Friday, December 30, 2005

2005 Go Bye-Bye

Quite an interesting year I must say. Away we go...

Seeing Chicago with Niamh, going to Bear Valley to do very little skiiing and a lot of partying, doing Smokey Joe's Cafe with WVLO, performing with Company One, vocal directing Flapper in Gilroy, getting my first professional show with Cabrillo Stage and working with my professor on stage, throwing a great surprise birthday bash for Niamh (gotcha baby), one-year anniversary in Capitola, having my own surprise thrown on me backstage at Cabrillo for my birthday (got me baby), Niamh moving to SF, teaching with CMT (not anymore!), getting engaged to the most wonderful woman on Earth, Company One again, playing Gaston in Beauty And The Beast, a road trip to Oregon and a wonderful Christmas.

Those are just the highlights. Amongst all that are countless nights of shooting pool and eating killer nachos with Dave at South First, rocking with RoShamBo, nights on the town having a drink or two with Chenoah, cozy evenings in with Niamh, getting a new kitten, getting a new car and many other little moments that made this a great year.

As for next year, vocal directing with Monroe Middle School and possibly vocal/music directing for Cupertino High School, auditions galore, planning the wedding and hopefully taking a trip to Milwaukee to show Nicole around a bit. Should be a great year. Hope your 2005 was memorable. If not, you still have 36 hours or so to go out there and make it so! Have a fun, save New Year's Eve folks. See you in 2006. Peace...

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

'Tis The Season

Well, Christmas 2005 has come and gone. Another year of egg nog, mistletoe, crowded malls, irate FedEx workers, credit card abuse, and other tidings of the season. But amidst all this cliche comedic fodder, there are also many great things that happen. Heres the tally...

1181.3 miles driven.
A great trip to Oregon to see Nicole's parents and grandmother.

Nine different highways in two different states.
See above... Did I ever mention that I-5 is the most boring highway on Earth? I loved the Lake Shasta area, but when there is even a little cloud cover, you can't see crap anyways.

Five gas stops.
Did you know that it is illegal to pump your own gas in the state of Oregon? Well, I sure as hell didn't. Three gallons into a stop in Medford, the attendant comes running out in a panic telling me he is gonna get fired if his manager saw. He was really cool about it though. (Thanks "V".) Nicole and I went in to get some coffee and a Sobe. While we were paying, some homeless guy was buying scratcher tickets and he won five bucks...

Homeless dude: I won FIVE BUCKS! (coughs raspily)
V: Yay!!! Go take a shower...

Oregon is a weird place man. Really pretty in certain places, but the gene pool there is definately a bit more narrow than one would expect. Moving on...


Three new books for my collection.
Thanks to Nicole and her family, I have a little more eye candy for my shelves. A leather-bound edition of The Selected Works of Mark Twain, a 1931 print of The Adventues of Tom Sawyer (both from Nicole's parents), and a hardcover, embossed collector's edition of The Lord Of The Rings Trillogy thanks to my wonderful fiance Nicole. She also got me an original vinyl print of Bon Jovi from 1987 which has Wanted Dead Or Alive and a few other classics on it. I love you Niamh.

Two slabs of killer prime rib.
The typical fare at our house on Christmas. My dad's pride and joy. Good times.

And finally,
ONE NEW COMPY!
Yesserie. Yours truly finally got a new PC. It has been a need as of the past three years or so since the old compy had been freezing up a lot. Trying to run 2004 programs on a 2000 computer will do that. So now, I have all the cool bells and whistles that new PC's have, but I find myself loving the smaller features more...

-Won't lock up while I type a blog.
-Doesn't take ten minutes to boot up.
-Can run more than one program at once.
-Doesn't tout a BetaMax drive as a feature.

Thanks Mom and Dad.


With the new compy, I can do more pics and stuff that I actually promised before. Loading them up on the old one was such a chore. Ahh, I love new technology. Wow, long one today! That is all though. Maybe something more for NYE, so wait and see. Peace...