Tag Archive for 'Music'

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bus head

Last weekend, we went to Wisconsin, partly to fulfill our yearly tradition of seeing a play an American Players Theater and partly as a weekend getaway in honor of Sarah’s birthday. We spent the whole weekend in the Mt Horeb and Spring Green area. On Friday, we stopped in at our favorite little chocolate shop and then got dinner at the adorable Italian place we ate at last year, before heading up to the theater to catch Widower’s Houses.

Saturday, we spent the whole day in Mt Horeb, starting with breakfast at a great little place called Schubert’s. Then we took in the activities and sights of National Mustard Day. We didn’t actually participate in the activities or eat any mustard or mustard-themed food (Culver’s Mustard Custard?). But we did wander and take pictures and shop all the cute stores, including the gift-shop half of the Mustard Museum. Then we popped back into Schubert’s for milkshakes and rosettes. We also did some quick visits to the gift-shops of Little Norway and Cave of the Mounds. We bought some geodes. I’m not sure if we cracked them open yet. Then, after a little chillin’ at the motel, we got some yummy dinner at a place with a HUGE menu.

Sunday, we used the third part of our tickets to the House on the Rock tour. We did the other two parts last year. This was definitely the darkest part of the tour, but it was very cool… it started at the huge carousel and included the doll carousels, lots and lots of dollhouses and the amazing organ room. On the way home, we picked up some cheese and meat and ate at a Panera Bread rip-off called Atlanta Bread.

Pictures Here :)

It was nice to do a little road trip. I’ve been doing public transportation to work most of the summer and I’ve missed driving. I had kind of forgotten about the phenomenon that, back in high school, in the music groups that went on many trips, we called “bus head.” The theory was that sometime after two hours being enclosed in the same vehicle, something in your brain shut off. We found that it didn’t matter if it was a school bus or a nice comfy chartered bus or a van or even a car. Once you hit that point, you had “bus head.” We discussed it with our band director; It takes a long time to recover from “bus head.” We didn’t want to plan any trips with long rides and immediate performing, even if it meant leaving in the early morning. We needed at least two hours. We could unload equipment during those two hours, but we definitely couldn’t do any rehearsing or make any decisions or be expected to engage in any activities that involved a lot of thought.

Luckily, my drive to work usually stays just short of “bus head” inducing length, and the public transportation route involves changing from train to bus or “El” about halfway through. I actually drove a couple times this week. Wednesday, I got together with a couple guys, after camp, and played some music. I think it went pretty well, if it turns into something I will definitely let you all know. Thursday, we had our family night (that 60 inch TV was what my camp photos slideshow was being displayed on) and then some of the staff went to Whirlyball. I had no idea what Whirlyball was until I saw it. It’s kind of like like Jai Alai or Lacrosse, in bumper cars. It was fun.

One more week of camp left. This week includes a sleepover, possibly another trip to Eli’s cheesecake world, a visit to Independence grove and another cookout… so lots of excitement.

summer happens

Just got through the camp training for this year. Lots of returning staff, which is a good thing. I’m an assistant/floater again, and there are four of us this year. There are also more kids, but hopefully, as we get into the swing of things, I’ll be able to break out and take a lot of pictures, like last year. One big difference is that I won’t be driving into the city, all summer, unless some special circumstance comes up at camp, or I find a band that wants to practice on a weekday evening. I did some trial runs on the trains and buses, this week, and I think I’ve figured out all my options. The rides don’t take any less time than driving, but much less gas, and will give me a chance to really listen to much more music. Camp will keep me pretty busy during the week and pretty tired in the evenings, so I will probably not blog much. This is normal summer procedure for me – I’m not dead. If I die, I’ll let you know.

Not driving a lot in the summer has put the new GPS device decision on hold… which is fine, since I can’t decide on a unit, now. XM NavTraffic is the clear choice for traffic service, but only older portable units have it, and I definitely don’t want to replace the head unit in the Mazda. Maybe by the time I’m driving a lot, again, another traffic service will have improved or NavTraffic will score some new portable placements.

I’m too tired to remember what else I wanted to blog about. Summer is already kicking in.

checklist of sorts

…must do some planning for the Seattle trip… must resist urge to play Mario Kart Wii until I don’t have time to do anything but finish the Adventure Ed stats before the meeting on Tuesday…

I’m probably forgetting stuff, but already on the list are some gardens in Victoria, the Capilano Suspension Bridge in Vancouver and Pike Place Market and the Seattle Aquarium… on the probably/possibly/maybe list is the Space Needle, Experience Music Project, Boeing and the Underground Tour.

Some Yelp searching has turned up these, that I’d like to add to the food possibilities list:

Paseo – the words “food orgasm” come up in their reviews, especially when it comes to something called a midnight cuban.
HoneyHole – sounds dirty, and delicious… “best fries in seattle” in several reviews
Armandino’s Salumi – great reviews… short hours, long lines and sort of expensive, but worth taking a day off of work for!
Cloud City Coffee – need to snub my nose at Starbucks by having good coffee somewhere in Seattle and this place sounds pretty cool
Portage Bay Cafe – good breakfasts, some talk of “unlimited fruit” and such at the “toppings bar.”
Georgetown Truck Stop – affordable, delicious breakfasts

And some other stops/shopping that sounds interesting:

Elliott Bay Book Company – we like books.
Archie McPhee – toys and silliness
Lincoln Square Cinemas – in case we decide not to break our movie night tradition
Nintendo Headquarters – yeah, we love nintendo.

Any other suggestions?

I’m on YouTube?

This page has some videos of me performing in my high school’s song and dance group (the ones with titles that include years back in the 90s – cause I’m old).  Totally embarrassing. Enjoy.

It’s been a fun week. The weather was fairly nice and we went to the Flea Market, today. We’ve been teased with warm spells and then temperatures dropping back near freezing overnight, so it was nice to walk around in a t-shirt today. The overnight trips for Adventure Ed. are this week, so I hope this warm spell continues. We saw Iron Man on Friday. It was pretty darn good, especially for a comic book movie. We also went yard saling that morning and attended Fly Bird‘s 4th birthday bash-thing and picked up some weird stuff. I think we’re doing a double date tonight and seeing another movie, maybe Forgetting Sarah Marshall or maybe Baby Mama… I really liked the intriguing “is that for real?” ad campaign that Forgetting Sarah Marshall did with their billboards and busboards.

I also did something bad to my knee at some point this week. I think I may have injured it on Tuesday night when I was doing a balancing-on-one-foot-and-tying-my-shoe dance. It was kinda sore on Wednesday, worse on Thursday and really really painful on Friday. Yesterday it was much better and today it feels fine… but it really made me feel old. I was all gimpy and hobbling around the yard sales on Friday.

Oh, and while it wasn’t my boss, this time… a director at the YMCA I work at was let go this week. I’m not directly involved and, as I said, it wasn’t my boss, so it has nothing to do with the curse that I bring along to every after-school day care that I’ve ever worked for, but I am curious to see how they fill his position. I haven’t yet worked for a YMCA that filled a vacant position with anyone half-as-good as the person that left/they fired. They usually cut corners and give some of their responsibilities to other directors and maybe hire a new assistant.

still looking…

A few interesting prospects, but nothing solid, yet, on the band front. I’m leaning towards the folk stuff, especially after a conversation with Mark about his band’s general distaste for Chicagoland. Someone told them that the groups they played with were the “end all, be all” of the Chicago suburban scene… maybe among their own little incestuous high school friends and families and bandmates. Though, after looking through the ads in craigslist for the past few weeks, I fear that there may not be a whole lot of great original music out here in the ‘burbs. I told Mark that I’d do my best to whip the scene into shape, so that it’s worth his band’s trouble to come back out here. I’m not sure if that’s realistic, but I’ll do my best to find the good scene… since the Suburban Youth Culture doesn’t suit Mark’s needs.

Got a couple new power adapters for my laptops, including a auto adapter for the little Dell that’s coming with us to Seattle. I haven’t tried it out yet, but it’ll kill the need for that DC to AC converter that always makes the airport security flip their wigs. I also got the latest version of my GPS software… it’s the new Microsoft version with the “Connected Services” that tell me traffic and gas price information through a little FM receiver. Unfortunately, I haven’t had those services connect for more than 5 or 10 minutes at a time and only when I’m as close to downtown as the high schools I work at… as soon I get a few miles out, it loses its connection or something. I’m holding out until we try it in the Seattle area to give it the scathingly bad review that it, so far, deserves. The GPS part, however, works really well, as good or better than previous versions. It still doesn’t speak the street names, but it does automatically reroute when you go off route, instead of just saying “Off Route” over and over again until you tell it what to do.

just want to play

I’ve been trying to find a band to play in. I’ve cruised the craigslist ads, I’ve posted my own ads, I’ve even looked at alternative places to post, though none seem to have the traffic that craigslist does. The cynicism I developed in the Wormtown scene about bands that suck rules out about 80% of the groups I hear. It’s possible I’m being too picky. The others don’t get back to me… maybe I’m too old or maybe it’s that I live in the suburbs? I dunno, but it’s pretty darn frustrating, I’m almost ready to give up.

I went and played for one group. It was after my early day of work and I was pretty exhausted… so I might have not really been awake enough to be in an audition position, but I didn’t think it went too badly… especially being the first time I’d played with other people in over a year. Unfortunately, I haven’t heard back from them and noticed that they’ve reposted their ad a few times. I’ve reposted my ad as well, with a few tweaks. I made the terrible mistake of not mentioning that I wanted to play original music (and not covers) in my first post. Not-so-ordinary groups respond to my ads, as well… soul, jazz, “weird” (humor) … and sometimes I respond to those kind of ads, just to see if there’s a way I could fit into something different. Nothing has come of it, so far. A lot of talk about possibly getting together, but no actual results yet. All the groups that I would be really excited to be a part of, don’t get back to me. I also can’t decide what kind of genre I should be going for. I feel like a rock group would be a lot of fun, but sometimes I’d like to do a folk type thing again… then, y’know, when Mark’s group comes out here again, we could play the same show or something… that’d be cool.

I really just want to play again. Anybody know anyone in the Chicago area? I haven’t tried too hard with the musical people I already know in this area… but I’m feeling a little desperate, so I’ll probably revisit those ideas and actually go after those kind of connections with some sort of zeal and/or determination.

change of time, change of scenery?

Next week, not this week, is Spring break for Chicago public schools. Sarah has just given notice at her job (seems like a sinking ship, doing what it can to cut costs by cutting hours). We think we should take another road-trip/vacation… last year was our trek across Missouri. Where should we go this time? Sarah wants to go somewhere “green,” so I guess maybe we need to head somewhat South-ish? At some point, we want to go see Mom, with Sarah’s mom, but that’ll wait until we all make some time at the same time and Mom has her guest room ready… and New England is probably no more green than it is here.

I walked around the Y and changed all the clocks, again, today. Last time the time changed, I was late for work when my clock changed on the wrong weekend. It was too smart for its own good. My new clock has a daylight savings time mode, so I got there with no problem… and I think we only had one guy show up late because he hadn’t changed his clocks.

And yes, the amp and equipment and stuff all still seems to be working great, I’ve got a couple opportunities to go play with some people in the city this week… to try some stuff out, see if there’s a good fit. I plugged my bass into my computer and played along with some tracks yesterday. It was fun. Looking forward to playing with people… hoping something comes together.

guess what all still works

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it’s all in the eyes

I don’t usually get into politics, but we had a discussion at work this morning about the general opinion on Bush. It’s probably true that some people would be happy if he suddenly died, and other people would be happy if he enacted his secret plan to start a war with Iran and postpone the next presidential election indefinitely. I’d be happy if I never had to see his beady little eyes on TV again. I am also kind of afraid of Hillary’s crazy eyes, but they don’t bother me as much, I guess.

Sarah’s throwing me a birthday party. I don’t remember the last party I had… but this is mostly an excuse to get some friends over and play some games and eat some food. The food is shaping up to be pretty yummy, I think. I’m excited. If you’re feeling really bad about not coming, there’s always Apple gift cards (for the day when the old Dell does finally die) or stuff from my Amazon wishlist. I will be thirty years old. I don’t feel it, I guess, but I don’t know how old I feel. I do know that I’d really like to find some people to perform music with. Steve from snakes & ladders sent a video documentary-type-thing on the band that he put together that drove that home.

Voegtlin Corporation and Companies

Just woke up from a weird dream. It was sort of a suspense/thriller feel, so I was kinda upset about waking up, only because I would love to know what was gonna happen next. The basic disjointed pieces were like this:

I’m in Dudley at my parents’ house, actually, outside my parents’ house and Dad is there. He tells me he’s heading somewhere, some weird location whose name I know was repeated multiple times in the dream, but that I can’t recall at all, now. He said he had to pick some stuff up, but that some people might come looking for stuff… and he started to say, “If they come, it’s…” but then he changed his mind and said just to tell them that he was out. Some people definitely came, and I don’t remember my exact interaction with them, but I do remember that they did finally decide to leave, but that there were a lot of cars in the driveway, so they proceeded to smash into many of them on their way out… one of them was in a little classic dodge caravan type thing and backed into this 80s Oldsmobile looking thing on the grass behind the house and somehow pushed it all the way across the yard and into the fence. I told whoever was standing next to me that it’s ok, “it doesn’t run.” Then he continued his many pointed turn maneuver and pulled in between some small trees onto the neighbor’s yard over their driveway and down to the road. I remember being thankful that my car (which was my current car, my Mazda 5) was parked way behind the house and out of his rage range. I was looking at some awful gold-rust colored Cadillac up on the hill that heads up to the barn and being thankful that they hadn’t hit this one. I think it was partly because it belonged to someone important to my dad and partly because that someone would’ve gone crazy and beat them up, or something. Then I was talking to someone, maybe the same person I had told not to worry about the car on the lawn, about my dad telling me where he was going and that people might come by and I mentioned where he went and they said, “oh, then he’s gone to get the paperwork.” And proceeded to explain to me that he was probably out getting whatever illiegal documents were needed to make this other guy into me, on paper. I don’t think there was good explanation why, at the time.

The next part I remember is a bunch of people gathered inside with Dad, and this guy who was going to become me, and they were all sitting around a table, maybe, but I think we were all on couches. I know that I wasn’t supposed to know about this identity thing… so there was some point in the conversation when my Dad asked if anyone had anything to say, or maybe asked me something directly… either way, I said something about not being able to ever start my own company because “he’s going to be me.” There was some shock, I think, that I knew.

And then it turned into a party, for this guy, because the cat was out of the bag, and my dad explained that he was going to take control of the Voegtlin Corporation and Companies. Somebody said something about him not really needing to be me to do that and whoever was sitting next to them said that it would be cheaper if it was inherited. I remember that I got really mad at Dad at one point, I think he had said something about playing music and not being able to start a company doing that or something, and from my position, half-lying down on a couch, threw a drumstick (a bass drum mallet, one of two I was twirling around in my fingers) at his head, though, intentionally missing by a couple inches. He paused and looked alarmed and after a while, threw it back and I caught it somehow with the other stick. I also remember that I was just lying on the couch and saying very little while this party was going on around me. At one point, this guy who was going to become me, who I’m not positive had a name until this point, was talking about how much he loved certain pills he was taking. There was lots of agreement, including from my Dad, I think… and then there was some mention of his birthday and someone said, “yeah, what are we gonna do for him on his last birthday as Eddie?”

Then some more science-fiction flair got thrown in, someone, possibly me, asked about how he was going to prove he was me, if it ever came into scrutiny, and wouldn’t it be easier to steal Ernie’s identity (my older, mostly incommunicado, brother), and so on… and while there wasn’t really any explanation, my Dad did ask me for a blood sample, and for some reason Eddie was drawing his own blood, too. And then I told them that this wouldn’t work because I didn’t take any pills and everyone took pills, so my blood would certainly show up as irregular and any investigator worth his salt could tell that (pointing at various people in the room) “you’re on…” this and that drug and “you two are both on…” these pills and so on.

And that’s about the time I woke up. Thinking about it afterwards, the weirdest parts were that I was concerned with starting my own business… but maybe I was just using that as an example of something I couldn’t do if I wasn’t me, anymore. Another thing that struck me as odd was that “Eddie” was hispanic. he sort of looked like a bald Carlos Mencia… Dad was just a little bit racist, and it just didn’t seem right to me that he would hand down his whole company to a guy like that, but it’s not like I knew the guy, this was a dream, but it did occur to me right after waking up, so maybe it was part of the dream, too. Then there’s the fact that I had my Mazda. We essentially bought our Mazdas with Dad’s life insurance benefits. And the room the party was in was not like any room in our house in Dudley. It looked like a small, white apartment… but there’s gaps, I don’t even remember Dad coming back from wherever he was, in the dream, it’s possible that we all went somewhere else between the time I found out about the identity theft and the party. Then, in true Mark Mandeville, Dream No. 1 fashion, I started wondering if any of it was true, while preparing my breakfast (Mark wondered if he would drop dead any moment from the poison he drank in his dream, while he was eating his cereal). I wondered if Dad had, in fact, set someone up as a fake me. Of course, then I remembered that Dad was not as maniacal as he was in my dream and that there was no Voegtlin Corporation and Companies to inherit.

Back in the real world, I have some sort of training for Adventure Ed, tomorrow. Not sure exactly what it’s about. But I’ve also got to finish up the stats from last season and eMail the students with the links to the pictures after the training. I miss working a little bit, but I’d much rather sit home and play Lego Star Wars on the Wii… or go out and take some pictures, but it’s still looking pretty gray outside. I put in that order for sunlight on Friday. No tip for the sun god this time, that’s for sure.




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