Disappointing Baseball Game

Tonight I went to go see the Oakland A's at McAfee Stadium (smelly place) with some friends. I'm pretty disappointed. I don't know what the problem is, but we played bad the whole night. It seemed like every inning we got three outs in five minutes or less. What's going on here? These aren't the A's I remember. Granted I have been away at school and Ireland for the past five years, I just thought our team was better than this. I guess that's why the tickets cost $2 and the hot dogs were $1 each. Can't beat that. Even still, the stadium wasn't even half full (or half empty).

I'd probably be more disappointed if Baseball was my favorite sport. Football (or what the U.S. calls Soccer) on the other hand is my favorite sport to watch. I can get pretty involved with it, if we Americans ever played it or broadcast it on TV. I don't even know how to tune in for the EuroCup! I've gotta change that. I haven't gotten my "footie fix" for quite a while, and I'm feeling it. There's nothing quite like a good ol' game of football, but then again, every sport has it's perk.

Random thoughts about composing recently

Well, I just finished polishing a piece that I've been writing for some time. I finished it last night and spent today fixing all the crappy things I did. Now, it goes away for about a month. I'm currently working on polishing another piece I wrote almost two months ago. It's pretty exciting stuff.

Yesterday, I printed out an piece I've written for choir and orchestra. I decided to go to Kinko's to print it on tabloid paper. The thrill of seeing my piece printed out on huge paper is hard to express. There's just one slight hang up. I wanted to get the thing spiral bound with a covers on the front and back but Kinko's doesn't have any tabloid binding. I ended up just stapling it together – kinda killed the magic.

I've got a lot of projects that I'm working on that I wonder if I'm spreading myself too thin. I have lots of ideas I'm currently trying to flesh out – which has always been one of the hardest parts of composing for me. Sketching is usually one of the easiest. The best part about composing though, is finishing a piece, having people perform it, and then hearing people unconsciously hum it to themselves. Now that's a great feeling.

California High Speed Rail

Yesterday, I heard about the possibility to built a high speed rail system here in California. I had heard about it before, but I didn't know how much had been planned. I found this website and a YouTube video. I also found a great article in the Fresno Bee.

I must admit, this sounds so flippin' cool and would be a amazing novelty, but more importantly this is the future of our transportation. We just can't afford to continue doing what we're doing, we've got to think of other solutions. I've always been big on improving the public transportation of the United States. After being in Ireland for two years and seeing what there system is like impressed me. We need something better here in America, and this is a good step.

Inauguration

This is all a little weird for me...

I didn't think I would start a blog for a number of reasons. One of which was that I had already done this before six or seven years ago in High School. I was blogging before blog was even a word. But here I am, after all this time, at it again.

It leaves me with a lot of questions. How much do I make this a self-indulgence thing? How much do I reveal about myself. Besides the obvious answers, I guess it's a boundary I'll be learning about.

So a little bit about myself. I love music. I'm pursuing a degree in music, and it permeates just about every part of my life. Some might consider it the professional invading the personal, but I'm loving every minute of it. I really can't see myself doing anything else. People ask me what I specialize in, my reply is always, "Listen, I've finally just narrowed it down to music. I have no idea yet." It's kind of a lie. Technically my emphasis for my degree is in Sound Recording. I still have many interests though and have realized that what you do for work is not always closely related to what you majored in. I'm also a classical singer, and a free-lance composer. I'll post some of my music later on.

Why this title? I dunno. It sounded good. It was a sign I saw on the mirror in a Reno gas station bathroom. When I saw it, I knew I had to capture it on my phone's camera. When I was talking to a friend about starting a blog and what I should use for a title, she suggested the sign I saw in Reno. I guess it works. It's the kinda thing that gets my attention, and makes me laugh.

Well, I think this is a good start. More later. Cheers.