Month: November 2000

I invented pants.

I had a fantastic weekend in Scranton, Pennsylvania, despite the chilly weather. I’ll save you the worst parts of the weekend for now and give you the taste of the best part:

One of the priviledges of [DELETED is that you get a couple of minutes to share the spotlight while [DELETED] the great students who worked so hard all season. I worked it out so that I could [DELETED to my alma mater in their first [DELETED]. It turns out they had a pretty rough season, and they might not have liked their number the judges gave them at their final show at the season, but I knew that they knew that it was the best show they ever did this year. And I could see in the faces of the H—town High School drum majors that they knew that, and that’s all that mattered to them.

That is what this is all about, folks. Some of the students out there don’t get it yet, but they will someday.

Unfortunately I did hear that a band I used to teach in Delaware is going through a lot of problems. Some of these adolescents have drinking problems now and some of even the “best” students got caught up in some illegal activity. I hear that students there just don’t care, as a general attitude. One of their current instructors says they might not even be able to put a band together for next year. It’s a shame, and I wish there was something I could do to motivate these guys, because even though I’ve been away for a while, the program there still means a lot to me.

Anyway, now [DELETED] I might actually have more time for myself and for my friends. That’s what I’m hoping anyway. I’ll probably be writing less about band topics, as well, which might make some readers happy, I guess.

Wait — before I go…

Apparently it came out in the news that George W. Bush was arrested for drunk driving in 1976. Big deal, it was twenty-four years ago, right? Well that’s what I thought until I read this quote. When he was asked why he didn’t disclose the incident earlier, Bush said, “I didn’t want my girls to do the same thing. I’m not trying to get away with anything. I didn’t want to talk about this in front of my daughters. I didn’t want them drinking and driving. It was a decision I made.”

So he is saying that if he talked to his daugheters about the incident, and discussed with them why it was a stupid mistake, he would be afraid that they would make the same mistake? He was afraid his daughters would drink and drive if they found out their father made a bad judgment call? Maybe I’m missing the point here, but I don’t think so. I this this guy is just crazy.

I truly dislike politics.

Off to Moosic, Pennsylvania I go. Have a good weekend.

It’s almost over.

The end of the competition season is near and my life will soon be able to return to normal.

Well, except for next weekend when I am being shipped off to [DELETED] then the following weekend, off to Texas for [DELETED]. Then after that, maybe I will return to having a seblance of a normal life.

I stayed at my father’s apartment the other night — a tower apartment building in Jersey City. I arrived fairly late at night and I was surprised to see all the parking spots that were open right in front of the building. What a stroke of luck, I thought, for some reason with a British accent. I had thought — maybe from watching Seinfeld — that it would be impossible to get a good spot in front of an apartment building at night. I parallel parked, went inside, and slept.

When I woke up in the morning I realized why there were so many free spaces the night before. Apparently the area is a hot bed of activity in the morning, with so many cars double parked, triple parked, quadruple parked… it was just a mess. So I waited a half an hour (or so) to get unblocked.