A musicker's philosophy

News

noreply@blogger.com (Philosofik) — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 04:58:00 +0000

Good blog posts should be a lot of things. They should be pithy and insightful, engaging and delightful, interesting and thought-provoking, whimsical, and spiteful. In all, though, they should be revealing.

I could read a thousand blogs before I came across one that did anything to tell me Why. Any blog can tell you What. Why is a much more elusive subject. I'm treating this post as an exercise in writing about Why and What. First, I'd like to write about Why.

Jen Rose is the best reason I have in this world for doing the best I can at everything. She inspires me to try just a little harder, because there is no greater reward to me than her smiling confidence that I am wonderful. Heaven forbid she finds out the truth. :) Still, as unfocused as I am with my life and what I'd like to do with it, she provides me with constant support and affection. These things might not steer the ship, but they sure as hell keep wind in the sails.

When I met her in college, I really didn't know what to make of her. She was tomboy-ish, but no less feminine for it. She was brilliant, but approachable. She cared. She graduated ahead of me, yet she didn't do what so many of us do when we change our titles from "Student" to "Alumnus" -- she stayed in touch. She would write in her journal, send emails, and visit often, despite living hundreds of miles away. I once considered her as a long shot to ever date me at all.

Especially after she dated my roommate, and especially after she moved away.

Ah, but time spins on, and I met her again for the first time last spring in Houghton, Michigan, of all places. She went up there to see me. She traveled all that way to take extremely cold showers, help with a Brothers Retreat, and spend time with me. That last part astounds me. She has no definition for "too far" when it comes to being with the people for whom she cares. She has worked so hard to keep our long-distance relationship running. Harder than me, that's for sure. I can't keep up with her. Despite getting no sleep, commuting in obscene traffic, dealing with four cats and two dogs, and working for the grand-daddy of all bureaucracies in the Federal Government, she still found the energy to date a lonely, self-pitying Roanoker afraid to leave home.

Why she is all these amazing things and Why she would choose me are both mysteries to me. Why a good-looking gal would get caught up in a relationship with me is beyond me.

But ultimately, that's Why I asked her to marry me.

And that's What I'm writing about.

You'll have to ask her Why she said yes.

Invasion

noreply@blogger.com (Philosofik) — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 22:02:00 +0000

One of the aspects of my job about which I haven't written much is that I'm the volunteer coordinator, on top of everything else I do. When I was out of town a couple of weeks ago, the museum apparently entered into a contract with the Roanoke City Court-Community Corrections department. Resultantly, we've had a daily influx of people looking to fulfill community service requirements at the museum.

Initially, this doesn't sound so bad. We're guaranteed that these folks have not been convicted of violent crimes, or crimes of theft or vandalism. Mainly, this is the traffic violation crowd. Moreover, we're guaranteed that they'll show up for work. So, there are some benefits.

The biggest downside, however, is that I was caught totally off-guard. When three of them showed up my first day back to work after vacation, I had absolutely nothing for them to do. I actively pursue volunteers for the museum. I utilize volunteer websites, I call schools, church groups, and community clubs. I send out fliers to various public venues, and I arrange for small groups to do projects that I have pre-prepared. This system works great for me, and has yielded good results for the museum. The mother of all monkey wrenches got thrown into my system by this immigration of speeders and parking ticket collectors. Had I known they were coming, I could have had some things for them to do, but, we've had two per day on average, and right now I just don't have enough.

To ice this particular cake, the Executive Director has been out of town since I got back, so he's been zero help at trying to tell the court that we're swamped. I would do it, but I don't even know who the contact is, and my phone calls have all met voice mails that have obviously not been heard, or cared about. The ED is back tomorrow, and we're scheduled for a meeting on this, thankfully.

Meanwhile, with school out for the summer, the parents of some of our Junior Volunteers have assumed us to be a babysitting service. They drop their kids off when we open, and pick them up on their way home from work. Never mind if I don't have enough for five 13-year olds to do. There they are. I've got to make some phone calls on this. I never thought I'd say it, but we've got more hands than we know what to do with right now.

Objectively, there are worse problems to have.

What am I paying for?

noreply@blogger.com (Philosofik) — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 23:00:00 +0000

I went to see a movie today, as I've done nearly every Independence Day as long as I can remember. Seeing it only reminded me of something I've meant to write about for quite some time.

I recall that, as a kid, I would see three, maybe four movie previews before the actual film started. I'm fine with that, and I kind of enjoy seeing what's coming. Moreover, I know that this helps keep ticket prices down as trailers are essentially paid advertisements by movie companies. Now, though, in addition to my three or four trailers, I've got ten minutes of advertisements. I ask why.

In the past few years, the prevalence of these ads has grown along with ticket prices. I can only assume the ads do the same thing as the trailers -- make money for the movie producers and distributors to keep prices down to me. So why do my ticket prices still go up as the number of ads goes up?

I suppose we can point to rising production costs. CGI, as widespread as it is, ain't cheap. Movies rather routinely post $100 million budgets and more. Once you factor in movies with things that fly or explode, you can just start multiplying those numbers. I get that movies are expensive to make.

But I'm growing very annoyed. Today I saw ads for Cadillac, Coca-Cola, and the ABC Family television network. This was before five movie previews followed by -- this still has me baffled -- a two-minute video extolling the virtues of the digital projection technology used in this particular theater. If that weren't enough, I get the obligatory theater ad, though "ad" is a generous term for what seems like little more than a video montage about how cool the cinema is.

Total running time for ads, trailers, digital projection thing, and cinema ad: 19 minutes. My movie was supposed to start at 4:00. At 4:19, it started rolling.

So, really, with my personal ticket payment, and with my concession donation ($10 for a drink and popcorn can only be considered a tax write-off, really), what exactly isn't being recouped by the movie producers and distributors? What aren't they getting from a national average of nearly $20 per person that they need twenty minutes of advertising to off-set?

What am I paying for?

Career change... er, addendum

noreply@blogger.com (Philosofik) — Mon, 28 May 2007 02:43:00 +0000

After discussions with The Girlfriend, I've had to acknowledge that while my current job is probably the most fun job I'll ever have, it isn't the last job I'll ever have. I always knew that, but I guess it's one thing to know it and another to realize it. So I'm considering a career addendum. Not a change, but a supplement.

I love my job and want to take it as far as it will take me, but in the non-profit world, career growth is not always tied to financial growth. There is, however, a lucrative additional potential for income not at all related to my career, and totally related to my dusty college degree.

I've been arranging complete scores for Patrick Henry High School's marching band (or at least for their front ensemble) for the past three years. Prior to that, I arranged a full score for Indian High School in North Carolina. Do I get paid for these things? You bet. Could I be paid more? Surely (I've gotten better at arranging with each one). Can I expand my offerings to other schools? Abso-friggin-lutely.

I've done the math on it, and it looks like this. I can arrange a score for front ensemble in about three weeks. Variables such as instrumentation changes or mid-season tweaks can throw those figures off a bit, but three weeks is about what it takes for an eight or nine minute show. If I were to hire myself out for this, I could produce at least four scores each year for that year's season, probably more. Most marching bands don't go to camp until August, and most directors don't pick their music until March or April, so I'm figuring 12 weeks interim at three weeks per score. If a director picks his/her music early, there's no reason I can't get started sooner. For a conservative estimate, let's just say four scores per season.

I'm currently billing at $30.00/hour for this, and each score probably comes in at around 20 hours of work, so that's $600 per score, times four scores, and there's $2400 I could make in three months totally in my spare time.

Now, if I were to expand my offerings to concert and/or symphonic repetoire, I could stay busy year-round. I could work on commission, or I could just arrange things in my free time and have them published and collect the royalties as they may come. Win-win.

I'll have to think on this more, but I'm cautiously excited.

NoVA

noreply@blogger.com (Philosofik) — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 01:53:00 +0000

I'm headed to northern Virginia this weekend to visit the little woman. I made an interesting discovery whilst in college about that area. Despite a nearly universally accepted abbreviation -- NoVA -- no one I've met yet in northern Virginia refers to the region by that abbreviation.

The Chevy Nova failed to succeed in Latin American areas, but initially, no one knew why. Turns out the translation of "No va" in Spanish means, "doesn't go." Go figure. This would be slightly better than naming a car for sale in the English speaking world, "Hits Things."

Speaking of failures, I saw an interesting clip from MacGyver the other day. I was just flipping through the channels, but I saw MacGyver mixing some household chemicals together to create a make-shift smokescreen to cover his escape from some bad guys. He throws this stuff down and watches the smoke come up. Satisfied, he turns, walks around the corner, and gets shot in the face, falling out a window. I thought MacGyverisms always worked! What happened?

No, there isn't really a point to this post. Enjoy, anyway, and have a good weekend!

Competition

noreply@blogger.com (Philosofik) — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 01:08:00 +0000

See, the thing is, competition isn't really for me. I usually check my competitiveness at the door for everything except debates or discussions. But games never really did it for me. Now, I'm faced with an interesting dilemma. For reasons that shall become apparent, this post isn't going in the VMT blog. Quite the double-life I'm living these days.

The O. Winston Link museum is a fantastic museum. Its facility is top-notch (as most newly-renovated facilities are), its exhibits are well-designed, and its subject is relevant to the area (although I still feel it should be a gallery at VMT or at the Art Museum, but no matter). There's just this one little thing...

Their gift shop sucks. Yeah, they've got rail merchandise a-plenty, lots of reproductions of Link's prints for sale, and the obligatory Link-branded hats, shot glasses, and t-shirts. Only, they're missing something... customer service.

I've been in their shop at least five times. Not once was anyone present to help me find anything, and the one time I wanted to make a purchase, I had to walk into their office and tap someone on the shoulder to get her attention. Maybe I only come on bad days, but this is a bad first strike.

Perhaps to [over]compensate, they've begun stocking our merchandise. They've got t-shirts and DVDs featuring VMT's own #611 and #1218. I understand that the appeal of those engines in this area is relatively universal amongst those that know about them, but I can't quite figure out how t-shirts bearing the images of those locomotives enhances or supplements the educational experience a visitor would get from touring the museum.

The shop lacks character, but only for a lack of trying. They're in a great building, the shop is well laid-out, and their subject material, once again, should be an inspiration. I should be able to buy postcards, magnets, key rings, and puzzles with Link's pictures burned proudly into their sides. Instead, I have to buy the same items with only the logo of the Link museum, or a very modern picture of one of VMT's locomotives.

Here's the one that really kills me. They sell silver and gold charms OF THOSE ENGINES. They're not at the Link museum; they're at our museum. What's more, they're hocking them at a minimum of $55 (for the sterling silver) and up to $250 for the gold! Are you kidding me?!

I reached my competitive breaking point when I found out about this. I got a vendor out in California to reproduce the engines in sterling silver at a cost so that I can sell them for $19.99. Same quality (if not slightly better), but less than half the price. The Link can stuff that in whatever they like. If they're not going to respect their customers, I will.

I've made it my mission to make their store irrelevant when it comes to anything other than O. Winston Link-related merchandise. Every two weeks, I'm going to visit their store. Anything they carry that isn't related to Link and is related to VMT's collection, I will carry it and undersell them. I won't carry anything having anything to do with Link -- that's rightfully theirs. But I'm going to let everybody know about this, too. Competition, you see, is good for consumers.

Even if it isn't really for me.

Mile High Music-king

noreply@blogger.com (Philosofik) — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 05:08:00 +0000

I'm headed to Denver on Thursday for the Museum Store Association Conference and Expo. I'm pretty pumped, but this is essentially my first real business trip. I traveled a bit when I was the National President of my Fraternity, but this is the big time. I come bearing business cards and credit references -- look out, Denver!

The weather forecast is a mixed bag. Continued cold through Friday (with a chance of snow) and into the 50s for the remainder of the weekend. I also have no idea what to pack. My casual attire is jeans and a t-shirt, neither of which fit quite right (I like `em loose). My work attire is fine, but not the most comfortable for long days of conferences, networking, and shopping.

Also, while the museum has offered to pay for my meals and parking, I've made arrangements to leave my car at my girlfriend's house in Northern Virginia (I'm flying out of Dulles) and my personal goal for the weekend is not to buy a single meal for myself in Denver in the hopes that potential vendors might wine and/or dine me. I'm fine with either. Yes, the Virginia Museum of Transportation is a pretty small catch in this particular sea, but I'm trying to create brand identity here -- impress me, vendors.

Meanwhile, my girlfriend and I celebrated our one-year anniversary on Monday. I know you don't read this, but happy anniversary, darling! Every day with her is better than the last.

Anyway, that's all for now, probably until I get back. Peace, love, other things.

Is it so much to ask?

noreply@blogger.com (Philosofik) — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 02:28:00 +0000

It's come down to my job and my girlfriend. I love both in entirely different, but wholly influential ways.

In the course of the nine months or so that I've worked for the Virginia Museum of Transportation, I've concluded that I will never have another job that challenges and rewards me in the ways that this one does. Other jobs may pay better and offer better benefits; any of the current VMT staff will tell you that's almost a certainty, shy of working as a chimney sweep in Dickensian London. There is no other job that will provide the same daily array of unique, difference-making opportunities, nor afford the same flexibility to do five different jobs without being distinctly qualified for more than three of them.

My girlfriend is a once-in-a-lifetime find, though. As incredible as my job is, what's even more incredible is having someone in my life to share my experiences with, and who actually seems to give a damn, for reasons passing understanding.

We've been talking about moving in together (in Northern Virginia), marriage, and children. While I've had those conversations with previous girlfriends, this is the first time I didn't feel at all nervous about any of those possibilities. Likewise, I don't feel like I'm not ready for any of them. I just don't know if I'm ready to give up the best job I'll ever have just yet.

City of Roanoke, I pose the question: Why doesn't your job market have room for a qualified financial systems specialist with better than three years of in-depth experience? If there were a job opening for her that offered even a comparable (not even better, but just roughly equivalent) compensation and benefits package, she would take it before she finished reading it.

It'd make my life easier, that's for sure.

Bad juju

noreply@blogger.com (Philosofik) — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 04:16:00 +0000

The front page of the Roanoke Times reported that the City of Roanoke will match up to $500,000 for the Mill Mountain Zoo. Before I go on, I want to first say that I'm glad to see the money headed up the mountain where it's been needed for a long time. I'm glad that somebody realized that there's an attraction in Roanoke that DOESN'T resemble the Flying Nun in glass and steel.

That said, I have the following question to ask:

WHERE THE HELL IS OUR MONEY?

For obvious reasons, I can't post this on the VMT blog, but I was nearly in an outrage this morning when I heard about this. I've been begging to put something on our blog about it, but I doubt they'll let me off my leash on this. So, here I stew.

There are lots of attractions in town that could do a lot with half a million dollars. To be sure, the Mill Mountain Zoo is absolutely one of them. Meanwhile, the Virginia Museum of Transportation hasn't heard word one from the city about its grant proposal -- the same city that owns 45% of the museum's collection, the same city whose very story is told more vividly by our museum than by any other in town, the same city that grew up around the rails whose heritage is preserved and interpreted at 303 Norfolk Avenue. How much money are we getting? How much should we get?

The building is OLD. We're the only museum in town that hasn't had a complete renovation in more than twenty years. Scratch that. We've NEVER had a complete renovation. We got the middle portion of the building after our old building was flooded in 1985. Then we got what will become the aviation gallery, then the west end, and finally the offices of the Shenandoah division, all spread out over the course of 20 years. At no time was there ever a renovation that spanned all four of those segments. Some of the electrical wiring in our building dates back to when it was first installed... IN 1918! For the love of God, the last time that wiring was checked was during the flipping influenza epidemic!

So how much should we get? We won't get enough to renovate. We know that. Will we get enough to just maintain what we have? Doubtful. Roanoke gave us $60,000 two years ago, and $52,000 last year. For perspective, our monthly operating costs are around $30,000. We could cut that figure in half with a high-quality renovation of our insulation and outer walls, as our gas bill alone during the months of December, January, and February averaged $5,000 monthly. Estimated cost on that is about a quarter-million dollars, just half of what the zoo just got. Again, I don't begrudge the zoo their tuppence; they got the shaft from the state which gave them an insulting $10,000.

We held an event in our auto gallery on the night of February 17th. 48 hours prior to the event, we started up the heaters. The temperature at that time was 47 degrees F. After 48 hours of continual operation at full blast, those heaters managed to raise the temperature to just 51 degrees F. The cost of running the heaters for 48 hours? $481. $10 an hour being just thrown away (or blown away, more accurately) because the space is a giant wind tunnel sucking warm air directly outside. The seals around the roll doors are a joke, half the windows in the upper portion of the gallery are stuck open, and there's a gaping hole at the far end of the gallery leading into a 7,000 square foot portion of unheated, unsealed open air.

Now imagine trying to cool that air in the summer.

The zoo needed money. I just hope the city remembers some other groups in the midst of its benevolence. Why do I get the feeling we're about to get screwed?

Again.

Call me Stella

noreply@blogger.com (Philosofik) — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 02:55:00 +0000

I have a new pet and a new roommate. The two are not unrelated.

We'll start with the roommate. She's the girlfriend of my current roommate, and last week, she was raped in her own home. For obvious reasons, she doesn't feel safe there, and my roommate asked me if she could move in here until she can figure out what to do and where to go next. I of course said yes.

We now have a cat -- Pepper. Pepper was the 17-year old cat of my roommate's grandmother. The grandmother passed away a few weeks ago, but the cat remained. At the cat's age, a shelter would as soon put the animal down as find a home for it, so of all people, my roommate's girlfriend agreed to take it.

Now the two have moved in. I have no problem with either of my new housemates. The cat is small and doesn't seem to shed much. The girlfriend has a lot of stuff and seems intent on decorating our apartment like we're in "A Streetcar Named Desire." I can't say I'm totally opposed to that, as the apartment has sort of an institutional feel to it outside the confines of my room or that of my roommate. The living room is a white-walled box with brown carpeting and a couch that matches. We could certainly use a... whatever that thing is she's got with marbles and a candle in it. Some kind of vase. Thing. I don't know.

Meanwhile, the cat has thrown up on my roommate's bed and the first night with our new roommates is off to an interesting start.

Here's to tomorrow.

The Red-Headed Step-Children of Roanoke

noreply@blogger.com (Philosofik) — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 13:20:00 +0000

Ordinarily, I'd post things about VMT over at that blog, but some of this is a touch too vitriolic for that quasi-professional blog. All that said, there's something I don't quite get.

The Virginia Museum of Transportation has taken a continual bombardment in the editorials, critiquing alternately our decision to try to sell 763 and/or the mere presence of our Executive Director.

That's not what I don't understand. People have beef with us over those things, and they're well within their rights to criticize whatever they like in the newspapers. I don't mind it at all, though I do wish they'd keep their opinions objective and at least try to make it seem like they're not launching personal attacks through the editorial columns.

The thing I don't get is why none of the members of our Board of Directors have written anything in our defense. I freely admit that some of our Board members are more active than others, and I sincerely think that some are more committed than others. But I know three Board members who could write powerful, credible letters on VMT's behalf, but who have strangely been silent. If I see one more letter to the editor slamming us for this or for that, I'll write one myself. I know I shouldn't, and I know that my take could never be objective, but this is getting old.

Also, I'd like to point out that if the same quantity of venom were printed about Center in the Square or Mill Mountain Zoo, this town would go nuts. Maybe people around here don't care about us. Actually, there are some facts to back that up.

Since we began tracking demographic data of our patrons (just hometowns and ages, no personal data), a whopping 70% of our patrons are from out of town. FYI, City of Roanoke: That means tourism is happening! These people from out of town stay at our hotels, shop in our stores, and eat at our restaurants. What's better? A portion of those we've asked (informally) say they traveled just to see our museum. City of Roanoke, that's free money for you. They pay no taxes here, but their money still finds its way here. If that's only worth $52,000 a year to you, then fine. But with a multi-million dollar art museum unfurling like a giant glass Scott McFarlane sketch just a few blocks away, I hope we aren't getting the shaft just because you got distracted in the most expensive "Ooh, Shiny!" thing in Roanoke's history.

noreply@blogger.com (Philosofik) — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 14:52:00 +0000

I attended a blog summit yesterday, thanks to Roanoke-Found's invitation. I went partly for the museum, and partly for myself to see what I was getting into. There's a great and vibrant community of bloggers right here in Roanoke. Who knew?

Oddly, one of the highlights was meeting Gail with Career Connections. CC bought out Career Search One, a career counseling agency I used when I moved back to Roanoke about two and a half years ago. After I landed this gig, I didn't maintain my contact with them, but yesterday's chance encounter put them back on my radar screen.

Gail's co-worker (whose name I've forgotten) moved here from Northern Virginia, the very region to which I'm considering moving. Perhaps there are contacts to be made that way.

Meanwhile, the VMT blog is consuming my time, especially after yesterday's event. I just put up a new post there that I'm going to let linger for a while, fishing for some comments. Besides, it's almost the weekend and there's basketball a plenty to be had.

Baroque

noreply@blogger.com (Philosofik) — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 03:52:00 +0000

I'm officially broke. Because of a dumb error on my part, I'm overdrawn at the bank. I've gone through all my savings because of this error, without even realizing it until my debit card was declined ordering a pizza tonight.

On top of that, my credit card is maxed out, as it has been since Christmas. I've paid slightly more than the minimum payments, just to stay out of trouble with them, but I paid out of the aforementioned bank accounts, and now I have exactly one dollar in my savings, and I'm overdrawn by seventy dollars in checking.

Tonight rocked.

noreply@blogger.com (Philosofik) — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 15:33:00 +0000

A post over at Roanoke-Found got me thinking a bit.

I have a ton of reasons to live right here in Roanoke, and one gigantic reason to move to Northern Virginia.

My girlfriend whom I love lives there. She's not moving; nor should she.

But that's it. I hate the traffic up there, I dislike that I have to be bi-lingual just to go grocery shopping, I can't fathom looking out at the horizon and not seeing a mountain or even a decent hill. My friends all live here; same for my family. I've got a great job I love -- one that gets me out of bed in the morning and keeps me awake at night (in a good way). It may not pay the most, but it's what I want to do.

So how do the two balance out?

When I'm with my girlfriend, I never want to leave. It is physically painful to leave her, even knowing I'll see her again in just a matter of weeks, or sometimes just days. To make things worse, her house is in some kind of communications nebula where cell phone signals get dropped like dishes at a Greek wedding. I can't even count how many of our nightly conversations have included some variation of the following:

"The phone cut out. Would you repeat that?"

It gets old. We're doing alright, but it's a strain, I won't lie.

Roanoke has a ton to offer, but you've got to be willing to dig a little bit. There are parks and movie theaters, night clubs and fine dining. The schools suck, I have to admit, but that doesn't directly affect my day-to-day living at the moment. Less than an hour away is a big ol' lake, and in the opposite direction is skiing and a damn nice resort.

I went to Roanoke College, located, ironically enough, in Salem, Virginia. During orientation, a student asked, "How far is the beach from here?" The student was from Michigan, and apparently his understanding of Virginia geography was limited to "It has a beach." He was quite appalled to find out that the beach was better than five hours away, depending on which route he took. Anyway, my point is that Roanoke doesn't have a beach, but I'm ok with that. I know where it is.

But, more to the point, is that my alma mater is right here. I can be there in fifteen minutes or less. As an alumnus, I have full access the gym (which I don't use enough) and the library (which I use too much).

All of this makes for a big case for staying here. I know the area, I grew up here. This is home.

Northern Virginia is not without its opportunities, either, by any means. There are battlefields, tons of shopping, historic monuments, the nation's capital, the Metro (one of my all-time favorite activities is riding the Metro; don't ask me why), unique dining, bountiful non-profit careers and organizations, a cultural center, and most of all, my girlfriend.

Financially, I'm not going anywhere for a while. I'm still in a lot of debt, and I'm not making enough money to get out any time soon. At the earliest, I'd be moving late next year, and that could be a stretch.

The lease on my apartment is up this October, but my roommate and I will probably renew for another year. He's my best friend from Back In The Day, and he's turned out to be very good at living with another person. Unlike previous roommates, he actually cleans and helps out with chores. Remarkable.

I'm building a network here, too. I have business contacts across the valley, and a pretty good knowledge of what I call "W.S.I." (Where Shit Is).

So, no decisions yet. And I'm sure there are other things I'm not considering, but that's what I've got.

Other news

noreply@blogger.com (Philosofik) — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 23:20:00 +0000

I met yesterday with Sharon Johnson, the band director at Patrick Henry High School. This coming year will be my third year working with her band as pit percussion instructor. I can't think of enough good things to say about her, but one thing stands out in my mind. As widely known as she is throughout the valley, I have never encountered a single soul who had one bad word to say about her. I've never seen a person cultivate such an atmosphere of respect and admiration.

If you don't know the situation at Patrick Henry, the short version is that the school is being almost completely re-built as part of a multi-million dollar renovation. This included the demolition of several buildings, including the one that used to house the band room. Now, a concert band takes up a fair amount of space, and it certainly can't fit inside a trailer like more traditional classes. So, the Patrick Henry High School Patriot Band was relocated to a former wood shop in the technical arts building just at the edge of campus. This room featured a concrete floor (creating an acoustic akin to a barn), a large roll-down door that frequently gets stuck and doesn't close all the way (creating a more natural air-conditioning than what's usually good for musical instruments), and the room had no phone or internet connectivity until January (classes started in September). Through it all, Mrs. Johnson just kept on rolling, doing everything she had to do for her band to get by.

Well, that all changed last month when the band parents, frustrated by seeing their children forced to practice and work in this kind of environment and by seeing this incredibly gentle and committed woman nearly begging for money for her program, got together and created an endowment for the band to pay for new uniforms, instruments, music, and electronic recording equipment. There are angels that live right here in Roanoke, folks.

Resultantly, mine went from being a contract position to a salaried position. In addition to being paid for my time working with the group, I'll be paid for the music I write for them, and for any trips or extra rehearsals I assist with. Now, I never once complained about what I got paid last year. Hell, I didn't even get paid at all the year before that, but I didn't mind for a second. But this is a boon for me, I won't lie.

The most money I've made professionally was as the band director for Woodrow Wilson Middle School. I took that position when the school's band director was forced to take emergency medical leave. I came in with less than two months before their spring concert, led them to that concert (quite well, if I say so myself), and then finished out the year before they were able to hire a full-time teacher with a teaching license (not a thing I have). In the time since, I've found a great job, but now I'm looking at the prospect of keeping that job and still getting paid to do another thing I love.

I'll be writing a piece for their spring concert. Mrs. Johnson is a woodwind player and will be the first to tell you that she doesn't know much about percussion other than what sounds good. Anyway, her percussion students are good players, but becoming bored with their current concert music, having already attained a high level of proficiency with it. So, I volunteered to write something for them, only to keep them occupied, but she wanted something for the concert. I'm down with that.

At the moment, I'm toying with either something original, or an idea I've had for a while to arrange the second movement of Beethoven's seventh symphony for percussion ensemble. The latter creates a fairly long piece, at least in terms of a high school spring concert, but it could be fun. Still, I think an original piece would allow for more personalization as I could write to their abilities and strengths more. We'll see. The concert isn't until after Memorial Day, so I've got some time.

Eye, Robot?

noreply@blogger.com (Philosofik) — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 23:12:00 +0000

We're getting a robot! I don't mean my roommate and me, I mean the museum. There used to be a robotics company here in Roanoke. It's gone out of business, but one of the last surviving robots built and programmed here belongs to AmGen Labs in California. They used the robot for a few years for everything from security to diagnostic tests, but they're looking to get rid of it (for reasons passing understanding -- why would you get rid of a robot?). Bev (the Executive Director of the museum) found out about it somehow, and they're going to give it to us!

Here's what I know about the robot:

It's smart enough to re-charge itself when it detects its batteries are running down;
Its sensors are so sensitive that it had to be fine-tuned so as not to interpret the water from a flushed toilet in the pipes as a broken water line;
It can seek and find a heat source as intense as a single lit match from 500 yards;
Despite having no "eyes" to speak of, it can be programmed for motion detection and to call police or fire as needed.

My understanding is that it rolls on wheels, but in my mind, this is some sort of quasi-sentient, Johnny 5 type robot with tank treads and crazy arms. Bev wants to hold a city-wide competition to name the robot. I think it's a great idea, but I'll still probably think of it as Johnny 5.

Work update

noreply@blogger.com (Philosofik) — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 23:40:00 +0000

So things are coming along at the museum. Our auto gallery is slated for a soft opening at the end of the month, just days away. I'm guessing we'll miss that mark, but just barely.

Here are some photos of the things we're working on.

This is what the western-most end of the auto gallery looks like now.

The first exhibit we'll have in the gallery is from the Virginia Department of Transportation. It's called "From Mud to Mobility: 100 Years of Transportation Excellence."

Ok, so we missed the mark by a year. But our roof blew off -- give us a break!
Anyway, the gallery boasts a thirty-foot ceiling, so we've got ample room to display these banners vertically, but they'll need some cleaning as you can tell from the picture. They flew outside the VDOT building in Richmond for almost all of 2006. Given the circumstances, they're actually in pretty good shape.

This door is on the far west end of the auto gallery and leads into the last un-renovated portion of our building. This lets in a great deal of air from the outside, as do many of the unsealed doors in the auto gallery. This, combined with the meager heat provided by the two HVAC units on the roof, necessitates one of these...

If you can read that label on the back, it says "115,000 BTUs." That's a lot of heat. However, let's do some quick math.

The gallery is approximately 10,000 square feet in layout, by about 30 feet high, making for 300,000 cubic feet of air that needs to be heated. This thing doesn't make a dent. We're working on getting some fans that will blow the heated air down from the rafters, but that will take some time.

This is the final wrinkle. You're looking at the entrance to the auto gallery. Grand, isn't it? This is a fire wall with a door in it, when you get right down to it. The museum is housed in Norfolk & Western's old freight station, but when the museum first moved in, N&W was still using portions of the building, including the one that now houses the auto gallery. As a result, there is a certain truncated effect to all the galleries, and no real flow from one to the next.

Advance Auto Parts is working with us to completely renovate the entrance to this gallery, and thank goodness for that. This looks like crap. We know it, and we don't hide it. Their contribution to our effort will make this something to be proud of, and it will create the first truly seamless connection from one of our galleries to another.

Come by in about a week and see what we've got cooking. Your patronage helps! No, really. I see the internal finances for the museum; your patronage really does make a difference.

noreply@blogger.com (Philosofik) — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 22:59:00 +0000

Here she goes... first blog post.

I work at the Virginia Museum of Transportation. If you haven't been to VMT, this sounds very impressive and perhaps even a bit vast. To posit the latter would be fairly accurate, but the former lacks in substance what it exudes in appearance.

I have a girlfriend I love dearly. Unfortunately, she lives 225 miles away and that situation isn't likely to change any time soon. She works for the government for big money and fantastic benefits, and loves her job on top of that. I love my job, too, but I make very little money and I receive no benefits.

I instruct the pit percussion unit at Patrick Henry High School. Unless you live in the area, you haven't heard [of] us, but it's a great gig. It makes me feel like I'm actually doing something with my education.

Ok, speaking of education, here it is. I received my B.A. from Roanoke College in music (musicology to be precise, but that degree option didn't exist when I was a student there). I did some graduate work at the University of Georgia, but only until I realized that I didn't want to become a professional musicologist. Hey, I was 22; I was entitled to change my mind, right?

So, back here to Roanoke. After I came back, I had four jobs in two years, voluntarily leaving each one until I landed at the museum. I sold shoes for a while, I was a middle school band director, and then I was a handyman for a music store. Now, I'm the Director of Finance and Retail Operations for VMT, which as I mentioned earlier, is far more prestigious in pronunciation than practice.

I'm taking cooking classes in an effort to curb my tendencies to horribly mangle perfectly good food. I've ruined Easy Mac, that's how bad it was. I'm told by my friends that this particular accomplishment is exceptional, and shouldn't be changed. My belly begs to differ.

All that said, I'm putting up this blog as the narrative component of the next few days/weeks/months/years of my life. How can a music major continue to handle the lion's share of a museum's finances? How can a devoted Roanoker leave Roanoke to be with the love of his life? Can a musicker learn to cook without poisoning his family or friends?

We'll find out.