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!