Take a Moment to Remember

It's easy for the true meaning of Memorial Day to get lost in all the barbecues and "first day of summer" celebrations (even if the latter's not true anymore here in Texas, thanks to the state-mandated later start to the school year). But we need to remember that we wouldn't have the freedom to chill out today if a whole lot of people hadn't made the ultimate sacrifice on our behalf.

Ironically, some of the people who best understand the solemnity of this day are those who make their living as humorists for most of the rest of the year. Dave Barry links to both a set of instructions as to how to properly celebrate Memorial Day and a good collection of Memorial Day quotes. Let me share a few of the latter:

I have never been able to think of the day as one of mourning; I have never quite been able to feel that half-masted flags were appropriate on Decoration Day. I have rather felt that the flag should be at the peak, because those whose dying we commemorate rejoiced in seeing it where their valor placed it. We honor them in a joyous, thankful, triumphant commemoration of what they did. — Benjamin Harrison

The patriot’s blood is the seed of Freedom’s tree. — Thomas Campbell

The Flag still floats unblotted with defeat!
But ah the blood that keeps its ripples red,
The starry lives that keep its field alight.
– Rupert Hughes

And James Lileks, who hasn't had any family members who died in service, posts a picture of the closest thing: The man on whose former farm Lileks' house was built (he didn't die right away, but was seriously wounded for a time).

It's still possible to properly observe this day amidst the cookouts, of course. A White House decree from 2000 explains how to participate in a National Moment of Remembrance today:

Encouraging individual department and agency personnel, and
Americans everywhere, to pause for one minute at 3:00 p.m.
(local time) on Memorial Day, to remember and reflect on the
sacrifices made by so many to provide freedom for all.

It's nearly 3:00. Will you stop and remember?

Today's Situation in a Nutshell

I've talked quite a bit here about how many of the problems faced by our country have to do with the fact that the people running things may have plenty of political experience, but little actual time spent in the productive part of society.

I've meant to blog more about this recently, but time has been at a premium. Thankfully, there are others out there who share this opinion, and The Anchoress states it very well:

[T]hat is the problem in a nutshell. Our government is top-heavy with people who have never “done” anything.

The Obama administration is loaded down with academics and lawyers who have spent their lives theorizing about things like economics, markets, social order and crisis management–and criticizing methods with which they disagree–but who have little practical experience in doing.

In fairness to the White House, many members of congress (and their leadership) have never done anything but talk, pose and run for office, too, but perhaps it behooves a president to have a few people in place who know how to (as any successful capitalist would) find the people who have an acquaintance with practical applications and who know how to yell, and how to dig in with both unmanicured hands.

Admittedly, it is difficult to put such people in place. Can-do capitalists are jawboners; they tend to want to lead, rather than fall-in-line. But any administration should have a couple of them discreetly in the background, so that when things hit the fan, there are more than mere theorists on board.

And a commenter to that post, who goes by the handle of "J" lays out a possible solution to this problem:

I’m generally not big on changing the constitution, but I’d support a change that barred anyone who hadn’t spent at least half of their adult life working in the private sector from holding any federal elective office.

Well said. And I'll repeat my own response to "J" here: It’s time to diminish the unproductive class in dramatic fashion and let members of the productive class be in charge. (The only reason this doesn’t happen more often is because those in the productive class are too busy, well, producing things.)

It’s also a good argument for term limits for all in government, legislator and bureaucrat alike. Start out in the productive sector, learn a skill that can be shared with the government for a brief time, and get back to producing things again.

A lot of us out here don't want the amount of government we currently have; few truly need it, and none of us can afford it. It's time to give everyone in government a 15% pay cut across the board, with the potential for more cuts based on productivity and accomplishment (or, more precisely, lack thereof)*. It's time to cut the bureaucracy in half; anyone who receives their salary the public dime needs to be working very, very hard. And the term-limits-for-all idea described above needs to be implemented as soon as possible.

These ideas need to be shared with those who are running for office in November; elections have consequences, and it's time for the unproductive class to be shown the door.

*I realize that raising or lowering pay based on productivity rather than number of years spent on the job would require that the influence of unions be cut to the bone. I consider this a feature, not a bug.

Commence Summer

As of this afternoon, the public-school portion of my academic year has concluded; the college semester having ended two weeks ago, I can officially say that it's summer (which, for someone in academia, does not correspond with the beginning of that season as stated on a calendar). There are a couple (literally, two) of non-exam days next week, but I have jury duty on Tuesday, so it's pretty safe to say that any teaching that goes on next week will be at Casa de Kev and not inside a school.

There were a few challenges this year--most notably during the fall semester, when I was doing some extra teaching in relief of an ailing colleague while undergoing my own recovery from knee surgery--but there were a lot of rewarding moments, and some really good music was made.

It's not a true vacation, of course; summer teaching starts a week from Monday, and the schedule still needs to be finalized. But I'm looking forward to a few days of doing very little, starting now.

Don't Book Me, Dano

I made mention of this on Facebook earlier, but I think it warrants a slightly longer rant: I wish it were possible to opt-out of receiving phone books.

I'm sure they're useful to somebody, but to me, phone books are as outmoded as the rotary-dial phones they used to serve. If I want a phone number, I get it from the Internet--and if I do so on my iPhone, I can usually just click a link on the webpage to make the call; no more writing down or memorizing numbers anymore.

The worst thing about phone books is their bulk, along with the fact that, at least in my city, you can't put them out with regular recycling. Instead, they can only be dropped off at the big recycling center, which is almost never open when I'm not working. There's a grocery store that will take them about twice a year, but I always seem to miss it.

They used to just sit in a messy pile at the edge of my dining room, but I finally realized that there was an unused kitchen cabinet where they could go. Still, that cabinet is almost full, and it's almost as if "out of sight, out of mind" has taken over, because I always forget to take them to the center even if it's a day off.

So I'd be a happy camper to never receive another phone book again. How about you--any use for them, or have they gone the way of the dodo for you as well?

(The) Crossing (of) Jordan

I'm one of those old-school guys who still reads newspapers (even if I almost totally ignore the front section, save for op-eds, letters from readers and lotto numbers; everything else, I read yesterday online), and since our local Dallas Morning News does a good job of high school sports coverage, I tend to read about up-and-coming athletes long before a lot of the rest of the world has heard of them.

Obviously, the DFW area has produced a lot of marquee names in football over the years (think Chase Daniel, Matthew Stafford, Graham Harrell and so on), and their exploits were chronicled in the paper throughout their prep careers. But there's also been a strong tradition of young golfers in the area--think Justin Leonard, the Kuehne siblings, Hunter Mahan and so on. And one of the people I'd been reading quite a lot about for the past few years is a 16-year-old named Jordan Spieth.

And after today, a whole lot more people will have heard of Jordan, because he made the cut at the Byron Nelson today:

Spieth is a high school junior from Dallas who cut class this week to play in the Byron Nelson Championship, becoming the first prep to take on the pros in this event since [Tiger] Woods in 1993. He's handled his nerves and the TPC Four Seasons course quite nicely, shooting a 3-under 137 through two rounds to become the sixth-youngest player to make the cut at a PGA Tour event.

I should point out that even Woods didn't make the cut at the Nelson during his prep days.

Jordan's having an exceptional week--and, so far, an exceptional life. One of his good buddies, whom he met at a pro-am earlier this year (and was in attendance today), is a certain golf-crazy local pro athlete named Tony Romo. And he ended up having a rather ginormous gallery today, as the Jesuit brass evidently sort of winked at the absenteeism of any of Jordan's fellow classmates (as well as a few teachers) who showed up to cheer him on.

Sure, nobody knows what the next few years will bring, but from what we've seen so far, Jordan likely has a bright future. He's playing in another tourney in South Carolina next month on a sponsor's invitation, and he still has another year of high school golf left before likely heading off to the University of Texas.

And while it's not likely that he'll win on Sunday, stranger things can happen. And his attitude is certainly in the right place: "I don't want to think of myself as an amateur out there," he said. "I want to think of myself as a contender." I'm certainly not going to doubt him.

Jordan Spieth--remember the name. We could be witnessing the start of something big.

SATURDAY UPDATE: Jordan continues to contend after today's round, ending up tied for seventh place. Way to go!

The Big Seven-Oh to My Brothers

Happy Chapter Day to my brothers in the Gamma Theta Chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia--a fine brotherhood of musicians serving the University of North Texas since May 19, 1940.

While the full roster of the chapter since that time includes some people who have made great contributions to the larger world of music (Jimmy Giuffre, Herb Ellis, Bob Dorough, Frank Mantooth), there have been plenty of unsung heroes who have made (or still are making) great contributions in much smaller worlds, but who are still heroes to many. It's a privilege to be an alumnus of such an esteemed group of gentlemen.

May your banner proudly "float for aye" for seventy--no, seven times seventy--more years!

Just a Little Reminder...

...of why I do what I do. And yeah, it might be lame to copy and paste stuff from Facebook, but this pretty much stands on its own, and I wanted a chance to share these sentiments with the part of the blogging world that's not also part of the Facebook world.

This was how my teaching day ended today:

This afternoon, a sixth-grader came in and played his B major scale, which he'd totally learned on his own just by "knowing what scales are supposed to sound like." I then showed him how to add more sharps and assigned F# for next week. If I ever needed a reminder of why I teach music, just watching the metaphorical l...ight bulbs go on like that will always do the trick.

That's what it's all about, folks. May you love your job as much as I love mine.

A Light at the End of the Blog Tunnel?

OK, I've been pretty bad at blogging (or at least being able to finish posts that I've started, before looking at the clock and saying, "Yikes, I have to get to bed now!") for quite some time now. As I looked over my list of posts tonight, I realized that I have more "pending" ones than real ones for the past month or so.

So why is this? Certainly, joining Facebook is (as expected) partially to blame; my online time is still finite during any given day, and I've devoted a lot of that time catching up with people I haven't talked to in years. Some of it can also be attributed to having a new TV and wanting to watch programs as they air in HD, rather than catching them later on a (greatly inferior) VCR rendering (yes, I'm still in my pre-TiVo phase).

But despite all the new distractions, I'm still firmly committed to doing this blog, and I have a solution to the time problem: If I'm going to watch TV during the week, then I can certainly blog during the time on the weekend when I'd normally be watching those taped shows. This weekend looks to be pretty chill, so I should get at least half of the 12 pending posts done in that time, and I'll link to all of them in a giant "catching up" post like I always do.

I've said this a lot, but, to those who haven't given up on The Musings yet: Thank you for your patience.

Experiment

It's really late in the semester to be trying new things, but here goes: Instead of going to bed 'round midnight (hey--that'd be a good song title!) and hitting a bunch of snooze alarms, I'm going to bed 'round eleven and seeing if I can wake up on time. Any bets on whether or not it will work?

Blame It on the Sun?

I did a decent amount of driving this weekend (though nothing like a week ago, when I notched 375 miles between Friday afternoon and Sunday evening), and, while I usually love to drive, one thing got in the way of my enjoyment, and no, it wasn't traffic or weather. (Well, OK, it was sort of weather. But read on...)

The problem? Radio reception. It was just hideously bad all weekend, especially yesterday. I'm used to a lot of static on the iPod converter whenever I go on really tall bridges or get within a few miles of downtown Dallas, but yesterday morning, it started this awful whining sound from the moment I drove south of LBJ. And it wasn't just iPod reception, either; the financial show I always listen to on the radio after church took on an otherworldly aspect this week, as the host sounded like he was talking in a computerized Stephen Hawking voice.

Needless to say, I was curious as to whether I was the only one having these problems, so I did what pretty much any red-blooded American would do nowadays: I posted a query to Facebook. And one of my old college friends gave me what's likely to be the answer: There was heavier-than-usual solar flair activity this weekend. And yes, that meant that radio was likely affected:

On May 5th, a pair of solar flares bathed Earth's upper atmosphere in X-rays and caused a double-wave of ionization to sweep over the Americas. This improved the propagation of low-frequency radio signals, which use the ionosphere as a reflector to skip over the horizon.

(Check out the cool pictures and an oh-so-brief video at the link.)

So there you go. I would've never guessed something like that, but I had the answer within a very short time. Thank you, Tom K., and thank you, Facebook.

The principal got a detention: I've been known to tweak school administrators on this blog when they make goofy professional decisions. But here's a Ft. Worth middle school assistant principal who made two really bad off-campus choices: First, she got busted for public intoxication outside a Dallas nightclub after getting in a scrap with the bouncer. Then it was discovered that, while she was trying to get into the club, she left her two small kids alone in a hotel room (all this while her husband is on active duty in Iraq). But here's the kicker: The reason the club bouncer wouldn't let her in? She wasn't in compliance with the club's dress code! (I wonder how many times she's enforced that rule at her own campus, and how little credibility she'll have in that area if she happens to get her job back.)

I, Road Warrior

I'm one tired puppy right now, but the long weekend of going everyplace under the sun is finally over. Since Friday afternoon, my travels have taken me to Ft. Worth, Denton, McKinney, Frisco, Plano, Southlake and Bedford. I've driven around 375 miles all told, while still spending each night in my own bed.

More later, but at least you might be able to understand why I haven't blogged much lately.

This Week is TAKS-ing to My Wallet Once Again

Since it's the week of standardized testing in Texas schools, I posed the question on Facebook: Which April event is more evil--Tax Day or TAKS week? (My set of responders--mostly teachers--were almost unanimous in declaring the state tests as being even worse than opening up your wallet to Uncle Sam. (But for those in my area of teaching--at least the public school part--I have to open up my wallet either way, since I'm teaching maybe half of my private students ths week, although that's an improvement over years past.)

What say you? Tell me in the comments.

The Next Thing I Need to Arrange Is a Nap

It's nearly four in the morning, and I'm awake. And I'm not getting up early, either; I'm still up from last night.

So what am I doing up this late? Arranging music. I have a few things that absolutely must be read today, and I've been putting them off until this week (since I won't see a lot of my private students thanks to state standardized testing). And I knew that I was slow on the music notation software, but I had no idea I was this slow.

The good news: The tune I've been working on since midnight is finished and the parts are printed out. The less-good news: I have another one to complete in the morning.

I'm glad my livelihood doesn't depend on this, since I write and arrange at a glacial pace. (They say the hardest part of practicing is opening the case; the hardest part of writing has to be sitting down and opening the software or putting pencil to paper.)

I feel good about getting this done. Now let's hope that what I wrote sounds at least as good, if not much, much better, than the way it sounded on the sequencer.

Immig-Rant 2.0

My blogging time is limited today, but I had to chime in about the tough new immigration bill signed into law by Arizona's governor this afternoon. This whole thing brings up a few questions that I'd love to see answered:

• Why do so many people appear to care so much about the so-called rights of people who are breaking our laws simply by virtue of being here?


• And why are so many "activist" groups rallying for criminals' rights simply because they happen to share an ethnicity with the criminals? (It's way past time for this nation to move beyond race.)

My take on illegal immigration is can be summed up by the signs that appear throughout Six Flags and other amusement parks: "LINE JUMPERS WILL BE REMOVED FROM THE PARK." You want to come here? Get in line like everyone else. Of course, the ridiculous bureaucratic policies that have people waiting a long time to become legal citizens should be streamlined, but people also have to realize that we'll never be able to let everyone in who wants to come here, especially the high number of refugees from the nearly-failed nation to our south. It's too bad some of the people who would sneak in here can't put some of that time and energy into reforming their own corrupt government.

And again, please stop it with the tired argument of "illegals are just doing jobs that Americans refuse to do." With around 10% unemployment in our nation right now, and a job market for high school/college students that's been abysmal for nearly a decade, I think there are plenty of people who would be more than happy to work at McDonald's or mow lawns. We can help out the rest of the world when we have money or resources to spare, but we have to take care of our own first.

I don't go off on things on this blog like I used to (if nothing else, I do have limited blogging time, and I like to talk about positive stuff as much as I can), but sometimes, things just have to be said.

A review of what should be a great jazz concert I'm about to attend will follow tomorrow.

(My original "Immig-Rant" from 2006 may be found here.)

'Book 'em, Kevo!

(If you're my friend on Facebook, you can probably skip this one. See ya tomorrow!)

As I expected, it's taking a little while for me to properly organize my admittedly meager time spent online since I joined Facebook a few weeks ago. It hasn't hit the blog as hard as it's hit Twitter (and maybe I just need to link Twitter with my Facebook feed, even though some of my status updates are more than 140 characters long), but there have been times where I've been even more behind on blog posts than usual, if that's even possible.

But sometimes, these worlds do merge; there are things I post on Facebook that might be interesting to my blog readers, so let me recap a few of them here:

• This may be a rerun, but I'm going to have to do a full post on why cars and trucks don't mix on the highways. My trip to Waco last weekend convinced me of this beyond any doubt.


• Is there any roadside treat in Central Texas that's better than a kolache from the Czech Stop?


• Situation: My school district's audition music is only available online this year, putting the onus on the students to print it out. Problem: First student of the day on Monday hasn't printed his copy yet. Solution: We go over the music by reading it off the screen of my iPhone. Gotta love modern technology!


• I was getting very frustrated with one of the tires on my car this week; the "low tire pressure" light was coming on every morning since Sunday, and I couldn't see or hear evidence of a leak. I brought it in yesterday, and we found the culprit: The smallest of nails.


• The nail-in-the-tire story spawned another one from a while back: The last time I lived in an apartment complex, they spent over a year replacing the roof on all the units, so there were stray roofing nails all over the parking lot. One of them found its way into my tire, so I took it in to be fixed. A while later, the tire guy called me and said, "Well..., sir, it turns out that you didn't have a nail in your tire--you had *five* of them."


• And finally, one from Facebook itself: My reaction thus far to the new Facebook terminology of "liking" a band/business/whatever (vs. the old "becoming a fan of" said entity) ranges from "meh" to "that's a silly idea."

As I said a while back, I promise that what I blog here won't be Facebook-driven all that often, but I will do these little updates every now and then.

Giving In to Their Bass-er Desires

Cool and unusual: Ten jazz double bassists onstage at the same time. Even cooler: One of them is Rufus Reid:


(This was the post-intermission special at the Baylor Jazz Ensemble concert last night. Needless to say, the whole concert was quite enjoyable, and during the bass group's two selections--a lush ballad and a playful romp on Duke Ellington's "Just Squeeze Me"--they produced some unique sounds. Kudos to director Alex Parker for putting the whole thing together.)

Travel Advisory

I'm going to Waco for a fraternity workshop this weekend. Can't wait to satisfy my Fazoli's fix while I'm there (it's been over a year now) and chill with the brothers. I'll also be seeing the Baylor Jazz Ensemble with special guest Rufus Reid tonight. Back sometime tomorrow.

Blowing out the candles: Happy birthday, Mom! As I mentioned the other day, she and her sister are celebrating together for the first time in eons; wish I could be there.

A/C, or Not A/C: That is the Question

OK, I promise that what I post on Facebook won't always drive what I post here (though it may well have a lot of overlap with Twitter). But this seemed like a timely topic for both forums (and I've blogged about it here before), so here goes:

I posed this question today: "How long will I hold out before turning on the A/C in the house? It has yet to get above 78 in here--my usual spring/summer setting--even on the hottest afternoon."

The first response I got, from an old high school classmate, was "Are you green or broke?" I pointed out that it wasn't really either, but that I had managed to acclimate myself to 78 in the spring/summer and 68 in the winter. And I was quite surprised to find out that many people in my FB circle keep their houses at rather Arctic temperatures compared to mine. (73? 70? Really? I'd hate to pay their electric bills. Maybe I'm both green and broke compared to some of these folks.)

So feel free to place predictions on how long you think I can hold out before cranking up the A/C in Casa de Kev, as well as sharing the average late spring/summer temperature of your own domicile in the comments.

Blowing out the candles in a special way: Happy birthday to my Aunt Nora from Indiana, born a day before Tax Day and two days (and a year) before her younger sister, whom I call "Mom." This year, they're doing something unusual: Nora's in Houston visiting my folks, so the two sisters get to celebrate their birthdays in the same location for the first time in decades.

Failliversary

Just as yesterday was a good day in my personal history--celebrating seven years of blogging--today is a much more dubious anniversary: The first anniversary of my accident.

Rather than recount the entire tale, I'll direct those who may be new to this blog here, and if you want to follow the whole thing, click the tag at the bottom of this post called "The 'Accident of Gravity' Chronicles" and everything related to the accident and recovery periods should come up.

As I noted just a little while ago on Facebook, my "celebration" of the anniversary was capped off by something I didn't--couldn't--do a year ago at this time: Walk through my front door at day's end under my own power. And while I may not have hit the racquetball court yet, my knee is something that I don't really think about all that often. Life has pretty much returned to normal.

May there be a continuation of this "normal" for the foreseeable future.

Blogiversary

It was seven years ago today that I started The Musings of Kev. I began blogging for several reasons: To have an outlet for creative writing; to vent about a few things in a larger forum; to satisfy the journalism bug that bit me in college (writing CD and concert reviews, among other things); and, well, because a lot of my friends were blogging at the time (I guess that's the "all the cool kids are doing it" line of reasoning).

I started out doing very short posts--things that would probably be Tweeted today. Eventually, the Blogger software went through a few updates, and suddenly, my posts had headlines, tags and so on. As I learned more and more about HTML, things like links and embedded videos would make their way into various posts. As I read more and more "A-list" bloggers, some of their styles inevitably crept into mine.

There have been a few pleasant surprises along the way: I never expected for this blog to get a hundred hits from all over the place in a single day, as has happened a few times when a post was linked to a prominent site (among the most-viewed posts are the one supporting the UNT stadium referendum and my review of the Maynard Ferguson tribute in St. Louis. And while I still have yet to receive the beloved "Instalanche" (a link from Glenn Reynolds' mega-blog Instapundit, I have been frontpaged by Althouse in a post about lolcats--something I discovered at Althouse in the first place.

And it has certainly been a pleasant surprise to occasionally meet people via blogging who have morphed into friends in real life; that was something I never expected when I first started putting my "random thoughts and rants" online.

Nowadays, my biggest challenge is finishing the posts that I start in a timely fashion. My teaching days are long, I occasionally still have work to do when I get home, and things like Twitter and, for the past week, Facebook, are competing for my online attention. But my commitment to this forum remains unwavering, even if I seem to get a lot of it done on the weekends (indeed, the only reason this post is going out so early is that the public schools have a holiday this morning).

Thank you for your attention and continued visits. I'll work hard to make what you read here worthy of your time.