I watched the WWDC Keynote yesterday afternoon and I wasn’t impressed with what little they had announce. Yeah, yeah…3G iPhone – nifty. With iPhone 2.0 coming out for the phone I already have (at no extra cost), the 3G really doesn’t offer anything I don’t already have. iPhone for Enterprise? Don’t need it. I’m not paying for MobileMe – I have no use for it, really. They mentioned Snow Leopard (the new OS due out “in about a year”) but that was it – just a brief mention. My sister was right to warn me that it would be boring. She was able to keep up with some of the live blog stuff as the Keynote was going on. I’m actually quite disappointed in Apple this time ’round. Maybe something nifty will come from a session later on and we’ll be able to take advantage with a software upgrade for the current OS (which I don’t have yet, though).
We started some band stuff yesterday. We’re going 8-noon each day this week with the first 2 hours focusing on marching fundamentals and the second 2 hours focusing on music fundamentals as well as learning the show music. So far, the past 2 days has been very productive. What I’m most excited about is how enthusiastically the kids are participating in fundamental stuff. For example – breathing exercises. OMG, it’s been like pulling teeth to get my students to breath appropriately to play their music with correct support and phrasing so it might just come across, well, musical. I’ve tried breathing exercises before (these same ones we did today) and all I’ve ever gotten is light headed, yet resentful kids that I’m making them do anything except play the music in their folder. Today, we did a good 7-10 minutes of breathing exercises and they kinda seemed to enjoy them. They at least understood why we did them and cooperated!!! Tomorrow, I’m going to try to do a little tuning exercise with singing…maybe.
This weekend was A LOT of fun. Saturday started with a mini leadership seminar for our new leadership group so they won’t be completely lost when they had to be leaders (many for the first time) a few days later. After that, I headed to the lake with Crystal and some friends. They were a nice group of kids, too. We tied up with about 6-8 other boats and got some good water time in as well as met some nice people. Sunday, we celebrated Thura’s birthday at the pool at Emily’s apartment. Some more nice people and good grub as well as some really sweet kids that made it a whole lot of fun. Just the type of weekend I needed after such a “rough” week trying to close out last year.
Hope all is well with everyone!
Love you, mean it!
~C
I religiously watch Top Chef. I record each episode and watch it later ’cause I rarely catch it live. I always make a point to watch the “Next time, on Top Chef” bit at the end so I can put myself in suspense for the next week. This week, right before the credits, as they were doing the exit interview with the eliminated contestant (no spoilers here, folks), I noticed a disclaimer I’ve seen before but not consistently. It says:
Benford's Musings 
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