In Review: Summer 2008

Ok fine, so it’s been a long long long loooooooooong time since I’ve posted a blog. Get over it! Anyone who has ever followed any of my previous efforts at blogging knows that I suck when it comes to upkeep. I get sidetracked, I put it off, I just plain forget. So anyway, here we are and I’m taking some time to put together a review session for this summer now past.

MAY 2008

Not a lot happened in May - there were band rehearsals during a few of the weekend days to prepare the band for the season debut. The only major event of May was on Memorial Day weekend at the United Scottish Society Highland Games in Costa Mesa. I played in the solos and got a 3rd place - which I was fairly content with since there were quite a few good players and even some of the ones I thought had good performances finished lower on the list. My band was allowed to play in the grade one competition - which is a grade above ours - since we are the only grade two band within a thousand miles or more. The other contestents - LA Scots and Triumph Street - both had some good runs and duked it out for the actualy prize. We obviously took third place to the two higher grade bands, but we came away with great comments and lot of good exposure for the band on our own local turf. I was also really proud of one of my student bands - the Pasadena Scots - for winning the Best Bass Section prize in Grade 4. I work with them every Thursday and at their competition events and it is good to see their efforts paying off on the field.

JUNE 2008

This is typically one of the busier months of the pipe band season and it was very true to form for me. I had the first weekend of the month ‘off’. The second weekend I was up teaching one of my student bands, the Irish Pipers of San Francisco. Then that Sunday was spent with Brits, her mom and her brother, at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library up in Simi Valley. It was really cool to look around at all the memories it conjured from world affairs during my childhood and was capped off by walking through the retired Air Force One SAM-27000 that is on display there. The following weekend I was on the road again, this time judging at the Illinois St. Andrew Society’s Chicago Highland Games - which has basically been my “home” games since I started drumming (I’ve only missed a total of 3 as a player or judge over the past 20+ years!!). That trip afforded me a chance to see Frankie (see my previous entry ) and to catch up with family including of course my parents as well as my sister, brother-in-law, and my nephews as well.  The month of pipe band activities was wrapped up the San Diego Highland Games down in Vista which I attended on staff with the Pasadena Scots.

JULY 2008

For the past several year, July has been the “wildcard month” of summer. It always seems going into the month that it’s going to be very busy with lots to do - but inevitably groups cancel or communication misfires lead to schedule changes and so on. This July was no different. What was originally booked almost solid ended up with me only having a few things on my proverbial plate. The month started with a typical band rehearsal weekend with all of our out-of-town players. The following weekend Brits and I got to go to the Orange County Fair and partake in some of the gross-out grub that can only be enjoyed properly at the fair … such as a deep fried White Castle burger or an 18″ Giant Western Sausage and of course the de-rigeur roasted corn on the cob and a couple beers to wash it all down!! Good times!! During the middle weekend, Brits took a trip to Denver to the US Inter-Regional (USIR) Dance Championships where her friend Kari MacNaughton successfully defended her incumbent title from last year. Meanwhile I had a chance to meet up for lunch and some quality time with Nathan - one of my few friends from high school that still keeps in touch - while he was on his annual west coast visit. Then on that Sunday we had an extra band rehearsal for all the local players and Brits returned that evening. The final weekend of July I flew to Chicago to serve as best man for my best friend’s wedding … I know it sounds so cliché right? But yes my buddy Matt tied the knot with his wife Stacey, and even though I was only in town for a total of about 36 hours, I was glad to be able to be there for the big day.  July also so the debut of my new online video teaching program through ScottishDrumming.com and a few students started up right away, which I almost didn’t expect but was glad to see that a need was being filled by the service I can provide.  (I still have 2 spots open for anyone interested in signing up.)

AUGUST 2008

This opened like most other months with a band rehearsal the first weekend. While I was doing that, Brits was away to Lake Tahoe to learn how to make a kilt! Yup, you heard right - she went to a week long workshop to learn how to make a kilt by hand. The next question most people have is if she already knew how to sew … the answer is no! She had never so much as sewn a button on a shirt before she began the process of making the kilt!!! The followup question is usually something about using a sewing machine - again, no, we’re talking manual labor here. In the 5 days she was there, she managed to cut and join the material and stitch and baste all of the pleats (all 40 of them!!). I was so proud of her!! And the best part is that the kilt was for me for my birthday (see notes later in this month).  The second weekend was a bit of a mish/mash of things basically just running errands and stuff but nothing major. The third weekend we spent a nice day together on Saturday going to the beach and movies and dinner, then there was a band rehearsal on Sunday as a final prep for the band before a big contest at the end of the month.

Since August had five weekends this year I’m going to break this month into a additional paragraphs for the last two weeks. On the fourth weekend - Brits surprised me by throwing me a birthday party with a bunch of my friends. I turned 30 this year (ugh!) and she thought it was a big enough deal to throw a party. It was really nice having people over and having more than several drinks and gossipping about pipe bands and all sorts of other stuff without the pressure of a highland games or anything. So … yes … it was my birthday … got some cool stuff, too. My folks upgraded my mobile technology and bought me a Blackberry Curve - thus further enabling my addiction to texting, email and Facebook. I also officially received my newly completed kilt from Brittany!! It is beautiful!!

That leads me to the location where the new kilt was debuted which occured over the long Labor Day weekend at the Caledonian Club of San Francisco Highland Games up in Pleasanton.  We sacrificed sleep to drive up Thursday right after work and made excellent time, arriving around 1am (6 hours total). That afforded us the ability to spend Friday - my actual birthday - in San Francisco itself (since Pleasanton is about an hour drive outside the city it is rare to get to enjoy the trip outside of the pipe band stuff). We took the BART train down to the waterfront and walked all over by the piers, had lunch and walked back to the BART to return to our hotel. I can’t say how much I enjoy being a tourist for a day … it is very relaxing! Friday night the band had a rehearsal and we ended up socializing over at the host hotel until the wee hours. Then Saturday and Sunday there was band competition each days - again with my band challenging up to Grade 1 due to the lack of other bands in our grade, and again getting great feedback and exposure from our performances which were quite solid from all accounts. On Sunday morning - a little bit tired - I played in the solo contest and again received third (as I did back in May) in a fleet of strong players. I was pretty pleased with this as I felt I played well, but maybe not as well as I could have with a bit more sleep and maybe better preparation in the week or two leading up to the event. The trip to Pleasanton is always a great way to sort of cap off the official summer season and this year was no different.

SEPTEMBER 2008

So now we find ourselves in September and I’ve already had another pipe band event pass having judged at the Wisconsin Highland Games in Waukesha last weekend. It was actually a great event featuring 16 bands and a large number of soloists, and it afforded me the opportunity to hang out with my dad for a weekend and see a lot of my midwestern pipe band friends as they bring their season to a close.  Yet upcoming this month is a wedding for Colin Armstrong (Pipe Major of the LA Scots) this weekend. Then next weekend weekend I am teaching a clinic for Helix Charter High School Pipes and Drums down in the San Diego area. Then my band will have it’s first official rehearsal in preparation for the 2009 season in the final days of September.

FALL and WINTER 2008-09

Because I probably won’t write another blog for a while (since I think this one will suffice for a bit) - I figure I’ll drop a few notes about plans in the works for the fall and winter months.  My oldest sister, Lexi, is getting married in Seattle the first weekend in October - so Brits and I will be up there for a bout 5 days surrounding that event. Then I’m judging at the Seaside Highland Games in Ventura. I’ve got a work trip to Miami in the middle of the month for REOMAC conference, then nothing formal for a little while.  In November I have a trip to Vegas planned for the Western US Pipe Band Association’s Annual General Meeting as well as some judging program testing. Then we’re looking to spend the long Thanksgiving weekend up in Sonoma County with our friend Elsie (the kiltmaker who taught Brits).  After that … um … Christmas In Chicago this year (probably leaving Wednesday and coming back Sunday … that’s the plan so far anyway). New Years here at home. Then a trip to the North American Gold Medal Solo Drumming Championship in Kansas City in January.  I think that about covers everything for now anyway.

That’s it … my fingers are tired and I’ve exhausted my memory just by trying to keep track of everything (thankfully Google Calendar helps with that). I’d say stay tuned for another blog, but we all know it’s going to be at least a month or two until that happens. So for now … I’ll just say thanks for reading and have a nice day.

Rental Ridiculousness

Why is it so difficult to rent a place to live if you have multiple pets? Ours hardly bark, we clean up after them when messes are made, they love people and generally speaking people love them. So why does there have to be so many rules about pets?

When I moved to California, my roomie and I had two dogs - both definitely still puppies at the time. It was tough enough finding a place in Orange County that was reasonably affordable, a place that even accepted pets at all, and a place that didn’t want me to sign away the value of an arm and a leg as a “pet deposit”. So we found a place in Anaheim, moved in, had some random complaints from neighbors but generally speaking we lived pretty peacefully with our dogs for almost two years.

At this point my girlfriend and I were moving in together. Over the course of the prior two years of being in OC, rents increased across the board, and it remained difficult to find places without extortionate pet fees. We did manage to find a place in Laguna Niguel, paid the appropriate fees and moved in. We were there for almost two years and upon moving out there were arguments about how much pet deposit we paid and they decided to nickel-and-dime us out of our general security deposit too. (Several of the buildings on the facility are now condemned due to the fact that they are sinking into the ravine on which the complex had been built — you can imagine they had bigger problems to deal with than our arguments over a measly $2,000.)

Once we knew we weren’t going to renew our lease, we struck out to try and find someplace to rent where we’d be renting from a private owner. A house would have been optimal, or a townhouse even - but none of those were to be found in our price range AND accepting pets. At this point we are up to 3 dogs now, so that’s a major rental burden no matter where we go. We did manage to find a guy who was renting his condo down in San Juan Capistrano, didn’t seem to care about the dogs as he had previously had 2 dogs, and basically made the whole transition pretty smooth. He needed tenants, we needed a place … and it was all done for a good rate, with a reasonable deposit.

The first several months here at the condo have been pretty good. It was a slight downsize for us. We lost about 100 square feet of living space and are down to only one bathroom. But for the time we spend at home, this is definitely good enough for us! It’s even a little homier than our last place since it literally was someone’s home and not just a rental property. Everything was great up until about a week ago when the owner called and said the HOA had called to inform him that there had recently been “multiple calls” about our dogs being over the allowable rules of the complex. Now he did the smart thing and played dumb - after all he rented to us knowing we had the 3 and didn’t care. But obviously this isn’t an issue that’s just going to go away - so he left it up to us to find some sort of viable solution.

I wracked my brain to come up with something that would work. I tried to figure out if we could afford doggy daycare for one or two of the dogs. Fact is we really can’t take on that kind of additional expense and we never really thought we’d have to. The dogs are well behaved and quiet - and even only bark a little when we come home from work, just because they’re excited to see us. So in the end, there was only one real solution - we needed to reduce. Something NO pet parent EVER wants to have to think about. We had to figure out what to do with at least one of the dogs.

If you’ve read any of my profiles or bio or whatever, you’d know our three dogs. I’ve had Frankie since he was 8 1/2 weeks old back in November of 2003, he has made a couple relocations with me now and is definitely Daddy’s Little Boy. Brits got Lucy when she was living with friends in Irvine in 2005 and Lucy quickly assumed her role as the Pet Princess (including pink accessories to go with the title). Then at the holiday party for the company where Brits worked, in Decembe 2006, we brought home Betty as a prize. We kept repeating to each other “we have three dogs” (in reality, we didn’t HAVE to accept her, there were other prizes and other people did want the puppy … but as pet parents, we couldn’t deny how cute she was and we had to take her home). Betty challenge’s Lucy’s role as Princess sometimes, but I’ve taken to calling her Peanut because she’s just a little goofball - and she’s definitely Daddy’s Little Girl. So Frank, Lucy and Betty have been a team since Dec 2006 - and they make a great group that Brits and I refer to as our “kids”.

So back to how to reduce the total number of pets. Fact is, the girls are a team and they spend more time with each other while Frank prefers to hang out either on his own or with me when the opportunity presents itself. Considering we can’t exactly split up the girls, it would be tough to relocate two dogs at once. That meant the obvious end of the process of elimination. I have to say a temporary “good bye” to my little Frankie. I’ve had him forever and I’ve told him over and over that no matter where I go or what I do he’ll always be with me. And now the circumstance we’re stuck in is causing me to break that promise for a little while.

Luckily my mother is more than willing to take Frank in for a while. She’s offered in the past to do some temporary Frank-sitting. We have sorta casually referred to the concept as “Camp Grandma”. So unfortunately, on Tuesday night I am going to have to drive Frank to LAX, put him in a kennel, say good bye and check him onto his flight to Chicago. About 5 or 6 hours later, I’ll get a call from my mom letting me know that Frank is in her care - and I have to start figuring out what needs to happen so I can have my Frankie back as soon as reasonably possible.

So far the only time I know that I will see him is going to be a trip to Chicago I am taking in mid-June. Ironically it will be Father’s Day weekend so at least I’ll get to spend that with my little boy. After that … I honestly don’t know when I will see him next. We don’t have any other travel plans to Chicago in the works probably until sometime maybe in the early fall? Those of you that know me well, know that I am pretty much “over” living in California and am 100% ready to move back to Chicago - - I guess this is one more incentive to try and speed things up to make that possible sooner than later. Obviously there are three girls I need to take into consideration (Brits, Lucy and Betty) so the timing has to be right so that we can all move together at some point. Right now I don’t know when that point is, and not having my Frankie with me until then is going to be hard.

So for all you pet parents out there - I hope none of you have to deal with this type of situation. Maybe you’re lucky enough that you own your home, or where you rent allows multiple pets, or maybe you are just a parent to one pet. No matter how you look at it … the whole situation still sucks! A few things are for sure - I am totally done with renting from managed complexes, I will only rent if the landlord can guarantee no problems with us having our three dogs, and ideally I’d prefer to just buy a home (in Chicago) and be done with all this rental ridiculousness.

One of my favorites!

I used to be addicted to sketch comedy. I grew up watching Saturday Night Live every week for probably 10 or 15 years - back before it become just “SNL” and coincidentally back when it was still actually funny. When we got cable, having Comedy Central brought all kinds of opportunities to watch sketch shows and other great (and no so great) comedy almost any time of day. Going through both broadcast and cable you’ve got your decent ones like SCTV, Mad TV, Tracey Ullman and of course classics like the amazing Monty Python’s Flying Circus, the Carol Burnett Show and even one could even loosely lump in Benny Hill … but my favorite, hands down, is Kids In The Hall.

Those comedic Canucks really knew how to lay down funny bit after funny bit, every single show. I honestly have a hard time recalling any of their sketches that I didn’t get at least a mild chuckle out of - and some of them were easily milk-shooting-out-the-nose funny. I know I’ve been quite lax in my blogging lately … to be fair, I’ve been REALLY busy with work, projects, drumming and life in general. So to tie you over until my next one-paragraph-becomes-three-pages blog entry … please enjoy one of my absolute favorite Kids In The Hall sketches.

The best multi-protocol messenger yet!

This is going to be a short blog (ok, let’s face it, it probably won’t be short) but I needed to post a little something about Digsby! I’m not usually the one to discover awesome new softwares or tools - typically my best bud Matt is the one to find them and let me know about them. This one is no different, but it’s so awesome I just have to share.

I’m one of those people that likes to be “connected” - I use social networks (see previous blog entry) and am signed onto 4 instant messaging protocols all day every day including Google Talk, AIM, Yahoo! Messenger and MSN Messenger. Much like the social network issues I’ve had before, the problem with messengers is that I have friends who use different protocols, and so I feel this need to be accessible and to be able to access them. (Some might say I’m a bit crazy in this way, but I’m a “people person”, I like feeling connected).

Anyway … I’ve been using Trillian for a couple years in order to be able to log into multiple IM protocols in one window instead of having to run 4 different programs eating up my processor and memory. I’m a big fan of Trillian, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have it’s downsides. I don’t particularly care for the way it handles Google Talk, and that is by far my primary protocol for chatting so it’s pretty important to me.

I recently experimented with Pidgin as a new multi-protocol messenger … and I loved the contact window and much of the features, but the conversation windows left a lot to be desired and the lack of skinning capability was a little disappointing. I ended up going back to using Trillian for AIM, Yahoo and MSN and then running Google Talk separately. This was a return to what I had previously been doing so it wasn’t weird, just a little sad to have to go that route when it didn’t seem that difficult to me that someone could create a better multi-protocol program.

Digsby has sort of the look and feel of Google Talk, which is a big plus for me. It not only integrates the various IM protocols that I need, but it is skinable to look however I want, and it also allows me to connect easily to my emails AND social networks. It tells me when I have a new GMail message and allows me to even archive or delete it right from the messenger panel. It also keeps me up to date on new messages, alerts, comments and wall postings from both MySpace and Facebook. So I really am more connected in one window than I’ve ever been in multiple windows! It’s a great feeling.

To top that off, Digsby can be used on multiple computers without having to be setup over and over and over again like some other messengers. I installed it at work and got it setup and loved it, so then I set it up at home and it remembered everything from my work setup automatically! I was online in like 5 minutes and didn’t have to repeat any of the setup process once it was installed and running.

Finally - if that wasn’t good enough - Digsby also has widgets that can be dropped onto websites so that anyone visiting that site can actually chat with me live directly from the site without having to have their own instant messaging platform open, or to have an instant messenger at all even! I put a Disby widget on my contact page of my website and have already had a few people drop a quick “hello” using it, which has been pretty cool. (You may feel free to do the same if you want to get in touch with me.)

OK - so that’s it for today’s Rave blog entry. It’s been a while since I’ve had something really good to blog about and I thought this one warranted at least a healthy mention. OH … by the way … Digsby is still considered to be in Private Beta Testing, but you can easily apply for a password and get involved. They are releasing updates and improvements all the time right now so every day seems to get better making it easier to get connected and stay connected from the comfort of any computer where it has been installed. If you enjoy staying as connected as I do, I’m sure this is the program for you! Check it out!

Social Networking Ramble

For most people who know me, or even just know of me online, you know that I’m sorta addicted to social networking. I’ve had MySpace for about the past 5 years I guess and Facebook for probably about two years now I think. I’ve tried some others including Friendster, TagWorld, Tagged, Virb and Bebo. Frankly, the ones other than MySpace and Facebook all have too many fatal flaws for me to be bothered using them. I might still have profiles on some of them, but you aren’t likely to find me using them - and honestly I’m going to start deleting them as soon as I am able to remember the login info and where the profiles are still setup.

My primary reason for selecting Facebook and MySpace is due to the crappy user interfaces and/or crappy profile stylings of the other social networks. MySpace is EASY to style if you want to and looks pretty OK even if you don’t style it yourself - and if you don’t feel like coding the CSS yourself, there are plenty of profile generators widely available to do it for you. Facebook has a VERY simple overall appearance and there is no styling available. As a web guy this sorta disappoints me AND satisfies me at the same time though because even though I can’t style my profile neither can anyone else so there isn’t a whole superficial competition of coming up with a cool profile or being considered lame for using the default scheme.

My preference … Facebook! Why? Well part of social networking is keeping tabs on what is going on with everyone to whom you are networked. Facebook, from the very start, has posted updates in a news feed on exactly what is happening with all of your friends. You can control your own privacy so people don’t always see certain things about you, and you can control what shows up in your news feed from your friends so if there are certain things you’re not interested in you won’t get updated on those items. For me … that’s great! I get to pick what other people can see of what I’m doing and I can also limit the news I receive to only items I’m interested in. COOL! I also really enjoy the fact that Facebook uses scripting for all of their editing and posting tools so that everything is done “realtime”. When I save a comment or update a profile item or post a message or whatever, it is all done right there and right away. It doesn’t need to refresh the page or take me through a series of confirmations like MySpace. I’ve most often found that the problems with MySpace occur while processing things like comment or bulletin posting and I end up either having to retype of what I did, or in most cased just giving up because it is too annoying to deal with.

What I think is funny is that now MySpace has (of course) copied this feature AND copied the “clean look” homepage concept from Facebook. I guess they realized that Facebook is getting bigger, easier and more popular? I guess I don’t really have anything to back that up - but more people I know are getting Facebook than MySpace and those using both are using Facebook more frequently than their MySpace profiles and in some cases dropping MySpace altogether. So from what I am witnessing, it appears that MySpace has seen the drop in usage or at least in usage frequency and has acted accordingly by copying the social networking program that was basically getting its business. Now I’m not about to dump MySpace yet because I do have quite a few friends (including my girlfriend) that don’t have Facebook and do still actively use their MySpace. Also I’m interested to see what these new “clean up” or “reverse engineering” efforts are able to accomplish for the MySpace concept. So for now you can still find me on both networks.
I’m going to wrap up this ramble for now … I really enjoy social networking utilities and I think they’ve done a LOT to draw people together who may not have otherwise stayed in touch or had the chance to even meet at all for that matter. It has made people more accessible to each other on a 24:7 basis with just a few clicks. Photos, news, jokes and more can be shared easily and viewed at the convenience and discretion of your friends without having to remember to tell everyone you posted something or forgetting to include someone in an email blast about your latest photo gallery. In the end, anything that connects people is a good thing in my opinion.

Thanks for reading … see y’all next time!