2006 - The Year That Was

So 2006 only has about 5 and half more hours left. What was good about it? Here are a few things:

Marching band was great. This year saw the Swansea Tiger Marching Band reclaim its glory with a Lower State victory and a Silver medal at state. Nobody saw that coming for sure, except me and my wife!

Ted! Ted seems to be doing well after a very rough 2005 in which he had major neck surgery. 2006 seems to have been a good year for him to recover.

Family in General! Our family seems to have had a great year and we love them and saw a lot of them.

Prosperity! We have had a fairly prosperous year. I hope the new year brings us more blessings.

Fish! I have caught the most stripers ever this year and finished 45th in the standings after only fishing a few tournaments.

I welcome 2007 with open arms. It may be the best ever because I truly believe 2006 was!

Ah yes!

So I have been up to a lot of nothing. It is nice to be able to do things that I want to when I want to do them. I have done a few things around the house but not too much. Christmas was pretty good and now New Years is on the way. I have always like New Years. It seems like a time to start over with a lot of things.

So what did everybody get for Christmas? I got a great new bait tank for my boat, a digital recorder for recording bands and stuff, a portable DVD player that is really cool, and a bunch of smaller things and some neat clothes.

I fished yesterday and after being lost in an incredible fog band for an hour, I caught over 20 stripers. So that was fun.

Off to the Creek!

Today we are going to Goose Creek to see mom and dad. It will be fun and we will be home by dark so it really isn't too bad. It doesn't look good for any chance of a white christmas. Maybe some rain. If you swint when you look at the rain, it kind of looks like it is snowing. I have only seen one white christmas. It was in Charleston in 1989 the year Hugo came through and changed things forever. My mom said it was God's gift to us because of the hurricane. It snowed 10 inches in about 36 hours. It was and still is the record snow fall for Charleston. It was really neat.

On the Third Day of Christmas...

My true love gave to me...A Christmas Tree! Alright, it really has been up for a while but to me it went up a little early. When I was little the tree never went up until Christmas Eve. This was always the way it went. If you ever went to a Catholic church before Christmas you would never see any Christmas decoration until Christmas Eve. I will always remember walking into the church on that day and it was like a different world.

I asked my mom why we waited until Christmas Eve to have a tree and she told me the story behind it. She said that when she was little they were too poor to buy a tree so her daddy wait until Christmas Eve to get one for free. Apparently on Christmas Eve all the tree lots in St. Louis would burn the left over trees and they were free for the taking. So when she was a little girl, she would go to sleep on Christmas Eve with no tree and wake up and "Wow" Santa had put up the tree!

So any way the picture is of our tree this year. Isn't it beautiful? The best ever!

On the Second Day of Christmas...

More shopping! What kink of idiot goes shopping on December 22? Me! I am getting an early start so maybe it won't be too bad.

On the First Day of Christmas...

I will spend the day at the in-laws. That is ok because I will get presents and get to eat a lot of food. It is crummy weather any way. Fishing would be tough so I will just eat all day.

Christmas Break

Well it is finally here. I look forward to it every year. I know all the teachers do but one thing to remember is that I started back to school 5 weeks before the other teachers so I am really ready. I look forward to doing some fishing and spending time with family and of course the Boyz! I remember being a kid and thinking about the all the good stuff I might get. Now it seems that the stuff doesn't matter nearly as much as who thinks of you enough just to go out of their way to send you a card or give you something small.

P.S. Henry (pictured above) is going to audition to be "Max" the grinch's dog in a new movie. All he needs is a horn on his head.

Too Cute

This picture is too cute not to post. I feel an illness coming on right about now too (cough, cough)!

Home at Last

Cindy is finally home. It must be hard to come back from a place this beautiful.

John Lennon

John Lennon October 9, 1940 - December 8, 1980

Just a reminder about what yesterday was the anniversary of. If you don't know anything about him, you really owe it to yourself to find out more.

Baby It's Cold Outside

So tomorrow is the Gaston Christmas Parade. The predicted low for tonight/tomorrow morning...16 degrees! This is what makes band directing fun. It is always something. If the predicted temperatures are true, this will be officially the coldest parade in which I have participated.

Maybe it's time to get a real job!

Easy Target!

I am certainly the easiest of them all. How do I feel at a given time? You don't have to ask. Just look. How is this for a character flaw? I tell people like it is. Along time ago, I made a commitment to telling my bands what my feelings were about how they were performing. In a politically correct world, this can get me in trouble. It is interesting to me how many people want outstanding results but are so reluctant to do what is necessary to obtain them. I look back some of the comments that were posted on this board the week before lower state. I even deleted many of them due to personal attacks that were made, but the week after...No negative comments. Even on some other "band" boards people were posting that the results from lower state were a mistake. Those comments to disappeared the next week. If outstanding results were so easy obtain, would they even be worth having? It was not by chance that not one person came up to me on the field at lower state or state and said "You remember all that work in July and August? Well this just ins't worth it!"

All organizations and individuals that achieve at a high level have two things in common. They understand the chain of command, and they have a sense of urgency. One of these two things without the other is just not enough.

So am I an easy target? I hope so!

Concert Tonight

No trophies, no scores, no competition just a concert. Why a concert? High school band is an educational activity not an entertainment activity. What we do in concert band is much more difficult than in marching band. My expectations are also much higher in concert band. It is the most important outlet of displaying music education that a band can offer. Hopefully tonight people will be entertained but the true value is in the learning and application that the students will exhibit. Hopefully it will go well.

Individual responsibility

"Hey, it's not my fault!" Really? Than whose is it? One of the cornerstones to my philosophy of music education is individual responsibility. What does that mean? Well here is an example. Last year after the band finished 6th at Lower State and 9th at state (which by the way, I was still pretty happy with. Just think about what it is like to not make state or even have that chance! But that is another story for later.) I was asked what happened? Whose fault was it? You were suppose to be this great band director and this was the worst result the band has had in 6 years. My response? "It was my fault." Why? Because I am the band director. The outcome of band activities in Lexington School District Four have one thing in common...Me. There were surprises that I found when I got into my new job, but there was no excuse for the lack of success at the state level. There was another question: "How is it your fault?" My answer: "I didn't try hard enough." Another question, "What can you do about it?" My answer: "Everything. I will try harder."

Even in the concert area, my forte, we did not achieve a Superior rating. Why? I didn't do a good enough job. How can this be fixed? I will try harder.

So what is individual responsibility? It is that voice in your head that tells you to take out your instrument and play some lip slurs even though you really don't like them. It is the little voice in your head that tells you to put your instrument in its locker even though it is easier to just put in on the floor. It is pride that you have in yourself for an accomplishment that only you know about and even worst...You may be the only person to ever know about it!

Only with more individual responsibility and self discipline can the Swansea band move to the next level. Self discipline=Individual responsibility and Individual responsibility=Self discipline.

A final thought for the evening. Discipline is not something that somebody does to you or makes you do. It is something you do to yourself.

Parades!

Ah yes! What could get me out of my house on a cold and dreary Sunday? A parade of course. In all reality, they are usually pretty fun and you get to see a lot of people. Parades are one of the most visible things a band performs in all year. Our first holiday parade is today in the big town of Swansea. I hope the rain holds off until tonight for us.