I just finished a crazy month!
The end of the semester was packed with recital recordings, music projects, and our Annex concert. Needless to say, I spent a lot of time at the music building. I really can't believe how much has happened in only this semester, and I have only taken five credits!
The semester is coming to an end, and I'm looking forward to a summer of great vacations, along with work at Steve & Barrys, and hopefully some live audio tech gigs as well.

We also just got back from a trip up to Oshkosh to visit college friends. It was good times!

Big Update

It's been a long time since my last post, so I'm going to try to change my pace and most much more often, although they may be somewhat shorter. I need to keep up!

During this past month, things have become way busier, and for the good. The biggest news is that I am now working with the recording program at the University, so I am recording concerts and helping with tech. This will be a great supplement to my projects in the Computer Music program, and the school studio is really incredible.

I've also been involved in a lot of tech for electronic music events, and the Annex concert is quickly approaching toward the end of the month.

I played a successful show at the House Cafe again last Sunday with my friend Bob from class.
We collaborated and pulled together a pretty tight 30 minute set.

Cassie and I took two trips in March: We went to Wisconsin Dells for a short getaway at the Wilderness resort, and went to Chicago with my family to see Wicked and check out the city. Our Chicago hotel was especially impressive. The only downer was that the weather was really crappy. We still had a great time on both trips.

The next week, my friend Micah from our former band came to visit and record an acoustic album. We had a good time catching up for a few days, and the recording was very successful!

I'm just trying to keep up with everything as the end of the semester approaches. Everything has turned out very differently than I anticipated, but it is all for the good.

Shalom Music Video

I just finished a music video with footage from our most recent, and possibly our last show.
It brought back a lot of great memories. The band was a lot more fun than stress, and my favorite parts of being in the band went well beyond just playing shows in front of an audience. It was a great way to hopefully change some lives along the way.

A busy few weeks!

We've been keeping busy lately, which is a great thing!

Last weekend, we went to Chicago to see the Edward Hopper art exhibit. Cassie and I took the train in, and it was a pretty cool experience since I had never ridden the train into Chicago before. The terminal in Chicago was almost like an airport.
We couldn't help but spend the first couple of hours shopping around. All of the stores in Chicago are bigger and better than what we're used to.

The Hopper exhibit was great, and really surprised me how bright and vivid the artwork looks in person. One of the highlights was "Nighthawks" which looks amazing in person.
We then had some deep dish Chicago pizza at a restaurant that we later found out has a location only minutes from our house! Even so, the pizza was great, especially because it essentially has an entire block of cheese on each slice. It was a really fun trip, and it makes me want to go back soon!


This weekend, Shalom played its last show at the Cup of Joy in Green Bay, Wisconsin. We were all a little sad to see the band end, but we are all so busy in our own lives, that it is nearly impossible to keep things going. We had a great show, opening for a band called Air Five, and had an amazing live video made! I'll have it posted on YouTube soon.


It was great to visit Oshkosh and hang out with all the guys from the band again.

After working all weekend, I'm gearing up with Cassie to go back to classes tomorrow. It will definitely be a strange atmosphere following the tragedy, but we will try to make the best of it and keep going on.

A Surprise Tragedy on Campus

It's the morning after the tragic shooting at NIU that shocked all of us yesterday afternoon. Thankfully, both Cassie and I were at home when my dad called to tell us about the shooting. We had the news on for most of the afternoon and evening to ultimately find out that there were seven people killed, including the gunman.
It's still hard to believe, of all the universities that you could hear about this happening, and it actually happens here. The Kishwaukee hospital, where many of the victims are taken, is only several minutes from our apartment.
All I can really say is that my heart goes out to the victims and I'm sure that many people who were on campus or attend NIU were keeping their loved ones a little bit closer on Valentine's Day, thankful to be safe from such a senseless and unexplainable situation.
I'm not exactly sure how things will change on campus following all of this, but it certainly seems that everyone will be on edge for a while, knowing that something so innocent as a campus Geology class isn't enough to keep you safe from someone who has lost their mind.
I hope that the families and friends of these victims can somehow learn to eventually cope and somehow heal from all of this.

Still Cold!

It's still cold. And snowy. And winter!
It's getting a little tiring, but I have some new changes that I am looking forward to.
I'm hoping to make the jump from work at Steve & Barry's, to teaching private voice and piano lessons. Unfortunately, since things have been very slow at work, I haven't been getting many hours, but this also led me to realize how great it would be to teach on a regular basis.

I'm also participating in the February songwriting challenge with some friends from Wisconsin, which essentially entails writing one song every two days for the entire month of February. I'm running a little behind right now, but it has taught me a lot about my variety of songwriting styles, and I'm glad that I'm recording all of the new songs so that I don't forget them! Hopefully, I'll catch up before the end of the month when we are going to share all of our works.

Cassie has been really busy with school, and has been gone quite a bit. She has been working really hard lately, and I hope she gets through the rest of the semester without going crazy! I know she'll make it, though, because she's handled this kind of stress many times before.

Next week is going to be the last show by the band I am in from Oshkosh. We had a great run, and played some really exciting shows, including the Lifefest music festival, which was an amazing experience. It looks like we're all getting so busy, and I am living so far away, that this is probably the time to call it quits for the band. It is a little sad, but it's also exciting that we all have so many great things going on in our own individual lives.

Finally, we're planning a trip to Chicago this Saturday to visit the art museum and I'm really looking forward to seeing the Edward Hopper exhibit. We haven't been into Chicago in a while, and I think it will be great to get away for a day.

Well, I guess there's more going on than I thought, despite the cold winter! We'll see how everything turns out.

Snow Day!

It's great to know that you're never too old for a good ol' snow day!
That's right, classes were canceled today, and we're in a winter wonderland once again.
So the last few weeks have mostly been made up of class and work, but there has been some fun stuff going on.
Last Thursday was my performance at the House Cafe in Dekalb. Even though it was snowing pretty hard, we still had a pretty decent turnout of about 30 or so people. There was also some great music after us which made the night a great time. Even my work friend Mia came with one of her friends to watch. Check out one of the songs I performed:

Then on Sunday, we invited our friends from the art world, Tom and Shawna, over for the Super Bowl! I have to say, it was a great game and it was awesome to see the Giants take down the Patriots.
Cassie made us tacos, which were excellent!
So the rest of my week is made up of work, and I'm hoping to finish up my first project. More information on that to come!

Great Celebration, Disappointing Loss

Because of a Packers win last week, my parents and brother came down to Dekalb today to watch the big NFC championship against the Giants on our big 50" TV. And, since my birthday is coming up this Thursday, we also took the opportunity to celebrate my birthday!

We had a nice halftime celebration, and also gave my mom gifts because it will be her birthday this week, as well.

Notice the beautifully decorated cake from my favorite place to get cakes, Dairy Queen! I used to get one of those every year when I was a kid, and I still love them now.

The Packers ended up having a lousy second half, despite putting up a hard fight on a frigid weekend with the wind chill at about -20. We were all pretty disappointed that we didn't get to see the Pack go to another Superbowl, but Brett will probably come back again, and there's always next year!

So although we leave with sadness, Cassie and I are gearing up for a busy week, filled with both work and celebrating.

The Laurie Anderson Project

So classes started this week! I am currently enrolled in only two classes because I am currently an out-of-state resident. In other words, my tuition costs are about twice as expensive as living in-state. The irony is, if I originally lived in Illinois and decided to do to a Wisconsin school, I would receive in-state tuition from Wisconsin! Thanks for returning the favor, Illinois!

In any case, my 412 class is going to be based on individual presentations about electronic music from different eras, starting post-civil war. Once we each were assigned an era, it was our duty to research a particular composer and song that can be a jumping-off point for describing that point in time. My era will cover the 70's and 80's, and I have chosen Avant-garde composer and performer, Laurie Anderson.I was first introduced to her music in a class back at Oshkosh and discovered that she had done work with Phillip Glass during the 80's. Her music, especially on the album above, titled "Big Science" incorporates electronic elements including synthesizers, looping, and a vocoder. Shockingly enough, her most well-known piece, titled "O Superman" was actually a hit in Eurpoe for a while.

So I'm keeping myself busy with research while I settle in to classes and work on some other housekeeping, such as becoming a true Illinois resident. I'm working at Steve & Barry's the rest of the week (I'll have to talk about them soon) and looking forward to a visit from my family on Sunday when we will watch the big upcoming Packer/Giants game at the apartment.

An Excellent 2007 Christmas

Before I start looking forward to the semester, I can't forget to tell you about the great Christmas that we had this year. It began with buying a LOT of presents. I think this is the biggest pile I've had yet:I celebrated essentially six Christmases this year. Here was the schedule:

Saturday, December 22 - Christmas on Cassie's mom's side of the family
Sunday - Christmas with Cassie's Dad's parents
THEN we drove home in the worst driving conditions I've ever seen! We didn't go over 35mph the whole way home, and we heard that the highway was closed down soon after we made it home!

Monday - Christmas eve at both of my Grandparents' houses
(There's my bro with Cassie at my Grandma's)

Tuesday - Christmas day at my home and Cassie's home
Wednesday - We departed for Galena for a two-night vacation getaway!
The whole vacation was great, despite the stress of driving and getting everywhere we needed to be. In Galena, we tried cross-country skiing (which was very difficult, because it was too warm!), went swimming, and played a lot of games. We also met up with our neighbors who were staying at the same time.

It's hard to believe it's 2008 already, but I'm looking forward to a lot of new surprises in the upcoming year!

It Begins...

Well, here I am.
It's the start of a new year, and soon to be the start of a new experience, as I look forward to attending Graduate school at Northern Illinois University.



For those who happen to be reading this and do not know me personally, I ended up in Sycamore, Illinois with my wife, Cassie, who has already completed her first semester of Grad school in Painting and Drawing.

We were married in August 2007, already about 5 months ago! I had planned on finding full-time employment while she attended school and then searched for a teaching job.

Everything changed, however, when she found me a major of my own. Upon looking on the NIU website, Cassie came across an individualized major called "Computer Music and New Media Technology". I applied, and after figuring out how the whole system works, I'm finally ready to start my first semester next Monday.

Now that we're up to speed, I'm excited to see (and document) where this new road will take me, so here goes!