Tonight our FHE (family home evening) group was planning to go to a Jon Schmidt concert. Everybody felt they had too much homework except for Jerry and me, so it was only the two of us that attended. Which is too bad.
IT WAS AWESOME!
We got there about 45 minutes early, bought our tickets, and then stood in line to get in. We were near the front of the line. As soon as we got in line about 300 more people got in line behind us, so we came at the perfect time. We got into the theater and sat down almost on the front row right in the middle. They pulled the piano out and we realized that we would be 20 feet away from him at a perfect angle to see his hands play the piano. The music was incredible and impeccably presented. He is not just a piano player: he is an entertainer. We laughed when he did a backflip, when he told his corny jokes, and when he played the piano laying down on the bench under it and when he played with his toes and head. He played a song that I'd never heard before that was awesome that he said was new and was coming out soon. He played all of the favorites and then a few more.
It's really too bad that nobody else could go. It was totally worth the measly $10 a ticket to see.
Afterwards I got to see Janessa because she was up here in Provo for a Leadership Academy field trip thing. That was fun too.
Showing posts with label performance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label performance. Show all posts
Monday, October 6, 2008
Monday, July 7, 2008
OK - Atlanta! (The Full Story)
OK, so I figured that since this graphic design thing is taking longer than I thought it would (especially because I need to get the pictures of our trip from the other participents, and that takes a while), and because if I wait too long the news will turn stale, and because others on the net are spreading the news, and because the newspapers will be running the results soon, it's best if I just get it over with in text first, and release the graphical version later. ( <--- That's a huge sentence, by the way)
But where to begin, when there is so much to tell?
First of all, Atlanta is hot and very humid. We rode the plane from Las Vegas to Houston, and then to Atlanta. We stepped off the plane and were hit by a massive roiling wall of moist, heated air. The first thing I noticed is how my normally slippery shoes caught and squeeked on any sort of hard floor, and throughout the trip I did. Trip, that is. We stayed at the Hyatt Regency, next to the Marriott Marquis, and ate often at the Corner Bakery Cafe across the street. The hotels were grand, with a huge contemporary atrium and a pillar right in the middle that housed the elevators. There were causeways that traveled from the elevator to the outside edge of the square where the rooms were. Pretty cool.
We rode the public transportation system everywhere. MARTA, as it's called, stands for the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, and it included both a subway train and a bus system. We had cool RF ID cards, temporarily issued to us for a 4 day unlimited pass. Using MARTA, we traveled to some of Atlanta's various attractions:
Eventually both women got very frustrated, and the lady shouted, "Maam! I don't want anything from you! I just want to wish God bless you and leave!"
"OK, well God bless you!" Mrs. Crane said, and then obviously pointed away from us, and turned away from the lady. The lady stood there, almost in disbelief, and then stormed away. That's not the end though; the next day we were eating at the cafe across the street from our hotel when WE SAW THE LADY! She was dressed nicely in tennis shoes and nice business attire, laughing with a friend and eating a delicious meal. We all growled. The lady looked over at us and recognized us, her eyes growing huge for a split second before she quickly turned away, gathered up her meal, and hurried out of there.
Almost done, keep going!
Now for the reason we went to Atlanta in the first place! We gave our presentation on http://www.hhsfbla.org in the preliminaries, which we have done every year. Later that night, tension mounted as we waited around the bulletin board that would soon hold the paper letting us know if we made it to the final round. We did. We were ecstatic. We had made it to the final round last year, but not the first year. This meant we had to give our presentation again to another set of judges. We then heard nothing further until the closing award ceremonies. The top 15 websites in the nation make it into the finals. The top 10 make it up on stage. The announcer announceds the top ten in random order at the ceremonies to call them up on stage. When they called our names an electric shock ran through us. I had been trying for three years now to make it up on that stage!
We took 10th place in the nation!
The first year was Bryan Poulsen and I. The next was Chris LeBaron, Sarah Christiansen, and I. This recent and last attempt was James Price, Trevor Adams, and I. Each year a different team. Each year was better than the last, culminating with the awesome feeling of being up on stage in front of 7,500 people accepting a national award that took so, so many hours and such hard work. It is quite the feeling!
We seemed to have connected with the preliminary judges so much better than with the final judges. I think that there is most definitely a weeding-out process occuring to reach the top fifteen and top ten, but I think that at this level of competition, in such a subjective process, the top websites are roughly on the same level, depending upon the whims of the judges to let them fall into place. I think that if we had the preliminary judges for the finals, we would definitely have placed better, but I am so happy with a 10th place! I mean, every state had their own competition to see who would compete at nationals. The best from each state competed at nationals.
Pictures coming later, as our external hard drive just died.
We rode the public transportation system everywhere. MARTA, as it's called, stands for the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, and it included both a subway train and a bus system. We had cool RF ID cards, temporarily issued to us for a 4 day unlimited pass. Using MARTA, we traveled to some of Atlanta's various attractions:
- The World of Coke, which detailed Coke's history, bottle making process, and exemplary taste. Coke was invented and has its headquarters in Atlanta, which is why it was funny to see a company putting up a blow-up Pepsi bottle in a park near the World of Coke. We got a picture with the Coke polar bear, and tasted nearly 70 different coke products from around the world, including good ol' favorites Sprite and Fanta, but also some exotic ones, like Beverly from Italy (don't try it), Sprite Ice, exotic Fanta flavors, and much more. Of course, they give you a complementary bottle of Coke at the end, bottled on-site.
- The Georgia Aquarium, which was cool, but I've seen many aquariums before - just fishy! They had a cool octopus, though.
- The CNN Center, with a behind-the-scenes tour. We got to listen to the director order shots while they were producing the Clinton-Obama "come-together-and-let's-rule-the-world-by-changing-it-one-change-at-a-time-until-even-the-ducks-know-how-far-we've-come" speech. The director was making fun of some of the people on the screen, unaware that we were listening. "Look at that bozo in the middle! Can you believe his hairdo?" We then got to see the actual news room, which was pretty cool. All in all it was a really fun place to visit.
- Martin Luther King Jr.'s grave and memorial museum place, which was awesome to visit. We got to see his Nobel Peace Prize, his Presidential Medal of Freedom, and more.
- The Zoo Atlanta, where we saw huge elephants, a huge gorilla, naked mole rats, and pandas (and more).
- The Atlanta History Center, where we got to tour a huge mansion called the Swan House!
Eventually both women got very frustrated, and the lady shouted, "Maam! I don't want anything from you! I just want to wish God bless you and leave!"
"OK, well God bless you!" Mrs. Crane said, and then obviously pointed away from us, and turned away from the lady. The lady stood there, almost in disbelief, and then stormed away. That's not the end though; the next day we were eating at the cafe across the street from our hotel when WE SAW THE LADY! She was dressed nicely in tennis shoes and nice business attire, laughing with a friend and eating a delicious meal. We all growled. The lady looked over at us and recognized us, her eyes growing huge for a split second before she quickly turned away, gathered up her meal, and hurried out of there.
Almost done, keep going!
Now for the reason we went to Atlanta in the first place! We gave our presentation on http://www.hhsfbla.org in the preliminaries, which we have done every year. Later that night, tension mounted as we waited around the bulletin board that would soon hold the paper letting us know if we made it to the final round. We did. We were ecstatic. We had made it to the final round last year, but not the first year. This meant we had to give our presentation again to another set of judges. We then heard nothing further until the closing award ceremonies. The top 15 websites in the nation make it into the finals. The top 10 make it up on stage. The announcer announceds the top ten in random order at the ceremonies to call them up on stage. When they called our names an electric shock ran through us. I had been trying for three years now to make it up on that stage!
We took 10th place in the nation!
The first year was Bryan Poulsen and I. The next was Chris LeBaron, Sarah Christiansen, and I. This recent and last attempt was James Price, Trevor Adams, and I. Each year a different team. Each year was better than the last, culminating with the awesome feeling of being up on stage in front of 7,500 people accepting a national award that took so, so many hours and such hard work. It is quite the feeling!
We seemed to have connected with the preliminary judges so much better than with the final judges. I think that there is most definitely a weeding-out process occuring to reach the top fifteen and top ten, but I think that at this level of competition, in such a subjective process, the top websites are roughly on the same level, depending upon the whims of the judges to let them fall into place. I think that if we had the preliminary judges for the finals, we would definitely have placed better, but I am so happy with a 10th place! I mean, every state had their own competition to see who would compete at nationals. The best from each state competed at nationals.
Pictures coming later, as our external hard drive just died.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Perhaps the Busiest Week
Warning: Long Post Ahead
This last week has been...insane. I've been to four class periods the whole week - two on Monday and two on Friday. I've slept in my own bed once in the last seven days. Here's the story.
We'll start with Monday. At lunch-time FBLA left for our State Competition. We had a long six hour bus-ride up there, and then stayed up there until late at night Wednesday. We had lots of fun (I guess) in Ogden, where there is nothing to do. Especially by our convention center. However, here are the awards I remember:
*Desktop Publishing requires the submittal of a production test; our team had to create a logo, calendar, flyer, and other Desktop Publishing creations to be prejudged, then take an objective test at the State Leadership Conference (SLC)
Which means that James and I are going to Nationals, and there is a good chance that both Josh M. and the team of Sarah and Kassarah could be coming as well. Kirsten is also attending as a new state officer.
On Thursday the day was devoted to Sterling Scholar Region. Long and boring intervals were interspaced with brief moments of heart-attackish type adreneline rushes. We practiced the awards ceremony, broke for interviews, had lunch (hamburgers), had dinner, then had the awards ceremony. We had one Sterling Scholar Region Winner (Jordan H. in Mathematics) and about five runners up (I got runner up in General Scholarship). The winner of the General Scholarship competition had a 33 ACT score and had been out of the country for several weeks helping poor children in Cambodia or somewhere.
Friday was the day I went to school for half of the day again. The other half was spent decorating for Prom. At about 3:15 I left the Prom decoration event and went to the high school to travel on a bus back up north for the State Jazz Festival. Strangely enough I got the same bus driver I had for the FBLA trip, so I spent more than 25 hours in that exact bus. Big time waster. We played That's Cool by Shelly Berg, In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning, by I'm not sure, and Mongo's Mood, by I'm not sure (a different I'm not sure). We received a II, another II, and a II+. Pretty good considering this is the first time we've even qualified for State Jazz in approximately ten years.
We got back from our trip on Saturday at around 5:00 p.m., just in time to go home, get ready for Prom, then attend the Priesthood Session, then go pick up our dates (Jerry R. took Sarah C., and I took Whitney S.). We ate at Olive Garden, then attended the dance. Jerry and I were both at State Jazz, which means that we were not around on Saturday to do any sort of "day date" thing, so we are planning a cool date for next Saturday, which I'm looking forward to.
Prom was generally awesome. All three of the others in my group, including my date (Whitney, Jerry, and Sarah) were fun to be around. The only complaint I have is that the picture line was too long; we only were actually on the dance floor for about an hour and fifteen minutes. So I was pretty annoyed, and when I'm annoyed I'm edgy, and so I probably wasn't the most fun to be around in the line ;). We had a bunch of fun though. Swinging is always a fun dance style, even if your flower falls off. (That reminds me...a quick note...I learned how to make corsages from Jerry's sister, and we both made one for our dates; it's so cheap and easy I don't know why we don't do them all the time ourselves) I was elected as Prom King, a great honor that is nice to have and boosts self-esteem, but it was an award I would rather not have received (at least in front of everybody at the dance). I am not built for publicity and stuff, and then people come up to me in the hallway all the time and say stuff like, "Congratulations on being Prom King!" and some try to be sneaky and come up and say hi and then under their breath breathe, "Prom King," like I'm supposed to say, "Oh, thanks" rather sneakily and give them a big fake wink. I never know what to say when people say stuff like that. I thank them, but I'd much rather everybody forgot about the whole deal. This kind of stuff makes me uncomfortable. Natalie H. was the queen, Cody P. was the prince, and Tanya H. was the princess.
The best part of the logistical side of the dance was the music; because we picked all of the music beforehand ourselves, and because we spent the little extra money to hire a good DJ, the music was awesome.
We sold out of Prom tickets beforehand and then sold some more at the door. We sold about 175 tickets, which means about 350 people at the dance. After the dance we stayed to help clean up, because I'm on the Prom committee, and then we went to Tia B.'s house to eat crepes. We did get a picture of the Prom committee, but not of the royalty.
Sunday we left again, this time to watch general conference at my grandparents house in St. George (we don't have T.V.). Hectic. More posts coming soon.
This last week has been...insane. I've been to four class periods the whole week - two on Monday and two on Friday. I've slept in my own bed once in the last seven days. Here's the story.
We'll start with Monday. At lunch-time FBLA left for our State Competition. We had a long six hour bus-ride up there, and then stayed up there until late at night Wednesday. We had lots of fun (I guess) in Ogden, where there is nothing to do. Especially by our convention center. However, here are the awards I remember:
- Josh M. - 3rd in Accounting I
- Sarah C. and Kassara S. - 3rd in *Desktop Publishing
- James P. - 6th in Cyber Security, 8th in Computer Problem Solving, 9th in Networking Concepts
- Kirsten W. - Was elected as a State Officer - Secretary
- Sean F. - 1st Place in Business Communication, 5th Place in Cyber Security, 6th Place in Business Calculations
- Sean F. and James P. - 1st Place in E-business
*Desktop Publishing requires the submittal of a production test; our team had to create a logo, calendar, flyer, and other Desktop Publishing creations to be prejudged, then take an objective test at the State Leadership Conference (SLC)
Which means that James and I are going to Nationals, and there is a good chance that both Josh M. and the team of Sarah and Kassarah could be coming as well. Kirsten is also attending as a new state officer.
On Thursday the day was devoted to Sterling Scholar Region. Long and boring intervals were interspaced with brief moments of heart-attackish type adreneline rushes. We practiced the awards ceremony, broke for interviews, had lunch (hamburgers), had dinner, then had the awards ceremony. We had one Sterling Scholar Region Winner (Jordan H. in Mathematics) and about five runners up (I got runner up in General Scholarship). The winner of the General Scholarship competition had a 33 ACT score and had been out of the country for several weeks helping poor children in Cambodia or somewhere.
Friday was the day I went to school for half of the day again. The other half was spent decorating for Prom. At about 3:15 I left the Prom decoration event and went to the high school to travel on a bus back up north for the State Jazz Festival. Strangely enough I got the same bus driver I had for the FBLA trip, so I spent more than 25 hours in that exact bus. Big time waster. We played That's Cool by Shelly Berg, In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning, by I'm not sure, and Mongo's Mood, by I'm not sure (a different I'm not sure). We received a II, another II, and a II+. Pretty good considering this is the first time we've even qualified for State Jazz in approximately ten years.
We got back from our trip on Saturday at around 5:00 p.m., just in time to go home, get ready for Prom, then attend the Priesthood Session, then go pick up our dates (Jerry R. took Sarah C., and I took Whitney S.). We ate at Olive Garden, then attended the dance. Jerry and I were both at State Jazz, which means that we were not around on Saturday to do any sort of "day date" thing, so we are planning a cool date for next Saturday, which I'm looking forward to.
Prom was generally awesome. All three of the others in my group, including my date (Whitney, Jerry, and Sarah) were fun to be around. The only complaint I have is that the picture line was too long; we only were actually on the dance floor for about an hour and fifteen minutes. So I was pretty annoyed, and when I'm annoyed I'm edgy, and so I probably wasn't the most fun to be around in the line ;). We had a bunch of fun though. Swinging is always a fun dance style, even if your flower falls off. (That reminds me...a quick note...I learned how to make corsages from Jerry's sister, and we both made one for our dates; it's so cheap and easy I don't know why we don't do them all the time ourselves) I was elected as Prom King, a great honor that is nice to have and boosts self-esteem, but it was an award I would rather not have received (at least in front of everybody at the dance). I am not built for publicity and stuff, and then people come up to me in the hallway all the time and say stuff like, "Congratulations on being Prom King!" and some try to be sneaky and come up and say hi and then under their breath breathe, "Prom King," like I'm supposed to say, "Oh, thanks" rather sneakily and give them a big fake wink. I never know what to say when people say stuff like that. I thank them, but I'd much rather everybody forgot about the whole deal. This kind of stuff makes me uncomfortable. Natalie H. was the queen, Cody P. was the prince, and Tanya H. was the princess.
The best part of the logistical side of the dance was the music; because we picked all of the music beforehand ourselves, and because we spent the little extra money to hire a good DJ, the music was awesome.
We sold out of Prom tickets beforehand and then sold some more at the door. We sold about 175 tickets, which means about 350 people at the dance. After the dance we stayed to help clean up, because I'm on the Prom committee, and then we went to Tia B.'s house to eat crepes. We did get a picture of the Prom committee, but not of the royalty.
Sunday we left again, this time to watch general conference at my grandparents house in St. George (we don't have T.V.). Hectic. More posts coming soon.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Happenings
I'll quickly breeze through some happenings.
We're counting up ballots for Prom 2008 royalty right now...every free minute at school is spent doing it, and they're not ScanTrons, either. We are going to have a run-off ballot, where the top eight or ten are put on a ScanTron to finalize the vote.
The Photography Club field trip is on Thursday, March 27th, to Michael Fatali's gallery up in Zion.
The State Jazz Band Festival is coming up on April 4th and 5th.
Prom is April 5th. I'm on the committee, so we have to plan it.
Website work is fun. I must say.
We're counting up ballots for Prom 2008 royalty right now...every free minute at school is spent doing it, and they're not ScanTrons, either. We are going to have a run-off ballot, where the top eight or ten are put on a ScanTron to finalize the vote.
The Photography Club field trip is on Thursday, March 27th, to Michael Fatali's gallery up in Zion.
The State Jazz Band Festival is coming up on April 4th and 5th.
Prom is April 5th. I'm on the committee, so we have to plan it.
Website work is fun. I must say.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Valentine's Dance
As many of you know, today is Valentine's day. In honor of this special occasion, the school music department hosted a Dinner Dance, in which spaghetti and Jazz, breadsticks and Rock, and mints and music mixed for a few mellifluous moments. I performed in (I would list all of the numbers, but even I don't expect my memory to be that good! In fact, I've probably left out a bunch that I played in...in other words, please enjoy this list of a small sample of the performance tonight):
- Boo-Ray (percussive joy)
- Stick Schtick (percussive joy)
- Sea Sounds (we all got some good "vibes" from this piece)
- Embraceable You (choral in Utah, and we don't even have an ocean!)
- Smoke on the Water (Rockish piece played by the Jazz Band)
- Too Young (Ballad)
- It's Only a Paper Moon (Jazzy piece)
- Do Nothin' 'till You Hear From Me (likewise)
- In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning (ditto)
- That's Cool (Cool Jazz)
- Steam Heat (choral in Utah, and we don't even have an ocean!)
- We had a few skittish people up on stage, didn't we?
- and much, much more!
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