Long time eh?

So I get an e-mail from Diane asking me to blog. I explain that I have been very busy. Her response was - "Was Ghandi too busy? How about Mr. Rogers?" So I really don't have any reason to delay any further. I am not that busy, I just think I am. I find muyself feeling overwhelmed and then at the end of the day, as I lay in bed reading Harry Potter, again, I realize I spent at least two hours that evening watching TV. And not even TV that is really all the interesting or elightening. It's like I feel Tom Bergeron will miss me if I don't purposefully watch every minute of an episode of America's Funnies Videos that I have already seen. I find myself not listening to Faye because I have to see if that kid gets his nuts whanged by the handrail as he tries to skateboard over it. Like they would she me the video if he successfully zipped right over it. My brain goes like this:
Me: "I wonder if he will get whanged this time?"
TV sound: "Whang!!!"
Me: Phew, that was a close one. I wonder if he was OK or if he found his nuts ever?"

And I do this night after night - yet I can't spend a few minutes to update my BLOG with interesting news like this.

Well, I was in Los Angeles last week, and it was for a management seminar called Managers Leadership Development. MLD for those of us at Farmers. It is essentially Farmers way of hazing suckers like me who have been chosen as leaders of the future for the company. Well, what it ended up being is an intense, sleep deprived week of craziness that had an observer the entire time. So when I was falling asleep during the last day of lecture he wrote:
"I notice that you closed your eyes for three minutes during the lecture on Coaching your Employees until they Cry. This could be construed as disrepectful for the speaker."
Now it takes a big man to take this sort of criticism in stride and just shake it off as the end of a stressful week. I am not a big man and wanted to say:
"I noticed that you sat in the back of the classroom all week making snippy remarks about the poor students in the class. In fact what I want to tell you is that you look like a penis with a hat on. " But of course I would never say that because it is rude and it would get back to my boss and I don't need the increased aggravation. However, at the end of it all we had to give a team presentation to a panel of twelve executives and I absoultely stole the show. I was witty and eloquent and I don't think I was disrespectful of anyone there. I'm sure my observer was making snotty remarks about me but, at that point, I couldn't give one hairy rip. It was a long week and I came back home and slept for two days. It is now over and they can't make me go back. At least I don't think they can.

I purchased a new thing today. I have been waiting for months to either get more money or hope theprice went way down. In fact, I got a little bit of money for being one of the best in the MLD class so, even though it was on sale and still more than I should have spent, l bought it. It is a 64 track recording studio. It is totally cool and I can't wait until I understand how to use it. I sat down with it for a few hours and I now know how to play the demo songs and separate all the tracks on the recording. I hope to be able to actually record something on it by the end of the week. Of course it came with just about everything I needed to make it work. (Batteries were not included) I had to buy a stack of blank CDs. When I got home I realized I couldn't hear what I was playing any more because I needed a cable to hook up my amp to the studio monitor. As soon as I get these I will be able to hear what I am playing. Now I have to use my headphones which works but I like the live sound better. As soon as I make some killer recordings I will share with all of you. Until then I will just try to figure out how to turn it on withour blowing it up.

I have been riding my bike quite a bit for the past few months. There is a ride from Seattle to Portland ( a two day event) that I would like to do some day. I am now up to a 15 mile ride and am told that I need to be able to at least do 60 or so in a day before I try and do the big ride. Now I can do the 15 mile ride and not feel like barfing. So I've got that going for me. I like to think of it as baby steps. I don't want to be the one guy that all of the other riders have to avoid because of the flying barf up ahead of them. I would likely be far behind them anyway. It sounds like it would be a bloast to ride so I will keep trying and eventually try to ride 50 of 60 miles on a Saturday. Steve Doxey has done it before but he has a lot nucer bike than me. He is younger than me. I have more excuses if you want me to keep going. I'll keep you informed.

I am singing in a local chorale group that is made up of mormons and more mormons singing some fairly pretty music. We are hoping to do our performance in May at a local church downtown. And it's not a mormon church either. We are singing a song in french called Dirait-on. It is very pretty and I don't have to sing much of the actual french, just a lot of Dirait-on's and lots of OOOs. However, there is one extremely snotty, full-of-herself woman in the group who continually tells us all how we are mispronouncing the french, like anyone is actually going to understand us anyway. I would like to mispronounce some french in her general direction but, again, have taken the high road like at MLD. I believe her father smelt of elderberries though. I mention this to bring up my point that I generally have a hard time dealing with "music" people. These are the ones who openly criticize your singing and posture and parentage - then say "I'm sorry for being rude; it's just how I am. The music is so important to me." I again have to hold my "penis with a hat on" remark for later. So I am dealing with the music folks and singing some pretty cool music.

Anyway,this group is generally pretty proud of themselves and trade e-mails all day long. The two ladies that set it up have a website and we communicate through that. The issue is, the only way to respond to an e-mail is "respond to all". I get at least 15 e-mails a day that I am now just deleting without reading. I have them go to my business account and it is aggravating. A typical routine is:
Karen: I think we should change the name of the group to Cantico.
Paul: What does that mean. Don't you mean cantique?
Karen: No I like Cantico. It is spanish for song.
Gary: Cancion is spanish for song. I think you got it wrong.
Karen: I really, really like cantico and I've already changed the website with the name on it so can't we just keep it.
Holly: (who has not read the last few) I like cantique - it sounds cool. Kind of French-y.
Rob: Hi - is there practice tonight or not?
Karen: Rob, what do you think about cantico?
Rob: I like in on rice with a salad. Isn't that the chicken dish with salsa on it?
Rebecca: How come no one asked my opinion? I like Cantico - the Portland Chorale Singers

Of course every person in the group (15) gets all of these inane comments. It was humorous the first few days. Then it was just stupid. Then aggravating.

So there you have it. Maybe I shouldn't write much. There really isn't much here, eh?