I'm worried...

When I see pictures like this...I cringe. I worry.

I know...it's needless for me to do so.

But still.

There are just some things that I...well, that I just...

Oh never mind. It's bad enough that I want to try and TALK about it, much less that I'm actually thinking it.

I hope the newlyweds are happy. No seriously. I do. They look like they both are good people and they love each other.

Yep.

Love.

Ain't it grand???

Sad...it's time to rapidly execute people

Last night, a very popular local city councilman was killed in a tragic, tragic and senseless and PREVENTABLE accident.

http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister...le_1157206.php

The short of it is that he was slammed head on into by this female driver who was high on crystal meth. Reports were that she was weaving in and out of traffic and driving at a very high rate of speed, and was being "chased" by two different citizens on cell phones trying to get cops out to get her pulled over.

It was too late.

Now, I knew this guy. VERY popular. EVERYONE knew him. I personally just had lunch with him last week at a Fire Department function, and met him for the first time a week before that at another fire function. He remembered me, we talked, he was a real sharp guy. Used to be Todd Spitzer's Chief of Staff. Was probably going to go a long way in either Orange County or California state politics. Reminded me of...me. Just real outgoing, easy to talk to, not pretentious, freakin' hilarious...

And now this.

Just a pause for me who at age 40 loves life, loves my family, loves my friends...and it reminds me that indeed, at anytime, AGAINST MY WISHES, I could be taken. Really brings to mind an old adage used in my church--"Don't delay the day of your repentance."

But it also makes me rage against the system that is going to give this female knucklehead waste of skin a manslaughter charge. That's it. Manslaughter. Too bad the law doesn't look at the BASE REASON this occurred, and that was this driver CHOSE to take meth, CHOSE to drive, and endangered everyone. Seems to be some premeditation there in my book.

Execute her.

Because that's what SHE did to Steve.

Amazing this thing called corps!

I've been involved for a very long time in the pageantry activity in one form or another. It actually started in 1970 when I was only 4 years, and my oldest brother Robert was a 9th grade bass trombone player in the-then highly regarded Pasadena High School Marching Band. My parents were the typical crazed band parents, and I went everywhere they went, and they went everywhere the band went. I knew, at age 4, that some day I too would be drum major. That's true. No lie.

In any event, in the drum corps activity, my involvement started technically in 1981 when I went to my first show as a spectator. An amazing experience. I knew then that some day I too would be in a corps. After a couple of mishaps along the way, including joining on day 1 of the 1984 season of VK as ostensibly their best contra and going to EVERY rehearsal, only to chicken out and fricken QUIT during the Memorial Day camp, I ended up joining in 1985 as an upper lead baritone (gave up on tuba), and then became drum major in 1986 and 1987. I got to know many of the instructors during that time--even worked with a few later on as I started to get my teaching and drill designing chops going.

Fast forward to Tuesday night. At the behest of one of those "old" instructors that I've kept in contact with over the years, I joined 4 instructors from that era at a wonderful sit-down dinner at a local Chili's. WHY? We VK'ers don't need a reason, but we were always known to be able to find reasons out of nothing at all and make them seem extremely significant. :-)

In attendance was the current SCV Program Coordinator Mike McCool (the organizer of this shin-dig), my first contra instructor and stalwart VK staff member for a million years Billy Park, the head horn instructor AND arranger for VK from 1984 to 1986 Dave Elder, and the visual/program/leadership guru of the ages and one of THE inspirations in my life Greg Clarke. It was surreal "breaking bread" with these guys. Surreal because these were guys (as I flashed back to being 19 years old) that were my teachers. And here I was, 20 years later, sitting with them at Chili's in Cypress having some food and laughing our asses off at the stories we remembered from "our day". We weren't together for longer than maybe 2 hours, and truth be told (and this is just my personal weirdness here) I was a little nervous/anxious to be going out to dinner with these guys.

But as I drove home, and even now a few days later, I considered it 2 hours that I would never give up. We weren't there to impress each other with our credentials and accomplishments (I mean--I was sitting next to the guy that turned SCV around and made them rock in the late 90's for crying out loud!!!!!!!!)--we were there because of that bond.

I've tried to talk about "it" on Drum Corps Planet before and describe "it" or make sense of "it"--that bond we have in this activity in general. And I can't. It just is. It's there. And for 2 hours, I could have sat there at dinner with the title "These Guys' Former Drum Major That They All Use To Yell At!", but instead, I was a fellow former VK'er...and Ryan H. Turner.

The email I got from Greg Clarke the next day not only confirmed the admiration and respect I have for the man, but it made me realize you are what you make yourself to be, and you should do your best always. If you choose not to, that's your choice. If you choose to, and no one notices, who cares. Because YOU did it. I am grateful to Greg, and I will be forever, for instilling some ideas and values into me that while I can't claim 100% adherence to (because of my flawed nature--just as all of us have), I appreciate nonetheless.

This has been a sappy ass entry into my blog. Sorry 'bout that. Hope you enjoyed. Now get outta here...

WOW--It's getting thick...

My main "day job" career thing is that I'm the newly appointed Tiered Emergency Medical Dispatch Supervisor at the Orange County Fire Authority (the 4th largest fire department in California, thank you very much). We are switching over from our current method of giving "pre-arrival" instructions to medical emergency callers to a system where we attempt to do some minor "triaging" before we dispatch units. Triage means to figure out just how bad someone is sick or injured. It's a completely different way of doing things, and many, many departments depend on this "tiered" dispatching approach because it saves money on keeping as many units from responding "Code 3" to calls which is a risky business in and of itself. I can already sense you're falling asleep reading this.

ANYWAY...this process of changing over is just tedious, and it has to be thought out, with every nuance discussed and "played out". It's completely different for me to go from being a "floor supervisor" and having a crew of 8 dispatchers that I watched over and worked with, to a desk job, attempting to create a new system of stuff that satisfies the medical needs of the department and the county, our Executive Management and Board of Directors, our operations staff, the firefighter union, common sense, the dispatcher training...the list goes on and on.

Today--after a major committee meeting we had this morning, I came out of there with my head spinning just a bit, and starting to feel a little overwhelmed. I have to produce a 10 minute video that's going to go out to the field (all 61 stations--750 full time fire fighters and a gazillion reserves), and I have to synthesize all of this "stuff". <> Yowza! Luckily, the A/V dude here at the Fire Department is a sharp, award-winning video dude (serious--he's won industry type awards for corporate video stuff), so I'll be working with him.

This is all a far cry from doing what I love--and that's drill design, teaching, judging--the whole "marching arts" thing. Oh well...it certainly pays the bills, that's for sure. Which reminds me--why this season out of the blue the sudden interest in me being a drill designer for so many groups. I gotta get a handle on things, because I'm just not going to be able to ever do what I did back in the early 90's and write for 13, 14, or 16 schools. I ain't no Dave Weinberg--who regularly every year writes for about 30 schools all over the country. Truth be told, I've always wanted to try to match him because he was an inspiration to me (at least from a business model if not creatively with his designs), but I never reached his level of success. Don't know if I have it in me to. But I do love drill design...something about creating a show.... <>

Till next time, hope you enjoyed it...now get outta here.

Read this--and you'll be sorry

The Observations of the H?? What the? Well...it has to do with my unhealthy obsession that I've had for years on my middle initial which has some deep psychological baggage that goes with it stemming from growing up NOT liking my name in general. And of course--being beat everyday. OK OK...I wasn't beat everyday. But still...I CAN HAVE PROBLEMS TOO!!!

Actually...the name is Ryan....Ryan H. Turner...and that's how I'm known to millions. If you ask someone that knows me, "Hey, do you know where Ryan Turner is?" they'll inevitably respond with, "You mean, Ryan H. Turner, right?" Yeah. Because we don't want to get confused with all the other Ryan Turners out there.

Anyway--I "accidentally" created this blog because I was trying to respond with a nice, well-thought out and sensitive note to Lisa Dryden on her blog, and I was shuttled off over to the "CREATE YOUR OWN BLOG FIRST YOU NINNY BEFORE YOU CAN RESPOND TO ANYONE ELSE...WHAT ARE YOU, NEW???" page. So...here you are. My first entry into my blog. Exciting.

I will say this. I'm a big fan of Lee Rudnicki's blog, who I believe is a genius writer and very funny man, at least in writing. He doesn't laugh too much at my jokes during conference call staff meetings, but that's another story. In any event, go check out his blog. Good stuff. Thanks for reading....now get outta here.