Time-lapsed Blogography Day: Twenty-Five Years Ago Today

Twenty five years ago today, on January 27, 1996, I was at Virginia Tech for my music major audition.

My parents and I arrived on campus around 11:30 and walked around for a little while. I then got a private tour of the Squires music building by a music volunteer, likely a Delta Omnicron member although I wouldn't have known what that was at the time.

For my trumpet audition, I performed Alexander Goedicke's Concert Etude and Carl Hohne's Slavische Fantasie for 9 music faculty that (at a minimum) included Drs. Bachelder, Easter, Widder, and Dave McKee. I played on my cornet and did pretty well without a pianist. Afterwards, the panel interviewed me about my entire composition portfolio which consisted of 8 whole pieces diligently printed on my state-of-the-art HP LaserJet printer and put into a three-ring binder. They closed with the standard question, "Do you have any questions for us?" I pulled out a single sheet of typed questions to which Dave McKee chuckled and said, "Watch out for this guy! He's got questions for US!"

Because motels were "a waste of money for such a short trip", my dad drove us home to Alexandria in the same day, making it a 12-hour trip from end to end. I then wrote the following in my journal:

At the time, I had my eye more on William and Mary (which turned out to be awful for both halves of my double major) and felt like Tech was too far away (it was).

Game Day

On Saturday night, Maia played and completed an entire game of Tokaido (Ages 8+) with Rebecca and me.

This is one of the games that she watches Rebecca play online on Board Game Arena and apparently all of those lessons stuck. Not only did she make logical strategic choices in the game, she also explained why she made different moves as she played.

Not bad for three and a half!

Patio Day

the sequel to last year's screen porch

Next up on our list of 2021 improvements is a larger patio in the backyard. Having been deckless for the past year, there hasn't been a good place to put the grill where it won't sink in the mud, and I always forget to roll it away from the house (resulting in melted siding).

The new patio will connect to the sidewalk that runs around our house already, and will also feature a cut out behind where the grill would be to prevent toddlers from running near the hot parts. The fancy grill graphic is just a placeholder -- we aren't actually putting a ritzy stone wall around it. The mock patio furniture is also highly unlikely unless we want to go for a Sims-themed layout.

Once this is constructed, we'll have twice as many things to show off to people who we haven't seen since pre-March 2020!

Stuff in My Drawers Day: Old Newspapers

One day in 7th grade, my dad gave me the front page of the Washington Post and told me to save it. His paraphrased explanation was, "We went to war today. You're going to want to remember this day sometime in the future."

He didn't give me another newspaper until 17 years later, the day that Barack Obama was elected the first time. By then, I already had my own subscription, but it was still a nice gesture at a historical moment.

The corollary to this story is that, apparently, nothing between 1991 and 2008 impressed my dad in the least bit.

Paint Day

The reason I relocated my office to the basement last September was to make room for another Uri. This weekend, we finally got around to repainting the shade of "eggshell blue" that first went on 15 years ago, on October 22, 2005.

After painting Interim Bunny, I painted some binoculars over its eyes and then gently concealed it behind a bush using the final paint color. Now Maia thinks it will be hiding in the wall forever, guarding over the room.