The End Game

My Gravy

My turkey (didn't take pics of my parent's grilled turkey)

My Dad riding my bike in his Raider's apron

Yesterday I was talking to my friend DJ K.Choi on skype. Hadn't talked to him for awhile since he has been teaching English in Korea. He is reading this book, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. He was explaining to me how Andrew Carnegie said that a man should take the first third of his life acquiring knowledge, the second third acquiring as much wealth as possible, and the final third giving all that wealth out.

After a few minutes of discussion, something so powerful came over me. I have always told others that if I won the Lotto, I would build a beautiful concert hall for my community where I work and I would continue teaching the rest of life performing all my concerts there. I also said that I wanted to be a professional symphony conductor, but always questioned it when I matched it up with the lotto scenario. Now I know that this is my End Game. In the final third of my life, I will have the wealth to build my Cathedral for music. It will be a concert hall built for my community in San Jose where all the high school bands, choirs, and orchestras will perform in. Actually there will be a building for each. I want my students so badly to perform in a beautiful venue like the cathedrals in Europe, Disney Hall, and Davies Hall. But we shouldn't have to raise hella money to do that every time we want to, we should have it in our own backyard and it should be free for all high schools. I'm so sick of performing in a cafeteria. Santa Teresa just got a beautiful new performance space, but I bet they have to share it with the Drama department. This Cathedral of Music will not be shared with Drama or with a Religious organization (unless their choir wants to perform in it), it will be purely for art music. It will be a place where we can have summer music festivals inviting many different musical groups to come perform and maybe even have a friendly competition like the Marktoberdorf or Spittal. Maybe it could become a place like the Salzburg festival.

So now I gotta read this book, honor my word, and set out to build my dream.