I just started my last semester at the University of Iowa. I am done with coursework at this point and I am primarily preparing two separate recitals. In addition, I am teaching ten students right now, so those things are going to keep me pretty busy!
This week marks the fourth week of our long Christmas Winter Break at the University of Iowa. This year, for a change, we decided to stay in Iowa. We have enjoyed our time here relaxing, catching up on movies and tv that we have been too busy to watch, practicing the trombone, hanging out with friends, reading things we have been to busy to read, and so on. I can honestly say that I am ready to go back to school, but this has been a fruitful and enjoyable break!
Asterisk!
I was doing so well with updating somewhat regularly until I started a little website for fun: www.overheardoncambus.com. That little site has had over 50,000 visitors, had a spread in the student newspaper at the University of Iowa, and I have had numerous submissions from students. It has been a funny experience.
Since my last post, Celebration Bridal has closed. Kate has applied to Kirkwood College and has had her transcripts moved over there; she will start in January. She is excited to move forward.
I have had the opportunity to gig quite a bit lately, including playing back-up with The Temptations, playing a Schwantner piece with the Quad City Symphony, and a couple of other local things. We are grateful for every opportunity to perform and it means even more when they are close enough that Kate can come see me play!
In addition to these things, I have been preparing my first DMA recital. It will be December 17th at 5:00 in the UCC Recital Hall. On the program will be the Albrechstberger Concerto, John La Montaine’s Conversations, and Bert Appermont’s Colors for Trombone. It’s quite a varied program and I am very excited for it.
We are currently in the middle of a blizzard and we are very excited for it to look like Christmas!
Mid-week post. Today the UISO will play Stravinsky’s Firebird and Rachmaninoff’s 3rd Piano Concerto with UofIowa faculty member Ksenia Nosikova. She sounds amazing!
This week we had some unfortunate news. Celebration Bridal, the store Kate has been working at for several years, will be closing on October 31st. We are exploring all of our options at this point and we are hopeful that something will come to fruition in a timely manner.
I can’t believe that are already five weeks deep in the semester. I have been keeping up with all my work, classes, and practice, and it seems like I haven’t accomplished anything yet. That is very frustrating.
At any rate, this weekend promises some fun! Way back in March Kate and I purchased tickets to Dave Matthews Band in Des Moines for tonight as her Birthday present. This will be my first “big” rock concert; I am quite looking forward to it. Tomorrow – homework, paper, and practice, and go Iowa! Beat Penn State!
“Random Thoughts From People Our Age”
-I wish Google Maps had an “Avoid Ghetto” routing option.
-More often than not, when someone is telling me a story all I can think about is that I can’t wait for them to finish so that I can tell my own story that’s not only better, but also more directly involves me.
-Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you’re wrong.
-I don’t understand the purpose of the line, “I don’t need to drink to have fun.” Great, no one does. But why start a fire with flint and sticks when they’ve invented the lighter?
-Have you ever been walking down the street and realized that you’re going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to be going? But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the direction from which you came, you have to first do something like check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you’re crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk.
-That’s enough, Nickelback.
-I totally take back all those times I didn’t want to nap when I was younger.
-Is it just me, or are 80% of the people in the “people you may know” feature on Facebook people that I do know, but I deliberately choose not to be friends with?
-Do you remember when you were a kid, playing Nintendo and it wouldn’t work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it and that would magically fix the problem. Every kid in America did that, but how did we all know how to fix the problem? There was no internet or message boards or FAQ’s. We just figured it out. Today’s kids are soft.
-There is a great need for sarcasm font.
-Sometimes, I’ll watch a movie that I watched when I was younger and suddenly realize I had no idea what was going on when I first saw it.
-I think everyone has a movie that they love so much, it actually becomes stressful to watch it with other people. I’ll end up wasting 90 minutes shiftily glancing around to confirm that everyone’s laughing at the right parts, then making sure I laugh just a little bit harder (and a millisecond earlier) to prove that I’m still the only one who really, really gets it.
-How the heck are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?
-I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.
-I think part of a best friend’s job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.
-The only time I look forward to a red light is when I’m trying to finish a text.
-A recent study has shown that playing beer pong contributes to the spread of mono and the flu. Yeah, if you suck at it.
-Was learning cursive really necessary?
-Lol has gone from meaning, “laugh out loud” to “I have nothing else to say”.
-I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.
-Answering the same letter three times or more in a row on a Scantron test is absolutely petrifying.
-My brother’s Municipal League baseball team is named the Stepdads. Seeing as none of the guys on the team are actual stepdads, I inquired about the name. He explained, “Cuz we beat you, and you hate us.” Classy, bro.
-Whenever someone says “I’m not book smart, but I’m street smart”, all I hear is “I’m not real smart, but I’m imaginary smart”.
-How many times is it appropriate to say “What?” before you just nod and smile because you still didn’t hear what they said?
-I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars teams up to prevent a dick from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers!
-Every time I have to spell a word over the phone using ‘as in’ examples, I will undoubtedly draw a blank and sound like a complete idiot. Today I had to spell my boss’s last name to an attorney and said “Yes that’s G as in…(10 second lapse)..ummm…Goonies”
-What would happen if I hired two private investigators to follow each other?
-While driving yesterday I saw a banana peel in the road and instinctively swerved to avoid it…thanks Mario Kart.
-MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.
-Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.
-I find it hard to believe there are actually people who get in the shower first and THEN turn on the water.
-Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.
-I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t at least kind of tired.
-Bad decisions make good stories
-Whenever I’m Facebook stalking someone and I find out that their profile is public I feel like a kid on Christmas morning who just got the Red Ryder BB gun that I always wanted. 546 pictures? Don’t mind if I do!
-If Carmen San Diego and Waldo ever got together, their offspring would probably just be completely invisible.
-Why is it that during an ice-breaker, when the whole room has to go around and say their name and where they are from, I get so incredibly nervous? Like I know my name, I know where I’m from, this shouldn’t be a problem….
-You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you’ve made up your mind that you just aren’t doing anything productive for the rest of the day.
-Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after DVDs? I don’t want to have to restart my collection.
-There’s no worse feeling than that millisecond you’re sure you are going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far.
-I’m always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.
-“Do not machine wash or tumble dry” means I will never wash this ever.
-I hate being the one with the remote in a room full of people watching TV. There’s so much pressure. ‘I love this show, but will they judge me if I keep it on? I bet everyone is wishing we weren’t watching this. It’s only a matter of time before they all get up and leave the room. Will we still be friends after this?’
-I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Darnit!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voicemail. What’d you do after I didn’t answer? Drop the phone and run away?
-I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.
-When I meet a new girl, I’m terrified of mentioning something she hasn’t already told me but that I have learned from some light internet stalking.
-I like all of the music in my iTunes, except when it’s on shuffle, then I like about one in every fifteen songs in my iTunes.
-Why is a school zone 20 mph? That seems like the optimal cruising speed for pedophiles…
-As a driver I hate pedestrians, and as a pedestrian I hate drivers, but no matter what the mode of transportation, I always hate cyclists.
-Sometimes I’ll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.
-It should probably be called Unplanned Parenthood.
-I keep some people’s phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.
-Even if I knew your social security number, I wouldn’t know what to do with it.
-Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey – but I’d bet everyone can find and push the Snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time every time…
-My 4-year old son asked me in the car the other day “Dad what would happen if you ran over a ninja?” How the heck do I respond to that?
-It really pisses me off when I want to read a story on CNN.com and the link takes me to a video instead of text.
-I wonder if cops ever get pissed off at the fact that everyone they drive behind obeys the speed limit.
-I think the freezer deserves a light as well.
Yesterday a friend Twittered: I wish there were a website where you post things you overheard on the Cambus. Welp, enjoy my new pet-project: http://www.overheardoncambus.com
“Carn”. It’s how many mid-westerners pronounce “corn”. Why? I have no idea. All I know is that corn is both delicious and non-nutritious as you don’t really digest it. Not to mention the fact that we cover it in butter and salt. Alas…..
The point of this post is thusly:
You know you are in Iowa when the “weed” in the freeway median is corn. Yes, I saw several stalks of corn-weed today and it was awesome.
