Random thoughts...

--Day off today, and VERY unmotivated to do much. Went to IKEA this morning with the fam damily and bought a few items of importance. Had fun walking through IKEA with just my wife as we were able to leave the kids in the playland they have there. I would randomly yell out, "SILENCE....or I'll KILLLLL you" in the voice of Achmed the Dead Terrorist. Don't know what I'm talking about? YouTube it. Freakin' hilarious.

--For those that don't know my family very well, I have two older brothers. One is 10 years older than me and lives with my dad in Pasadena and is basically his caretaker. My other brother is 6 years older than me, has Down Syndrome, and lives in a residential care home. His health is starting to become a concern. More news to follow as soon as I hear anything.

--I love my children very much. But I am SO scared for them. This world around us is just getting worse and worse.

--Judged on Saturday at Riverside King HS for a Marching Band Open Series show. Just amazing to me and probably to noone else on the planet, but I was on top of the pressbox judging with the legendary Frank Dorrite and his wife, Shirley. They both judged ME back in the mid 80's when I was with VK. Frank is a GRAMMY AWARD WINNING MUSICIAN for God's sakes, and here I was sharing a table with him. He's just sooooooo cool. And his wife is hilarious. And on the panel was Mike Rubino--LEGENDARY. And my old trombone section leader from Cal State Long Beach Trent Newton who ended up being the band director at Valley View HS in Moreno Valley and who I ended up writing drill for back in the mid 90's (only to lose the position to this other drill designer guy...MYRON ROSANDER!!!....who incidentally, is my idol!! But them's the breaks in the biz, my boy...). Anyway...I see things like this and it makes me chuckle. The same people I used to look up to, and I'm standing NEXT to. Sort of surreal for me. Almost like "TURNER, how the HELL did you get HERE?!?!? Shouldn't you be somewhere else????" Freud's probably flipping in his grave right now blaming it on my mom!!

--Watched my wife perform last night in an Interfaith Choral Festival down in Irvine. Choirs from all different religions performed. Pretty cool actually. Then the mass choir at the end got together and sang a song directed by the head dude of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. He flew down from Utah especially for this performance. Interesting. He was whisked away as he barely finished conducting the piece because he had to fly to New York for an early morning meeting. Cool guy. Crazy. But cool.

--Nyleen still sick but managing things FAR better than with the previous kids. Good job. Apparently during the concert last night my yet-to-be-born son was using my wife's bladder as a kickboxing practice pad. But boy could my wife hit those high notes!!!! :-)

--This has been a very odd year in the world of pageantry activities. Odd. Very odd. Couple of the schools I wrote for are EXTREMELY successful, another one I wrote for SHOULD be successful but is not catching a break, my availabilities sucked for SCSBOA to judge, managed though to work with Marching Band Open Series (the new judging circuit kid on the block) by announcing AND judging for them (but not at the same time--I'm good, but not THAT good), learned Pyware and was able to design all of my shows on Pyware this year, made a decent amount of extra income this year with the design business....but strangely....something was missing. I can't put a finger on exactly what it was. I can theorize though. I had a VERY rough spring writing writing for 3 corps. I bit off WAY more than I could chew. And no fault to the organizations I was with because I can't imagine they did anything remotely wrong at all, I think I really really shot myself in the foot trying to be too much to too many people. Coupled with a promotion (and the fact I had to wait for a LONG time--no offense meant to ANYONE associated with the OCFA, past, present OR future), I think my stress level was/is at a point where I'm probably not as "happy" as I have been. I've always viewed my involvement with marching band, winter guard, and drum corps in the summer as an "outlet" to get "away" from the Fire Department. Call it balance. This year--not so much. And I was particularly testy with some people that normally I'm not testy with, but on the other hand, I think there were some really @*&@ing stupid things done as well. So all of that being said...I'm definitely taking the spring off. I'm taking a break from any FORMAL involvement with any drum and bugle corps for the spring because corps have enough on their plate than having to deal with a loser like me, I informed one of my best friends in the whole world that (nothing personal--even though I can't help but think now that it was taken personally, but that's what I get for expressing an opinion) I needed a break this spring, and I need to concentrate and get ready for H3, debuting in March. Wait...did I just offend my wife by referencing my soon-to-be born son as H3? I better check.

--It's called balance. And I need to balance things out. For the first time in about 10 years, financially, while far from being perfect and debt free, we have made some MAJOR MAJOR strides in getting ourselves out of debt and trying to be somewhat frugal at the same time, but COMFORTABLE. Hahahaha. We could do so much more, but somehow--we're doing it anyway.

--H3. If I'm so scared for my two kids I already have, what am I doing bringing a third one into the picture? Who knows. I hope he gets born with a few extra layers of skin. He may be hearing my opinion at times. God forbid.

--Heroes. Watch it. Good stuff. Well...mostly good. Hiro Nakamura sort of grates on my nerves. But good TV. And I don't usually say good TV. And I saw the pilot for the next "24" season. Can't say I jumped out of my chair in ecstasy, but, the writers somehow know how to get me wrapped up. We'll see how it goes. Side note--I'm a HUGE FAN of putting TV series on DVD's. I've watched all 6 seasons of 24 and the first season of Heroes. I can't begin to tell you how much I love NOT having to sit through inane and juvenile commercials that insult my intelligence--what little I have. I HIGHLY recommend it.

That's it from the random thought department. Nothing too funny, nothing too profound, sort of blah actually, but that's sort of how I feel. Perhaps I need to start drinking Monsters again to get my spark back. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm...

Thanks for reading. Now...be off with you.