Some truth, Some Humor, and Some Sadness

Apparently, there were quite a few visitors from New York in Louisville the other day and I came to this conclusion after nearly getting hit by about three of them at different times. I know a lot of people from New York, and perhaps its because I've developed friendships with many of them because most of them seem pretty cool. But MAN do they suck at driving. I mean....its as if every car on the road EXCEPT their doesn't exist. Which really doesn't make sense, because if you've ever been to any major city like Chicago, New York, and Atlanta you know that generally you spend most of your time boxed in with cars on every side of you and moving slower than a guy on a walker. Yes...that was an Office Space reference.

Well, I guess bad driver's aren't ALWAYS a bad thing. But seriously....I sometimes wonder if its too easy to get your driver's license. Well, not too easy but if they don't test the way they should. I know people who have gotten 100% on their driver's test but have had two accidents in a week, both ruled their fault. Whereas I failed the driver's test TWICE and in an 11 year history have had one accident (ruled my fault despite the idiot was on her cell phone and failed to signal), two accidents completely NOT my fault and ruled that way, and two speeding tickets. Not a perfect record, but not that bad either - especially coming from a guy from Lexington, Ky....the bee hive of bad drivers.

Although, realistically their are two types of 'bad drivers'. There are assholes - the ones full equipped with a 'me first' attitude who have a blatant disregard for others on the road. These are the kinds that speed up past you and then cut you off when you already have only two car spaces between the car in front of you. Or the ones that ride your ass when you are already going 10 over the speed limit. These are the kinds you find in major cities like New York, Chicago, and Atlanta....hell, even in Louisville sometimes though thanks to its relative bond to Indiana you find more of the 2nd type of driver: The Idiots.

The idiots, which I sometimes believe originated in Lexington, are the ones that CAN'T drive. The ones that don't check their blind spots, and try to make quick right exits from the LEFT lane, crossing lanes of traffic and risking their lives. And we've all seen them so many times.

Personally, I think people should find it very embarrassing that their are nearly a thousand automobile deaths on Kentucky highways every year. Most of these probably could have been prevented.

Come on. Anyone who has ever changed one of these stupid things before has ALWAYS thought of doing this. Thanks to Cory Dixon for e-mailing me this gem.

Just for kicks, I e-mailed my boss asking how much trouble I would get in with the Ogle Center if I pulled off this stunt. He e-mailed me back and said "I'll give you a dollar if you do it." I'm guessing this means either one of two things. Either they have a HUGE sense of humor and wouldn't care - or my boss hates me and would love to see my ass fired.

I always hate to follow a funny idea with a sad story, but my heart sank when I heard the story about a 39 year old man who fell to his death in front of his six year old son while trying to catch a baseball that was tossed to him by Josh Hamilton. The worst part is that this is a whole triangle of people suffering from this incident that you aren't quite sure who you should feel more sympathy for. The kid who watched his dad fall, the man who lost his life, or Josh Hamilton having to live with the fact that it could be argued that he was the ultimate cause of the man's death. And before anyone can throw out the whole "he makes a lot of money, he'll be fine" argument - perhaps you should read THIS STORY before judging Josh Hamilton.

This is one of the terrible things that no one wants to ever hear. I get choked up just thinking about it, but it also helps my understanding of how precious life is. All I can do now is pray for the little boy and his family to get through this tragedy, and for Josh Hamilton to find the courage to reach out to the family and realize that this was an innocent mistake and he shouldn't blame himself for practicing a game tradition.

RIP Shannon Stone

So it's been ridiculously hot outside lately, well for New Albany, In. I'm sure in Arizona this is a cold front. But in the midwest, when it starts getting to the mid 90's people go crazy. I suffered through a 2 and half hour tennis match in the heat yesterday, and got my but whooped. I think the heat brought some of my more intense emotions out a bit too because I went all John McEnroe on my tennis racket. Luckily, it's not broken but I did scrape it up pretty well. The good news is I didn't take my frustrations out on my opponent, and was able to laugh about it afterwards. It was pretty freakin hot, though.

This would probably be considered animal cruelty if it wasn't so damn funny.

I've taken a little break from all things music, which I feel has been good for me. Don't get me wrong - those who know me know how far my passion goes, but sometimes too much of a good thing can backfire. This has happened before, and at one point lead to me nearly giving up on my dreams as an established composer entirely. Some of the projects I will be working on are a piece for Sax, Tuba and percussion (which will be an interesting combination to work with), a piece for brass band, and a piece for orchestra. I'm also intending to enter in the Brass Chamber competition again. This was the competition I entered two years ago and got an honorable mention (or 4th place). I didn't enter it this past year, but am planning on opening time up for this year. I guess its just good that I'm taking a break before the storm hits.

That was my attempt at throwing something 'Musical' into my 'musical blog'. Sometimes I forget that I originally created this blog to talk about music, and I have not done a whole lot of that lately. Oh well.....I think what I write about are some very important issues and things that can relate to everyone. This helps keep the flow of readers high and doesn't limit to a particular group, which I think is important as a blogger. Take John Mackey's blog for example. He spends a lot of time talking about his life experiences around the nation, not always music related. When he's not talking about 'moving' of course, because he seems to do that quite a bit. Not sure how he does it....but I guess when you are as good and famous as he is, then you can move as many times as you want.

Anyway, that's my blog for today. Hope everyone has a wonderful day!