Saturday, 27th of October, 2001
Ah, I went to bed early and started my Saturday early for a change. I worked a little, and went to the Music School where Anne Akiko Meyers was having a master class. That was nice and interesting.
Woah. Gotta love highways in the heart of the city like the Fort Worth Mixmaster
I went with Andrea to the Symphony tonight, and they played Mozart's Symphony No. 40, and Meyers played the Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1. Wow, I love Bruch so much! They finished off the program with some Strauss.
Friday, 26th of October, 2001
Ok, so I finally have some time to fool with more features on my calculator. This thing is the nerdiest thing in the world, it's so awesome! Everything is so raw, like the way it has ROM pointers, stack levels, and gotta love the built-in serial port for XMODEM transfers.
Thursday, 25th of October, 2001
Typical Thursday activities, including late night IHOP. Joe had his car, coolness.
Wednesday, 24th of October, 2001
Ever since the last tyre rotation I had, my front right tyre has been leaking a lot worse (it used to just leak a little, and now it's leaks pretty badly and I can actually notice it cause the steering gets off centre). Well, I found out why. It's the tyre that had a hole plugged a long time ago, but the hole is close to the right side of the tyre, so ever time I make a turn, the plug gets jerked and it leaks. So it's useless to plug a plug, I think, and fortunately my mechanic had this used 13" Michelin tyre sitting around. Nice! I got a tyre that sells for $125 new for only $25 including labour. So now I've got a nice tyre... on one side. But it's actually quite a significant improvement, and I even got the rainstorm today to test it.
Oh yes, we had a rainstorm all right. When I pulled out of the auto repair shop, the sky was about 3 different colours. I dropped by my parents' house for a little bit, and then it started dropping golf-ball-sized hail. Within 20 minutes, the temperature dropped 21 degrees. And that's official. After the hail subsided, I knew there was some nice weather to drive in, so I hopped in my car. Doh! The whole car is totally fogged up! I had to sit and wait like 4 minutes to even get to see anything, the condensation was so thick. As I was driving, leaves and branches were everywhere! With 36-mph winds, you bet. I got out to Olive, and it was totally flooded! The melting hail and the pouring rain is just too much for the drainage system. Flood driving is great! And I noticed the wind gusts to at the wheel, wow, even with a low profile wagon. Another unique experience was sitting at a traffic light at neutral, foot off the brake because of the flat surface I was sitting on. I was fine, and then a gust of wind came and I found myself rolling forward! Amazing. I'm really liking this extreme weather.
Woah, I discovered a little piece of history about Wash U and Hanson's 2nd Symphony. The last time they played it was at the All-State convention in 1995, and their program went 4 minutes over their strict 30-minute time limit. So they were banned from playing at the convention until 2001.
Tuesday, 23rd of October, 2001
More Veggie-Tales! I watched Madame Blueberry and the Veggie-Tales Sing-a-long tape at Hannah's house tonight. Madame Blueberry is great! It's definitely one of the best.
Monday, 22nd of October, 2001
There was a huge stroll tonight for the American Diatetics Association at the Adam's Mark. An ensemble played for the cocktail hour, and we played a show during dinner, though it was cut short. I don't think we've played for such a large venue before, I think number-wise, this even beats the Exploradome last year. But the Exploradome was definitely the coolest stroll ever. But this one was no small party, with two big video screens, special lighting and sound. Definitely our first stroll with live video feed!
Sunday, 21st of October, 2001
Hannah had her official big birthday party this afternoon, and the theme was Veggie-Tales. We got to watch a couple Veggie-Tales and a Silly Songs tape, and it was lots of fun.