Stroke!

My wife and I went to the third-annual Pumpkin Festival in Washburn, WI, today. I took my stunt kites, but the highlight was spending a couple hours rowing around with a bunch of bloggers. Aside from my wife, there was The Princess of Wist, The (not my) Boyfriend, and The Drummer. It was sort of like Gilligan's Island mixed with Gallagher. Think rowboat on Lake Superior with gords raining into the lake like some psychedelic artillery. Playing around in the boat reminded me of just how much I like doing things like that, and just how much I want a boat of my own (or better yet, a friend who owns a boat who lets me use it any time I like!) to go putz around in the Apostle Islands with. I'm starting to forulate a plan for an open rowing/sail boat...

Rebuilding

I've picked up my horn again in the last couple days after about five months of not playing it at all. Man, I've got some serious rebuilding to do. My embachure is mush, my fingers rusty, reading stilted. But I'm playing again, and tonight, I even practiced. What do you know? I'm playing in the college jazz band again this year, and I went to rehersal for the first time yesterday evening. That made me realize that I really need to break out my horn on my own and woodshed. Not only am I not where I was, but more importantly, I'm not where I want to be. I want to move past where I was to where I could be. I want to be able to rip through chords and scales in any key, any mode, in a musical fashion. I want to have a play list of standards in my head that I can call from anytime. I want to write and arrange. I think I'd like to teach, and I'm positive I'd like to lead a band. My road map says that to get there from here, there's a whole lot of practice, study, dedication, determination, and time involved. I don't know if I have what it takes to walk that path, but there's only one way to find out. That's to eat an ice cube to soothe my poor, abused lips on the way to bed.

Konnichi wa!

Today, I officialy started learning Japanese. It just so happens that one of the professors at the college I work for teaches the language and said it'd be fine if I sat in on his beginning-level class. The other student in the class and I learned how to say things like "Good morning," and "Thank you for all the trouble you've gone through on my behalf." I figured that since I'm trying to be reasonably serious about studying budo taijutsu, I should learn the language I'll eventually need to speak to study the art at a higher level. With some effort and perseverence (ninpo, anyone?), I ought to at least be able to not make an ass of myself when talking with the soke (Hatsumi-sensi) and other high-level practioners. So ja mata for now, ya'll.

The Fab Five, round two

I made it to indie-music.com's fab five again with my review of Toothpick's "Drive Easy." The album is really good. It's kind of a homespun folk-rap from NYC, if you can picture that. Don't let the "R" word put your schnoz in the air. I was that way, once, but Toothpick has earned a solid place in my heart. You should go check out his site and buy a CD. Right now. Shoo, already!

Huge props and a couple semi-slams

My parents rock! I know this because over the last long weekend, they helped my wife and I cut nine cords of oak, split ten cords of the same, stack about three cords of it, clean the soon-to-be nursery, and take about 3,000 pounds of crap to the dump and salvage yard. Not bad for three day's work, eh? Now we've got room for another garden spot, maybe with patio, a laundry room, a wood room, and a kid. Thanks a ton-and-a-half, you two! On the down side, though, the chimney sweep was supposed to come put a new liner in our chimney yesterday, but he begged off because it was raining. What is he, the Wicked Witch of the West? Does he melt in the rain? Now, it's going to be another week before he can get here again. I told him we're getting right up to that time we're going to need to have a fire to heat the house. Also, our contractor friend that's going to repair the roof on our entryway said he won't be able to get to it until the middle or end of October. I guess that's OK, but I'd sure like to get rolling on both these projects.