The LaValley’s Blog

Well, I’m a bit late on the afore mentioned update.  But better late than never… in the majority of cases.

So, if you were to come and join me here on my lovely campus, you would find me busily attending my classes (yes, I am still in that horrible habit of showing up early my classes… except I’m super early, since classes start a full ten minutes after the scheduled time.  Apparently I need to work on my learning curve.  On the upside, I meet people whilst I am waiting to be able to get into my classroom.  Which is fun.); doing homework (high school definitely lead me to believe there would be more of it… not that I am complaining); and being social.  Seriously social…. we’re talking a full-on social butterfly metamorphosis here.  Ok, well maybe not that extreme… I’m basically just chatty with good listening skills and some memory recall.  But I’m meeting tons of new people, eating meals with groups of friends, and coaxing a couple to go see Star Trek on the parade ground with me (or a lecture… or whatever else sounds fun).  I got described as a “cool kid” today – which is an impressive turn of events.

And starting tomorrow, you’d find me – at work.  I have a job with the School of Music’s publicity office, which is pretty awesome sounding to me.  I get to learn how to use professional publishing software (and “send stuff to the printers”!  I don’t really know why that’s exciting to me, but it’s just fun to say), potentially help manage the a facebook page for my college, and keep on the up-and-up with all the performance going-ons around campus.

Let’s see…. what else?

Oh! – I promised an update on the bassoon auditions.  Alright, well, I’m gonna cut right to the chase:  they did not end well.  I didn’t make the orchestra for this semester, and despite my swan song performance in my final audition – I am currently the fourth chair in the lowest group.  And for a few days, I was really down on myself for that.  But a few serious pep talks, a playable reed, a little application of logic, and some rudimentary soul searching later, I am making the best of it.

The Pros of my situation:   1. No pressure on the performance level.  This gives me a lot of free time (to be social and studious at the same time).  2.  The free time allows me to pursue other interests.  Point in case?  I joined a double-reed chamber ensemble.  It gives me that challenge I’m craving and gives me a little more diversity in playing to add to my repertoire.   3.  The ensemble I’m in gives me a chance to focus on studying the conductor-ensemble relationship, and take note of what works for this environment and what doesn’t.  4.  Plus, the multitude of audition failure I just got through only pushes me harder to blow them out of the water next time.  Which will help make me a better player anyways.

So, yeah.  That’s the gist of things for now.  College is definitely a new experience, and I’m enjoying it completely.  And the more I see of this little patch Louisiana, the more I am growing to love it, and the more I want to see the rest of the state.  Really – it’s simply beautiful down here.  I’m going to spend part of my holiday weekend just walking around campus with my camera, trying to capture the scenes I like best.  So keep your eye out for them early next week!

I love you all!

Well, I begin… at the ‘middle’. 

Why?  I need to explain. Explain what?  Odd coincidences, connections, consequences, conclusions, considerations…

First thoughts? Regina’s coming… and going in my life.

Back in the spring of 1983 I had a life altering, but minor, medical ‘hiccup’ and lost my fertility.  My monthly cycle had reset to a semi-annual event.  The doctor advised me to let nature reset itself.  How?  Get pregnant again.  So, having another baby became a plan… 

Considering we had just had Helene less than a year earlier and I had just started working part-time, it was more of a thought than a plan but not an unacceptable  option.   In fact, we forgot about the whole thing.   We worked, we commuted into town daily with the kids, we got into our community through friends and Scouting, we camped and travelled.  But we didn’t get pregnant… until one summer day in 1987 when I found out I was expecting!  It was an awesome realization that Mother Nature was putting me back on track.  Once the OB/GYN had located the heartbeat we told the kids and made plans: move their schooling to our small town and prepare me to be there with them once the baby came. 

But the baby stopped growing and, just as suddenly as I had discovered I was, I suddenly wasn’t pregnant.  And at that point the kids had to stay home for school anyway.  We couldn’t go back to the way it was.  It was too late.  I was suddenly struck with a crushing sense of loss, sadness, disappointment, inadequacy.  My sister had found she was expecting her second child… and I did not want to cast a pall over Terry’s joyous anticipation.  I didn’t talk about it much, especially to the  women in my family.  Friends reminded me that I had ‘one of each’ and really didn’t need any more.  And that not having to deal with periods or birth control was absolutely enviable.

When the semi-annual cycle resumed I felt betrayed by Mother Nature.  I was now a proven fact that I could not conceive OR carry a child.  It was an empty, unwomanly, feeling.  ‘Done’ too soon.  And totally unacceptable!  So I returned to work, came home to my children and lived my life as fully as possible … and waited to see what would come. 

MCI announced in the summer of 1989 that all department would be moving away from the metro area in a year.   After an unsuccessful house-hunting trip in the winter of 1990 we soon discovered we were expecting again… a keeper this time!   There was no time to worry or over-react.  We had a house to sell, another to buy and a move to make with two grade school kids… AND I had a prototype engineering interface program (which I had designed) being rolled out in permanent code as my swan song at work.  Baby and roll out were to roughly coincide.

But multitasking was not to be for me.  Within weeks of completing the physical move to Texas, I was in the OB’s office for routine prenatal check-up and discovered that I was significantly dialated (no big surprise since this had occurred with the other two)…  and having mild contractions.  Immediate bed rest (with electronic monitoring) followed.  Although the house was not yet unpacked, the kids started school and my project went on without me.

I was released from bed rest towards the end of October and the OB expected the baby to drop out on the floor.  Two weeks later, on All Saints’ Day I could not take the pain of being kicked in the pelvis by this low riding passenger any longer.  With a little professional asssitance we were able to welcome Regina Marie (in honor of our Blessed Mother, to thank her for this miracle gift of a child)  early in the morning of All Soul’s Day.  I had the gift of a healthy child and the restoration of my fertility.  I was whole again.  I was ecstatic. 

For more than 18 years I have celebrated this uniquely blessed life, this happy child, this bright and shining personality.  I have watched her grow, gave her sibling companions, encouraged her curiosity, challenged her talents, taught and trained her, counseled her.  And then, days ago, I let her go. 

Incidentally, it should be noted that Mother Nature also marked the passing of this child out of my day to day life.  My fertility finally called it ‘quits’ this summer.   I hope it’s for ‘keeps’ this time.  I’m ready to wind down the womanly duties of my life.  This time there is a peaceful, comforting feeling that comes with the realization.  Enough time has passed. 

This is the end of the middle… but not the end.  I am content.

Well, I’m beginning to check some seriously big items off the college portion of my to-do list.  The most recent items to meet the mystical red pen in my minds eye? Moving in and drumline auditions at LSU.

So, moving in:

Newton had a law that kinda sums up the entire moving to college experience for me -  For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.   Apparently this applies outside the vague and unfathomable realm of the physics classroom and automobile crashes.  This stuff happens in my life a well.  Packing up seemed to drag on.  It was weeks of “Huh, will I need this and where should I store that” and quite a bit of “Seriously, how do I have this much STUFF to sort through?!?” thrown in the more quiet moments, just to keep things interesting.  But unpacking… that’s a whole other kettle of fish.  It’s wham, bam, thank you ma’m, and suddenly I’m chatting with my RA (who’s really sweet, btw), have a PO box for the year,  and am looking at my 95% unpacked room realizing that I hadn’t thought of curtains before now.  Actually, I probably wouldn’t have noticed for about three days unless my family had been there – acting, as always when I get a little tunnel visioned  (which is unfortunately just how I have to pack if I ever want to finish), as the other half of my brain.  Thank you guys for all your help!  Not to be cliche, but – It all happened so fast!  But yeah, I’m done for now – moved in and everything.  I like my room, which is (of course) small, but I think it’ll be comfortable for the year.

Once that was done, it was on to thinking about my drumline audition…

And, here’s a couple stats to paint a basic picture: 4 instruments to audition – 4 judges – 50ish auditionees in total.  Objective?  Fill a drumline with spots for 9 snares, 6(?) tenors, 6 basses, and 9 cymbals.  Auditions begin at 1 pm.

7 and a half hours later, I get called in for my cymbals audition, which lasts approximately 2 minutes.  Tops.  Followed by another half an hourish of waiting to hear the cymbal line get announced.  The time leading up to my audition kind of plays out like a day at the DMV.  A lot of waiting, a lot of practicing, a lot of making small talk – all to this underlying fear that your request is going to be rejected.  So yeah, I didn’t make the cymbal line.  Considering that I am a bassoonist, who hasn’t marched a show before, and there were 10 new people (the rest – percussionists) auditioning for 3 spots if you assume all the cymbal line veterans made it – I wasn’t exactly expecting to make it.  I had hoped to, but I’m just too excited to be disappointed.  I met a big group of really amazing musicians, got to help teach some cymbal technique (which I really wasn’t expecting, but was glad to help), and still have a ton of great opportunities ahead of me.

After that, I opted to take a few more days vacation and have already had the chance to discover something new that I love doing: kayaking.  Not super suprising since I love canoeing, but it’s something else I can look into pursuing on campus.  And now I’m moving on to preping for my bassoon auditions – which I will definitely update you all on once they happen.  Wish me luck!

Hi everyone!

So, Jean invited me to join the virtual melee via his blog – at least whilst I am away at college.  And here I am… First time blogger, long time reader…*looks around* …  It’s a lot quieter than I’d imagined.  lol

Anyways, I’m hoping to be able to keep everybody at least mildly entertained and updated with my adventures into being a college student, musician, writer-type…  all that jazz.  I’m definitely excited.

So, yeah.  Enjoy!

(Grammar quality not guaranteed … I like ellipses.  A lot.  You’ve been warned.  But spelling should be good – I’ve got a spell check. ).

Angie is now using the video camera tape her students speeches. She then comes home and uses my computer to “download” them to the PC and either “upload” to her class youtube account or convert to a WMV and give back on a USB card.

Personally, not my first choice sticking 15-20 different USB drives into my brand new PC every 3-4 days, But… it’s a true test to see how “robust” Norton Anti-Virus truly is in the long run.

Time will tell.

On a side note, my Blackberry storm is holding out pretty darn well. I’ve got google maps that acts like tom-tom (with directions). I’ve got an app that shows me the closest “insert yellowbook” query here. I’ve got an app (like the iPhone) that allows me to take a click with my camera and send to amazon and look for similar products…. that was really a cool feature my brother in law had with his phone.

AND I have an app that shows me known speed traps (that links with google maps) and buzzes whenever I get near them. I can either confirm or deny that there was a cop sitting in the “known” speed trap. It’s a real time “flashing your headlights” to other users of the app. So far been pretty accurate. It’s called Trapster (of trapster.com), take a look and see if they have the app for your blackberry or iphone.

That’s all for this week. Till next week…

Another summer comes and another “can’t wait to see movie” arrives and honestly… makes me wonder what the heck happened to make a director go “yep this is good idea” and then an editor to go “yeah, let’s leave that in there” and then a studio suit to go…. “no that’s not at all offensive or anything”….

I present to you:

The Transformer Ghetto bots

These two characters are like the Jar Jar binks of Transformers. Added after a great first movie to help “boost” audience attendence in other market areas.

FAIL in my opinion.

So on Friday… my trusty super duper PDA phone that I’ve had for about 18 months… decided it had had enough and died. Well actually, the screen had decided it had enough and decided the best way to demonstrate that was to crack in half.

Have a looksy: Samsung Bites the Dust

The good news is that I don’t need a phone for my job as no one is ever trying to reach me and thus I’ll never to reach anyone… *holds finger to ear* Wait a minute… I’m being told that a phone is a requirement of my job… and that I’m secondary on call in the coming week. Why am I always the last to get the memo. Or in this case, why was my phone the last to get the memo.

So I went over to the local verizon store and had a chat with the technical team. They said since the phone was over a year old, that it would cost me $53 dollars and that I’d have to wait until the new phone gets shipped to me from… I guess the moon cuz it would take 3-4 weeks. I basically just looked at the guy and asked “OR?” To my disbelief he asked…. “Or what?” So I basically go into a long diatribe about how it’s required that I have a means to contact any user at the hospital if I get paged and that I needed a cell phone. He said, well, that there wasn’t much he could do… then looked at our account (note to tech staff in sales… do this first) and noticed that my wife’s phone qualified for an upgrade and that I could get my phone to be replaced by using the upgrade to knock off the price of one of the phones they had on the floor.

Perfect, let’s go over there (1 hour later as the 3 people in front of me had all 3 sales staff telling them every possible detail about every phone in the store and then deciding, that the first phone they looked at was the best because “they really just wanted a simple phone to make phone calls.”) What, It was a small store and I overheard their conversation. So when it got to be my turn, the sales person had no chance. I knew exactly what phone I wanted, and that it would be better for him if he made the time with me short as humanly possible. I don’t know if this made him happy or if he was just in shock that I didn’t ask him to repeat his seminar on cell phones that he had just gone over like every other customer before me in the previous 5 hours of his shift. Needless to say 30 minutes later and a few dollars poorer…. I walked out with this:

This is not the actual phone.... but seriously... they all look the same.

All I can say is that I’m very happy. I’ve not got it completely broken in but in the past 24 hours I’ve been able to:
a) Get my Geisinger Mail synced through their BB server (which ironically made the mobile admin’s day that I didn’t have to bug him with 10k questions)
b) Get a Sirius radio app to stream to my phone
c) Use google maps
d) Install my facebook application
and finally
e) Be able to watch youtube videos… (seriously this is one thing that REALLY irked me about my last phone)

Just think what the next 24 hours will bring.

Ok… seriously that was alot of words to say … My phone broke… and I got a new one.

This past week my in-laws were in town. They were treated to seeing our first look at the fawns that have come to the neighborhood. Angie was quick with the camera and captured 2 awsome nature videos. Nothing like seeing nature right out your back doorstep.

Enjoy!

Angie also took some still shots!
Take a look:
Photobucket – Angie’s Deer Photos

My sister graduated from SouthLakes just recently. I have two pretty decent video clips. One of her walking the stage and one of the balloon drop. Both are worth a watch. She’s headed to LSU on a full academic scholarship. Impressive to say the least. Well without further ado…. The videos.

The Walk

The Balloon Drop

Ok , So I posted this on my facebook page. I’m getting tired of facebook ads, and have my own blog site anyways…. I’m gonna start posting the important stuff in my life here and use the facebook to monitor everyone else that still uses it.

I went to my sisters WYHO concert a few weeks back and took my HD camera with me. The result is her kick ass solo. Great job sis!