Back from the Big Apple

New York was awesome! We had a great time. We did so much that it's hard to sum it up in one post, but I'll give it a try:

Day 1

Despite the 3am start, everybody seemed awake. We rode down to LAX, and took off in time. It was a pretty long flight, and painful descent, but we arrived about 4 in the afternoon. From there we went straight to Manhattan, ate some Papaya Dogs, and checked out the Empire State Building...the view is pretty awesome.

Day 2
We got an early start (after Robbie's 45 minute shower) and saw Ellis Island, Statue of Liberty and walked around the other major parts of NY (Wall street, Ground Zero, etc). We then went for a backstage tour of the State Theater in Lincoln Center and saw Don Giovanni...a very slumberous yet cool opera. Later that night (or the next morning) we were driving back around 2am and Mom (our bus driver Harriet) decided to stop for food. Harriet was by far the best and coolest bus driver I've ever had...not to mention that woman could drive New York style.

Day 3
We left early for Riverside Church to play at the festival. Symphonic band could have done better but we still got a silver so that's cool. Wind Ensemble kicked some butt, and we got a Gold 1st place, and an invite to Boston for next year...Boston Invitational, here we come! Percussion also did really good getting a gold. After that was the "dinner cruise" which was...interesting to say the least.

Day 4
It was pouring rain all day, but we still left early for Rockefeller Center and the other stuff around there. Since it was raining so hard, we had to make a stop at the hotel for a change, skipping Central Park. Later that afternoon we saw Drumstruck, which was cool...and loud. From there we had a MEGA sandwich at the Carnegie Deli and went to Time Square for a few hours before returning to the hotel.

Day 5

Despite the fact it was still pouring rain we left early. Rain or shine I wasn't missing the Today Show. At 9am, I made my national TV debut for a whole 3 seconds of fame. Despite the rain, it was really cool. If I ever get a hold of a copy, I'll be sure to post it. After that we made up for lost time the day before and went to Central Park for a while...it was really nice to see another side of NY. Then it was all over...to the airport, the flight to LAX, crashing once I got home, and STAR testing the next day.

All of us had an awesome time...NY 2006 was truly an unforgettable trip. More pics coming soon.

Off to New York!

New York...here we come!

I'll update when we get back on Tuesday...if your not going, see you then!

All State Music

A while back I promised I'd post some of the music I played at All State. The CD came a few days ago, and I finally got it online, so here you go:

1. George Washington Bridge- A long, very dissonant William Shuman piece.
2. Contre Qui Rose- Another Morton Lauridsen (remember O Magnum Mysterium?). Uses the same harmonics, which I personally think sound really beautiful.
3. Fanfare- The first of 4 movements we played from Shafer Mahoney's symphony for band.
4. Blue- The second movement...there's a lot of nice blues chords.
5. Clang- The "clanging" third movement.
6. March- A very Copland sounding finale to our part of the concert.

Also, there was a neat piece the middle band played that I liked. It's by a guy out of LA named John Mackey. It's really cool...check out the Redline Tango.

Happy Easter!

I hope everybody had a great Easter.

Only 3 days until New York. I'm really looking forward to it...I bet we'll have a blast. I'll try to update before we leave.

The CD from All State arrived in the mail. I want to post some of it here, except I need to find a free reliable host for it, which is proving to be a challenge. I'll play with it some more and hopefully have some of the music posted soon.

Matt is home and well as of Tuesday. The little tyke is looking good (even though I still haven't seen him in person...which is quite frustrating). Pending parental permission, I might post some updated pics soon.

Since the RIAA obviously has the intent of making everybody's life miserable, why don't they go after George Bush? Here is his iPod showing songs from the Beatles. Since no Beatles songs have been licensed on iTunes yet, they must have been ripped from a CD, which according the RIAA said was "illegal" to a federal agency last February.

We've seen Star Wars in ASCII, now it's time for the Incredibles. Pretty awesome...I just dream of having that much free time.

Lastly, I want to say that my grandma passed away to join God and her husband in heaven yesterday afternoon. She was a wonderful woman who lived a full and great life. I really admired her ever-present witty ability to make anybody smile. I love you Grandma Dubs... you will be greatly missed.

Good and Bad News

The good news is that there's only 9 weeks of school left. The bad news is that there's sill 9 weeks of school left. But, hey, only 2 weeks until New York. I'm really looking forward to that...It should be a lot of fun. I'll try to post an intinerary when we get one, but we're doing most of the standard NY stuff. Although it's crammed in to 4 days, it should still be really good.

One thing I'm really looking forward to is visiting the Today Show. I've always wanted to, and it will be especially neat to see Katie Couric on one of her last appearances. It's too bad that she's leaving...although I wish her the best for her new ventures, it is still kind of sad.

Baseball season is now in full swing (sorry...couldn't resist). Our Dodgers are looking halfway-decent so far despite the many new faces (practically a new team). Hopefully this will be a good season...much unlike the last.

Check out this video. Kinda creepy. Real or not??? You decide.

Who Wants to be an Idiot?! Uh...I meant Millionaire. Well, "idiot" fits better in this video. Pretty funny. Just FYI jumping backwards a bit, Meredith Vieira (the host) is apparently supposed to take Katie's place on Today.

That's all for now...I'll update later when my new camera arrives.

It's over already?

Urg.

Back to school tomorrow. That break went way too fast.

I spent most of my break either in a car or sitting doing nothing. It was nice to loaf for a week. I went up to Vegas on Wednesday and saw Andi and Karl who are doing pretty good, and Matt who's doing a lot better. With luck he'll be home soon.

On Saturday I went down to Tesoro High School (some really rich school) with Joe Walker for the State Science Olympiad. Although they didn't do the best, it was still a lot of fun. Ben, Jamie, Emily and I all got the wonderful job of standing in the rain and helping out with Storm the Castle (sort of a catapult thing) whilst dodging flying golf balls. Besides the cold and rain there was lots of free food, so that combined with all the other good stuff made for a fun day.

Google Earth played a little April Fools joke. Apparently there really are aliens at Area 51.

Speaking of April Fools, here's the list of the top 100 April Fools gags of all time. Some a tad more disturbing than others.

This little puzzle thing is pretty awesome. It's one of those things where you come up with a number, it tells you to do stuff to it, and then it guesses the right number, except this one is way more complex. Pretty cool find...thanks for the link, Tani.

That's all for now...I need to go finish up some last minute spring break HW.