More Dreams

Well we had our EDG3! show a while back, and it went very well. It feels great to finally get onstage and do a performance with the band. A real performance anyway. It's not like the Christmas concerts and stuff counted - this time we had lighting, and even a bit of choreography. It feels good - a big improvement on our concerts last year.

I got my name on a plaque for the second time this year. Felt good. I asked Mr. Haskell (band director) if it was possible to get the award next year, and he gave me some projects to consider.

1. Composing a piece for the band to learn and enter into a competition.
2. Composing a new piece of christmas music for the christmas concert.
3. Writing the show for next year, which very well may be a full-blown musical.

This is going to be awesome. You have no idea how this enthralls me.

On other news, now that summer has begun for me, I have found myself more bored than usual. I'm actually going to have to make up some credit in Algebra II over the summer, but I'm alright with that. I haven't started yet, that's the thing.

I'm beginning to mix up real life with my dreams. I store something, or find something somewhere, and when I wake up, part of me honestly believes that it's there. It's strange when you feel like you know where something is, and then realize that you based that off of a dream you recently had. It's like I'm going insane... I hope I'm not! Or, at least, I hope I'm not going more insane...

Oh! And I bought a microphone. Standard sort with the three prong plug in, not the greatest one out there, but pretty standard. Alon with that and the recently purchased boom stand, things are beginning to look pretty cool.

I had a piano recital this Thursday, and I played 'Oh Danny Boy' flawlessly. Listening to the other kids play their songs, I remember when I, like them, used to pause in the middle of a performance after a mistake, trying to correct it. I can't blame them. It's natural for them. But after getting used to performing, you get better and better at covering up your mistakes and truckin' right over them. It's and invaluable skill to have at this point in the game. It was a nice throwback though, and the recital was fun. Been so long since I've had a recital. Performances, sure, but recitals...

By the way, I'm bored. Anybody reading this nearby, take note, you should hang out with me. Yeah...

Focus

Alright Brian, I'll try to focus my points.

Today's theme! Music.

So I finally put Save For Rachel in production and managed to start selling it. Or finish selling it. See, we made forty copies, and I sold them for five dollars a piece.

They're all pretty much gone now. I'm sold out! What with this and the money from gifts for confirmation, I have more money right now than I ever have had on hand. I plan on using the money for musical equipment. Maybe a mic.

The equipment would come in handy, because I'm finally getting my own band together. No ideas for the name yet, but we've got most of our members solidly in place. By now we've had a couple of practices.

On top of that, as you may have gathered, the original cover concert concept for the band did not go through - EDG3 took it's place this year. Now that's it's summer, I've decided to start working on the production, making it into a full-fledged show with acting, stage presence, you name it. It'll be great.

EDG3! is tomorrow. Boy, am I excited.

My brother is begging to take the place of my current bass player and I'm considering it these days.

I played at mass a couple of weeks ago. Damn, that was fun.

Oh! And I believe that I'm going to have an audition with Del Parkinson at some point this summer. He's apparently the biggest name in piano in Boise. If I studied under him, it would be a huge boon to my musical knowledge. I hope it works out.

And I may have found a new album. I'll mention it later, don't worry...

What To Say...

Brian, help me out. What do you do when your life's so chaotic that you don't know what to blog about? It's hard to funnel these events in my life to produce some sort of moral or cohesive story at al. I just feel lost in my own life's happenings. It's all too much.

Well I'm having trouble filter it out, so I'll try to say it all.

School - My schoolwork's taking a hit because of my disorganization, and my absolute loathing of Algebra II. I'm going to have to pull out some serious studying for finals if I want to salvage myself. My interactions with my friends and acquaintances are changing rapidly, and I'm not sure how to react. Old friends suddenly start to look like trash, and bare acquaintances show an incredible person. Through it all, I find myself much more understanding than anybody in the school. I hear sharp, harsh 'shut ups' thrown around all the time to outsiders, and I hate it. I can't even remember the last time I said that and meant it seriously.

Music - The new piano lessons are going great. Did I mention? I may not have. I have a new teacher. Really cool dude. In contrast, the band is attempting a concert, but we are botching it terribly, and at this point, I dread that the thing will fail entirely - it won't happen, or won't be very good. Apart from that, I'm getting gigs weekly now, and it has had a profound affect on my life. Suddenly I work part-time (sort of). My income for a month has doubled. But on the other end of that, I'm spending a lot more on music as well - Save For Rachel is in final production stages, but with all the money by now that I've spent on CDs and cases and production in general, I'll have to sell at least ten albums to make up for my losses. Let me just say, I had better sell more than ten albums. If you're interested in receiving one, I will be selling them next week at school, and extras at any of my gigs (5 dollars a pop). If you're just a blog reader and interested, leave a comment and I'll try to figure something out. I'm still trying to get a band together...

Confirmation - I'm getting confirmed this coming Monday. I'm not sure what to think - my morality right now is still tossed about. I feel like I'm making progress, but I am so, so unsure of everything in life right now. Maybe this will help me find my way again. But I'm not sure it will.

I'm sure there's more to say, but there's too much too say to bother saying it. And if anybody knows how to upload mp3's to a blog, please, please leave a comment.

A Much Needed Update

Lately, I've lost interest in the blogging career, as you may have noticed. Part of it has been that I've been busy, but part of it has just been my own forgetfulness and laziness. But Mr. Harris and Rachel are both reading this, and that's enough to keep me going. Hell, maybe even Brian and Silver will pop in. Shout-out to any and all of my readers.

Well anyway, I'll try to get you up to speed.

The album's well on it's way, and the final product will be fourteen to fifteen songs in length. The genre, I believe, is folk indie rock. It's just whatever I write really, but from what I've heard, that's what my music sounds like.

The school band is on the road to putting together an awesome show for the end of the year, one combining elements of shows such as Stomp, Blue Man Group, that sort of thing. I will have an entire solo piece to myself. The whole thing will be amazing. I hope that you can come. Details will follow later.

Troy and I have both been kicked out of Event Horizon, the old band we were in, for what we see as very dumb reasons. I won't go into it in length, but we are in a new band now. Ironically, it's the one that we were very competitive while we were with Event Horizon. They're called The Absolute. We're not half bad.

I have a new piano teacher, named Danny Beal. Me and Jules split paths a while ago out of mutual agreement. Despite that sad fact, Danny is really good, and I think he's perfect for me. Unfortunately, I haven't been getting to practice as much as I would like, but I am trying. Danny tells me that he had taught kids similar to me before who are now playing at clubs for $400 upwards a night. Sounds like one hell of a backup plan for me. ha.

The campaigning starts next week. I'm running for Junior President. I have plenty of campaign ideas and posters already. If you're a sophomore and you're reading this, please vote for me, and tell others to do the same. Third time's the charm. (I've run twice in the past)

I've also managed to reach the epitome of nerd-dom. Dungeons and Dragons. Yep.

I've finished Mondays by now, and started a new book called Luck. I think I'll post the first chapter or two of that here later. If you want to receive Mondays, leave a comment with your email, then delete it (I'll see it, but you won't be spammed).

That's all I can think of right now. I'll try to post again soon.

Breaking the Weekend Down

Friday -
Varsity Hockey Game. We tied, 2-2.
Band performance. We got asked to come back the following night, even though it wasn't scheduled.

Saturday -
Varsity Playoff Hockey Game. We lost, by a considerable margin. A goalie had to step in for ours, and he wasn't any good. Final score was something like 9-1.
Band performance. Pretty good, but they had something planned for halftime, which was kind of frustrating, seeing as we were asked to come and play.
Soc-hop. Came right after the game. Kind of a flop, and I didn't really dance, but still kind of fun. The student body managed to get glow stick all over the place, throw some at the DJ, and break one of the windows up front. I think that was kind of funny.

Sunday -
Helping Jessica move. What a pain. Seriously, it took forever. Having my aunt Terri there helped though.
Band practice. Not BK Band practice, but practice with a more personal band called Event Horizon. I play keyboard, obviously. I didn't get to play much, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

Monday -
Oh, but nothing could quite prepare me for Monday...

Fine, I'm Not Quitting

Happy now?

I can't leave this blog. I was looking back over some of my older material, and I remembered one of the concepts of this blog. I wasn't out to write big, long, articulate essays, just small muses on life or stories about my day. Or whatever. So how can I not have time for this blog?

I do have time. And to an extent I've made some time for this. I recently obtained my driver's license (yes all of you, beware) so I can stay after school later than usual - about an hour. I've been using most of this time to type up Mondays, but the book is almost done. I only have one chapter left to type. So I'll start using this time slot to write my posts.

Aside from almost finishing Mondays, I have been working on the Cover Concert for the BK Band. I've already arranged five of the thirteen songs. In contrast, the actual director is working on finishing his first. But he's busy anyhow, I can't hold it against him. I'm working on getting some singers and some lights. It will be a real show. Plan on coming. Projected Date: February 28th.

I bought my brother his bike, and showed it to him. It was about two hundred dollars, and it seems to be a fairly nice bike. We haven't assembled it yet... It looks like the semester of being on lunch crew for second lunch have finally paid off. Andy (little brother) is grateful.

In other news, the new class schedule is interesting. At some point I will discuss the new schedule and the various classes in some depth.

Thanks, if you came back.
Thanks, if you read this at all.

Just When It Was Supposed To Be A Happy Ending... (Part 1)

I should've known. It was too perfect of a day - something had to go wrong...

It was Thursday. The school day went smoothly, and Troy and I waited after school for the Christmas concert. I bought some food for Troy and some friends down at Subway. We came back, and the band started showing up.

We tuned and started the concert. The concert was short, but we did pretty good. We played several old classic christmas carols and then transitioned into more contemporary christmas music - Christmas Time Is Here, Adeste Phidelius, Manheim Steamroller Silent Night, and we finished it off with Wizards in Winter. That last song was the best. Troy, on his guitar, got up center stage with the bass and rocked out.

At any rate, afterwards I hung out with my friends and watched the wrestling match in the Carley Center. Troy took me home.

We had a lot of guests over that night. That's the reason that Mom and Dad didn't make it to the Christmas concert. Really busy night for them. My mom's best friend is Beth, and her daughter Alyssa is a friend of the family living here in Boise. It was Alyssa's birthday Thursday, and consequently, most of her family showed up in our house to celebrate it.

It was kind of awkward walking in - I barely know any of them at all, save Alyssa and Beth. I quickly worked my way through the mass of visitors with drinks in their hands to find Beth.

"How's it going Beth?"
"Good, you?"
"Good." I looked around. "Hey, where's Mom and Dad?"
She sighed. "They're downstairs. Your Dad had a rough night..."

Shit...

Out Of Hand...

For any of you around watching the ridiculous spam-a-thon of my blog a couple days ago, you won't be surprised to hear that I'm restricting comments to actual users now. To comment, you have to sign in. It may be annoying, and I didn't really want to do it, but trust me, it's justified. I had over 50 comments on my last post. Next to all of them were spam.

My programming class are the ones to blame here. In the course of a single class period they left the most ridiculous string of comments I had ever seen on my last lyrical post. It was kind of funny at first, and I almost considered keeping it up for entertainment purposes, but it soon got out of hand. Anti-semitic comments, trying to post my email account, and links to annoying pictures soon made action necessary.

So. I deleted every single one of the comments (even the positive ones, and a thank you/shout-out to Micheal Moriarty and Thomas Allan Hawk for sticking up for me) and restricted the settings on my blog.

Listen, I've had this sort of thing happen to me before, in very different ways. But the point's the same. It may have been funny for a second, but enough is enough. It's gotten to the point where it's just annoying and malicious. So please, I've had enough of the vandalism for one blog's lifetime. Go mess up 4chan or something.

In other, less chastising news, the BK christmas concert is coming up! We do it every year as a tradition, and this time around I arranged Wizards in Winter for the event. This is going to be pretty cool, trust me.

Come if you can!

Progress?

Well let's see the pros and cons of my week:

Pro: I've been working on Mondays. I now have twelve chapters done, nine typed, and it will be multi-part novel.

Con: There has been no band this week. At all.

Pro: I'm doing the film project with some of the drama kids. I may also be recording the music for it.

Con: The band performance from Friday wasn't very good, and I almost got a penalty. Stupid headphones....

Pro: My friend Stephen and I are now hall performing on Fridays - Stephen on the violin and me on the guitar. It's way fun.

Con: According to the office, the Christmas concert is supposed to be like December second or something, which is ridiculously early. We haven't even started working on it. We don't even have the music for it yet, really.

Pro: I finished a couple of scores this week (Light and Day by the Polyphonic Spree).

Con: I'm going to see Twilight this Friday (Please, please, don't ask why).

Pro: I may or may not be getting somebody to help me continue my young wizards graphic novel/comic idea. (if you're curious, see if you can do some research and dig up what I'm talking about)

Con: Andy's bike has been stolen, and mine needs a new tube.

Pro: I've managed to spend next to no money this month. I've currently got one hundred and one dollars in my pocket. I'm saving up for something cool.

Con: Life Sucks.

Pro: Life's Great.

Keytar

Well, this is the keyboard. The difference is that mine now has two of the screws in the casing replaced with hooks, and a strap is strung between the hooks, allowing me to sling it over my shoulder and play.

AKA - the Keytar, the pianist's bid for looking cooler.

I've long been wanting one, but now with just a little bit of modification on my old keyboard, I have it! Admittedly, the setup's a bit... impractical to say the least. If I just want the piano sound, I have to have some sort of amp, a jack, and power to the keytar. But if I want to have different sounds, I'd have to use the computer program GarageBand. To do this, I'll need to connect the keytar to a computer, which means I'll probably need a USB extension cord to allow any mobility, and then hook up the computer to some amplification so people can hear me. And I'll have to either switch instruments by fiddling on the computer, or having somebody else do it.

Still, it could actually happen, despite the drawbacks. Our band director actually has a Mac with GarageBand, which leaves us needing a USB extension cord and a way to amp up the volume on the computer.

Speaking of band, the football season is over after the Halloween Game, so we're now in preparation for the Christmas concert and basketball season. I could maybe see myself playing keytar at either of these....

Moreover, Mr. Haskell (director) is gone this week, so guess who's in charge? Yeah. I have to say, it's not easy to try to be productive at that hour though, especially when the actual teacher is absent. To make things better, all of the drumsticks were broken on Monday! We came in, and all of them were busted. I ended up dismissing the percussionists about a third of the way through band, realizing it was pointless for them to be there. I used to want the Music Room open all the time, but now I'm trying to work out how to lock up the drumsticks so this doesn't happen again. How things have changed.

By the way, I watched Bill Nye this morning in Biology, and I have to say, that is some freaking funny stuff! It is so much funnier now that I'm older. It reminds me of Monty Python almost.

Misdirection

Now that drama is over, I find myself with a lot more time. And I can't decide whether it's a good thing or a bad thing. I remember, a year ago, when I started this blog, I was having a similar dilemma. Is it better to work away, feeling pressured and stressed, or have too much time to yourself and feel unproductive?

For the past month or so, I've been living through the first of these options. A lot of work and a lot of stress. Most of that was because of the play. I can't quite express how big of a commitment it was. Everyday, after school, for two and a half hours, and then things got ridiculous later on. We spent twelve hours one Sunday rehearsing 'til ten 'o clock. I spent half of my nights up late doing homework.

The end of drama apparently coincided with a light homework week, because I've been finding myself completely free after school. I find things to do, but I get the feeling that I am indeed unproductive. And the problem about this sort of thing is that I always get into bad habits this way, making heavy homework quite a bit more difficult for me.

But I have to admit I'm enjoying this lifestyle currently. I don't know what it is, but I seem to like not having direction. I'm a kid. I love wandering around, exploring, just doing things for the sake of doing them. It feels great to me. It's complex.

It's what also gets me in trouble though. For example, I have time after school, which I would usually spend in the computer lab, playing games off the shared drive. But, I was recently called into the office because of computer violations. I thought the accusations were a bit exaggerated, but that wasn't my decision, and my computer rights are now restricted to fifth period, my computer class. But if I behave, they'll probably give me my rights at the semester. So I'll have to watch my step....

I guess I'm just enjoying my free time now, whether or not I'm doing anything useful with it. Although I did recently finish arranging Viva La Vida for the band! We're playing it this coming Friday at the football game. And afterwards, there's another Soc-hop! This has happened before, and I love doing it. I get to play keyboard and then go to a dance. It's awesome.

P.S. For anybody who knows me, I recently got a Facebook... Go ahead and add me as a friend if you like.

My Weekend Was So Busy I Can't Even Come Up With A Witty Title...

Whoa. All over the damn place this weekend. It was a four-day weekend, but that didn't help much.

Thursday - Woke up at twelve-ish, did chores 'til about three when I went back to school. See, we still had drama rehearsals over the weekend even though there was no school. That went well, but the fun began afterwards, at about six. Who had set up but Powderpuff football? For outsiders, Powderpuff football is an annual event where sophomore girls face off against the freshmen girls and seniors battle off the juniors in flag football.

So what was I doing?

Well.... I can't exactly tell you. See here's the thing - whenever I get in trouble for something, it's because of my big mouth. I mean I even blog about all of my mischief! But not this time. Because a week later, I still haven't gotten in trouble for it. If I keep up with the pattern I may actually get away with things! No hints. No clues. Nothing.

But I was back in time to see the Bonfire, which was incredible. Thursday was good.

Friday was better. That Friday was the Homecoming Game. The band didn't want to miss out and we promptly arrived with our gear. Although I was confined to a single keyboard, I still rocked out with the rest of the crew all the way 'til near the end of the game when it started raining. At that point we packed up. Unfortunately, the team lost. That was a bit of a bummer... but that was the end of Friday.

Saturday was the Homecoming Dance. And although that was fun, it wasn't quite as cool as last year due to a location change. But we won't be dancing out in that tent again if I have anything to say about it. And I do.

Sunday, finally, decompressed a little, and all I had to do was manage through Confirmation Classes at St.John's.

This was a special event weekend, but I'm not sure how I'm gonna manage everything... I'm already falling behind. The quarter's almost up and I haven't got the 4.0 I wanted. In fact I've got a C in History. I thought I could make it this year. I thought if I tried this hard, I would do great. I'd exceed.

I was wrong.

It's like every inch of my ambition is telling me...

"Oh Crap... This isn't good..."

(By the way, the next post will be my one hundred and fiftieth! Neat, huh?)

My Crazy Friday

This was quite an eventful Friday for me. We had the day off from school, probably because it was the very first football game of the season. And the band was performing for the game, so Troy and I left for Bishop Kelly at two. That was when our band director, Mr. Haskell told us to be there. He didn't mention that he actually wouldn't be there 'til 5. So I had three hours of absolutely no obligation and virtually nothing to do.

So, I looked around the school for anything I could help out. It was a big night after all, and I though some people could help. I walked into the cafeteria to find a some mothers setting up a dinner for the football players. I asked one if there was anything I could do to help. She handed me her keys and told me to drive her car over to the Carly Center and unpack some juice and food out of the trunk for some after-game party. I felt a dilemma for a moment. I mean, I didn't really have my license. But it was only like driving around in a parking lot for God's sake. I decided to do it.

Now this is what I like to call following the spirit of the law and not the word of the law. If that makes sense.

At any rate, I did this, and after cleaning up a mess I made dropping one of the juice jugs, I returned her car exactly as I found it and handed her keys. By now the cafeteria was filled with football players in line for food. I recognized several of my friends, grabbed some food and sat down with them. After a bit, I went back to the music room. I found Troy in here and we walked to Subway to get even more food. By the time we got back, Mr.Haskell was finally there, directing people to start packing and moving all of our equipment.

It was a fairly short process, but we soon found that we didn't have near enough extension cord. So Mr. Haskell told us to go grab some from the various maintenance closets/rooms throughout the school. So two others and I set out to do so. First, we scaled the school for Kenny, one of the custodians. Had we found him, we would have asked him if he could help us find some extension cords. But we didn't. So we started searching one of the maintenance closets. We didn't find any in this one, but we did notice the ladder up to the roof, and jokingly dared each other to climb it.

That was when the trouble began. A custodian (not Kenny) walked by, overheard this, and told us, somewhat rudely, that we weren't allowed to climb the ladder. We got out of the closet and told him we were just joking around. As we were walking, he proceeded to tell us that we weren't supposed to be in the maintenance rooms anyhow. Again, quite rudely.

"Well we were looking for extension cords." I said, and I'm not sure exactly what compelled me to do it, but I followed with a sarcastic "Excuse me."

"What did you say?" He said. "Come back here!" I stopped and turned around. "What's your name, kid?"

I paused for a moment, nervous. "My name.. is Juno McGruff."

"Well Juno McGruff, the Dean of Students is going to be hearing about this." he finished, and walked off. I did as well, finally laughing when he was out of earshot. I couldn't believe I actually just did that. I couldn't believe that he bought it either!

Later, I walked into another maintenance room, looking again for extension cords. He was there again. This time, he yelled at me about my attitude. I reacted calmly and apologized, just trying to get him to lend me the cords. Eventually he let up and gave them to me.

I sighed with relief as I walked away. I brought the extension cords back to where the band was set up and connected it. As I rearranged the surge protectors, I finally set it up so that I had three keyboards to play - two in front stacked and one to the right. I had no seat so I played standing up. I may have showed off, but I was having so much damn fun doing it. The band started off the game with the Star-Spangled Banner and played other various tunes from there.

Bishop Kelly lost by three points. To be honest, I wasn't watching most of it, so that didn't bother me so much. We packed up and brought all of the stuff back to the music room. Luckily that didn't take long, but afterwards a girl told me to carry a barrel over towards the cafeteria. There was a dance there it turned out, after the game. Of course I was staying!

I got in and observed for a bit before starting to dance. This was the standard high school mob of kids, most of them grinding some girl. I jumped in and went straight through it and out when I found a couple of my favorite teachers outside. I talked to them for a bit while I got some fresh air. Something about that night was euphoric for me. I really couldn't have been happier.

The dance ended at eleven and I went home with Troy after helping set up some tables for Monday. It was among the best nights of my life. But I do have a bad feeling about the whole custodian thing. Not necessarily guilt - I mean he got what he gave. If he had wanted me to be polite, he should've been. But I've got the feeling that it's gonna come back and bite me come Monday. Hopefully though, he won't figure it out. But I can see him walking into the dean's office.

"One of your students has been giving me trouble."
"I see. Well give me his name and we'll call him in."
"His name is Juno McGruff."
"We don't have anybody by that name. Actually that's a character from the movie, Juno."
"..."

Drama Indeed

I feel like I don't have anything to write about most of the time, but there are some reasons behind that. One, I really am quite busy. I joined the play again, and so now I'm at school until six practicing every weekday. And the sophomore schoolwork isn't getting any easier. So it leaves me with very little time.

But I think a second, more interesting reason that I haven't been writing lately is because I've become quite numbed to the day-to-day drama that I used to be able to write about. But now it just doesn't seem interesting. That's not to say that there haven't been interesting things happening. How could I have not told all of you that my parents just got back from a cruise in Alaska, and that they were gone for a week? How could I have not told you about asking a junior out to homecoming and getting turned down (in my defense, she already had a date)? How could I have not told you about writing a song for a biology presentation? How could I not have told you about my older brother Michael, who recently started his own blog so he could write about his studying abroad? How could I not have told you about my uncle Brian's so called "intervention" for existential angst? How people keep putting games on the Bishop Kelly shared drive on my files? Or how I'm still working on Mondays, and just finished typing chapter 7? Or how I've already arranged/wrote two songs for the Bishop Kelly Band (one was Bittersweet Symphony, and the other was a "One Tin Soldier" Cover I wrote myself)? Or how I'm devising plans for another run for school president, involving the revival of the USJ and a musical performance for the speech? How I found (or rather how it found me) a way to save up basically all of my monthly allowance? How I honestly suspect that I've been subject to identity theft this month? How I heard about and found the entrance to Gnome-land (Bishop Kelly students, if you don't get this one, try asking around, you may be surprised)? And how I'm still trying to get together a functional band amidst all the chaos of my day-to-day life?

Shame on me.

You could say I'm taking for granted the randomness of life. I ought to think more about how lucky I am to be so strange and do so many things. By the way I've been posting, you'd think my life was dull.

Dull! Ha!

I laugh at the thought of me having a dull life. I have always tried to make my life exciting. And with a few exceptions in the long stretch of summer, I have always succeeded.

So look forward to some more regular posting from now on. Of course, if you do get bored, you can always switch 2 plan b...

Back from McCall

In celebration of the end of radiation, our family and Troy went up to our cabin in McCall this weekend. It was a short trip but Troy, Andy, and I all got to get one last day of skiing in at Tamarack. I'll probably give you some pictures and videos of that at some point.

At any rate, Dad seems to be doing pretty well. He's still not quite himself, but I can't expect that so soon after finishing radiation. He's still taking plenty of medications to help him. But my point is, he is recoverng, however slowly. That's all I can wish for.

This week will be somewhat busy. I have a BK band concert and tour in the middle of the week as well as a shadow on Wednesday. I'll make sure I'll get some footage from the concert for all of you. Hopefully I'll come up with something to write about too. Because I'm stuck. Ah well.

Such is the life of a blogger.

A Photo Post

I've gotten into the habit of carrying my camera around with me to try to find good photo oppurtunities. And now I've got a lot of pictures to get off my memory card. So here we go.

Last weekend I had the TEAMS competition. I forget what the acronym means, but it's a huge test that fried our brains.

The TEAMS room, with all the people in it.

Our team with Zack, Bronte, Payton, Richie, and me.

After several hours, we looked like this...

Or worse, like this...

The whole Junior Varsity TEAMS participants, as well as Doctor Neznanski, our C. Phys. teacher. He's funny as all hell, I'll have to get him to write something sometime.


A week later came a busy weekend. First off I had to play keyboard with the band at the basketball game

The school band (which I'm in) played at the school's basketball championship. Here's everyone who was there.

Here's another picture of us playing...

Last one... by the way, band is really fun. We play really fun songs like Jump (Van Halen) and The Final Countdown (Europe) and plenty of others.

After that, I went and saw Jumper. It was like 10:00 PM before it started.

Jumper.

All that was Friday. Saturday was the Junior Varsity Hockey Championship. This was what I've been waiting for.

We lost.

6-0.

Oh well. It kind of sucked, but we did make it to the championship. And as a note, Boise (the team we played) had 14 players. We had 8. Plus the refs were totally on their side. Closely following that, I went to the Hallissey Mass. Hallissey is a local inter-Catholic School basketball tournament. My brother took part in it so we went to the mass.

This will give you a little bit of an idea of what the church looked like. Really nice church.

Well that was Saturday. To top it off, I got hurt at the game so I could hardly walk. So Sunday I took a little bit of rest. I did go to the Discovery Center, though. But I don't have any pictures from that, sorry. Monday though, I felt quite a bit better, so I went skiing with my brother Andy and my friend Troy. We found that most of the kids from the hockey team were up there, and we skiied with them.

Bus ride up...

It was a beautiful day out.

Here's most of the hockey team in snowboarding gear. We had a lot of fun and went to the backside several times.

And finally, I got back home from my incredible weekend. I was almost looking forward to school by the time that I finally finished. That can't be good... Oh well. That was my photo post.

Finals Weekend

Why is it that whenever I try to spend a weekend studying, something screws it up?

You may doubt me, but I would have spent the whole weekend in front of books if it had not been for other commitments. Why are there sports events on finals weekend anyway? I'm surprised that BK allows that sort of thing; they seem to value grades alot more than athleticism. Of course I could be wrong. But Saturday was not a good day to study for me.

I was able to finish some of my homework Saturday, but only a fraction of my ridiculously large 50-page Spanish worksheet. I would have finished more, but it's amazing how many distractions you can find in your room when there's work to be done. About quarter til 3, I put my gear in the back of the car and headed out to hockey.

We were playing the Canyon County Coyotes. Most of them were eighth graders and girls, but they didn't play half bad. Unsurprisingly, the refs sucked and the other team was hooking and roughing without penalization. They actually turned out to be really aggressive, and at one point in the game, they half knocked one of our players down in front of their net, one of those classic brawls in the crease. At any rate, we tied them, 2-2, and I got a good assist (he really deflected it more than anything else). The team's improving a lot though, and we're probably one of the strongest teams in the league by now.

After that I had to hurry to a Varsity basketball game because I'm in the pep band and I had to play. On my way over I noticed that there was a room filled with food and marshmallow shooters. And understand me, I had had no dinner and I just got back from the hockey game. So what do I do? I casually walk in and try to blend as much as possible while taking a piece of delicious brownie. After eating a few snacks I grabbed another brownie and left. My friend Cameron saw me and laughed. "Look at him! He just jacks food and leaves!" Well he's pretty much right.

At any rate I soon found myself playing keyboard with the band. And I got to say, the cheerleaders get a lot more credit than the pep band does, and that seems unfair when it the band takes more effort. I have to get up an hour earlier for band practice every morning, almost without exception. Can they say the same? We played at breaks and timeouts throughout the game and then moved all our stuff back to the music room. My folks picked me up and I was looking forward to sleeping in.

But that didn't happen.

Instead I did what most catholic boys and teenagers fear: get up early for mass. An 8:00 AM mass. School starts at that time for the love of God! Oh well, it was a good mass. I really enjoy the Homilies the most in a mass, probably because it's the most original part of the mass. This one was a good one, and it was shortly followed up by an Anointing of the Sick. When the priest called for those who wanted the sacrament to stand up, Gary stood up. As he walked up, I looked at Mom to see that there was a tear rolling down her cheek. He sat back down and we all held each other as a family, suspended in that one golden, peaceful moment.

I hardly studied at all this weekend, but I spent some good time with my family. I'm content.


"Love...is the strangest thing..." - James and the Giant Peach

A little bit more of Christmas

Important, eventful day today. I may have to break it down to describe it all. First period, it turns out we have a health test tomorrow that I am utterly unprepared for. Second period I found that I had actually done more work in English than I was supposed to. Break was chaos, and I couldn't get my friends together to practice. Third period, I found a fun way to entertain myself with reflections and minigolf. Fourth period, I had a test and almost a late assignment. And Lunch, I had practice with my band. Did I mention I'm in a band? It's called the Uncrowned Kings.

I'll go into that in more detail later, but fifth period we reviewed a little bit of Spanish. And sixth period was my speech. It was a big speech for me, and I was in a suit the whole day just for the occasion. Most people used flash cards and such, but not me. Because this was a competition. The speech was on a charity, and everybody brought in money to give to the class vote. And I wanted my charity to win. So I memorized my five-and-a-half minute speech and presented my speech with empty hands and full suit. And I don't mean to boast, but I nailed it. It was worth about one hundred points and I only got two points off for pacing.

Nothing happened in seventh, and I practiced with my band after school, until the bass player's folks gave us a ride to the scool band's christmas concert. I basically faked it; I read the chords and new the melodies, and that was enough to sound good. I guess it goes to show you, eh? At any rate, it was really a pretty incredible experience to hear these christmas songs performed by a whole band with brass, percussion and everything else. We even had a song at the end that everybody played, and everybody in the audience sung as well. The band director had me play miscellaneous christmas tunes in the background as people started leaving.

And yet after this hectic day, I can always look forward to the warmth of my bed and the promise of tomorrow, hoping that it will be even better than today.

It's shaping up to be a good week...


"It is my custom to keep on talking until I get the audience cowed." - Mark Twain