Christmas break

I'm officially on Christmas break! Coming back from Midwest and having to teach 2 more days wasn't all that fun, but at least its over. I look forward to sitting around with holly, pumpkin, and grady, and doing as little as possible. Maybe start a fire, maybe fix some food, but mainly just relax and enjoy my week and a half away from students. When I get back from the break, I have to hit the ground running with BIP. I only have 30 hours of scheduled rehearsal time until our contest. That's not a lot of time. Well have a merry Christmas and a happy new year.

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Friday

I had my last ful day today. We started at the artists cafe, then I went to several clinics. After those I did a little shopping at macys and bought a new suit. It's pretty awesome, an early Christmas gift from Holly. Then we went to Lawry's, and sadly, it wasn't as good as I remembered. The singers were cool, but the prime rib wasn't very prime :( well I come home tomorrow! 2 more concerts, one more artists cafe, and another flight, then we get home and its time for a Carroll county community orchestra concert. Hopefully I will be home in about 22 hours! Just so you know, I took a video of the people singing at lawry's so you could see them in their period costumes, but it isn't letting me put the video on here for some reason.
It's Saturday morning now, I have to pack, then we will hit artists one last time, then the center grove percussion ensemble (im really excited about that one) then we'll head home.
If you've been reading these, I hope you don't feel like they made you dumber, and maybe you enjoyed some of the pictures.
Well... goodbye.

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Thursday night.

The CSO Brass was amazing! Passacaglia and Fugue in c minor was spectacular, Linconshire Posy was ridiculous, Crown Imperial was imperial. Totally worth the money! Makes me proud to be a brass player.
For the palen dinner, we ate at Tavern in the Park. It was delicious. When we were walking back, if was snowing, though I'm not sure if you can tell in the picture. Tomorrow will be a light day, I'll probably listen so some music and cruise the exhibits.

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Thursday night.

The CSO Brass was amazing! Passacaglia and Fugue in c minor was spectacular, Linconshire Posy was ridiculous, Crown Imperial was imperial. Totally worth the money! Makes me proud to be a brass player.
For the palen dinner, we ate at Tavern in the Park. It was delicious. When we were walking back, if was snowing, and the city looked really pretty. Tomorrow will be a light day, I'll probably listen so some music and cruise the exhibits.

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union high school percussion ensemble.

This morning I had the pleasure of watching the union high school percussion ensemble. (after another delightful breakfast at the artists cafe, of course) They were great! They played an awesome tune my Jim Casella called "Cyclone". It was awesome. The group was filled with all-state caliber percussionists, and they played great! They also played Matt Savage's "into the village" with savage standing in on djembe. Then they played a lot of good tunes, including an awesome Indian tune (as in the country of India) where a student rocked out the tablas. It was great. Now I'm waiting for a clinic to start about teaching kids to compose, then the CSO Brass! Then the palen dinner. It's a big day. Later...

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Wednesday wrap-up

So I had chocolate chip pancakes at the artists cafe, they were great. Then we got to Thursday convention center late, so we snuck into the first performance without out name badges because we hadn't gone through registration yet. The group was awesome. It was some various chamber groups from the presidents own marine band. The clarinet choir was nuts. Then I ran to the first percussion clinic of the convention, and the little girl at the door wouldn't let me in without my nametag, so I had to go wait in the crazy long line, and I ended up missing the first 10 minutes, but the remainder of it was really good. Then I wandered around the exhibits for a few hours. I thanked the guys at Row-Loff and had my picture taken with them, (they're the elves), then I met the drumming legend Matt Savage and talked with him about his new percussion piece Into the Village, and talked to him about how I got to share a cd with him because I was on this year's Row-Loff cd too. He was a really cool guy. He is the one in the white shirt with me in the Pro-Mark booth. Then Hodge and I talked with Michael Markowski for quite a while at the Manhattan beach music booth. Sorry, no picture for that. Then we saw the presidents own marine band. They were awesome. They played the world premiere of "Passages" by Scott Lindroth. That was really cool, but the best piece was their transcription of Stravinsky's Firebird. It was spectacular. I tried to get a picture of them, but its pretty lousy. Sorry.
After all the music, me, Hodge, Stevens, billy, and jenna went to gino's east for some pizza, that's where the picture of all the words on the wall was taken. Then unfortunately, my phone started to die, so my flash wouldn't work, and the picture of the pizza came out kind of bad. After gino's, we were walking back to the hotel and some guy walked up to us and basically forced a shoe shine on billy, and stevens, and then swindled billy out of $30. It was crazy. I'm going to be sure to give Billy a really hard time tomorrow. Wow, I just looked at the clock, and its midnight, I've got to go. Later...

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Wednesday morning

Midwest will get into full swing today! I can't wait to check out the exhibits, and thank the guys at the Row-Loff booth for publishing my piece. There are also several clinics and concerts that look good today, I hope they don't turn out to be busts, because even at this great convention, some of the presenters are still... less than I would hope for.
First stop today will be the Artist's Cafe. That is where we try to eat breakfast every morning. It is one of the coolest things about our trip to Chicago. (its kind of like Luke's, Holly) we get to go and see the same waiters, waitresses, and the owner every morning, and when we go back for the 2nd or 3rd trip, they sometimes remember us. It just starts to make Chicago feel like more of a homey place instead of just an unfamiliar place we go once a year. I will try to get some picture for you in my next post. Later...

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Tuesday afternoon

Well we got to the palmer house quicker than it seems like we ever have before and it is just as awesome on the inside as I remember. We checked in and used the facilities, and then headed to bennigans for the fluffiest fish and chips ever. Hodge got the legendary Monte cristo sandwich.
We were going to come back to the hotel to drop stuff off and head to macys for some Christmas shopping, but Hodge and Stevens both got sleepy and needed a nap. I've just been laying on the bed playing ragdoll blaster and listening to music on my ipod. Hopefully soon, we will be able to head out. Nothing good really happens with the clinic until tomorrow, so I can't wait for tomorrow so we can go to some clinics and concerts.
It is just as cold here as I suspected, and its not going to get any warmer than this the whole time we're here.

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on da train

Well we made it into ohare alright. Now we're on the blue line into downtown. This is quite the experience. The first time I rode this train, I met a wino with really nice shoes! But we always manage to forget which stop we get off at. Luckily Stevens is responsible and organized and has a handy dandy notebook where he has all of out info from the last few years of Midwest. There is snow on the ground here in Chicago, that's exciting. I can't wait for my fish and chips at bennigan's! Later...

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headin' to Midwest.

We're heading out at 9:04, Monday night.!! So exciting to be heading to Chicago again! Now we're headin' back! Hodge forgot his cell phone charger. Now we're heading out again. It's now 9:10 and we're on the road again.

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back home

Well I'm back home and I go back to school tomorrow. The vacation was great, I didn't think about work for 3 days! Now I will go back to thinking about it 24/7. Im going to have one last relaxing activity before I head to school though, me and holly are going to go watch harry potter! I hope its good.

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thanksgiving

So I'm down in Florida visiting parker and jodie for thanksgiving. We drove through the night and got in about 7 and slept until 11. Now we're seeing the sights. Gotta go.

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