Mick’s Miscellaneous Meanderings

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_4qwVLqt9Q

Got a letter from my alma mater (Mansfield University in PA) a couple weeks ago inviting me to a wind ensemble reunion concert. It would be a full day of rehearsal on Saturday, a rehearsal Sunday morning, and then a concert Sunday afternoon. I debated. I had been planning to attend ASP.NET Code Camp (geeky computer stuff) in Harrisburg on Saturday. Hmmm. But wait. Mansfield was bringing Mr. Stanley back to direct the band. Done deal. I was going to the wind ensemble reunion.

Seventeen years ago (eek!) I arrived at Mansfield as a freshman music major and tried out on saxophone for the wind ensemble. I made it…4th in the line up. That meant I played bari sax – 2 on alto, one on tenor, and me on bari. I had never played bari before. I got my own mouthpiece and reeds and used the school’s horn. I sat down in the first rehearsal for wind ensemble and couldn’t get a note out of the beast. I faked it through the entire rehearsal. Next rehearsal I got a few notes out. Three weeks into it I was playing most of the time but still not sounding great. That week my roommate was thrown out of rehearsal by Mr. Stanley for not being able to play her third clarinet part. I locked myself in the practice room that weekend and came to terms with the bari.

Mr. Stanley made it clear from the beginning what he expected – your absolute best playing, utmost attention, total preparation. Don’t even think of yawning during wind ensemble. You could get thrown out for that too. That meant you were bored and not giving your best. As a freshman struggling with playing a horn for the first time, it was all pretty intimidating. And yet, Mr. Stanley was one of the four reasons I decided to attend Mansfield. He was demanding and I liked that. While many directors are thrilled when the band gets the correct notes and rhythms, Mr. Stanley rarely even touched on those. You were expected to work out that basic stuff yourself. In his rehearsals we learned to blend and bring out the nuances and subtleties in the music. I was totally bummed when he retired at the end of my freshman year.

One of the reasons I chose to go to college at Mansfield – the location

Fortunately, the other 3 reasons I went to Mansfield remained. First was the location…in the middle of nowhere! I’ve never been a city person. I don’t like crowds or lots of commotion. Mansfield was perfect. There were only 3,000 students at Mansfield. And when school was in session, the town population doubled.

Mr. Stanley and Dr. Galloway

The other two reasons were Dr. Galloway, the trumpet and jazz band professor, and Dr. Murphy, the sax professor. I had gotten a taste of their teaching when I attended summer music camp at Mansfield. And they were a good fit with my style of learning. Little did I know what lay in store for the next four years. A lot of it came back to me this past weekend.

I arrived on Friday early evening, checked into the hotel and headed over to Wellsboro where I spent a lot of my time during and after college. I stopped in to see the family I lived with for some of my college days – Mimi and Derek and their 6 kids. Only two of the youngest are still at home. Ahhhh! When I was there, the oldest was 12 and the youngest was 3. Now the oldest is in graduate school and the youngest is in 10th grade and barely remembers me. I spent the evening chatting with Mimi and Derek. Derek tried hard to make me a risk management specialist in the local county government. Had he offered 2 years ago I probably would have jumped at the chance to move back up there.

Back to the hotel Friday night and up Saturday morning to play…bari…in a band that…Mr. Stanley…would be conducting. Oh my. Deja vu. I had no idea what shape the school bari was in. I’m not one who can just blow past leaks in a horn like some people. I need it to be in good condition to sound decent. But then again, I haven’t played hardly at all in the past year so what difference would it make. I just prayed I didn’t get thrown out of rehearsal.

Mr. Stanley took it easy on us. He understood that many of us don’t play on a daily basis any more. He even had some pretty good lines:

“Musical maturity makes up for a lot of physical deficiencies.” Yeah, I was understanding that one pretty well. Took me half the morning to get my embouchure back. It was like riding a bike though. By concert time I was doing wheelies.

Dave and Sharon

There were only 3 of us there that were at Mansfield in the 90′s. Dave (another sax major) and I graduated in ’95 and Sharon (flute major who married Dave) graduated in ’97. Dave and I reminisced about some of the great times we had as a part of the sax studio:

Going on a sax quartet tour using Dr. Murphy’s car and driving down a highway the wrong way (not sure we ever told Dr. Murphy about that!) and then finding out why we were having problems seeing once it got dark – the headlights barely shined through all the dirt and salt caked over them.

The jazz band tour where we were snowed in on the first day of the tour. And that’s all I’m saying about that!

The jazz band performance during Halloween at the coffee house on campus. Classic. Dr. Galloway showed up in this Fruit of the Loom style costume – he was a bunch of grapes. He used purple balloons for the grapes, wore green tights, and had a big ol’ green leaf draped over his head. It’s not easy playing saxophone while you’re trying not to laugh. I still can’t look at him 15 years later without at least cracking a smile.

So we rehearsed all Saturday and then went to an alumni dinner. Chatted with the people at our table about some of the more memorable professors. Mr. Rusk with orchestration and piano classes, the Wunderlichs {shudder}, Mr. Hill in eurythmics class (scarey, scarey class!), Hector (the violin teacher. I don’t even remember his real name. We just called him Hector), Mr. Owens, and darned if any of us could remember what the heck the music therapy prof’s name was.

Sunday morning I got up early and went for a run on one of my old favorite routes. It was here at Mansfield that I started running…an effort to take off the freshman 15lbs. I just ran a marathon a few weeks ago but running in Mansfield took me back to when I was thrilled that I had made it 5 times around the recreation center basketball court without stopping, then running outside for the first time and making it 10 minutes. Then the 2 mile routes. And the 3 miles routes. I was elated the first time I actually ran 5 miles without walking. I still have the 2 tapes I played in my Walkman to keep me pumped up – Mr. Marks’ trumpet and vocal tape he made with his wife and Glad’s Symphony Project. And the hills….I was in heaven. I loved running the back dirt roads, over the hills around Mansfield. They don’t make hills like that down here in Annville and Grantville.

Then on to a short rehearsal and the concert in the afternoon. It was great playing in a good sounding band again. While you’re in college, you don’t realize how spoiled you are getting to play with good players. Or that once you leave the confines of college where you have to audition to get into the groups, playing with good groups may be few and far between. I didn’t realize I missed that. I’d pretty much given up playing in the community bands lately because it gets frustrating going over the same mistakes every week for the same players. It was so nice playing in a group where the right notes and rhythms are taken for granted and the focus is on making music….even if just briefly.

Drove back home thinking of the weekend, of college days, where I’m at now, and wondering where I’m going. I’ve got my 5 year plan but who knows how it will really turn out. Hopefully, it’ll continue to unfold right here on this blog.

NOTE: See edits at the end of this text. Ebay will not allow me to add to the description

1992 Fleetwood Prowler travel trailer – 19 footer. I’m the second owner and it’s been well taken care of by me and the former owner. It passed PA state inspection last month and registration is up-to-date. There are 2 – 30lb propane tanks on the back that are about 4 years old. Battery was replaced last month. Everything works – water pump, oven, stove, lights, shower, toilet, etc. There are no problems that I know of other than the tires. I replaced 1 of the tires at inspection and the other 3 will probably need to be replaced in the near future. Includes a bunch of extras including the stabilizers, hoses, hookups, outdoor shower, etc.

7-day money back guarantee (less Ebay, Paypal, and shipping/pickup costs) if you’re not completely satisfied.

Located in central PA – 20 miles east of Harrisburg. Call 717-867-0473 and leave message to schedule an appointment to view. Or let me know if there’s something specific you want a picture of and I’ll post it. Contact info.

BID OR BUY ON EBAY.

Edits – Forgot to mention:

1.When I bought it 4 years ago, the awning had a hole in one of the corners. I opened it up once to look at it. Seemed ok other than that. Haven’t had it open since.

2. On two of the windows, there is a problem. They crank open fine but don’t crank closed. You have to go outside and push them closed. I think it’s just the knobs that need replaced. Forgot about that!

I think that’s it. If I remember anything else, I’ll post.

Also, someone asked about the gross/dry weight and the tank capacities. I think 5100 may be the gross weight instead of the dry weight. I’ll find out for sure and post. The water heater is 6 gallons. The tanks…I need to find out from Fleetwood. I’ll post when I get the info.

Gross weight: 5100 lbs
Dry weight: 3390 lbs
Fresh water tank: 40 gallons
Black water tank: 40 gallons
Grey water tank: 26 gallons
Hot water heater: 6 gallons
Hitch: 360

When I applied for the web dev job at PCAR, I listed my blog site on the cover letter of my resume so that whoever was doing the interviewing could get an idea of who I was. In my blog was this posting. So Harold, my boss, had fair warning in what he was getting into by hiring me. He hired me anyway. And below is the result. Together with Andrea, another member of the IT team at PCAR, we did a little “decorating” for his birthday. H.A.R.D. would be so proud.

Ken and “Force”

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. Had a wonderful time eating spaghetti and watching the Olympic men’s marathon on TV with the HARD Runners group at Gail (“Force”) and Ken’s house this evening. It was a wonderful evening rooting for Ryan Hall (our favorite male runner) but sad because it was also a send-off party for Gail and Ken. They will be moving away from the HARD family this week. Ken works for Lowe’s and has taken a position at the corporate office in North Carolina. We will miss them terribly but are happy for them as they start the next chapter in their lives where Ken will be doing less traveling and they can be together more. We wish you all the best!!! Keep in touch and don’t be surprised when I show up on your doorstep when I hike the Appalachian Trail!!!!!!!

Now where did I put that Home Depot flyer….?

Popcorn WILL catch fire if you leave it in the microwave too long.

Had a fantastic day today in Lancaster, PA making my way through a corn maze with some friends. It was Carol’s birthdayfest and this was one leg of the celebration that kicked off last evening at Color-Me-Mine and will end with kayaking on the Susquehanna River on Sunday.

I had been to a corn maze in Reading last year and was expecting this to be the same – get a card with the maze printed on it and find your way through it to different points where you get your map punched to show you’d reached each station. This one had a twist to it. You had to find your way through the 5-acre maze to get a little 1/15 piece of the map to stick on your paper. The more pieces of the map you could find, the easier it was to navigate to the other pieces.

Since there were six of us in the group, we split up into 2 groups – the speedsters (Carol, Neal, and me) and the saunterers (Dayna, Sally, and Dayna’s daughter). The three of us headed out and started wandering around….taking all left turns. Having no idea where we were going, we devised a system. We’d get to a place with multiple intersections and then go on a reconnaissance mission. One of us would stay put as the anchor and then the other two would venture out as far as we dared go without getting lost. If we found one of the mailboxes where the map pieces were hidden, we’d make a ruckus and the other two would find their way over. If not, we’d meet back at the anchor point. We were pretty proud of our system and the speed that we were making our way through the maze. We had 6 or 7 pieces when we bumped into the other group. They were sauntering around aimlessly and they had collected 9 pieces!!!!!!!! Ahhhh! :-\

The three of us regrouped with renewed purpose. We put Neal in charge of the map and deciding where he thought the pieces would be. I swear he could sniff them out because he took us right to several of them. Along the way we also took time to play on the various obstacles. A short zipline, a bike hooked up to spray water when you peddled it, a tightrope walk, a winding slide, etc.

We collected all our pieces and made our way out of the maze in an hour and 40 minutes. About 45 minutes later, the other group surrendered and requested a search and rescue from the maze staff. We headed back to the cars tired and hungry, comparing maze stories. We chowed down at Applebee’s with some lively discussions.

It was a great day with great company and great weather.

More on this someday. Maybe.

I’ve just been through what was one of the most frustrating experiences of my life – a two-week long quest to get a backup of some files on my hosting account from a web server that suddenly no longer existed. (Don’t even get me started.) Fortunately I had a current backup of all of my sites. Unfortunately, there were a couple other sites on my account that I was just hosting and didn’t develop. There were some files that they needed. I requested a backup of the files from the server. They do daily backups after all…all hosting companies do. Three days later I had a lovely 166 Meg backup file that was completely corrupted. I could only extract 3 files from it…none of which I needed. I argued with the web host that the file was corrupt. They finally agreed after 4 days that the file was indeed corrupt and promised to get me another backup. After repeatedly getting conflicting information and multiple promises (6 at last count) that a request would be submitted for a second backup but never was, I was told yesterday that a backup could no longer be retrieved. That they only keep 3 days worth of backups on hand and then they’re overwritten. Yeah, sure. I’ve thrown my hands up in disgust, filed complaints with the Federal Trade Commission and the online Better Business Bureau, and sent the corrupted backup to a data recovery specialist to see what he could extract.

I’ve moved all the sites that I had on the 1and1.com account over to my private server at HostMySite.com…which is located in Delaware….close enough to actually wring some necks should anything like this go wrong with them. Not likely though…they are an outstanding company.

I’ll be adding the pictures back to this site as I have time. (read: over the next few months or so)

Moral of the story…backup, backup, backup, then backup another 10 times.

I mentioned in a previous post how I’m renovating my house bopping to my favorite groups. One of the groups is GLAD. I was turned on to them in high school (17 years ago – Eek!) by a friend who gave me one of their cassettes as a thank you gift for allowing him to use my car for his driving test. I didn’t understand all they sang about back then. I just really dug their vocal harmonies. I’ve since become one of their biggest fans. I own every one of their albums, including the ones that are now out of print. I attended several of their concerts every year until the group went part time a couple years ago. I still occasionally catch a concert if it’s in the state. I did their website for them. The one thing I’ve always wished for was to be able to sit in on a recording or practice session and see how they get all those parts together. There’s only 4 or 5 guys singing but many of the songs have 8 or more parts. I’ll never get to see that because I don’t think they’ll be doing any more albums but I did get to see this video on YouTube where they’re singing one of my “most favoritist” song – “You Put This Love in My Heart” – which shows them in the recording studio and on the road. Check out sound samples of there clips here – www.glad-pro.com – they’re the tightest group you’ll ever hear.