Gentle Jazz
We had had a couple of "gigs". One of them was for the anniversary of
Courthouse Coffee. Don't know which anniversary, but it was be somewhat festive.
Had over a dozen friends and co-workers show up, and business was better than usual.
They probably want us back. We'll try for November sometime.
We now have over 3 hours of music. Y'know, that's a lot. When we started playing at
the retirement home, we wondered whether we had enough to fill a whole hour. At our
last coffee shop gig, we went for 3 hours each evening and only got partway through
our music. We start at the beginning of the book on Friday night, then go backward
from the end of the book on Saturday, overlapping probably the middle 70 percent or
so.
We're practicing some Christmas music already.
Speaking of which, we're also working on our Christmas display, re-stringing lights
and such like. Kathy is re-stringing all of the lights, replacing them as needed. Had
a little "work day" and, with the help of a couple of students, put up the high stuff
like the treetop star that sticks up above the roof and the "star-flakes" about 14
feet up over the driveway. Week by week, more stuff will be put into place, including
the lower couple of rows on the "tree".
And of course, there is the small matter of 90 yards of fabric for drapes and
slipcovers in the redecorated living room, just in case Kathy runs out of things to do....
Oh, but you may want to know. Icicle lights are probably out of style now. I say that
because we're going to put up icicle lights this year. Got them 75% off last January.
Also those little spiral trees. Whenever we get something, it's by definition out of
style, but our visitors don't care. (Don't believe me? How long since you've seen
swag lights? We got them just as they were falling out of favor.)
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Grace News
When the dust settled, we had about 30 more new students than last year.
Sure seemed like a lot more. But after a change in procedures, Kathy had
a much easier time at check-in.
Somewhat more interesting to me, we got several freshmen
majoring in IT, a.k.a. "Computer Information Stuff". So far, they all
appear to have good attitudes, which is half the battle. One of them
has had a bit of experience so I sent him over to Masterworks to baby-sit
their computers. Talked with Patrick Kavanaugh at check-in and he said
he would take anyone I sent. Guess that's confidence in me. Their computer
guy is leaving in October.
Speaking of Masterworks, it seems that we now have about 30 music majors.
I'm not sure of the math, but something like four graduated and they got
17 freshmen. I notice more foot traffic already to and from the music
building, which is across the street and up about 150 feet. They're actually
having to schedule practice rooms. And they have a new voice teacher.
We had a real shock when one of our students, Joe Ross, died in an auto
accident on his way home to Virginia. He was one of "our" majors so we
knew him well. His absence in the smaller classes is a constant reminder
of the brevity of life.
And most of you who care, know that Dr. Plaster will be leaving. He has been
called to a church in Ohio. This apparently has been "brewing" for a couple
of years, so it was no surprise to Dr. Manahan but it was to the faculty.
We could have nightmares about who might replace Dr. Plaster, but we will
trust the Lord. Oh, and this means that there are now two administrative
positions that need to be filled: Academic Vice President and Academic Dean.
I'm not surprised that it will require two people to fill Dr. Plaster's
job, since he has been both for yea so many years.
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Geek Stuff
By the way, if you sent me an E-mail that
"bounced" recently, the kconline mailbox filled up a couple of times. Don't
give up!
We put up flat-screen LCD monitors in the "hardware" lab to make more room on the
bench tops. Improved the looks of the whole place, in addition to enabling the
hardware class to work on circuit boards and not have a bunch of CRTs to move out
of the way for every class. The computers for Operating Systems are under the
benchtop, the LCD monitors mounted up on the wall, with only the keyboard and
mouse needing any benchtop space at all.
Rick Koontz got a Lego Mindstorms robot kit, and he's using it in the Java
class. The students program the robot to follow a path on the floor and stuff
like that.
As for me, I'm having a great time just thinking up (educational) projects
for my classes. My philosophy is that if they actually have an interesting
problem to solve, they learn the relevant stuff more easily. Seems to work.
So we do a lot of graphics stuff in programming and so on.
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half a winter's wood for us. Ah, but I got a new chainsaw. Old one needed a couple of parts and I had this tree, and, well, a Husqvarna is a good saw, right? Twice the price of my Poulan but you oughta see it make the chips fly! Biggest ugly mother that they had down at Tractor Supply, nearly 3 1/2 horsepower. And it's bright orange, which is all the better. (No, I didn't sell the Poulan. For cutting up limbs it's still great, and quite a bit lighter; but it really was no match for a 3-foot-thick oak tree trunk 35 feet long.)
