It was decided that I should be in Long Island at 7:30 am tomorrow morning. I’m not quite sure why. I don’t think I’d even be able to meet with anyone that early. In any case, I rented a car and I’m driving out there at 4:30 tomorrow morning (well, this morning).
Yawn. So I’ll be up for a little while. By a little while, I mean close to another twenty-four hours.
Major power outage today. They say the Niagara-Mohawk power grid is out. Luckilly a coworker was gracious enough to offer me a ride home. FBI is already saying that the blackout was not related to terrorism. If it were, they would have known about it ahead of time.
This is the worst month for commuters in the history of NJ Transit. Last night, an Amtrak Metroliner from New York to Washington—the train that immediately precedes my usual ride—took down some power lines, causing at least two-hour delays. Since at the time NJ Transit had no idea when the trains would be running again after this incident, Denise was nice enough to drive to Newark to pick me up.
Let’s take a quick recapitulation of NJ Transit’s recent woes:
I think that captures everything, at least on the Northeast Corridor line. NJ Transit is offering 15% refunds (as Stacey mentioned) for people who purchased a monthly pass, but I don’t think that really makes up for it.
On a completely unrelated note, if you scroll down to the bottom of the sidebar, you will see some statistics: the fifteen top comment-posters on this site. Movable Type didn’t make this feature easy, I had to work it out with a SQL query to the database. I also had to do some editing of comments to help the system recognize that “Darren” and “Darren R. Sussman” are the same person, whereas “Becca” and “Becca” are not always the same person. Take a look and see if you made the list!
My teaching certification finally came in the mail yesterday, after five months. Now the only remaining question is, Do I really want to teach in a public school?
I think I’d rather be the founder of a music school, or run a music-related organization. Maybe I’ll get a million dollars and start a drum and bugle corps.
I’ve been meaning to post this for… oh, about a year now. Thursday night is Karaoke night at a barestaurant between my office and the train station. Every thursday night, I walk past said establishment. Every Thursday night I hear horrible, scary noises coming from inside the place. It’s only 6:30pm. These people can’t be completely drunk already, but they certainly sound like it!
What is the fascination with karaoke? Even American Idol didn’t use any live musicians this year. Why must I listen to cheesy back-up singers?
Why do I keep changing my mind? Why can’t I seem to get passionate about anything anymore?
ADDENDUM: Why does the voice inside my head sound like Peter Griffin? Something is certainly amiss.
I’ve accepted an interview at a middle school in central Jersey, but I’m still up in the air about the elementary school. It’s unlikely I’d take that job. I don’t want to waste my time or their time by going to an interview where I’m pretty confident it wouldn’t work out. You could argue that it’s good practice, but if I can get that practice somewhere else, I would be better off.
After sending out more than eighty resumes to schools this past month, I got my first phone call today from a school wanting to schedule an interview… an elementary school in northern New Jersey. I’ll mull this over throughout the weekend.
There’s something slightly dissatisfying about being on hold, waiting for customer service to answer the phone, and being forced to listen to a song I put on a new compilation CD last weekend.
It’s 4:00 already. Time flies when you take an hour out of the day to go listen to a 1000-member band (made up of students from 18 high schools) play in front of a theater downtown. I saw a bunch of old coworkers and friends from my prior life, fraternized with a fellow Sinfonian from old, and talked to a few band directors I knew.
As soon as I heard the first note of music, I knew where it is I want to be, even though that note was particularly bad. The trumpets were way too loud, everyone was out of tune, and later on you couldn’t even hear the woodwinds with the melody who had been sequestered to the back behind the brass and in front of the percussion. And don’t even get me started on the “sound quality” (apparently this phrase is an oxymoron) of those fiberglass sousaphones.
In any case… onward and upward.