Exposed!

See that lower balcony? That's mine (thank you Google Maps). Soon to be gone. It's been happening for the past few weeks, but I haven't heard anything 'official'. Until last week... Between the two apartment buildings within my complex, there's 18 different balconies. And every one of them is getting replaced. It's part of an upgrade project around here, as the entire siding around both buildings will be replaced as well. I ran into the guy who who's doing the work and asked him if all of them were going to be replaced, he broke the bad news.

Why is this so bad? You've seen various pics I've posted while out on my balcony. It's carpeted, sort of, with astro-turf-like stuff. It's got solid walls, so I can sit out there buck nekkid if I want and not worry about anyone seeing me. Well, no more. The balconies are all being replaced with a wrought iron thing, and some sort of composite decking. So now everyone who walks by can look up and see what's going on. I'd much rather have them spend the money on a screen door to the balcony. Or replacing the carpet inside. Or fixing the hole in the bathroom ceiling that they haven't repaired since the leaky bathroom incident from last year...

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One positive thing that will happen is that the upstairs neighbors will quit doing whatever the hell they're doing up on their balcony. I think they've got a mini-garden growing up there, and don't have a care in the world about where any extra water may go. Which is through their floor, through my ceiling, and soaking my deck to the point of unusability (is that a word?). I suppose that's the reason the balconies are all getting replaced...

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Four weeks until the big concert! Things seem to be going well, but I had no idea the number of off-beat phone calls I'd be getting! The big ones I'm fearing are going to be the political campaigns. Can't blame them. They'd be fools not to take advantage of someone else's crowd of 15K. Fortunately, the I.R.S. saves me. Because the college is a non-profit organization, the I.R.S. prohibits political activity, unless ALL political views/candidates are present. The penalty is revocation of the college's non-profit status. What that means for me is that I get to tell them "no" when they call. Even more fun will be telling the ones that don't call that they can't set up any tables or booths. I can't wait!

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After weeks of very pleasant temps in the mid-70s, this weekend saw the temps skyrocket. It was 98° today, and might break 100° tomorrow. I'm not a fan. Like most northerners, I don't have A/C. Won't buy it for a handful of days throughout the year. Though on a day like today, I question my sanity.

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With the hot weather, we've got some forest fires started. A couple within an hour from here, due south. Nothing like Colorado is experiencing right now, but I can't help that this might be Montana's year...

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For those who were wondering...OsTour this year is going to be heading west finally. Target city--Portland. From there, I'm not certain how I'll get back. Perhaps north to Seattle. Perhaps south to northern California. Maybe just the regular beeline back (such as it is). Also excited about the possibility of meeting up with someone coming here! Details if/when they get hammered out!

June

June used to be one of my favorite months. The beginning of summer. The end of school. Not too hot yet. Time to figure out how to spend the free time for the next 100 days or so. Now...? Not so much. BIL2 died in June. Dad's 79th birthday would have been today. Father's Day is, for all intents and purposes, a needless "holiday" now (certainly not ever going to be celebrated for ME!).

It's not that I have any ill will towards June. It's just not what it used to be. Instead of spending the weekend doing the family thing (Father's Day and Dad's bday have always been within days of each other), I'll probably be spending most of it in the symphony office (more on that below). I'll most likely get up and greet the sunrise on the first day of summer though. Some things will never change!

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There's a very attractive younger blond who works in the billing dept. at my doctor's clinic. I have to see her about once a month for diabetic stuff. Recently she got a tattoo on the outside of her left arm in a pretty script - "Imperfection is beauty". I told her it looked great, though if it had been misspelled...

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Bought my ticket for a concert in August, which will be just in time for my decompression from the big summer concert. It's also the impetus for a new OsTour! No details yet, but I'll be sure to share when things get shaped up!

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Speaking of the big summer concert...things are rolling along fairly smoothly so far. I've gotten most of the bridges burned in the past rebuilt. We've got a Grammy Award-winning guest artist joining us. All is good (but a lot of work!). The bumps in the road are the responsibility of others, such as getting the musicians, housing, pressuring donors, etc. My biggest obstacle right now is finding a vendor who wants to sell beer/wine at this thing. With an estimated crowd of 12-15,000, you'd think that someone would jump at the chance! And my biggest concern is something I have no control over -- the weather. So I'm trying not to think about that too much.

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The current Pandora station I'm listening to at work is "Western Swing". The really old twangy country stuff from the 40s, 50s and 60s. Yet another music genre that I've had no real appreciation for. Some of it doesn't sound much different than the jazz recordings of the day. I'm certain that in a recent prior life, I must have lived in Nashville. Damn, I do love that town!

Mel and Carl

I hope that when I'm their age, I have someone I can hug
with as much love as these two obviously have for each other...

I don't generally have any use for Tumblr (though there's one new site...),
but I've had this one on my list for awhile.

Why, Hello There!

I'm not even sure where to start... It's been almost three weeks since my last post. Then again, I'm sure you've noticed that. Don't really have a good reason for you. Yes, I've been busy like I haven't been in a long time. I'm finding myself in front of a computer doing symphony work for 10-12 hours/day, and frankly, spending another 60 minutes trying to come up with a post just doesn't appeal to me (because, you know me...I can't write just a sentence or two). I've neglected FB in much the same manner. And emails--well, I try to keep up with those. But I have been lurking, so I still feel like I'm sort of a part of things...

I'll continue on with bullets, 'cuz I loves me the bullets!

• Interestingly, the traffic TO my blog has been fairly steady and consistent. I guess people still want to see if I'm alive!
• Also somewhat interesting...the amount of spam comments has greatly increased. Where I used to maybe get 3 per day, I'm now getting almost 20 per day. Don't know if that is a result of my inactivity here or what...
• As mentioned for the past couple of months, I've been b-u-s-y! At the moment, it's working the production for the summer concert. In the past, I've just been involved in the regular concert production part of things. This year, I'm the top dog. And I LOVE it! I'm really in my element. I've even had the administration at the college mention that I've gotten more done by April 30th than any of my predecessors had done by JUNE 30th. After doing this for 13 years, I think they've finally figured out that I should have been in this position years ago. Now if I can just parlay that into a healthy pay increase...
• If you want to see what I'm up to, go check www.facebook.com/symphonyunderthestars. And be sure to 'like' it, too!
• Let's see...what else. Oh, while most of you were at the beach or otherwise enjoying your Memorial Day weekend, we had SNOW on Friday night. SNOW! That actually stayed on the ground! The rest of the weekend was spend under a Winter Weather Advisory. In my neck of the woods, that meant wind, rain and not a ray of sunshine. Still hasn't really gotten sunny yet, either. :-/
• Did you watch Hatfields & McCoys last week? Not quite as good as Lonesome Dove, as far as mini-series go, but it was still pretty damned good! I've got too many friends who are from the hillbilly vicinity to make generalizations, but it sort of answered some questions!
  
• Oh, my Griz are in the news. They've been there for most of this spring, but it just gets worse. For those who don't remember, the head football coach and the school's athletic director were unexpectedly fired a couple of months ago. Officially, there's still no word as to why such action was taken, but it's assumed that it has to do with the number of sexual assault accusations at members of the team, and some possible cover-up or other 'bending' of laws, whether it's reporting, or assisting the accused with legal counsel (which none of them could possibly afford). Now the University, the athletic dept., and even the police dept. of Missoula are under investigation. The Justice Dept., the Dept. of Education, and the NCAA all have investigations going on at the same time. Lots of speculation, but none of them are actually coming out to say who or what's being investigated. In the meantime, Missoula was given the nickname "Rape Capital of America". Now the entire city is under this cloud. Of course, there's problems that exist, but from what I've read by a variety of writers, it's not much different than what's found in other college towns of the same size (disclaimer: I'm not defending it...just curious as to why Missoula 'earned' this distinction). Anyhoo, GO GRIZ!

Not much more to write. Will try to do more soon! Let me know you stopped by!!!

End of Season

This year's symphony season has come to an end. And what an end it was!

Mahler's Symphony No. 8. The "Symphony of a Thousand". The "Thousand" referring to the number of musicians intended to perform it. Though it's generally done with between 300-500. We split that down the middle with 400 -- 300 singers/100 instrumentalists. It's one of those pieces that's done so rarely that many performers consider it a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. And indeed, of the 300 singers, only 4 had ever performed it before.

It was a logistics nightmare, needing to house/feed over 200 singers and transport them here from Pocatello and Salt Lake City. And also be aware of cat allergies, dietary concerns, physical disabilities, etc... Fortunately, I didn't have to be involved in those areas. I'm not certain I would have survived it. My area of expertise was the physical production of it all. Where to put all those performers, setting up rehearsal areas as well as the performance hall, and making sure that everyone had everything they needed at the time they needed it.

The guests from out of town made numerous mentions about how smoothly things were running. They couldn't believe that all the glitches that could've/should've happened, didn't. Which reflected directly on me and my colleagues who organized everything. I, the devil's advocate, tried to anticipate everything that could go wrong and have a plan for dealing with it. In the end, we didn't need it. People realized that they were part of a huge undertaking and were duly patient, quiet and obedient. Even when they were being led like a bunch of 3rd graders from the warm-up area to their seats in the auditorium. You can either lead them like kids or let them fend for themselves to get there. Only one way will accomplish the task in an orderly, timely manner! But there were some things I missed. Like parking at the church where the chorus had separate rehearsals. Silly me--I figured the parking lots of the two adjacent churches would have worked just fine, but the locals feel that if you can't legally park right at the front door, they'll ignore any posted "No Parking" signs to do so. And we had some...how to put this..."larger" individuals who literally could not fit into the chairs in the auditorium. Could.not.sit.in.the.seats. Of course, there's no way I could have anticipated this without asking the visitors if any of their singers were greatly obese, which might have put them off.... But we actually worked a way around it, and all was just fine.

Oh, there was the playing I had to do, too! While this isn't the most difficult piece for the trombones, there's a lot of music, a lot of rests, and a lot of players. The only glitch for me was that the 4th bassoonist accidentally took my music home with her Friday night, and was on call (radiologist) for Saturday morning's rehearsal, so I had no music, and no idea where it went. Amazingly, there was a way to deal with that as well! The concert was totally sold out--I'm not sure there was an empty seat out of 1800. It was a great performance, and the accolades have been coming in since the last cut-off. I don't know if it was as life-changing as others found it, but it was really fun to play!! You can see a slideshow of pics here. Be sure to check out #76!

So now the season is over, and we don't start up again until September.

Except for the summer concert. Which will be taking up every bit of spare time I might have between now and the end of July. Wish me luck!

Grrr....

Oh, hell's no!

This "new" Blogger format can kiss my fat white ass! I just spent over an hour writing a post (about time, and how I don't have any), and it just up and disappeared. No warning or anything. Fckrs.
Ooh! There's a little gear thingy over on the right that allows me to go back to the old interface. Woohoo! Still...I wish it hadn't eaten my other post.

So... instead of getting to read me waxing poetic (and it really was a good post), you'll get the Reader's Digest version.

Big concert next weekend. Four hundred musicians. Eight hour days at the symphony office (after my day job). But I'm prepared, and thanking the good Lord I work with inanimate objects, and not the flaky musicians that others get to deal with. On top of this, I'm also the project manager for the big summer concert. So I'm working on two huge concerts at the same time (and trying to keep them straight...). Which means more 8 hour days in the office. Through mid-July. But I'll quote one of the college's administrator's comment to the symphony staff about the summer concert:

"We had a great meeting with Scott yesterday. In all the years that we have been doing this, Scott has done more by April 30 than most of his predecessors have done by June 30. We are pleased to work with him. He is doing a great job."

It's the little things like that which will keep me going in.

Sorry you don't get to see the original post. No time to rewrite it. Might touch on some of it when I do get the time. In the meantime, Happy Star Wars Day!

Excitement In da 'Hood!

Hmmm...apparently Blogger made good with their threat to switch over to their new format. For many of you, that happened long ago. But for me, I refuse to switch to a new format if the old one is working just fine. Unless they force it on me. We'll see if this is the final nail in my blogging coffin. When FB finally forces the new timeline on me, I might go offline altogether! (I suspect not, but I had to go for the dramatic!)

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Excitement in the 'hood last week! At about 10:00 PM, the fire alarm right outside my door went off. As all good alarms do, it made a very nasty racket, but even more so, since it was right by my door. I've learned over the years that when the alarm goes off, there's something wrong, and it's usually not a fire or smoke. So I do nothing. After about 5 minutes, it dawns on me that there's no one in the building who's going to turn the thing off. The couple who managed the building moved out two months ago. So I head outside to see if anyone else made it out there, and to wait for the fire department. After another five minutes, I call 911 because if the fire department was going to come, they'd have been there by now. Sure enough, they knew nothing about the alarm. Apparently, it's not hooked up to their system (wth???). But everyone had to leave the building while we waited.

It's only events like this where I actually see who my neighbors are. And dear Lord, when did this place become White Trash Central??? With the exception of the guy next door (who's about 50), I don't think there was another person above the age of 30 around. In fact, in most cases, if you added the ages of everyone living in an apartment (man, woman, 2 kids), their ages wouldn't combine to even meet mine. And I use the terms "man" and "woman" loosely. I hate to stereotype (oh hell, who am I kidding?), but there wasn't a single male that looked like he had a job higher than asst. mgr at McD's. I don't think any of the mothers had a job (too young), and probably hadn't finished high school. There were at least two sets of parents/kids who looked like they didn't actually pay rent here, as they both came out with two suitcases each and high-tailed it to their cars. I remember the old days, when there weren't more than two or three kids in the entire building. Now they're all over the place!

Anyhoo...the fire department finally shows, and asks where the fire was... Someone in the basement level had apparently burned dinner. So the firemen get the alarm turned off, and the little girl who burned dinner looked like she thought she was going to be arrested or something, and we all finally got to get back into our own places. Still wondering how long all this would have gone on if I hadn't called though...

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Finally had some bday beers with my high school buds. The three of us try to get together for each of our birthdays, drink beer, play keno, and catch up with each other. These are the same ladies I've posted about in the past.  And just like those times, I'm not the oldest of the three.  :-)

We sucked at keno, did well at the beer drinking, and pretty good with the catching up.  And I should probably note that both of them are squeezing my butt in this picture!

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While I hear that the Northeast might be getting all sorts of snow tonight, we get to look forward to temps in at least the mid-80s. It's about time!

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I had an interesting story about Rick Santorum to share, but now that he's out of the race, it seems irrelevant.

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Do you ever get sucked into the SyFy Channel when they start showing the ultra-low budget disaster movies? "Alien Tornado". "Stonehenge Apocalypse". "Space Twister". Ad nauseum... Movies that appear to be made by film students working on their senior project. Special effects that, 30 years ago, might have looked pretty good. And the actors are either low-budget disaster movie regulars or someone who used to have a career, but hasn't worked in a decade and needs rent money. Ultimately, some major landmark or building gets destroyed by a rogue asteroid or nasty gust of wind. Last week it was the Space Needle. In general, I like SyFy's programming. But do they have to use this crap as filler??

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I think this will be the last of my Pomplamoose video posts. If you've listened to/watched them, you know where to find the rest of them now. I am SO glad I found them! I leave you with a repost of my current favorite...

I'm 55, and Still Alive!

So. I'm now 55 years old. Gotta tell you...it doesn't feel a whole lot different! I spent the weekend doing a massive spring cleaning of my back room. It's actually the bigger of the two bedrooms here, but for years it's been the storage room. While I'm not what I'd consider a hoarder, there's just some things that I've hung on to for far too long. It was good to go through the junk and do some reminiscing, then junking most of it. I had every monthly phone bill since the fall of 1979. Don't ask me why. Years worth of bank statements. Various utility bills. Also tossed out a non-functioning electric piano, a broken executive chair, a large TV...and I still don't have room back there! It's still a work in progress, but it's far cleaner than it used to be!

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Did the bday dinner with all the family that was in town. Spent about an hour watching a tape that was given to my sister to transfer to DVD. It was a transfer of a 16mm film taken in 1949-1951 of my grandfather and his friends. They started a golf tournament back then which was the first tournament of the season at the country club. Amazingly, it's still going today! Whoever transferred the film to tape added some tasty big band music, and my grandfather added typewritten comments (just like silent movies!). He was smart enough to include the names of the players as they were teeing off, and I was amazed to actually recognize some of them from my childhood memories. But the best part was watching my mom's face every time my grandfather appeared. My grandfather was an incredibly handsome man, and was in his late 30s in these shots--the height of his good looks.

What was the most fun was to watch this group of men as they had their swings saved for posterity. Because this group of guys knew how to party! Prior to heading to the golf course, they met at my grandfather's for breakfast and "Moose Milk". The recipe which is sort of secret--let's just say that it was more booze than milk! Then there was the constant drinking while on the course. Some of these guys obviously had more Moose Milk than others! There wasn't a female to be seen in any of the footage (other than the pin-up girl on the back of one guy's Hawaiian shirt...). Mom, who was a young teenager at the time, told us that on Moose Milk weekend, her mom and sister and herself were to find somewhere else to spend the weekend. All sorts of secrecy involved in the old days! It was good to see that my partying ways of my youth were inherited!

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I promised last week to post a list of places that offer discounts for 55+ customers. Couldn't find the original list, but thanks to the power of Google, I found another one. I've whittled it down to the ones that start at 55 (some don't kick in until 60). Some of these aren't found around here, but it's nice to know about!

Restaurants
● Arby’s: 10% off (55+)
● Chick-Fil-A: 10% off or free small drink or coffee (55+)
● Chili’s: 10% off (55+)
● Denny’s: 10% off, 20% off for AARP members (55+)
● Dunkin’ Donuts: 10% off or free coffee (55+)
● Fuddrucker’s: 10% off any senior platter (55+)
● IHOP: 10% off (55+)
● Jack in the Box: up to 20% off (55+)
● KFC: free small drink with any meal (55+)
● Krispy Kreme: 10% off (50+)
● Long John Silver’s: various discounts at participating locations (55+)
● McDonald’s: discounts on coffee everyday (55+)
● Mrs. Fields: 10% off at participating locations (60+)
● Steak ‘n Shake: 10% off every Monday & Tuesday (50+)
● TCBY: 10% off (55+)
● Wendy’s: 10% off (55+)

Retail and Apparel
● Banana Republic: 10% off (50+)
● Bealls: 20% off first Tuesday of each month (50+)
● Belk’s: 15% off first Tuesday of every month (55+)
● Bon-Ton Department Stores: 15% off on senior discount days (55+)
● Dress Barn: 10% off (55+)
● Goodwill: 10% off one day a week (date varies by location)
● Hallmark: 10% off one day a week (date varies by location)
● Modell’s Sporting Goods: 10% off
● Rite Aid: 10% off on Tuesdays & 10% off prescriptions
● Ross Stores: 10% off every Tuesday (55+)
● The Salvation Army Thrift Stores: up to 50% off (55+)
● Stein Mart: 20% off red dot/clearance items first Monday of every month (55+)

Grocery
● Albertson’s: 10% off first Wednesday of each month (55+)
● American Discount Stores: 10% off every Monday (50+)
● Fry’s Supermarket: free Fry’s VIP Club Membership & 10% off every Monday (55+)
● Hy-Vee: 5% off one day a week (date varies by location)
● Kroger: 10% off (date varies by location)
● The Plant Shed: 10% off every Tuesday (50+)

Travel
● Alamo: up to 25% off for AARP members
●Avis: up to 25% off for AARP members
● Best Western: 10% off (55+)
● Budget Rental Cars: 10% off; up to 20% off for AARP members (50+)
● Dollar Rent-A-Car: 10% off (50+)
● Enterprise Rent-A-Car: 5% off for AARP members
● Hampton Inns & Suites: 10% off when booked 72 hours in advance
● Hertz: up t0 25% off for AARP members
● Mainstay Suites: 10% off with Mature Traveler’s Discount (50+); 20%-30% off (60+)
● Myrtle Beach Resort: 10% off (55+)
● National Rent-A-Car: up to 30% off for AARP members
● Trailways Transportation System: various discounts for ages 50 and up

Activities & Entertainment
● AMC Theaters: up to 30% off (55+)
● Busch Gardens Tampa: $3 off one-day tickets (50+)
● Cinemark/Century Theaters: up to 35% off
● Regal Cinemas: 30% off
● Ripley’s Believe it or Not: @ off one-day ticket (55+)
● SeaWorld Orlando: $3 off one-day tickets (50+)

Cell Phone Discounts
● Jitterbug: $10/month cell phone service (50+)

Since many senior discounts are not advertised to the public, our advice to men and women over 55 is to ALWAYS ask a sales associate if that store provides a senior discount. Also, please note that some senior discounts vary by region. That way, you can be sure to get the most bang for your buck.

I'll let you know how this all pans out!

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And to end this post, I continue on with more Pomplamoose! In French!

It's been a year...

I couldn't really let the day go by without marking this...

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Having all sorts of fun with symphony < /sarcasm>. In the span of 10 days, we've lost 3 major staff members without warning. Our executive director, the box office manager, and the money person for the summer concert. Where this most affects me is the summer concert. She and I split the position of project manager, where I took care of the logistical/production end of things, and she did the schmoozing/begging/fundraising/marketing end. I suspect that I'll end up picking up the marketing, but I have a proven record that I don't play well with living human beings. I'm fairly certain, however, that any free time I thought I might have has disappeared until the end of July...

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I turn 55 on Sunday. I've had AARP (American Association of Retired Persons, for those not familiar) sending me stuff since I was 48, but I've pretty much ignored it. I think there's an ego thing involved. I wasn't retired. I wasn't old. I certainly don't act old! But now, things are different. When you hit that magic number of "55", all sorts of 'senior' discounts kick in. It was a magnificent list of hidden perks at a wide variety of retail places and restaurants. I'll try to find that list and post it. I think I'm going to embrace this age! At least until my arthritis starts acting up...

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Enjoy your Friday the 13th tomorrow. Hope you avoid any bad luck!

It's Birthday Week!!

Not to toot my own horn, but yeah, my bday is coming up on Sunday. Feel free to use that information to my benefit in any way that you'd like!

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What a great Masters tournament! After executing the rarest shot in golf (the double eagle) and showing nerves of steel on the greens, I thought Louis Oosthuizen was going to walk away with the win. But Bubba Watson came through on the back nine and forced a playoff, winning on the second hole. I suppose it's about time there was a "Bubba" on the winners trophy! Still, I was rooting for Fred Couples all weekend!

The most enjoyable part of the tournament though was to see Tiger's total and complete meltdown on Friday. He has become an undisputed embarrassment to himself and the PGA. I posted my thoughts in 2009 about Tiger and his place (or not) as a golf legend. His actions on Friday solidified those thoughts...

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Keeping with the sports theme...updates on the two football stories with Montana angles (see the post below). Ryan Leaf is sitting in a Great Falls jail, waiting for Montana and Texas authorities to negotiate who gets first dibs on him. He was on probation in TX as he was ransacking medicine cabinets in MT. Then there's Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino. Suspended from his duties last week when it came out that he was not alone during his motorcycle accident. A 25-y.o. hot blond was with him, and now his career is in jeopardy. All sorts of investigations going on now. Yeah, the state of Montana is certainly proud...

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Thomas Kinkade died last week. I'll admit it. I had to Google him. Not sure why I'd never heard of him, or why everyone made note of it. I mean, geez. He was no Bob Ross!

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Easter was spent with family all day, as the nieces were all in town. Only missed S1 and BIL1.2. Brunch at the country club. Watching the Easter egg hunt afterwards (even though we knew so very few of the moms/dads anymore). And finally the traditional Easter turkey dinner (?!?!?) that night. Yeah, N2 decreed that dinner should be a turkey dinner. We've never done that before. So instead of sitting around watching football, it was the Masters. It worked! With the passing of Easter, I spaced out going to the store today to look for half-priced candy. No Peeps for me, thank you. I'm only interested in the Cadbury eggs. Hopefully there's still some around in the morning. The good news...I did treat myself to one or two of them in the weeks beforehand. For something that's on my permanently-given-up-for-Lent list, they sure tasted mighty fine!

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Finally, here's your weekly dose of Pomplamoose! Since I'm watching "Armageddon" at the moment, it seemed appropriate...

The Rise and Fallof Blogging and Nekkidness......and other things

The final posting of "...the Other HNT" is up. And with it, ends the last vestiges of the official half-nekkid phenomenon. I say 'official', as there's those who still haven't heard that HNT is no more, or those who think they're continuing it. I know that many of you didn't participate over at OHNT. It started out as innocently (well, maybe not quite) as HNT did. It was a safe, anonymous place to post those "oops" shots that showed a little more than what would work on their own site. That developed into taking one extra shot while doing HNT, with OHNT very much in mind. And after awhile, it grew into an "anything goes" site. To a degree.

Which is why many of you either quit OHNT, or didn't visit anymore. Just a bit too much at times for some of you. And yet, it continued on. But, for many of the reasons that HNT had to retire, OHNT's time had come. Participation had come down to a few core people, and it just wasn't fair to place the burden on them. And as blogging has declined, so has the traffic. Don't get me wrong--there's still more traffic there than most of us have ever had! But the lack of feedback and lack of "new blood", as well as the time consumption on my part indicated the end was near.

And I'm remarkably OK with that. Go check out the last of the OHNTers. There's even one who participated in the very first week, too! Leave some well-deserved thanks while your there, too!

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If he was still alive, my dad's father would be celebrating his ??? birthday today.

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The Masters started today.

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Lots of birthdays to celebrate this month!

Noise, Football, Masters, OHNT and Pomplamoose!

I'm not sure exactly how long I've lived in my apartment (I could look for the paperwork, but it's not important, and I digress...), but it's been at least 15 years. With the exception of the building managers, who live above me, I have the longest tenure here. I'd love to move, but I can't beat the rent. And so I stay. In those 15 plus years, I have enjoyed peace and quiet. Other than the post I wrote in 2005 describing the sounds I have enjoyed...

Well, about two months ago, we got word that the managers were moving out (he had a stroke a couple of years ago, and the stairs are just not manageable anymore). There's now a new family upstairs. With kids. Little kids. That run from one wall to the other. Repeatedly. Loudly. Then there's the one who doesn't run, but in a new level of hell, will cry uninterrupted at 3AM. Until about 4AM. In the crib in the room above my bedroom. Now added to the mix--a family who appears to be split into two different apartments. The kids (four of them, I believe) apparently sleep in the apartment next to mine, while the parents sleep in an apartment downstairs. I suppose some credit should be given that the kids' apartment is always locked. Which means that everytime one of the kids leaves and comes back, they have to knock on the door. But in this case, it's either pounding or kicking the door. Multiple times per hour. Any time of day or night.

At least the neighbors down the hall whose pot smoke permeated the hallways has moved out, and the neighbors who cook bacon almost every day have not, and the rent is cheap...

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Lots of off-field football news coming from Montana this week. First, the president of the University of MT fired the head football coach and the athletic director last Thursday. Sending shockwaves throughout the state and country. There's all sorts of speculation as to the reason, because no explanation has been given. The consensus opinion is that leadership needed to be changed, due to the legal problems that the football players have found themselves in. Lots of possibilities, but again, no explanation. Regardless, a sad week for the Griz, and it's bound to affect things for a quite awhile.

Then on Friday, former NFL quarterback and Montana native Ryan Leaf was arrested on burglary charges and drug possession. Leaf was always a cocky kid, and couldn't wait to get out of MT. He went to Washington State and led the Cougars to their first Rose Bowl victory in decades. He then went as the second pick overall in the NFL draft, right behind this other quarterback named Peyton Manning. And then Leaf went downhill from there. Widely accepted as the biggest flop of all NFL drafts, he found himself addicted to prescription pain-killers. He had done OK with rehab. Or so everyone thought... As if things weren't bad enough with his arrest, he got arrested again on Sunday night! That's right. After posting bail on Friday, he promptly went out and got himself arrested again after being caught in someone's house on Sunday afternoon. Stealing their prescription meds. Montanans pretty much turned their back on the guy after he turned his on them, but one can't help but feel a little bit sorry for this waste of space...

On Sunday, the head coach from the University of Arkansas, Bobby Petrino, was involved in a motorcycle accident. No one else was involved, and the injuries aren't life-threatening, and alcohol wasn't a factor. So where does the MT connection come in? He's the little brother of the girl I dated at the end of my senior year in high school. He also dated my sister S2. The star quarterback dating the head cheerleader. Stuff that movies are made of. Anyhoo...

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We're now in Holy Week. Maybe even better...it's Masters Week!!! More Masters stuff later, I hope...

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Thursday will be the last time OHNT will be posted. It's been a fun six years! We might even have one of the original contributors in this week, too! There's still time for you to join in, if you're interested. Your last chance to show off anonymously!

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It's time for Pomplamoose!

It's getting better!

In reading back through the archives, I noticed a trend regarding my posts about the symphony. For seven years, I've often bitched and moaned about dealing with personnel, or the amount of time the production end was taking. But over the past year or so, I've noticed that I'm not doing it as much. The personnel will always be a thorn, but not my thorn anymore, so that's out of the mix. And the production stuff has been running incredibly smoothly as of late. That's not to say that I don't keep overly busy, or that there's not a lot of work that needs to be done. But I've either grown to accept the hassles, or the hassles aren't really there anymore. In either case, I'm not complaining!

The other thing I've noticed is that I haven't complained after a concert about how badly it went. Our concerts of late have been nothing short of spectacular. A strong adjective, but we've really been hitting on all cylinders over the past few years. This past Saturday's was no exception. Our cello soloist played what is arguably the most difficult concerto written for the instrument by Prokofiev, and he had the entire audience up on their feet in applause before he could stand and take his bows. He then took the podium after intermission to conduct the next piece, Tchaikovsky's Cappricio Italien, which ends like a bat out of hell. Again, a standing ovation. Our final piece of the evening was Stravinsky's Firebird Suite, which is one of the greatest pieces written in the 20th century. Another long standing ovation.

It's times like this when I really, really like what I do!

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Fortunately, I was stuck inside most of the weekend, as Spring took a vacation. A skiff of snow, cool temps, and lots of wind made for a miserable weekend weatherwise. Hopefully we're getting to see the end of that!

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I don't know exactly what happens on/around June 26th, but I had FIVE birthday notifications on FB yesterday! And another TWO friends that aren't on FB. Something's in the air in June!

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The response has been interesting to my announcement last week that OHNT is ending shortly. I've gotten a couple of emails from lurkers I've never heard of, lamenting its end. Not one of these people has ever left a comment, yet are hoping I'll change my mind. On the other hand, I suppose it's nice to know that there's a "regular" audience over there! Regardless, there's only TWO more OHNTs left. Feel free to join in if you'd like!

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Even though I'm a day late, here's your weekly dose of Pomplamoose! An interesting version of "My Favorite Things". Enjoy!

Because I'm lazy, and I figure you guys need a laugh at my expense...a repost from Sept., 2007. Enjoy!

Well, I have to apologize... These aren't the dorky pictures I was planning on using. Believe me, there's plenty to be had! My plan was to find the right pictures, scan this afternoon, and sit back and bask in my dorkiness.
Instead, I spent it looking for scanning software, or something that I could do to scan... Not sure what's wrong, but I spent all my time doing that, rather than gathering the "good" dorkiness.

Above you can see me in the 5th grade, complete with the Nehru shirt (I had like 5 of them) and the handmade Indian beads, made in Japan. My fashion consultants? Davy, Mick, Mike and Peter. The Monkees, of course! And probably the height of dorkiness for these purposes--the all-boy choir in 8th grade. White turtlenecks, blue vests and black pants. Can you imagine how many of us got beat up?

Over here in the purple (paisley, at that!) is the 8th grade picture. Braces. The "smile" to try to hide them. Not sure what was going on with the hair, but it's the same hair that everyone had. And the nose had not yet been broken...













Finally, not so much dorky, but it's the look I had for my last three years of high school. Puberty must have hit, because it's only 18 months after the purple picture. Perfectly coiffed hair, braces were gone, a bit of a tan, and dammit, I was somewhat skinny!




















As mentioned above, it's not as dorky as I had intended, but I don't doubt for a minute that you guys will make up for it for me! Looking forward to all that you've got!

Today would have been her 34th birthday...

Happy Birthday, Stealth.
I always thought it fitting that it fell on the first day of Spring...

Is It Spring Yet?

Spring is trying really hard around here, but alternating the 60-70° days with two to three days of winter weather advisories makes it tough. There's hope on the horizon though!

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My Griz, who had a very good season this year in basketball, didn't fare as well at March Madness. In fact, they had the worst loss of all the Thursday games. The upside? I don't have to fake having any sort of interest in the rest of the tournament! I did, however, see my FB blow up that afternoon lamenting the fact that Syracuse was going to bust a lot of brackets based on what was happening to them. So I had to watch the end of that game. I don't know what the refs were smoking, or what game they were watching, but damn...

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This is symphony week, and it hardly feels like it. This concert will probably be my favorite one of the season. All Russian composers--I do love me the Russians. But production-wise, it's a piece of cake. Or at least feels like it. Nowhere near the amount of work as the May concert has already taken, or the summer concert. Sort of my last relaxing concert for awhile, I guess.

We did have rehearsal all day Saturday, so no St. Patrick's Day celebrating for me. I'm a bit disappointed about that, but it's probably for the best. My wild ways have passed me by, I'm afraid. The good part--no hangover!

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Speaking of the summer concert, things are flowing smoothly so far. For as behind as I was stepping into it, all the contacts have been made, and everyone's on the same page. So far. Here's to hoping that continues!

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An announcement... After six full years, it's time for OHNT to end. I kept it going primarily to gently wean the truly exhibitionist among you who weren't ready for HNT to end. But, similar to the reasons HNT was retired, the participation was down, depending far too much on a small handful of participants. The first OHNT post went up on April 6, 2006, and the last one will go up on April 5, 2012. That leaves three more opportunities to join in, if you're interested! I'm sure I'll wax poetic later on, but I figured you should know now.

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My Pomplamoose offering this week is a cover of Michael Jackson's "Beat It". It's a little different, but still pretty good. Enjoy!

Busy, busy, busy...

I knew that the next four months were going to be busy, but geez... We've got a concert in a week and a half, and I'm hardly breaking a sweat about it. It doesn't even raise a blip on the radar of coming attractions! The big concert coming up is in May. Mahler's "Symphony of a Thousand". We're not going to have the full thousand, but we're going to be much larger than normal. Almost 350 singers and 100 musicians. And the associated pains. Fortunately, others are in charge of housing and feeding the singers coming in from other states. But I'm the one who gets to squeeze that many people in a really confined space. It's going to be wonderful, and should go off without a hitch, but man, what a lot of work! Thank God we've been working on this for awhile. I'll fill you in on the summer concert later...

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One down side of this next concert...I've got rehearsal all day on Saturday. St. Patrick's Day Saturday. My traditional first green beer out of the tap at O'Toole's ain't gonna happen this year. Damn...or should that be o'damn?

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The University of Montana made the NCAA Tourney again this year by virtue of winning both the conference and the conference tourney. Got them a #13 seed in the East. A first round upset is possible, but I don't know if they'll get past the second round. Still it's nice to see the Griz still playing, but Gucci's Cats are sitting at home!

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Didn't fill you in on the checkup I had a couple of weeks ago. Doctor likes my numbers, for the most part. Blood pressure is still a tad higher than he'd like, but not "high". And the weight isn't good. On the other hand, my cholesterol (and all the other blood numbers) are just peachy! So I'm off the hook for another six months! Woohoo!

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Lastly, it's Pomplamoose and one of their originals this week!

What Doesn't Stay in Vegas? Sprawl.

I found this pretty interesting. It's a short video taken from the Landsat 5 satellite, which was launched March 1, 1984. This is its view of Las Vegas and its growth over the past 28 years. The red patches are actually green space--mostly golf courses. You should see this in full screen. Pretty amazing stuff.

Gotta Work On Posting More...(third time's a charm?)

I've mentioned in the past that I listen to Rush Limbaugh on my way to work, simply for the laughs to start out the day (laughs...as in laughing at the absurdity). But after last week's tirade, and subsequent continued attacks, I think he might have bitten off more than he thought. Will he be forced off the air? I doubt it. There's too many fanatics out there who agree with him, or are spineless enough to buy into his way of thinking. Me? I don't need the laughs anymore. I've got a zillion CDs I can listen to that have been ignored for a long time. Thanks, Rush, for getting me back to the music!

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Speaking of getting back to the music... I have been a big fan of Chicago since the first time I heard their music in the early 70s. As all good band geeks were. Chicago of the 70s was unparalleled. Chicago of the 80s sold out and almost disappeared, thanks to the techno-pop of the time. I remember one video of theirs where the horn players were all playing keyboards! WTF??? Fortunately they pulled their heads out and got back to being a horn band. So what's this part of the post about? I went back to listening to some of their later music that I had sort of ignored, and have found some new favorites! Horn lines that were far more intricate than I had remembered, and far more complex than their early stuff. Not much of it commercially successful, but then again, their best stuff never was!

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The spring weather I've been yearning for showed up this weekend! It was in the 60s, the sun was out early, there were no clouds--wonderful weather for early March in MT! Of course, I look out this morning, and we got snow overnight and it's going to be chilly. But the weekend is supposed to be as nice as last weekend, and Daylight Savings Time goes into effect on Sunday! By golly, spring might just be right around the corner!

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Speaking of weather--I haven't heard any horror stories from any friends who had to deal with the tornadoes of last week. A couple of somewhat near misses, but no tragedies. Whew.

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March Madness is about to hit in full swing. Yet another major sporting event I'll blissfully ignore (unless my Griz happen to surprise a few people, but I'm not expecting it...).

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Here's your weekly dose of Pomplamoose. Be sure to watch Granny dancing towards the end!

Road Markers

I am often amazed at how my life has evolved with regards to music. I was raised in a musically "challenged" household during my childhood. Dad was never into music that I remember. Even into my adulthood, I don't recall that he ever just listened. He did enjoy dancing with Mom though, and if there was a dance floor available at any function they attended, that's where you'd find them. As for Mom--she had kept some of her Glenn Miller records from her youth. I have a feeling that they were actually my grandmother's, as she wasn't even a teenager when he disappeared. These were records that she'd pull out when she decided she needed to teach me how to dance (and started my love for big bands and jazz). But overall, neither of my parents had any sort of musical influence on me. Not because they were purposely depriving me, but because they themselves were not raised in musical families. But some musical moments stick out.

I've written here (years ago) about laying in my bed when I was about 6 or 7 and listening to my brand new transistor radio before going to sleep. The radio was sort of a copper/brown color. The station was KBLL. And on Sunday nights from 7-9, I think, I would listen to trucker songs. Red Sovine. Dave Dudley. Phantom 309. Teddy Bear. Six Days on the Road. You get the idea. Then immediately following was "Classics in the Night". Sunday night classical music on AM radio! The theme song was the first line or two of Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (a little nightmusic). I could rarely stay up long enough to listen to much, but that theme has forever stuck in my memory. An odd mix...twangy country and classical.

The mid-60s are sort of a memory blur. We had, by this time, moved up to South Benton, and I had a whole neighborhood of kids to play with. We were devoted fans of "Dark Shadows", and would take a time-out from playing Kick the Can to run inside to watch it (either at our house, or the next door neighbor's). And we would watch "The Monkees" religiously!

Try as I might, I can't really recall what I would have listened to my Monkees albums on. I remember when my parents bought a stereo system, but I can't imagine that I could have played them as often as I think I did. I don't recall if I had my own record player or not, but I must have had something. In any case, I played my albums, I perused every issue of Tiger Beat, and basically learned all I could about the Monkees. My mom must have liked them a little too, because they were much more clean cut and wholesome than the Beatles. I started learning the trumpet at this time as well, and I recall Mom buying me the sheet music for Pleasant Valley Sunday (she also bought me the sheet music to "If I Were A Rich Man" from Fiddler on the Roof, but that's another story...). I learned how to play it on my own and surprised my band teacher (Sister Eucharista) with it. She, in turn, gave me a lesson about transposing music--something that stuck with me ever since.

The Monkees were as close to rock as anything else that I heard during that time, even though it would be more correctly termed as "pop". With the aforementioned stereo, Mom started buying albums. The Lettermen. The Vogues. Stuff that would be best categorized as "easy listening". The Monkees were off to the edge of that category. The Beatles were definitely not something she'd listen to (at the time), though I seem to remember an album of Beatles' music performed by 101 Strings. This is the music that I was raised on. This explains my love of The Carpenters, and how Close To You was the greatest song ever recorded.

By the time I got to high school, music was an important part of my life, though I still didn't think of it as something I'd do forever. In fact, I was not in band during my freshman or sophomore years, and was much more into choir (4 years--All State Choir/1 year--All Northwest Choir, thankyouverymuch). I also played bass in my first rock band, which is where I first learned of groups like Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Far different from the pop groups that I dared play at home before then.

College is where my eyes were really opened to real jazz music, as well as funk and soul. And where my decision to become a music teacher were formed. And where I realized that I'd never know all there was to know about music--it's a life-long learning process. And where I re-played my Monkees and Carpenters and other albums that I'd taken from home and listened to them from a musician's standpoint, and finding out that there's some damned good musicianship going on!

The death yesterday of Davy Jones actually hit me harder than I would have imagined, and probably more than I'd like to admit. I'm to the point in my life where celebrity's deaths start acting like road markers on life's highway. When Michael Jackson died, it marked my grad school days, watching in awe the first time I saw Thriller. And how the bar I was in went absolutely silent when it came on. When Whitney Houston died, it marked my last teaching days, and how her music was so easily accessible to high school choirs for a spring concert. But now, with Davy Jones' passing, something's different. A man who didn't fall into the dark pits that so many of his comtemporaries did. A man who, individually didn't change the world, but as part of a group, did his part to change music in the US. And despite the critical backlash of being a "fake" musical group, there's no question that their records were legit, and their appeal was great.

I listened to all my Monkees albums last night. Yeah, I dragged out the LPs--not the CDs. I remembered the good times with the rest of the neighbor kids. I remembered all the words--even to the songs that weren't big hits. It's sad that a member of one of my biggest childhood influences has passed on. I fear that this is just the beginning...