I'm a piece of shit

I watched this great movie that you all need to watch. It's called "I Like Killing Flies." It's a documentary about a man who runs a restaurant in the Village and has an amazing philosophy on life. So this is what I got out of it:

I'm totally a piece of shit. I'm selfish and do everything for me. To think that I'm a good person and that I'm "enlightened" and that my shit don't stink is selfish, cause really I'm not. Having the mindset that I'm a good person is like getting an expensive car and never getting a scratch on it. Being a person in this world is all about getting some scratches, dings, accidents, and eventually my motor will die or I will crash and be hauled off to the junk yard (maybe even my parts will be salvaged). Why buy a beautiful car if you aren't going to drive it? Why be a beautiful person and not drive the road of life?

That's some deep shit!!!

The most boring days of work!

These last few days are the most boring days of work. Here I actually have time to update my blog. I must sit here with my second period class while they take the state standards tests. I read the same bullshit for every section of the test and the kids finish each section of the test in 20 minutes and they still have 45 minutes left to sit around and do nothing. One teacher told me they got all the way through Milan. I'm against the showing of movies for these things because this will make students hurry up so they can watch the movie. We want the kids to do well because this is how politicians tell if we are doing our job or not. It kinda sucks that these kids hold the future of how school is run. They gotta take this shit seriously.

Yoga, rockclimbing, and other hippie shit

So Monday nights are now my yoga night. Michael Chow said that I was all smiles and happy afterwards. Despite it being frustrating cause I can't do any of the poses, I have this very tranquil and peaceful feeling when I'm done.

Wednesday nights are now rock-climbing nights. I joined a beginning class at Planet Granite. Our first session was Wednesday and I learned how to belay and I did some top roping. My partner has been bouldering for about 6 months and so as soon as we got our shit together, we went to the more difficult climbs. I only made it half way up the more difficult one. I need to work on technique. There is this one skill where you push off with your leg and grab with your hand at the same time. Anyways, this is also a very peaceful sport. Actually, this sport comes with a bit of anxiety that you must overcome. I tell people I'm not afraid of heights, but I think I might be a little. Its never stopped me from climbing a wall, but when I get to near the top, even if I'm bouldering, I sense a bit of anxiety.

Biking would be my other hippie shit. Last Thursday during spring break I fell and landed on my hands. My wrists absorbed most of the impact and they have been sore. I went to yoga on Monday and climbed on Wednesday and conducted all week. I don't think that helped. Nonetheless, you can't really rest your wrists. From turning a door handle to driving, you are always using them.

Allergies suck!

I'm playing a musical this weekend, "Honk!" Its pretty gay. The trumpet part stinks and I have to transpose some of the pieces and the conductor/pianist doesn't conduct or help me out at all. I find myself looking at the clarinet's music if I get lost.

Salad Dressing

So at my friend Kenny's house this weekend, I helped him cook. I volunteered to do the bitch work such as chopping vegetables and stuff. I also cooked the chicken and mushrooms he put in his pasta. It was an amazing homemade tomato sauce with fresh veggies and whole grain pasta. The salad was a simple spinach salad with some arugula. He asked me to make a dressing and I looked in his cabinet and all he had was some basalmic vinegar, olive oil, sesame oil, and rice vinegar. No problem! I would now like to teach you all how to make a delicious homemade dressing so you will never buy dressing in a bottle (unless of course you want some ranch to dip your frozen chicken nuggets).

1. All Salad Dressings are Vinegar based. Start by adding some vinegar to the bowl. You may use any vinegar of your choosing, be bold, fun, and creative! For Kenny's house, I used rice vinegar.
   
2. Next add your flavorings: These can be herbs, sugars, salts, mustard, ketchup, spices...again be bold, fun, and brave. If you fuck it up, dump it out and try again! For Kenny's house, I used some sugar, some toasted sesame seeds, and some sesame oil.
   
3. Now whisk and add your salad oil. Olive oil is great for a lot of flavor, but no shame in using vegetable oil either. Whisk the oil in slowly until you have a consistency favorable to your tasting.
   
4. Now taste. Notice if its too not salty enough, not sweet enough, to bitter, to sour. If its too sour, you need more of everything but vinegar. If its too sweet or salty, add more vinegar and oil. Too oily? Add vinegar.

A So Cal adventure

I went to so cal for the weekend:Before I left for SoCal on Friday, I caught a mouse. Notice how I put my TA in danger of getting his finger smashed instead of me. The mouse actually got away with that Cheeze-it, but when we spread the oreo cream on the trap, he went to mouse hell! The kids were very critical about my murdering of the Ratoncito, but that should be the punishment for anybody stealing food out of my office!
Got to Irvine on Friday night to chill on some hookah. Loved this Pomegranate flavor. I was supposed to confiscate this for Alex since he bought and left it there, but the guy in the next picture was likely to murder me if I took it (he said it with a smile!!!) Real talk, I forgot to bring it...sorry Alex, Mission FAILURE! But here is a nice picture of Kevin and I as a consolation prize. Ah Yes...the pancake below was amazing, but not worth the two hour wait and the $45 parking ticket I got. The host that seated us was quite entertaining. If you did not respond when he called your name when your table was ready, he was say "You are dead to me!"
So I was in LA hanging out with Kenny, Lina, Chauncey, Ronald, and Suzie. Ronald and Suzie went to a race in Long Beach where they drifted the streets and did some time trials. Suzie and her pimpin' STI did very well. After we finished our dinner in LA Chauncey, Ron, Suz, and I decided to drive to Riverside in the pouring rain. We hit a puddle and I think the STI floated for a few seconds. It was pretty scary. So in Riverside the next day, Ron decided to raise the STI so he could have more stability. While he took his tires off, Chauncey decided to try the STI tires on his RSX and here is a pic of that. While in Riverside, Chauncey and I had a snoring contest. First contest was to see who could fall asleep first and snore loud enough to keep the other up. He won that round. I won the round that once I got to sleep, my snoring would wake him up. Had some delicious Hawaiian BBQ at Ono's Monday afternoon once Ron finished raising his car.

This was the Mochi I got right before I left for home.

A Complaint

I promised I wouldn't complain on this blog, but I need to break that promise right now:

Children! Please learn instruments that can be played in band or orchestra! C'mon now...Piano is not a band instrument and you have to be brilliant at it if you want to play in orchestra. If I took every pianist that asked to be in band, I would have a pretty epic piano section. It would be the largest section in band.

Guitar as well...I'm so sick of kids trying to play guitar in band. I only take one in jazz band (I also take one pianist) But you better be brilliant. My guitarist right now is good enough for jazz band, albeit he is a pain in the ass. But he can voice 7th and 9th chords high up on the neck so it can sound good. He can also solo, kinda.

I'm sure many of you musicians are saying I could create a class for guitars and pianists, but that would require me arranging alot of music. And that is just not going to work because I'm teaching five other music classes. Why can't you learn to play the fuckin' tuba? Saxophone is an easy and sexy instrument that you won't get alot of laughs playing. Learn to read music too! Damn guitarists, none of them can read music. Pianists...learn to count. It seems like none of you have any sense of rhythm. If any of you were good, I could have you accompany my choirs.

BBQ Break-in

Monday I bought a new grill. Pictures are up from previous post. I would like to share with you what I have cooked thus far. First thing that went on was some babyback ribs. They were so delicious and juicy and melted in my mouth. Next was some chicken thighs that Steve and I cooked up. Chicken is the true test of a grill. With the chicken, we found where the hotspots on the grill are and we also found an assembly error that I fixed once the grill cooled down. I also recommend having somebody else grill, thus I picked my apprentice Steven, who is becoming very masterful at grilling quite fast. Our sides included potato salad, cornbread, and a green salad.

Vern rolled through town on Thursday bringing a delicious rub that he bought in Dallas. So on Friday we through some tritip on there along with some country ribs and some short ribs. That tritip was the first thing to go. It was so damn good! I cooked some Artichokes on the side (a nice accoutrement for my mayonnaise) and some corn cause it seems nobody like artichokes much. I almost forgot that I grilled some brats as well. These were delicious, but can be cooked on anything.

All I got left to do on my grill is fish and burgers and I will have completed the true test of an American Grill.