The life of a New World Symphony fellow...

It was recently the birthday of James, a bass player, and Lars, a cellist, and somebody decided to put together a party to celebrate. It was announced through a birthday song during rehearsal that there'd be a party Saturday night and a live band would be playing, so I had to check it out. In fact, after post-concert cheeseburgers with my friend, Jeremy, I climbed in bed and read a bit until I was about to fall asleep, and then I thought I should really get up and just go down there to see what it was all about. People holding their blue cups, happy on beer, and in the basement of the hotel we live in, a real live band. Haha - it was funny though. Some of the most childish boyish lyrics (about male anatomy parts if you know what I mean) but terribly hilarious, especially because the songs they played were supposed to be funny, and not serious whatsoever. So I took some pictures and then retreated peacefully to my cozy bed. But, I thought I'd post some pictures so you could see how varied these people are. At 8pm they played Ravel, Poulenc, and Berlioz, quite beautifully, and an hour later they were jamming on electric rock instruments. I absolutely love the contrast of focused beauty and passion versus reckless fun and silliness - seeing, visually, that people can have the capacity to live so broadly makes me smile, even if it is through crude lyrics and an ear-crunching banging of a trash can.

So - every now and then there's a big party, and here was one of them. And however much I thought I should have a beer and socialize, bed and my book called for me from up in my room and so, I guess perhaps next time!

Anyway - kinda useless pictures, but I hope you enjoy.

"The Falming Tarditos" - what a name!

James is a double-bass player in the orchestra, but he plays guitar pretty well. They all sang - crazy kids.

Dennis, tuba-player, wearing a red wig and drumming on a trash can.

Travis also plays double bass in the orchestra, and a bit of guitar.

And my friend SunHo, from Korea. She was hanging out there watching, like me. I have to admit that I watched the 20-minute set and then snuck back upstairs, crawled back in bed and read for an hour....aaaahhhh. And then slept in until 11am and I didn't even have a drop of alcohol! Ha! But that's what Sunday's are for, afterall!

Some Christms gifts...

I found these pictures I hadn't yet posted of some of my Christmas goodies as well as the new hardware I got for my laptop and stuff...nothing big just, thought I'd post them since I took the pictures!

This is our second dinner using the dinnerware Serenity and Will got me for Christmas - and atop is a yummy steak and peach salad with a blue-cheese dressing, courtesy of Mr. Clyde.

My lovely new 450-count red sheets ... soooooo comfortable. It's a rough night the night after I wash them, when I replace them temporarily with my 180-count sheets...

My new Mac Powerbook with Logic 7 Pro software, she's been good to me so far, and I imagine she'll keep it up!

Clyde helping me open boxes - below him is my new 250 gig firewire-800 drive. Yay drive space!! (And I guess I thought this was a cute picture of Clyde - what can I say???!)