this is my plan-
I will get them to cut the glue bound bit off.. then I will take out just the songs I want... organise them alphabetically into 2 or 3 books that I can use rather than 5! Once they are organised, I can take them back to be bound together in neat books that will suit my needs quite nicely.
At the same time, it's going to be a fair chunk of effort on my part... right now, I'm figuring out which pieces I want to use from each book.... I'm discriminating based on whether I know the piece or not as well as whether or not it would be appropriate for background music.
Fun Fun Fun!