FER-DRIZZLE

is anyone else put off by the fact that today is the first day this year with a reasonable temperature and i cant ride my motorcycle to work?

TORN

right now i am torn between this

and this
and this...
but i really really really want to be torn between this
and this...

MORNING, PERSON!

have you ever had that sensation of impending doom when you are about to sneeze; you try to stop it at first (which i have successfully done only twice in my lifetime); then you realize how many times you have lost this battle in the past, and in your learned helplessness try to induce the victorious sneeze just to get it overwith?

...while brushing your teeth?

that pretty much sums up my morning...

<==== and for the record, sneezing in my sleeve would have killed me.

CAPTAIN INSENSITIVE

when i first considered starting a blog i figured it would be sort of an anonymous online journal, where total strangers would stumble upon my posts, be intrigued/offended and never meet me. i had absolutely no intention of ever showing my blog to anyone i knew personally. this would allow me to be unbiased in my judgements of others and keep things edgy without any "real world" repercussions. not a bad idea really. but the reality it is, the internet is not as full of inquisitive blog-searching sheep as i had thought. so i branched out.

sure, you might be thinking that i, captain insensitive--the perpetual heckler, would have no problem speaking my mind, even if it insults or offends someone. and that is fairly true, actually. i try my best to truthful and forthright and i have a tendency to do it in a peanut gallery style. but even i have my limits. i have a pretty good idea of the things that would really set off my closer associates. and so i usually dont bother bringing up those things. im talking about stuff like someone talking too much, or scaring visitors away, or stealing love interests. ya know, the stuff that would crush a person if i told them what i really think of them...

and dont assume that i am the only one who thinks like this. i know that i do stuff that pisses people off and i can sometimes tell when they bite their lip so they dont offend me. everyone does it. everyone passes judgment--even if they feel hypocritical about it. it is only human. so what is the big deal then? why cant we bring up certain things that really piss us off about our friends? isnt that the only way to resolve the situation and not let is fester and build up? even though i dont always follow it, i do believe people should bring these sorts of things up, at the very least so the other person knows about it and can try to minimize it when you are around. and really you would be doing them a favor since you are probably not the only person to notice it...

so what? so people hold grudges without ever telling the other person. who cares, right? the fact of the matter is, you have to decide whether holding a secret grudge is a fair trade for the uncomfortable revealing conversation.

as for me, i will continue to poke fun at my anonymous friends for all the blog-reading sheep...

let the paranoia begin...

CLASSY

if there is one thing i know, it is school. i have lots of experience at it. in fact, most of my life has been spent at school. i never really minded it until i got to byu and had my first chemistry class. it was at that point that i didnt like school anymore. which is why i became a teacher.

you see, school doesnt suck nearly as much when you control every aspect of the classroom. no one is there to tell you what to do, how to do it or why you are wrong. instead, you get to do it to others. what goes around comes around (although, in this particular instance, the order is reversed).

so what is it like molding minds like silly puddy? bouncy. by that i mean, every day i witness something new that i never would have expected. here are a few (mild) examples completely stipped of context:

"when i grow up i want to work at an elementary school so i can meet chicks."

"you nasty. you farted in the bathroom."

"im allergic to peanuts." "why?"

"i can taste it in my mouth!"

"im gonna eat it without swallowing."

"what month is may?"

"...and for some reason it was christmas."

ah, the future is bright.

MIS-ADVENTURES IN WINTER TRAVELS

so i went home for chirstmas like i usually do. only this year i decided to only go home for a few days instead of the more traditional few weeks. this is mostly due to my work schedule, but is also due to my inability to entertain myself at home for such a long period of time. 4 days was all i got/needed to enjoy my trip. well, i should clarify that the trip itself was good but the traveling part was less than good. perhaps even bad.

to start out, my flight was scheduled for dec 24 (supposedly the busiest travel day of the year) at about 11am. i didnt have to check in luggage so i left about 3 hours before my flight figuring that would be plenty of time to get through security and such. after about 30 minutes of driving i realized that my ticket was sitting on my desk. so i turned around and, going about 90 mph, got home, got the ticket and got back on the road. i continued to go 90 mph all the way to the airport, passing cars and cops alike (and i still didnt get pulled over. honestly, what DO utah cops do?) and i made it to the airport about an hour before my flight was scheduled to leave, thinking that i was never going to make it through security on time. but it turns out that the christmas rush was about three days earlier when byu/uofu/uvsc all got out of school. i breezed through security in five minutes.

everything was looking up as i boarded my flight to reno, nevada... where i spent three hours waiting for my connection to seattle (by the way, reno was also dead... i had an entire wing to myself. no one was there to witness me make a mess of my $7 sub sandwich). it was for this very reason that i bought a new 80 gig zune. unfortunately, it was scheduled to arrive via ups later that day. luckily, i still had my 1/2 gig sandisk and happily listened to metallica's "black," ac/dc's "dirty deeds done dirt cheap," tool's "10,000 days," some flyleaf album i found, and a mix of wolfmother songs, all while trying to figure out how to take off the auto-fill option while texting on my new cell phone. and my flight was delayed, so i listened to "10,000 days" again. i got to seattle at about 6pm.

in related news, my return trip took the regular 2 hours and i was home in time to for lunch.

in less related news, my car heater is frozen (i assume, it did the same thing last year) and i had the thrill of my life yesterday as i tried desperately to scrape away the ice that was rapidly forming on the inside of my windshield as i drove through byu traffic with this much [......] visibility. luckily, i had a half gallon bottle filled with hot water under my coat to keep me warm...

in even less related news, i am planning a road trip to vegas in the spring (end of semester-ish) with some friends (moydie and i will be on motorcycles). let me know if any of you are interested.

SAVAGE BEASTS

it has been a while since i have talked about music. so i thought i would, ya know, talk about it. first, lets start with some of the musical events i have been to recently. last night i went to my sister's byu orchestra concert. she is a bassist. she's pretty good. much better than the rest of the orchestra anyway. i suppose that isnt fair. it is not an auditioned group so naturally you are going to get some people in there who just absolutely love music and love to play, but who just simply arent very good at it. all in all, it wasnt bad. it was a step up from your average high school orchestra.

speaking of high school music groups, the highlight of the event reminded me of something that i did during a concert. while playing a really high note on my trumpet and standing on a chair with my legs locked, i passed out and fell on top of the trombone section.

last night's mishap happened after the first song. a second violinist had positioned her chair a little too close to a stairway to the left of the stage. as one of the chair's legs scooted to the edge of the stairway, she very slowly began to fall. in desperation she grabbed the dress of a fellow second violinist and temporarily stopped her fall. that is, until her contemporary started scooting backwards as well. the second second-violinist went heels over head in her best black dress, taking with her a microphone stand, and landing atop the first second-violinist. and the crowd cheered. (it was one of those "you-didnt-die-so-we-get-to-laugh-at-you" moments).

then there was the director. i have been in several musical groups, and i can never understand a director who gets really "into it." you know what im talking about. they get up there and wildly swing their baton about as though they are warding off some invisible flying creature; every once in a while they point at a random section as if they might forget that they are playing; they raise and lower their hands vigorously because they arent quite sure if the clarinets know how to read the dynamic markings on the sheet music; and they have crazy hair.

in my opinion, directors like that are entertaining to some, but insulting to those who actually know how to read music. during a performance, the director is pretty much just a human metronome ("cracked pepper with your cowbell, sir?") and unless the band is actually filled to the brim with idiots who dont know the first thing about music, they should never "get into it" (i also dont like musicians who "sway" or gamers who contort the controller--it really doesnt help).

anyway, on to my brother's concert. my brother is a freshman at byu. he is actually really good. major universities fought over him. and for what? to have him join a non-auditioned concert band? nope. my high school alma mater has one of the best high school jazz programs in the country. we have played and recorded with some of today's finest jazz professionals. world class musicians request to work with this ensemble. ok, so this probably means nothing in today's over produced hip-hop society. but the second jazz band wins major competitions all the time so the first band must be good, right?

anyway, my freshman brother is the lead trumpet in byu's jazz synthesis (byu's premiere jazz band).

so i went to the synthesis christmas concert (they also have an over-zealous director, but not to the same degree as the orchestra dude. but this is probably due to his prosthetic legs). now, i know more about jazz bands than i do about orchestras so i'll keep this simple. the band as a whole is really good. they have some very talented musicians in the band (my brother being one of them). they were tight and together; they played the complicated sections almost flawlessly; dynamics were solid; and they had a good sense of rhythm, balance and blending. the main complaint i had was their improvisation.

frankly, it was somewhat lacking. the soloists had very little variety in style and played the same handful of mid-ranged notes the entire time. not to mention they all used similar repetitive riffs as "fillers" until they could think of something more interesting to play. according to my brother they dont spend much time at all on improv. i guess the director finds it less important than those others thing i just said. but improv is the basis of jazz. that is where it begins. i could understand if the director didnt think it was important and kept the improv to a minimum, but every song had at least five featured soloists. that's more than some high school jam sessions! and it seemed like the solos were mostly going to the upper classmen (who in theory should be better than the lower classmen, although they failed to support that theory) rather than to the most qualified.

they also decided to bring in a half-rate professional vocalist who luckily only "scatted" once. in general vocalists irritate me. sure, every one hates the stereotypical lead singer of a band who thinks he is god's gift to women and rock and roll, who can no more sing on key than pluck out a chord on a piano. but jazz singers are equally annoying to me. anyone who doesnt know how to read music or play a single chord or scale on at least one instrument has no right scatting. ever. and even if you can do those things it doesnt mean you are good.

i hate it when a singer gets the lime light when the true talent is standing right behind him. "but he writes such wonderful lyrics." fine. keep your lyrics where all "great" literature belongs--in a book. music has very little to do with lyrics and i am disappointed that pop culture has forgotten this and we reward those who can rhyme and talk fast with grammy's and hail them as musicians. they are not musicians. they are vocalists at best. musicians play instruments. vocalists mimic them. dont believe me? where do you think scatting came from? wino's?

so why does this irritate me so much? it is simple really. anyone can sing. really, anyone who can talk can learn how to sing. the amount of musical knowledge it takes to sing is slightly above zero. the amount of musical knowledge it takes to sing well is equivalent to a novice instrumentalist. the amount of musical knowledge it takes to sing professionally is equivalent to a novice instrumentalist. why? because they dont need to know how modes work, or how keys are formed, or how chord progressions can be altered. they dont even need to know how to transpose or transcribe. instrumentalists do (charlie parker was mocked off stage in a jazz club in new orleans because he couldnt play a certain song in a certain key). vocalists can get by with natural talent and singing by ear (i.e. frank sinatra). it takes years of practice and study to even become a novice instrumentalist (like my sister's orchestra). they will never become professionals and never teach more than private lessons on the side. but they have put more time and effort into their craft than your average "professional" singer.