Post by Chris

Heya. I had some extra time, so I thought I'd post a snippet or two.

You know, that may be the first time I've ever used the word snippet. Hmm...who knew?

Virginia and I got to do a concert this past week with Robert W. Smith, who's a pretty famous composer of school band music. It actually wasn't all that exciting. Just because you're a good composer doesn't mean you're a good conductor, and this was evidenced a bit by his visit. Plus, the stuff we played by him was ok, but borrowed from a lot of the stuff he's done before. Frankly, I think his writing is a little formulaic. Oh well, I hope it was a good experience for the 8th graders. The Ellington concert on April 1st should be a lot better.

I'm writing a piece for our jazz band, although I'm not sure if we'll get to play it. Hopefully we can get a couple of reads on it though and get it recorded. That would be sweet.

My girlfriend Lissa is home visiting her dad in the hospital. He's been having a really rough time of it the past few months. For the longest time, the doctors were thinking it was problems with his pancreas and were doing all kinds of stuff for it that weren't working. Now, unfortunately, they're pretty sure it's his liver, and even more unfortunately, there's probably cancer. His appearance and spirits have changed drastically so it's been a pretty rough experience for everyone involved. I've mainly just tried to make sure I'm there for Lissa as she tries to be there for him and deal with her own emotions, school, the rest of her family, me, etc. Please say a prayer if it's in your custom to do so, or just keep them in your thoughts. Hopefully, all will turn out alright.

On a lighter note, College Basketball is wrapping up, and I couldn't be more excited! Congratulations to Virginia's Dad on his team winning their conference today, although DePaul certainly gave them all they wanted the entire game. Maybe Jeremy and I (and I'm not sure who else among the readers of this blog) will get lucky and Louisville will get put in the same bracket and on the same path as Kentucky this year. What an awesome Final Four run that would be to get to beat Pitino (again...) along the way :p
(I hope I'm not eating my words tomorrow when UK plays Florida in Gainesville... If I do, I suppose I will deserve whatever tongue lashing you Cards fans will undoubtedly unleash on me :) ) Go Cats!

My Mom's at Red Lobster right now. She's going to bring me home some Cheddar Bay biscuits. I'm oh so excited!

Weather projection for Myrtle Beach on March 14th: Mostly Sunny 64 degrees, Water Surface Temperature: 66
Countdown of days: 8
Virginia's Boss is a jerk for making us get up at like 5 on Wednesday to come home, but hey, it will be worth it.

If you get HBO, you should watch Carnivale. Find an episode guide online or something and then check it out, it's so worth it. (you can rent the 1st season at Blockbuster too I think) Very unique, highly entertaining.

Medieval Europe still sucks. Thanks again, Jeremy.

My brother signed up for the Army on Thursday. He's going to be a combat medic. The intensive training for that job is only like 12 weeks, so I don't think he'll be stitching people up or anything. Still, it's both ironic and humorous that he's going to end up practicing medicine before I do :) Chances are probably good he'll get sent to Iraq, so that sucks, but hey, I guess you've gotta let them fly and do their own thing at some point. It should be a good character-building experience for him and I'm proud of him for wanting to serve his country.

Final note for those who want to know (or don't want to know, but are compulsively reading these words anyway to see what's to come, thereby learning the thing before knowing if they would have wanted to have known it before knowing it...wait...I'm confused) Anyway: Perhaps' head smells like pee. Virginia is pretty sure this is due to her checking Maybe out as she does her business in the yard. I think her stitches from being spayed have either come out or have disolved though, so she should be bath-ready any day now.

Okay, I'm done.