AlumKnightChoir - Another Chance to Sing

Yesterday was an event that I had been waiting for since last summer.  The Oak Creek High School Choir program had an Alumni Choir event and it was worth every minute of the Saturday that I gave up to participate.  It's the kind second chance to we don't get very often.

I graduated from Oak Creek back in 1984 and the class that I enjoyed the most during High School was Choir.  I was not a musical prodigy and was not even bold enough to do any Solos during High School but I really loved my time as part of that Choir.  We had a Choir Director that was very demanding and had high expectations of us but we all had a great time meeting those expectations and really had some great experiences during those years.  After high school I didn't really take many opportunities to sing or be part of a Choir and I missed that for many years.  Once I got married and settled back in my hometown of Oak Creek I joined my Church Choir and while I enjoy that, our Choir is rather small and the experience is not the same as what I had enjoyed in High School.

When my oldest daughter started High School four years ago and joined the Choir I was exposed to the new Oak Creek High School Choir program and found that things had changed a lot since I had been in Choir.  Some things had change drastically but some things had remained the same.  The styles of music that they performed had expanded quite a bit and the size of the Choir had also expanded a lot.  They had even added after school Show Choir groups to the lineup.  The one thing that had not changed is that the Choir students loved Choir and had the utmost respect and admiration for their Choir Director.  I attended Choir events regularly and really enjoyed being involved when I could.

Now I fast forward to last summer when I first heard Mr. Wulterkens(known to students as Mr. Dubbs), the current choir director, talk about an Alumni Choir event that he wanted to hold in early 2015.  I wanted details and to know how to sign up right away.  By August the date was set for March 7th and Choir Alumni started spreading the word by mouth and social networks to get people interested in the program.  As the date approached the numbers grew slowly at first but then it picked up steam and ended up with a little over 100 alumni registered for the AlumKnightChoir event.

The morning of March 7th we gathered for registration and then had a brief activity to break the ice before we got into the serious rehearsal time.  Most of the Alumni present were Mr. Dubb's students but we also had about 10 from the 80's around my time and also a couple from the 70's.  We had separate men's and women's rehearsals during the morning and then had mostly combined rehearsals during the afternoon.  It was a fairly brisk pace but Mr Dubbs and Miss Pacetti had selected songs that they were confident that we could learn during a day of rehearsals.  They had sent out information to allow us to practice ahead of time but I like many did not have a chance to do much of that.  We had three songs to learn before the concert at 7.  The four current choirs were going to each do two songs and then we were going to do two songs before we finished with a song with all choirs combined.

At 6:00 PM all of the Choirs had to be present to go over the combined song and to practice the movement that they had planned for the song.  This was something new for us choir old farts since during our days we really didn't do much in the way of movement during songs.  It was a lot of fun although I must admit I am not very talented in trying to look like I am moving naturally while singing.  We were also doing the last song without music but since the rest of the Choirs already knew it they would lead and we could fit in pretty easily.

When it came time for showtime we were seated up on the bleachers along with the existing Choirs.  It was again enjoyable to watch the Choirs that performed before we did.  We were the last individual Choir of the night.  My daughters were in two of the other Choirs so I always like to see what they are working on.  Our two songs were very different and I must say that I enjoyed the second more than the first.  Frostiana is a good piece and I remember doing it in High School.  It's just a more restrained song.  Our second song, "He Never Failed Me Yet", was a Gospel song that we could put a lot of energy into and we did.  I still can't decide whether that one or the final with all Choirs together was my favorite.  The big difference between the two was the finale had even more energy since we were going from an Alumni Choir of about 100 to a Combined Choir of about 300.  Wow was that a blast.

Mr. Dubbs has said he would like to make this an annual event and I am all for that.  I would love to be able to come back and sing with a Choir like this again and again.  Next year I will only have one daughter in the program but my other daughter can join me in the Alumni Choir.  I will be watching closely to see when next year gets scheduled.  Mr. Dubbs, Miss Pacetti, and everyone involved in the program did a great job planning the event and I can't wait for next year.

Our first song- The Road Not Taken

Our second song - He Never Failed Me Yet

Finale - Tshotsholoza

Back to Fitness Routine

For the last several months I have not been getting nearly enough exercise.  I just didn't have enough energy to do much.  I was diagnosed as anemic in January and have adjusted my stomach meds and am taking iron supplements to address that issue.  I finally feel like I can try to get back into some kind of routine to start working back to shape to walk in the 3-Day in October.  I am going back to tracking my steps with my fitbit and using myfitnesspal to track calories so that I can try to lose weight and get in better shape at the same time.  I started out today with half an hour on the treadmill and hope to work up to an hour within a week or two.

More Macbook

So after a week of stress testing my Macbook and not being able to replicate the failure that I had but noticing that it is still running hot I took my Macbook back to the Applestore and explained the situation to them.  Since it was still under Applecare for a couple weeks they agreed to send it in to their depot to be repaired.  I had it back in 3 days and so far it is running much cooler.  At the depot they replace the logic board as well as both fans.  I am hoping that this will last for sometime since my Applecare runs out in 11 days and I would really like to keep using this Macbook for at least a couple more years. For the most part it has run well for me and I don't want to spend money on a new one for at least another year minimum.

2011 Macbook Pro Failure

This afternoon around lunch time I was checking Facebook on my Macbook Pro when I encountered something entirely new.  As I was scrolling down the screen my screen froze and I could hear the fans on my Macbook Pro kicking into high gear.  After a minute or two my Macbook Pro rebooted but it would not boot back up for me to use it.  It would boot to a gray screen and then sit there with the Fans screaming.  I then disconnected my Macbook Pro from my KVM and tried to boot it connected to nothing but power and it still would not boot beyond that gray screen.  I tried everything I could think of and could not get the system to boot.

Through some patience and trial and error I was able to get my Macbook to boot for a short while but it failed again as soon as I plugged in my external monitor.

After this I decided to do some research and found that I was not alone.  There were many reports of 2011 Macbook Pros failing with issues related to the Discrete Graphics Adapter in them.  I went ahead and made an appointment at the Apple Store for the next time I could make it and did some reading to see how bad it really was.

Here is one of the more active sources of the information that I have found in relation to this issue.

Discussion in Apple Support Forums.  There are over 11K responses in this thread.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4766577?start=0&tstart=0

Going to try more tonight to see what I can do.

 

Trying to Get Tickets

It seems like concert tickets are getting harder and harder to get. Rush recently announced their latest tours dates and Chicago is the closet that they are coming to me. I was logged into Ticketmaster at 10:00 when the tickets went on sale this morning and immediately searched for tickets. I tried for 15 minutes and never found any available. There were resale tickets available but no tickets from the venue. The cheapest resale tickets were over $100 and were on the upper level. With tickets getting this expensive I may just stop going to concerts. It's just ridiculous that you can't get a ticket on the main level for under $200.

Posted with Blogsy

2015 3-Day - Fundraising

This afternoon I spent some time printing up sheets for the Super Bowl Pool that I run as a fundraiser for my walking in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure.  This is the second year that I have run this as a fundraiser and it really helps a lot.  A full grid nets $1000 towards my $2300 Fundraising minimum.  I am really thankful that I have family that helps me sell the squares.  Now that my fundraising is in decent shape I need to start spending some time on the treadmill getting ready for when the weather gets decent here and I can start walking outdoors.  With only 251 days before the Philadelpha 3-Day I don't have time to waste.

Unintended Consequences

For months I have had occasional issues with being really tired or getting short of breath when I had hardly done anything.  Then last week I went to donate blood and was deferred because my hemoglobin level was too low.  I was anemic.  I had never been deferred  before so that was really weird for me.  I started doing some searching on the Internet and found some articles that suggested that one possible cause of anemia was low stomach acid. I had never heard of this before but it did make sense.  With low stomach acid there issues with absorbing nutrients and that can cause anemia.  I went to the Dr this week and he confirmed that I am indeed mildly anemic.  I had to adjust my stomach meds to a lower dose and start iron supplements.  Not sure how long this will take get my iron levels back to normal but it is nice to have at least a clue on what may have been bothering me for some time.  I still get to see my GI specialist to make sure there is nothing else going on.  Just goes to show you that you need to keep track of your meds and how they affect you because they can cause other issues.

Twin Cities 2014 3-Day

For 2014 my team had decided to minimize travel and return to a City that some of us could travel to without flying. Part of our team had walked the Twin Cities before and had enjoyed it. We saw it as an opportunity for the rest of the team to experience it. As typical, my 3-Day weekend started on Thursday with my travel day. I was driving and picked up one teammate in Waukesha and then went on to pick up another teammate and her daughter outside of Madison. We made pretty good time and we were in the Twin Cities a little after noon. We met our last teammate at the Hotel and went out for lunch because it was so early and we needed to be back to get back for the team meeting that afternoon for our teammate that was on Youth Corps. It was another early night as the bus to opening comes way to early.

The rest of the weekend did not go quite as I had planned. I was still getting over a sinus infection that was irritating my lungs and the weather was not cooperating. At the start of Day 1 the humidity was about 98%. I could feel the humidity as soon as we started walking. It was aggravating my asthma within a mile or two. I took my inhaler and that helped for awhile but by mile 8 or so it was getting difficult to breathe again. I decided to take a sweep van to lunch and see if the rest would help. After lunch the humidity went down a little and I was able to walk from lunch to the end of the day.

The beginning of Day 2 was not a good one for me. The humidity had been high all night and spending a humid night in a tent was not a good night. I had gotten very little sleep and my lungs were still bothering me. I had intended to sweep right to lunch but since that was not an option I walked a couple miles and then got on a sweep van and went to lunch. I was there very early so I got to watch walkers come in and leave. I got to sit and talk to several other walkers that had come in early in sweep vans also. One woman that I tWalked to had walked six miles on Day 1 and was hoping to do that on Day 2 and 3. That's all she was capable of walking because her Cancer had come back. She had been fighting off and on for mor than 10 years and she walked the 3 Day each year. It didn't matter to her how many miles she walked. She raised the money and was there to walk what she could. After lunch I decided to go back to camp and check out to go to a hotel for the night. I was not going to spend another sleepless night in a humid tent taking my inhaler every 4-6 hours. Finding a hotel was not an easy task since this was the opening weekend of the Minnesota State Fair. I did manage to find a room and spent the night with air conditioning and that helped me quite a bit.

On Sunday morning I was up early because that's what my body expects for Day 3. I decided that since I couldn't walk I was going to be a walker stalker for the day. I made it to the first cheering station about the time the first walkers were coming through and stayed until my teammates came through. I managed to meet my team at lunch before I headed to holding. Holding and Closing were much the same as I remembered from my previous walk here. Once we were done with closing it was time to say goodbye to Kathy as she was the only teammate that was not driving back to Wisconsin with us. We had an uneventful ride back and I was home before midnight.

The weekend was not what I had planned but was still a great experience. I got to see old friends and meet some interesting new people who once again reminded me why I have to keep walking. Thank you all for your continued support. Next year will be my ninth year walking and it will be in a new city for me. I have heard good things about Philadelphia and look forward to walking there.

God Bless

Greg

Giving Up Facebook and Twitter for Lent

Well saying that I am giving up Facebook and Twitter for Lent is easier than actually doing it.  During the first two days there were multiple times where I would look at my iPhone or iPad or open a browser window on my Mac and would go to Facebook and then realize that I was not supposed to be there.  I immediately closed it again so that I was not actually looking at updates but I want to avoid even that for now.  I went back in on my browser one more time and logged out of Facebook so that even if I go to Facebook I am logged out and won't see anything for now.  I also deleted the apps off of my idevices so that I am not tempted there.  It is giving me more time to focus on other things and my life and overall I think this will be a good experience.  I do enjoy interacting with people on Facebook but I also know that there are times when I spend too much time on Facebook.

Start of Lent 2014

Today is the start of Lent and I have decided to make some changes for Lent that will get me to spend more time offline and rely less on technology.  I am a big fan of Technology and I spend more time than I should checking things like Facebook and Twitter.  I have decided to give up Facebook and Twitter for Lent.  This won't be any easy thing for me to do.  I do enjoy interacting with friends on Facebook but think that going without it for this time will help me focus on other things.  Twitter is also something that i will miss.  I follow quite a few people for announcements on programs that I use and find some interesting things there.

Lent is not all about giving things up though.  I am also using the time to focus more on how I treat people and and what kind of choices that I make in my life.  I am like everyone else in that I am not perfect.  I try to be a good person and make good choices but there are some times that I do or say things that I am not really proud of and I want to do that less.