Sorry; I love Full Metal Jacket.
Anyway, my last blog was last Sunday, and I laid out some plans to free myself of my fears and prepare myself better for success. Here's what I've done so far...
I joined a gym. I am fat (compared to my previous physical condition at least), and I need to run. I used to run a lot, and it kept me in fantastic shape. In fact, had I run in high school, I could've been on cross-country, but I did band instead. In 4 days, I ran a total of 15 miles, and I'm pretty sure it resulted in losing a few pounds. This was after not running more than a day at a time in over 3 years. It looks promising that I could run at least a half marathon at some point.
I did all of my Christmas shopping before Christmas week this year. Have I ever done that before? What do you think?
I developed a serious case of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome from playing computer and video games in my immense free time this past week. Lately, I've been on an MS-DOS kick, downloading a ton of computer games for DosBox - the equivalent of XBox for computer/DOS format. On Thursday and Friday, I played about 10 hours of PS3 and Wii, having nothing else to do. I need a wrist brace now, and I'm gonna cool it with the computer for a few days so I can recover.
Last night was the Christmas Eve gig in Pittsburgh. We played with an organist with probably the worst tempo I've ever encountered from a professional. We completely botched John Rutter's "Gloria" because the organist couldn't lay down a tempo to save his life. I felt sorry for the choir especially because they're really good, and they have no rhythmic leader to follow. This guy shot us, the brass quintet, dirty looks the whole time because he thought we were screwing it all up. Let me tell you something, if you're just holding notes from the beginning of the piece and think 5 people are going to get the same tempo out of it, especially if you don't show us a tempo even with your head, you are absolutely insane and shouldn't be playing music. This guy was fumbling over notes like it was his job. Then he didn't thank us after the gig or even talk to us. All of us were just waiting for him to come over to us to complain, and we were ready to verbally unload on him in front of the parish. He was on thin ice, at best.
The actual success of the gig for me was that it was a huge blow for all of us, the most I think any of us have ever played for a church gig, and I got through it ready to play more. Thanks to Main Line Affair, I can play waaayyyyy longer. I'm not saying I wasn't a little tired - I was - but I had a lot more in me.
Anyway, so that was my week. I got a beer making kit from Kerri for Christmas...I can't wait to start brewing. My first beer is an amber ale. If that turns out ok, I'll move on to a Hefeweizen. I'll keep everyone updated on that too. Depending on taste (I think my beer-tasting palate is pretty refined by now), I'll be distributing 6 packs to friends, so that's why you should pay attention.
Until next time...
No comments:
Post a Comment