Oh, by the way...

...we closed on the house!!! It's officially ours, as of December 18!!!

Found an old picture of Nigel

The day we brought him home.


Here he is now:


What the heck happened??

It's nice to be home for Christmas

Chillin with the fam, good friends, and northern California winter!

Texas is in!

Texas squeaked by with probably the worst win I've seen in a long time versus Nebraska, to play Alabama in the BCS National Championship at the Rose Bowl on January 7.

My general thoughts: I hope that everyone lauds and praises the greatness of Alabama and that Mark Ingram wins the Heisman trophy. The less attention Texas gets and the more "this is in the bag" kind of talk Alabama gets, the better it will be for the Longhorns, because Alabama is NASTY GOOD. If some pressure can be taken off by "awarding" the Crimson Tide the trophy before the game is played, it could bode better for Texas. Nothing like a pissed-off team coming into a game where no one is giving them a chance. Chips on shoulders have a way of making games interesting.

Some examples of upset wins:
2005 BCS Championship, Texas vs. USC. USC deemed the "greatest team of all time" by ESPN through a series of fictional matchups against past great teams.

Final Score: 41-38, Texas.


2006 BCS Championship, Florida vs. Ohio State. OSU was the only undefeated team and Florida just edged out a number of 1 loss teams for the chance to lose to the Buckeyes (USC would have gotten in if they hadn't blown it against UCLA in the last week).

Final Score: 41-14, Florida.

What happened to Jac's arm?!?!?!

My parents' Christmas Tree

So sad...




That's better.

Late Fall in Northern California

Jac and I out for a stroll on a great late November morning (two days after Thanksgiving).

BIG NEWS

We bought a house!!!

Awesome/Funny Fantasy Football Ad

Oh What a Time

"Cari" and Richie Diamond sing for their lives...


What better way to spend a Saturday night than watching three dudes sing ballads from Dirty Dancing?




_____

Jac is a Saint

Literally, a Saint:

It's okay, just as long as it's not Drew Brees' jersey.



Nooooooooo! Turncoat!!!


Alas, I've come to accept that Jac will never be a fully-fledged Niner fan, but there are many more teams worst to root for than the Aints. Like the Raiders. Or the Cowboys. Gross.

Our Anniversary Trip to San Antonio

Since our actual 5th Wedding Anniversary was in the middle of too many crazy things, we decided to celebrate it on a weekend where we would be at least a little less busy. The weekend of November 6-8 we booked a nice hotel on the Riverwalk in San Antonio.

The hotel was great but the food was outstanding, as you can see below. It was a nice and relaxing trip.


One of the best chimichangas I've EVER had (at the Rio Rio)


Looks funny, but this was delicious, made in front of Guacamole at Boudro's.


This was also at Boudro's...a tasty Prickly Pear Margarita. Yum.

La Boheme, but first...

...dinner. Do I have the greatest wife in the world, or what?



Seriously, the food was decent. Really. It was. Really.

Halloween Madness...

...or just interesting costumes.

I have great friends...

...in honor of my new found citizenship, a buddy of mine put together this video below.



Thanks, Ian Gerg. Thanks.

I am now a full-fledged American Citizen.

25 years in the making and about a million hoops (most of which involved my awesome parents), I was sworn in as a Citizen of the United States yesterday at 2pm in a nice ceremony with about 226 other individuals from all over the world in San Antonio.

Yay!

I think I found out what they did to Grover and the Cookie Monster

Colbert Report + Steve Reich = Awesome

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Who's Not Honoring Me Now? - Emmys
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Michael Moore

Happy Anniversary!

Jaclyn and I are celebrating 5 years of wedded bliss today! Just another example of when you aim high (as in, I aimed really, really high), you can occasionally catch one and hang on for at least 5 years!

I love you, Jac.

T-Pain Obama

The Recital...

...went really well. I think everyone seemed to have a great time and I'm thankful for all the wonderful players and others involved. I'll have pics and things from the concert shortly.

Cat Abuse?

Don't show the SPCA or especially those nuts at PETA...

Recital Week

It's less than 6 days until my DMA Comp Recital and things are falling into place nicely. All four pieces on the program are already sounding very good and there are still a couple rehearsals left to go. I think the recital will end with a bang...but no clues. You'll have to see it to find out!

PROGRAM:

Three Pieces for mixed sextet (pierrot ensemble + percussion)

Martyr Alone for violin and viola

Suite Bennington for 7 players

Things Women Yell at Market for voice and piano
Text by Jonathan Swift

Passed my third comp, yo...

Now just trying to get paperwork filled out so I can "start" on my ABD.

BOOM AGAIN!

Boom

Passed another exam!

Passed Yevgeniy Sharlat's orchestration exam (Brahms intermezzo). One more to go...

By the Way...

...I passed my first specialized comp on Monday. It was Dan Welcher's Listening Exam, where he "drops the needle" in a given piece from a list of works (68 total). Needed to name the piece, composer, year of composition and nationality.

Only missed one (which I'm really annoyed with) but made up for it on the extra credit question.

Yippee.

1 down, 2 more to go.

Our Trip to San Antonio

We visited Jac's cousins (one was taking in some training at the hospital and the other was visiting San Antonio) for a weekend of hilarity. Below are some pictures.


The view of a famous San Antonio hotel from the River Walk tour.


Our River Walk tour guide...I think he looks like a friend's husband...


Looks like a wall, don't it?


Ah, the hat trying on-ing...doesn't Jac look like a random passer-by in the picture on the left?



Hey, I WAS there!


Delicious Italian-style Ice Cream (gelato).


Awwww.



Doesn't that shadow look like Katie's carrying a severed head?

I don't know why

But I think this commercial is too funny. It's absurd in so many ways but hilarious.

Our First Mac

...still love my PCs, but it was time to start using a Mac, too. It's a little large.

Best Video this week...

...I'm in a commercial! At least my namesake.

Went Golfing Today

And played my first full round. Riverside Golf Course in Austin, Texas.

We won't talk about the final score, but let's say it was over 100.

But, it felt great! I hit some good shots and got a feel for the course. I'm hoping to be shooting below 100 soon.

Can't wait to go back out there.

Great News!

The Dallas Wind Symphony picked my brass fanfare, Foozle, for the 2009-2010 season!

http://www.dws.org/component/content/article/1-news/142-2009-2010-fanfare-winners

If you don't know what "foozle" means, google it...

Golf...

...is not meant to be played by human beings. I hack away at this tiny little ball in hopes that it goes a particular distance to go into a tiny little hole. It's expensive, it's picky, and you can never beat the course.

But I'm hooked! Argh!!! Now I can see why people love/hate this game so much. You just keep coming back. The course just mocks you every time, even when you do well. It's the voice of Gilbert Godfrey (the AFLAC duck...or is it a goose?) telling you how much cooler he is than you while also telling "Yo' Mama" jokes. Really bad ones. It just grates at you and humiliates you.

At least for today, I give up. This game is just too damn hard. It's just not possible. No human can play this game.

Except for Tiger Woods. But he's a freak.

Ahhhhh! I'm hooked.

GOLF: I'll be back.

More Pics from SYS-CMW 2009

The awesome Tatman Twins!!!



Claire was great coaching the group...I was just along for the ride!:



Just Coaches...

Random...

I think they need to invent a word for this phenomenon:

Whenever I get a new follower on Twitter, I'll usually click on their profile to see if they're for real or if it's just some solicitor type thing. A new follower popped up a couple of days ago and it turns out it was a real person whom I didn't know.

I searched for this person's name to check out their profile. To protect the innocent, let's say this person's name was Michael Smith. When I searched for this person, I mistyped it, Michelle Smith. What popped in the search were two people not at all connected with Michael Smith, one of which had just tweeted about how strange and cool Davis, California was, my hometown...how random, no?

Okay, maybe on paper it's not that interesting (or at least it was one of this, "you had to be there" moments"), but still...

...it blew my mind. I think I will call this phenomenon/coincidence thing "Charlie."

I didn't capture the look on my face when this happened, but I'm pretty sure it looked like this:

And the winner is...

...Hunan Chinese Restaurant. I demanded a re-count, but it seemed clear Hunan beat out Ding How (argh). We chalked it up to an off year for Ding How and an exceptional entry for Hu

The contestants of the 3rd Annual Davis, California "Prawn-a-thon" were
Ding How (reigning champion of the first 2 years)
Wok of Flame
Jade Garden
House of Chang

First real time on the course...

...not bad...but not good.



This is only here because it's just a funny picture:

Day in San Francisco

My buddy Steve came out to California to visit and see the west coast premiere of his piece, Shoshoni Peak, with the Sacramento Youth Symphony Chamber Music Workshop. After the busy weekend ended, we took a trip out to SF to see the sights....below are some highlights (maybe) of the day trip (we went on Monday).


Just for Jaclyn:




Nice foggy view of the Golden Gate Bridge




The lesser famous, but really LONG bay bridge...




That funny looking triangle/pyramid building




At the crossroads between Little Italy and Chinatown...Chinese inspired Italian architecture or Italian inspired Chinese architecture?




Don't let the angle fool you...this was really steep.




Steve taking a picture of me taking a picture of Steve. We also were about 300 feet apart.