Tales of the border, Deca and other assorted updates.
Yeah, I know it's been a while since I updated my blog. I've been busier than hell lately. So busy that my new HD-DVD player has been sitting still in the box on the floor of my office for the last couple of weeks, as I haven't had time to play with it yet. And anyone who knows me knows that's something I was really looking forward to. That should give you an idea of how crazy things have been.
I ended up going out on a couple of shows last month, which I usually try to avoid. One of them was in Brownsville, Texas. Brownsville is as far south as you can go in Texas and still be in the U.S. In fact, the checkpoint for the border was right across the street from the hotel!
This way lies Mexico!
Brownsville might as well be in Mexico. Most everyone only spoke Spanish, and the town, especially close to the border, was really run down. It kind of looked like something out of the film El Mariachi. Also, they seem to really love shoes down there (or zapatos for the local residents). I swear every other store was a shoe store. Actually, I need to pick up a new pair of shoes, so I probably should have checked them out. No time though.
The show was a performance with the University of Texas at Brownsville symphony and jazz band. It was a ball buster going into it, but things worked out and the show went off pretty well.
The week after the Brownsville show I found myself doing a show for the Deca National Conference in Dallas. That was kind of a blast from the past. Back in high school I was actually in Deca. For anyone who doesn't know, Deca is an organization for high school students interested in marketing. It used to stand for Distributive Education Clubs of America, but after a while they realized no one knew what the hell that meant and dropped the acronym completely. So now I guess you could say Deca stands for nothing. :) I didn't really intend on getting that involved in it when I was in high school. But I needed something to have as an extracurricular activity on my college application, and I was already taking a marketing class, which pretty much made you a member by default. So Deca it was. Somehow over the course of those two years I went from planning on just showing up so I could say I was in it, to being an officer my senior year and actually placing at a few competitions and going to the national conference both years. Go figure! Both years at the national conference they had lasers, and I remember thinking to myself back then that some day I'd have to do the lasers at the conference and show them how it should be done. Of course, that was back when I was young and naive and didn't understand the concepts of limited budgets and such yet.
So now 14 years after the fact, I found myself back in the land of Deca. I can't say much had changed. Most of the kids seemed fairly stupid and clueless, just as it was back in my day. And of course I now knew that, as much as I used to think of all the cool laser things that could be done for the opening of the conference, most people don't want to spend that kind of money for their event. So green beams is all Deca was willing to spring for this year. Still, it looked pretty good. I programmed up a spiffy segment for their opening Coldplay songs (I seriously hate Coldplay!). Then latter on I jammed a bit with some live beams during the country music act they had playing, who I'd never heard of. They did the most bizarre country version of Zeppelin's Kashmir that I've ever heard. The real fun started about three songs from the end of their act when all the kids decided to run out of the stands and rush the stage. Nothing like hearing screams of "fuck!" and "shit!" in my ear coming from the comm. I think the organizers were afraid they were going to riot or something. Alas, no such luck. The band left the stage and everyone went back to their seats. And thus I finally achieved the goal I had set back in 1992 of doing lasers for a Deca national conference.
Nothing else much going on lately. I made it back to Lincoln towards the end of March for my dad's wedding. He seems happier than I've ever seen him, so that's pretty good. And while I was back there I finally got a Davinci's cheesesteak that I'd been dying to have for a while. No one in Texas seems to be able to make good cheesesteaks! I also stopped by at the SAC Museum and saw the Liberty Bell 7 exhibit. The photos I took of the exhibit are posted here.
I'm somewhat behind on seeing movies. Last thing I saw was Scary Movie 4 (a few chuckles but not great). Hopefully this week I'll start to get caught up on them. I had to get my car fixed (again) a couple of days ago, so now I can get out and about more. I swear though, this is the last time I'm spending any money on repairs for that car. Next time something breaks I'm buying a new one!
I ended up going out on a couple of shows last month, which I usually try to avoid. One of them was in Brownsville, Texas. Brownsville is as far south as you can go in Texas and still be in the U.S. In fact, the checkpoint for the border was right across the street from the hotel!
This way lies Mexico!
Brownsville might as well be in Mexico. Most everyone only spoke Spanish, and the town, especially close to the border, was really run down. It kind of looked like something out of the film El Mariachi. Also, they seem to really love shoes down there (or zapatos for the local residents). I swear every other store was a shoe store. Actually, I need to pick up a new pair of shoes, so I probably should have checked them out. No time though.
The show was a performance with the University of Texas at Brownsville symphony and jazz band. It was a ball buster going into it, but things worked out and the show went off pretty well.
The week after the Brownsville show I found myself doing a show for the Deca National Conference in Dallas. That was kind of a blast from the past. Back in high school I was actually in Deca. For anyone who doesn't know, Deca is an organization for high school students interested in marketing. It used to stand for Distributive Education Clubs of America, but after a while they realized no one knew what the hell that meant and dropped the acronym completely. So now I guess you could say Deca stands for nothing. :) I didn't really intend on getting that involved in it when I was in high school. But I needed something to have as an extracurricular activity on my college application, and I was already taking a marketing class, which pretty much made you a member by default. So Deca it was. Somehow over the course of those two years I went from planning on just showing up so I could say I was in it, to being an officer my senior year and actually placing at a few competitions and going to the national conference both years. Go figure! Both years at the national conference they had lasers, and I remember thinking to myself back then that some day I'd have to do the lasers at the conference and show them how it should be done. Of course, that was back when I was young and naive and didn't understand the concepts of limited budgets and such yet.
So now 14 years after the fact, I found myself back in the land of Deca. I can't say much had changed. Most of the kids seemed fairly stupid and clueless, just as it was back in my day. And of course I now knew that, as much as I used to think of all the cool laser things that could be done for the opening of the conference, most people don't want to spend that kind of money for their event. So green beams is all Deca was willing to spring for this year. Still, it looked pretty good. I programmed up a spiffy segment for their opening Coldplay songs (I seriously hate Coldplay!). Then latter on I jammed a bit with some live beams during the country music act they had playing, who I'd never heard of. They did the most bizarre country version of Zeppelin's Kashmir that I've ever heard. The real fun started about three songs from the end of their act when all the kids decided to run out of the stands and rush the stage. Nothing like hearing screams of "fuck!" and "shit!" in my ear coming from the comm. I think the organizers were afraid they were going to riot or something. Alas, no such luck. The band left the stage and everyone went back to their seats. And thus I finally achieved the goal I had set back in 1992 of doing lasers for a Deca national conference.
Nothing else much going on lately. I made it back to Lincoln towards the end of March for my dad's wedding. He seems happier than I've ever seen him, so that's pretty good. And while I was back there I finally got a Davinci's cheesesteak that I'd been dying to have for a while. No one in Texas seems to be able to make good cheesesteaks! I also stopped by at the SAC Museum and saw the Liberty Bell 7 exhibit. The photos I took of the exhibit are posted here.
I'm somewhat behind on seeing movies. Last thing I saw was Scary Movie 4 (a few chuckles but not great). Hopefully this week I'll start to get caught up on them. I had to get my car fixed (again) a couple of days ago, so now I can get out and about more. I swear though, this is the last time I'm spending any money on repairs for that car. Next time something breaks I'm buying a new one!
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home