davejenbarnes

Cloudy though it may be, today we ventured downtown on the DART Rail with David’s parents to visit the Dallas World Aquarium where we were able to see many creatures and fish and birds. Pictures will be up when we get home!

After the aquarium, we headed over to the West End Marketplace to look for David’s favorite place to buy hot sauces, which wasn’t there. I guess we’ll have to start giving business to the web store.

After our visit to the West End Marketplace and some pizza, we headed back and are now relaxing… David is playing Phantasy Star Online, Episode III which he bought this weekend when the Knights came down to go shopping. I would publicly like to thank my parents for the shopping, clothes, sandals, and yummy dinner this weekend, in honor of my approaching twenty-seventh birthday! Thank you!

This morning, I spent all my time in the band hall at CPMS building a new subdomain for our website for the downloading needs (or wants) of the band. We thought it would be cool for the judges’ comments to be online for all the interested students and parents to download and view. The site looks a lot like this part of the site, especially since I just grabbed the code real quick and tweaked the css file to re-arrange the sidebar box. I must admit, though, that I really like the patterns at squidfingers.com a lot!

Tonight we’re really looking forward to going to our first live music event in Austin. Granted, this is not a typical, mainstream “keep Austin wierd” kind of concert! We’ll be seeing the Newsboys, ADORATION: THE TOUR at Shoreline! This will be my third Newsboys concert and I am so ready for the concert! The Newsboys have been our favorite band since they started… Now, I get the impression that they’re not the big deal they used to be, but we still love them.

(stage first, then sight-reading)

Concert Band 2: I-I-I, II-I-II
Concert Band 1: I-I-I, I-I-I
Symphonic Band: I-I-I, I-I-I

I’s are best, II’s next best… the bands were rated on a I-II-III-IV-V system, with one being superior, outstanding, way-to-go, and two’s being good, three’s are ho-hum-average, fours are needs-more-work and fives are what-were-you-thinking? That’s not really what the roman numerals stand for, but it’s a “slang” version of the official terms… I took some liberty in defining them.

I think all three bands did awesomely! Their performances were all superior! We are so proud of the students! Go band!

This is how David’s band performed at U.I.L. today:

Concert: straight division ones! Yay band!

Sight-reading: 2-1-2 I don’t know what those judges were thinking… I think they deserved straight division ones on that sightreading!

Today is an absolutely perfect day. Besides having to work, that is. March is the most lovely of months. It is the time of year when the grey turns blue and the brown turns green; the time when my christmas cactus decides to reveal the blooms it hid during December, January, and February. March is for growing, cleaning, and coming alive again. March is for leaves on trees and laying out by the pool… for open windows and sunny days! In Texas, March is the perfect temperature. By the end of April, it will already be in the hundreds and summer will have crept upon us again.

Today I took fifteen minutes out for myself and sunned by the pool. I’m sure that the guy out there thought I was the white-est person he’s ever seen in his life. I haven’t gotten any sun in four years. It sure felt good for fifteen minutes to be laying with the sky above me and the sun on my arms.

I guess that is the last time I will put plans up on the internet… the plans didn’t happen. No kites for us. We decided that there wasn’t enough time to make it to Zilker Park and back in time for our Financial Peace University class at the church. Instead, we donned the rollerblades and bladed around the apartment complex. Dave did two laps and I could only handle one… you see, there’s this hill… hehe, eventually we’ll be doing more laps. After the rollerblading, we headed over to the workout room we recently discovered!! Heh, imagine that… the complex has a workout room! (I’m not that dumb, but we never used it in the last 20 months we’ve lived here.) I started off on the static bike (the treadmills are deadmills) then Dave spotted me on all the weight machines… I am W-E-A-K! 20 lbs = one Jen ton! The easiest was the shoulder workout. Ballet and holding your arms wide open for almost every minute of ballet class is what I attribute my strong shoulders to. For anyone wondering, NO, I am not trying to lose weight (what, do you think I would want to blow away with the next breeze?) but I AM trying to build muscle. Muscle that I had when I was dancing but no longer have now that it’s been eleven years since my last ballet class. This also inspires David to go to the workout room with me. He won’t do it alone, so we’re in this together.

As some of you may know, David’s band (Middle School Band) has their U.I.L. Concert and Sight-Reading Contest next week. In preparation for this event, the directors scheduled one more concert which took place last night. No one could predict that this would happen: (source:http://www.statesman.com/metrostate/content/metro/03/0306gasleak.html)

Gas leak closes portion of RM 620

Road might not open until early Saturday.

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Friday, March 5, 2004

A leak in a gas main on RM 620, which diverted traffic starting about 2 p.m. Friday, was not expected to be fixed before early Saturday, the Austin Fire Department said.

The leak in the 12-inch-diameter high-pressure line at Boulder Lane and RM 620 began when a private contractor for the state drilled into it by mistake while installing traffic signals, said Capt. Palmer Buck, a Fire Department spokesman.

I quoted it since they asked me to register just to read the snippet online and I wanted to save everyone the headache of registering just to read two sentences.

The closing of 620 caused major headaches for all the band directors, who even waited 30 minutes past the start of the concert to allow more kids to show up. Regardless, David’s band still did not have any tubas. All three bands did admirably but with disappointing results; all three band directors are now stressed out about U.I.L.! Next week will be a very very long week.

I am excited about tomorrow! I finally get to shoot some film, real film, with my camera, yes, my real camera! We are going to Zilker park to shoot pictures of the 76th Annual Zilker Kite Festival. I’ll also take the digi-cam to get some snapshots for those of you who want instant pictures posted. The festival is for home-made kites and geared toward kids. This makes me think of my dad and the kite I had to make in high school. Too bad we didn’t live in Austin! We could have gone all-out for that little paper-grocery-sack-kite of mine and had some serious competition. We won’t be able to stick around for the grand finale, at 5 pm, when EVERYONE is invited to fly ANY kind of kite, storebought or home-made, which will probably be when the best pictures can be taken. We have the financial class at church to attend. It will be good to get out and shoot some film.