We've been busy!

We had a great trip to California -- a big thanks to everyone who made out trip fun, tasty, memorable, and possible.

We were able to get some good (quick) visits in with both grandparents and the extended families. For some of the cousins, it was the first time in 10 years we had seen each other! Too long, if you ask me.

We felt like we took a lot of photos, but apparently not so much... but here are the shots from our camera:


Thankfully, others took pictures as well.
Photos courtesy of our "family photographer":
Thanksgiving at the Goldstein's

We had a blast.

(I'm hoping Jill is going to post more on her blog about all the fun things we did. If she doesn't, I'll come back here and fill in.)

We flew back on Saturday, had a quick detour at a nearby Wal-Mart when our poor, tired battery -- on its very last legs -- had enough juice to turn over (after several attempts to crank and multiple bad clicking noises) and get us to the store. Thankfully, the Auto Center was still open, and we were able to get the battery tested (yes, it was bad) and a new one installed.

Got back in time to review some things for Jill's Sunday School lesson, then went to bed. Jill taught a great lesson in gospel doctrine, and we had another great lesson from the Bangerters in a combined priesthood/relief society meeting.

Monday came and it was back to the grind. It was a pretty quiet day at work -- except for all of the technical support I provided pretty much everyone in the office (ok, so maybe 2 or 3 people; but it felt like everyone).

And now it's Tuesday. With today being the first day of December and all, we decided to get out some of our Christmas decorations that we have with us. (Most of our decorations are sitting in the Walker basement back in Rexburg...).
(I forgot to get a picture of the yummy cinnamon smelling pine cones that Jill got for me.)

Now I sit here writing this all up while I back-up some of our photos to my SkyDrive and listen to the Vince Guaraldi Trio rendition of O Tannenbaum, streaming on my laptop from AccuHolidays: Holiday Jazz channel. Ah, technology. Wonderful.

Looking Back (or, in other words, a peek into how my mind words - sometimes)

Warning: Long Post. But, IMHO, worth the read.

I was reading a friend's second blog this morning and saw a post about the book, The Scarlet Pimpernel. The post noted that this was also a play.

But not just any play -- a thrilling musical, if I might say so.

Not long after I started my freshman year at UC Irvine, I had the opportunity of seeing the play performed live at UC Riverside (if I remember correctly). All because of high school.

Why high school, you ask?

During high school, I had the awesome "job" of being the accompanist for a small (20 member?) audition-only, all-girls show choir. I believe it counted as a music/fine arts credit. In any event, it was after school, and the group did some fun numbers. For half of the year, they were "Show Choir" -- performing songs like "Build Me Up, Buttercup," "Hey, Big Spender," "Lollipop," and more. For the rest of the year, they were "Bella Voce," performing songs like "Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day" (John Gardner), "Rain on Rahoon," "Adoramus Te," (Palestrina), and this hauntingly beautiful song -- the name of which, I cannot, for the life of me, remember -- that was in several parts. I believe it had to do with Mary, Queen of Scots. And it was made up of three or four parts. Ugh. I can see the sheet music in my mind, but cannot make out the name of the piece. There was one part that had this incredible double soprano portion (this put the hauntingly in the beautiful piece). I can still hear the two sopranos who normally sang it in my "mind's ear" -- I'm pretty sure it was Erin B. (now V.) and Cathy G. The lyrics are taken from a poem by Lionel Johnson called "Cadgwith":

My windows open to the autumn night,
In vain I watched for sleep to visit me :
How should sleep dull mine ears, and dim my sight,
Who saw the stars, and listened to the sea ?
Ah, how the City of our God is fair !
If, without sea, and starless though it be,
For joy of the majestic beauty there,
Men shall not miss the stars, nor mourn the sea.

Anyway, I'm kind of rambling now.

[[UPDATE: After holding onto this post for a few days, I finally figured this out, with the help of friends. The song I was thinking about is called "The Three Meditations."]]

Besides learning how to accompany a choir, I developed other useful skills such as how to set up mics to record, how to use a huge mixing board (and the portable one we had), how to perform with a group, and how to avoid blushing when being mercilessly teased by a gaggle of high school girls (ok, so I never actually figured this part out -- and I think I mostly enjoyed the teasing).

Over those few years, I also developed a real friendship with the choir director, "Chaz". He taught me a lot about music, about being a musician, how to produce a concert, and about life, in general. We'd have our favorite burritos on the day of the show and talk about all sorts of things. His wife, "S", was great, also. She taught music as well. I visited their home out on the coast several times. If I remember right, they had two dogs at the time, and I think one was named Rachmaninoff =) They had their first child before I left the area -- and I remember being afraid to hold her. (This fear of breaking small babies has largely continued to the present).

I'm sure he didn't know it at the time, but his friendship really meant a lot to me, especially during those weird years we call high school. And our friendship continued beyond that. He convinced me that I could learn how to sing. Ok, more like tricked me: he had me come out one summer to help with a choir camp he was involved with out on the CA coast. I was to play the piano and otherwise help out; kind of like a counselor, but I wasn't quite granted that "rank" (since I think the counselors were largely in college). Anyway, turns out that that they did need my help playing the piano, but they didn't need me all the time. I ended up joining in and learning to sing. This came in handy later, when I was accompanying the choir at UC Irvine and our director (Professor Huszti) decided that the accompanist would sing with the choir when not playing.

Beyond high school and summer camp, "Chaz" and "S" continued to include me in different things. When I'd return to the town of my high school I'd often try to drop in on a Show Choir rehearsal, or grab a burrito and meet up with "Chaz" for lunch.

The year I was at UC Irvine, for "Chaz's" birthday, he and "S" came down to Riverside with some other friends to see UC Riverside perform The Scarlet Pimpernel. And they invited me to go along.

I was very excited, and nervous about getting there on time. We were to meet for dinner beforehand, then go to the play. I drove out to Riverside, found the restaurant, and realized I was probably 30-40 minutes early. It didn't take me quite as long as I anticipated.... (Jill will tell you I still overestimate our travel time, and try to arrive plenty early, whenever possible). In any case, I was trying to decide what to do. I sat out in the car outside the restaurant for a while, then eventually went in when it was a little closer to when we were supposed to be there.

I entered the restaurant alone and explained that I was meeting some friends (and hoped they were there early, too). They hadn't arrived yet, so they suggested I grab a seat at the bar. I sat down at the bar and ordered some ice water. I was a little apprehensive because they didn't ask to see my license. Mind you, at this time during my freshman year, I hadn't even turned 18 yet. Apparently, I looked older than I actually was, because no one questioned me sitting there. (Or, it wasn't busy enough for them to care yet). In any case, the attractive girl behind the bar kept talking to me and offering to get me something else to drink, because surely I didn't want just water. I told her I was waiting for friends. She told me she'd mix me something. Eventually, we settled on her showing me how to cut lemons and limes in such a way that they have a natural cut/split in the middle (instead of requiring an additional cut with the knife) so they can sit on the edge of the glass. We chatted a little while longer, and eventually my friends arrived.

It was a pretty fancy Italian restaurant. I'm pretty sure it was here that I had bruschetta for the first time in a restaurant.

We went over to the theater and finished the rest of our enjoyable evening by watching a musical production of The Scarlet Pimpernel. I remember it being awesome. Costumes, cast, acting, orchestra, music, ... everything was great.

I came away from the show with several favorite songs.

• Act 1: Madame Guillotine
• Act 1: Into the Fire
• Act 2: They Seek Him Here

Back to the first part about reading a friend's post. The song that always comes to mind when I think of this play is "Madame Guillotine." Jill thinks I'm weird. I love to sing parts of it. I think the rhythm is catchy, the words are excellent descriptions of the subject, and -- it's just awesome.

"Broadway's Most Intriguing Musical" - see if there's a show near you.
And check out some clips from the music.

ASIDE: Apparently, someone else is a huge fan. Check out the site.

Anyway.

I've tried to find a video recording of Madame Guillotine to show Jill -- to try to convince her just how amazingly awesome the song is. I haven't been able to find anything on YouTube. That is, until recently.

Either my YouTube searching skills have improved, or everyone and their brother uploaded some Madame Guillotine videos since I last attempted to find a video with decent audio.

I couldn't decide which video to post--so I'm going to link to a few videos. Some are high school groups; others look like college productions. In any event, clicking through some of these will give you a feel for just how cool "Madame Guillotine" is. IMHO.

• From a regional production, Somewhere, CA
• From a 2009 production, Unknown
• From Coral Springs Charter School, Coral Springs, FL(likely)
• From a 2008 PTC production, Unknown
• Century High School, Aloha, OR: Part 1
  Century High School, Aloha, OR: Part 2
• High School Jazz Choir, Unknown

I included the two-parter Century High School one in part because I used to ride my bike around there daily for several months when I was a missionary in the Oregon Portland Mission.

To close:
- Despite the craziness that was much a part of my high school years, I have some great memories.
- A big "thank you!" to "Chaz" and "S" for the music and The Scarlet Pimpernel (and burritos!)
- I still travel for shows
- Slice! Dice! Come Paradise! I still love "Madame Guillotine"
- I need to find my Bella Voce CD and see if (1) Mary, Queen of Scots, on her execution, (2) The City of Our God, or (3) Most Glorious Lord of Life, are on it.

Some writing prompts for your comments:
- Do you have a favorite video of "Madame Guillotine"?
- Do you have a favorite song from a musical?
- Have you ever [seen / read / heard of] The Scarlet Pimpernel?
- Have you seen a good musical lately?
- Who influenced your [musical / theater / art] taste?

Birthday Blog

We spent a day (10 October 2009) in New York City for my birthday.

Summary
* Bus ride there
* Museum
* Times Square
* Dinner
* Show (includes a link to my exclusive write-up)
* Bus ride home
* Photos
* Music Bonus
For those of you who might not read the whole thing, I'd say the Museum, Show notes, and Photos are the highlights, the meat-and-potatoes, if you will. Everything else is a vegetable side, parsley garnish, or dessert. I guess you can decide what's what for you...

oh-dark-thirty
We arrived at 6:30 am to catch the 7:30 am Greyhound bus to New York City / Port Authority. The lady taking tickets wasn't very nice in the morning; she ended up also being the bus driver. At first, I thought it was just us. But several people who got on the bus after us commented on how grumpy they thought she was.

11:30 am
Arrived in New York! We immediately walked down to Pier 86 and grabbed a hot dog from a street vendor. It was ok; we probably should have scouted around for some different hot dog options, but it hit the spot. (Especially because I forgot to eat breakfast).

12:00 pm
Picked up our passes and went to the USS Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum. We toured the USS Growler -- a cruise missile submarine that is now a floating museum. We squeezed through its narrow passageways and looked into the officer wardrooms, the mess, the bathing areas, the sonar rooms, the navigational and missile control rooms, and the torpedo rooms. It was fun to wander through; I wish they would have had more guides along the way to explain. Thankfully, I remembered some of the stuff I heard when I went on the USS Blueback tour at OMSI in Portland, OR. There were some tight spots on the tour to navigate - especially wearing the backpack we brought with our stuff. I really can't imagine living on this with dozens of other people; I bet they ran into each other all the time.

Next, we went onto the USS Intrepid herself. We wandered the flight deck and looked at the different airplanes they had there. There were US planes (F-4N, Huey, Cobra, and the A-12, among others. Check out the museum's virtual Air tour page here.)

As I've posted before, I love the Blackbird and think it is still one of the most incredible airplanes ever. For new airplanes, it's probably the Raptor, which I wrote about briefly here from our visit to the air show.

We climbed up the "island" (the command and control tower), saw the map rooms, radar stuff, and met some veterans who actually served on the Intrepid during World War II. One gentleman was an airplane mechanic. He told us how the average age aboard ship was 19 years old, and that he was 17 when he got on the ship. They didn't have "tours" back then -- you were on the ship until the war was over. He talked about the friends he made, and how he tries to keep in touch with those who are still living. Jill asked a question and he referred to her later as "the young lady" =)

We went to the side of the ship where we saw some big guns. Then inside the ship to the hangar where there were more airplanes, a demonstration of the "meatball" used for landing on the carrier, old instruction manuals, photos, a climbing net, and -- of course -- a flight simulator. We did this one -- although we both agreed we liked the one at the Smithsonian museum better. I almost forgot, they had a replica of one of the capsules from the US space program. It looked really tiny... I can't believe they fit two people in it and then dropped them back from space into the ocean inside it. The USS Intrepid fished one or two of these capsules out of the ocean.

Then, we did a quick walk through a Concorde jet that the museum had on the pier. It pretty much looked like a normal plane inside (although the cockpit seemed much larger than that of other passenger planes), but it was the outside that was neat. Another beautiful plane; sadly not in service any longer.

We wandered through the museum's gift shop on the way out, and saw the usual assortment of model airplanes, ships, military hats, space ice cream, and the like. They also had dog tags you could customize for purchase and some fancy collectibles.

3:30 pm
I think it was around 3:30 or 4 pm when we started the walk back towards Times Square. We wanted a snack, so we bought some bagels and shmear right across the street from the museum at a place called H & H Bagels. We knew it sounded familiar as we were walking over to it, and then realized when we came home (and looked it up) that H&H had been featured in You've Got Mail, Seinfeld, and How I Met Your Mother. We walked the bagels up to Times Square and ate them at a little red table while watching a production crew film a Bollywood movie. My bagel was very light and yummy.

4:00 pm
We went into the huge Toys'R'Us store in Times Square. It had a ferris wheel inside! We saw huge Lego sculptures (Empire State Building, Yankees hat, knights, hot dog vendors), T-Rex in the Jurassic Park section, a big Transformer, and tons and tons of toys. Pretty much all the toys you could imagine. The little kids were very excited. Oh, wait - so was I. Lego has some cool new lines =)

Then we went to the M&Ms World. We thought about getting Lindz something with the sassy green M&M on it, like this

or this

We ended up getting just a few dark chocolate peanut M&Ms from the huge wall of chocolate.


4:30 pm
We decided to start wandering closer to our eventual destination, which was over on The Avenue of the Americas. They had the whole street blocked off for a street fair. Vendors were selling hats, shirts, jewelry, bags, food, and other random things. We walked up and down several blocks of this, and I began to notice that some of the stalls appeared to be "franchised" -- for lack of a better word: same signage, same prices, same wares/food, etc. So, basically, we didn't need to walk up and down all the blocks, haha. There were a few "unique" stalls scattered around, although for the life of me the only one I remember was this reggae stall pumping out tunes...

We grabbed a kebab from a Greek Gyro stall manned by hombres hablando espanol. Thought about getting a smoothie or trying some chicken-on-a-stick, but decided that we just wanted to sit down for a bit.

5:00 pm (ish)
So we went to the most "New York" sit-down restaurant we could think of: Applebee's at 50th/Broadway. I know, I know, we should have tried to find something else. But at this point we were pretty tired and hungry, were looking for sit-down places, and remembered that we walked past this about a block away. The decor was very New York, haha, with Broadway and movie posters and decor.

Thanks to Mayor Bloomberg, chain restaurants (from fast food to sit-downs) post calorie information on the menu. I'm not sure what had more of an impact -- (1) the fact that Applebee's in NYC was more expensive than eating at The Capital Grille in DC (ok, I might be exaggerating a little bit, but not by much), or (2) seeing calorie information on the menu options, or (3) having snacked at the street fair just a little bit earlier -- but we ended up sharing a Santa Fe chicken salad. It was good to sit down for a bit.

5:50 pm
Started the walk back towards Radio City Music Hall to get in line for when the doors opened for our show -- The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring: Howard Shore's Complete Score Performed Live to Film.

Here are some of the websites about it:

• RCMH - LOTR Page
• LOTR in NY Main Page
• Doug Adams - Music of the LOTR - Official Blog

Basically, they had a huge movie screen that took up the whole stage at Radio City Music Hall. They projected the movie onto the screen and played the audio and FX tracks through the speakers in the hall. The music track was removed, and the music of the LOTR was performed live by what I believe was around 600 performing artists.

Performance by:
- 21st Century Symphony Orchestra (Official Home Page/LOTR Info Page),
- The Collegiate Chorale (Official Home Page/LOTR Info Page,
- Brooklyn Youth Chorus (Official Home Page/LOTR Info Page,
- Kaitlyn Lusk (Official Home Page/LOTR Info Page),
- conducted by Ludwig Wicki (Wikipedia Page [Google translated from German to English]/Ludwig Wicki

The awesome thing was that before the shot started, Howard Shore and Doug Adams (author of the soon-to-be released book, The Music of the Lord of the Rings Films) spent some time talking about the music, the themes, the instruments, and things to listen for during the show. It was so cool.

Click HERE for some of my notes from the concert.

We had some pretty decent seats, and really loved the show. The doors opened at 6pm, the pre-show talk started around 6:30, and the film began around 7:30. There was an intermission, and the show ended around 11pm.

a.w.e.s.o.m.e.

We wandered back through Times Square and hung out there for a little while while we waited for our bus back to Washington, DC. Took some photos of the Square at night.

Here are some pictures from the trip:


12:00 am
We were tired and done hanging out at Times Square, and figured that we'd be okay spending the next hour in the NY/Port Authority bus station. We were anticipating a 1:30am bus ride back to Washington, DC. You're supposed to arrive an hour early (for what reason, I have no idea, since it's not quite like getting into an airport and on an airplane...). We got there and some people were in line already. They were anticipating a 12:30am bus, but we were pretty sure they read the schedule wrong. (Although we secretly hoped there was an earlier bus).

Jill sat on a bag and closed her eyes for a bit while we waited. This was probably the longest hour and a half of the trip.

1:30 am
Boarded the bus and started the drive back to Washington, DC. I had napped most of the way to New York this morning, and ended up waking up around 3am. I alternated between looking out the window at the darkness, fidgeting, and trying to go back to sleep.

5:15 am
Arrived back at the Greyhound station in Washington, DC. Walked outside just as a cab drove by; flagged it down and took the quick trip over to Union Station where we had left the car in 24/hour-access parking. We're pretty sure the cab driver charged us an extra dollar or two that didn't seem to be justified on the fare card ... but we were too tired to argue.

5:30 am
Picked up our car and drove home

6:00 am
Went to bed.

11:00 am
Got up to get ready for Church.

12:15 pm
Got to Church to practice the organ before Sacrament meeting.

What a fun trip!

### (Random) Music Bonus ###
To sign off, I figured I'd follow-up my Billy Joel "New York State of Mind" post with some other New York-related songs. Here's what I found with a [[+song +lyric +"new york city"]] Google search:

• "New York City / Such a beautiful disease" (Norah Jones, "New York City")
• "Start spreadin' the news, I'm leaving today / I want to be a part of it: New York, New York." ("New York, New York")
• "I'm sittin' in this New York City... / Cause I don't know no New York City song" (Tanya Tucker, "New York City Song")
• Another rainy day in New York City / Softly sweet, so silently it falls / As crosstown traffic crawls / Memories [on] my way in New York City (Chicago, "Another Rainy Day in New York City")
• "Standing on the corner, just me and yoko ono, / ... / New York City! / New York City! / New York City! / Que pasa, new york? / Que pasa, new york? / Hey! hey!" (Yoko Ono, "New York City")
  
• And this was just in my head because of our Saturday trip: "Saturday in the park / I think it was the Fourth of July / People dancing, people laughing / A man selling ice cream / Singing italian songs / (fake italian lyric) / Can you dig it (yes, I can) / And I’ve been waiting such a long time / For Saturday ..." (Chicago, "Saturday in the Park")

New York State ... of mind

Some folks like to get away, take a holiday from the neighborhood
Hop a flight to miami beach or hollywood.
Im taking a greyhound on the hudson river line-
Im in a New York state of mind.
[...]

Yuja Wang, and her National Symphony Orchestra debut

On Saturday, Jill and I had the great opportunity to go and hear the National Symphony Orchestra perform at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. And, thanks to a friend, we were able to get really good seats (Prime Orchestra Right).

The Program was as follows:

Charles Dutoit, conductor
Yuja Wang, piano

RAVEL - Le Tombeau de Couperin (orchestrated version)

PROKOFIEV - Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 16

STRAVINSKY - The Firebird (complete ballet)

As the title mentions, this was Yuja Wang's debut with the NSO. And boy was it amazing. To be honest, I was not familiar with the first two pieces, and was really only familiar with The Firebird in name only. I was forewarned that the Prokofiev No. 2 was a little "different," and to keep "an open mind." But I found the piece rather fascinating -- accentuated by our great seats with a view of her hands the entire time. Without gushing too much, I'll just say that I was amazed and rather enjoyed the entire evening.

It was a wonderful evening of music. We ended up spending some time that night and the next day looking for YouTube videos of Yuja Wang and other musicians, and stumbled across some pretty cool stuff. (I already posted the supersonic flight of the bumblebee; the related videos can take you wandering through some other musical adventures.)

We hope to have more opportunities to enjoy the arts and appreciate the wonderful talents of others.

[Supersonic] Flight of the Bumblebee

I keep meaning to write about the concert that we went to the other night, which was amazing. Jill wrote about it (in several posts during the evening) on her blog, but I'll add my notes here soon.

This is a video of the pianist who played at the concert, playing a really fast version of Flight of the Bumblebee. Enjoy.

I told you it was fast!

.