I'm going to be an aunt!

This weekend my brother and his wife announced that they are expecting their first child. The little one should arrive later this Fall. In the meantime, I need to begin my aunt-like preparations.

Luckily, I was in attendance for the announcement because I had made the trip up north to surprise my mom for her 50th birthday. I think she was surprised.

Congratulations, Chris and Mary!

Look for more details of the Iowa adventure later this week.

Sasha on the 7's

I don't often use this space for prayer requests, but this is a time for an exception. The daughter of one of the symphony's percussionists is currently recovering from 2 liver transplants in the past 6 months. Now, the new liver seems to be functioning, but the rest of her body is not doing so well. Her parents are asking folks to lift her up in prayer on the 7's. 7:07, 1:17, 4:27...whenever you look at a clock and see a 7, think of Sasha. You can read more about Sasha and her road to recovery by clicking here. Sasha's family is truly inspirational.

Long time, no post?

There's a reason for the lack of recent posts...not much is going on. So, here are the details of my boring reality.

For the past few days I have been dogsitting/housesitting. The dog seems to think she is a princess and frequently likes to leave packages on the kitchen floor moments after returning from a visit to the great bano in the backyard - green grass.

The housesitting portion has been fairly uneventful - enjoying a nice house, cable TV and otherwise a quite comfortable existence - that is until tonight and the great dishwasher flood of the kitchen. Oh dear! Crisis was averted before there was a need for Noah to bring in his ark. (Interesting how the first image google found for dishwasher included a dog...potential cause of the flood?)

At work, the season has calmed down. Yes, there is an off-season. A co-worker and I have been busy organizing the rarely visited symphony storage. Something that should have been done 20+ years ago. Oh, the treasures we have found! A number was placed on our progress today when we learned that we had successfully shredded over 1 ton of paper in the past 4 days. Yeah, that's a lot of paper.

On a personal note, I got a new hair do this evening. I'll try and take a picture at some point in the near future.

Flock

As a quasi-nerd with a background in Chemistry who finds herself working for a professional symphony, I can appreciate the genius of Jason Freeman's Flock.

According to the project website, the piece "is a full evening performance work for saxophone quartet, conceived to directly engage audiences in the composition of music by physically bringing them out of their seats and enfolding them into the creative process. During the performance, the four musicians and 60-80 audience members move freely around the performance space. A computer vision system determines the locations of the audience members and musicians, and it uses that data to generate performance instructions for the saxophonists, who view them on wireless handheld displays mounted on their instruments. The data is also artistically rendered and projected on multiple video screens to provide a visual experience of the score. "

So the question is, is it really music? If not, what defines music that excludes this concept piece? The piece certainly raises audience participation to a new level.

Like the adventurous composers before him, Freeman's work pushes new boundaries to seek a experienec of the art. Freeman has also developed an interactive program for solo violin called Graph Theory.

Return of the Basset Hounds

Ummm, I mean the return trip of the basset horns, not basset hounds. Yes, today was the day to take the basset horns back to their rightful home at the University of North Texas. The day was very similar to the original trip. So, no need to rehash that tale. (Reverse details of original tale and you get the idea.)

100,000 and counting!

This evening, while traveling eastbound on I-40 my beloved car's odometer rolled over 100,000 miles! Let's pause for a moment to honor that accomplishment....

(This is not a picture of my car marking 100,000 miles...sadly I did not have my camera with me to mark this momentous occassion.)

I have a thing for high-mileage vehicles, or a I drive a lot...whichever it may be, this is my third car in 11 years to mark 100,000 miles. The first car I drove, the 1988 Plymouth Sundance, marked 100,000 miles sometime during my high school driving career. The 1992 Mercury Topaz marked 100,000 miles in Dubuque, Iowa...and now the 1999 Cirrus joins the elite.

May the Cirrus have many more miles of happy travels.