1) Peter's All-State Symphonic Band concert took place last weekend. They sounded great. (You will remember, he earned 4th chair for alto sax this year, and just missed making the very prestigious Jazz Band). Like last year, he and his bandmates will do an outdoor concert at Lincoln Center plaza in NYC in a month, and another one outside the Old State House in Hartford a few weeks after that. I'll try to get and post video from one of those events. He's getting a reputation among the state band organizers; they're expecting big things from him over the next couple of years (and I have no doubt they will get them from him).
2) Results are in for the Connecticut Young Musicians Festival, where Peter, John, and Catherine all played piano. All three kids scored perfect 5's. You can see their performances in a blog entry from about a month ago. So no surprises there.
3) While I'm on the subject of music, I'll give an update, not a brag: I'm still playing guitar, and coming along well. I've learned lots of chords, which is fun, though I'm having trouble with one notoriously difficult one. (Let's just say I think I know why it's called the "F" chord....)
4) Back to bragging: Isabel and I were both nominated for the university's Outstanding Teacher Award last week. Quite an honor. The next step after being nominated is to put together a file with personal statements, course materials, letters from students and other teachers, etc. I'm not going to take that step -- the courses I'm supposed to discuss in the file are from the last couple of years, when I hadn't done much teaching, because of chair duties. Isabel, however, is putting a file together. Which is fitting -- she's a better teacher than I am anyway, and will deserve it if she wins it.
5) No more bragging, but thanks to everyone who provided public and private (mostly private) suggestions about finding the old Coast orginal blue soap, the new Coast Pacific Fever soap (or whatever it's called), and Coast alternatives.
Apologies to those who told me in public and in private (mostly private) that they really don't want to read any more blog entries about my personal hygiene problems.
A late edit to the post: More bragging. I just got a Facebook notification from the "We're Related" app that "Barack Obama has confirmed that you are his cousin!"
Woo hoo! We're spending next Thanksgiving at the White House with the cousins!
"We're related" is that moronic thing that keeps forgetting what I told it. I tried telling it three times that Christine is my wife, at which point it announced to all that I was married for a second and a third time. And I don't even live in Utah!
ReplyDeleteAnd it turns out that everyone on Facebook is related to Barack Obama, or at least was on April 1.