Stolen Keys

I lost my keys for the first time ever today. Actually, I don’t think it’s fair for me to say I “lost” them because I know where I put them–someone took them. I’m the music director at a church in Towson and it’s really distracting to have a big bulge of keys + lanyard + key rings in your pocket so I always leave my keys on the broken organ in the choir room when I’m working up in the sanctuary but today when I went back for them, they weren’t there.

I left a bracelet in a window sill in another room once and I didn’t make a huge deal about it because that was irresponsible of me to leave that out in the open like that (despite the facts that stealing is wrong and that I work in a house of God with affluent people), but this is different. These are my keys! Who in the this world would need MY KEYS for anything? Several other people and I scoured the church. When I say scoured I mean scoured. We looked in the trashcans, on the floor, in the closets even under the keys of the xylophone and no luck. I had my organist look earlier and my accompanist’s husband even took all the trash out of the trashcans trying to find them.

Now you may be thinking: “maybe you didn’t have them when you got there?” but I’m one step ahead. All of my keys are on the same lanyard/chain so I couldn’t drive my car without them. Another argument: “maybe you dropped them in the parking lot.” Not feasible. I would have heard them drop–there are a lot of keys on that chain–and someone would have seen them because I get to the church an hour before everyone else and park 10-15 feet from the door as result so someone would have seen them including the search party and myself. The conclusion is that someone took them and it was probably a kid.  I direct the children’s choir after the service on Sundays and this particular Sunday there were some kids goofing off in the choir room before I got back from getting my coffee.

It’s bananas!  I would have rather lost my wallet.  Six phone calls and everything would be fixed but with this I have to go places and pay money and…AHHH!!!

I’m cool.

T-Pain

So this is kind of embarrassing, but I had no idea who T-Pain was or what he did until I googled him.  I’m just completely out of the pop music loop and I have no clue what’s going on.  I’m not sure if it’s because I’m a musician or if it’s because I don’t care or because I don’t listen to the radio or what.  Now I know though.

I’ve been edified!

Jambalaya

I love jambalaya.  There’s a restaurant in Canton called Nacho Mamas and they have incredible jambalaya.  I mean…good God.When I worked in the area, the us three guys would order from there quite a bit and someone always had to get the jambalaya just on general principal.  If you’re in the area or even if you aren’t you need to give it a go.  You won’t regret it.

One Credit Class

As a music major, I have to take a bunch of one credit courses that end up being more work than my three credit classes half the time.  For example, all music majors have to take three classes concurrently for four semesters.  Those are musicianship/sight-singing, piano skills, and theory.  The first two are only one credit classes and the theory class is three credits but the musicianship and theory classes meet the same amount of time per week.  Three fifty minute sessions of both so why is one worth two more credits than the other?

Everyone probably wouldn’t agree but I think I personally do more work for the one credit musicianship class than I do for the three credit theory class which is pretty bananas, right?  I wonder if that phenomenon occurs outside of the music major.

Indyversus Baltimore

Now this baffles me.  My Dad used to live in Indiana when I was younger and now that I’m older I’m noticing the obscene difference in the price of real estate.  My Dad started driving trucks when he retired from the Department of Corrections about twelve years ago and during the summers when I was younger, I’d go to work with him.  Now because of all those days I spent riding along with my Dad and driving around on my own, I’m pretty familiar with the Baltimore and Indianapolis metro areas.

Carmel, Indiana is a suburb of the city of Indianapolis and it reminds me a lot of the White Marsh area in Baltimore County.  Comparable amenities and housing but vastly different real estate prices.  For example, I was just on realtor.com comparing houses in both areas and one of the Carmel properties I looked at was 6000 sqft with a 1300sqft basement, a 600sqft master suite, and a three car garage built in the early 2000s on an acre of land for sale for $1m.  Yyou couldn’t find a comparable house in the Baltimore suburbs for under $1.5m at the very very least.

On the other end of the spectrum, you could get a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 1200sqft condo in White Marsh for about $180k.  In Carmel, you can buy a 4 bedroom, 2.5 bathroom, 2300 sqft single family home on a half an acre of land for $150k.

Now here’s where it gets REALLY interesting: the Baltimore County Police Department starts their officers off at $45783.00 and their cadets (training classification) off at 23819.00 per year while the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department starts its probationary officers out at $39446.00 and after six months at the academy and six months of full-time duty, that salary bumps to $47651.00.  Not only do Indy officers make more money faster in a lower cost of living environment, but they also get take-home cars which is another source of significant savings.

After looking into things a bit further, I’ve concluded that in the Indianapolis suburbs one can expect:

- to pay an average of 40% less for comparable housing in the Baltimore  suburbs

- to receive comparable if not higher salaries than in the Baltimore suburbs

- to pay lower vehicle maintenance and registration fees

- to pay lower taxes

- to enjoy comparable recreational activities with the exception of nightclubs

Bizarre stuff.

Fiscal Republicanism

I’ve resisted the urge, for a long time, to write anything political but I can’t help myself right now. I’ve been wondering what people think about the differences between Republicans and Democrats and I’m starting to conclude that the difference is the value the two place on quality of life. What do I mean by that?

I mean that both sides believe in working hard and choosing solid valuable occupations, but Democrats seem to acknowledge and appreciate that there are people who work hard but not necessarily at financially fruitful occupations for personal or circumstantial reasons whereas many Republicans shrug off the part of the population that earns under $40k/year which makes me wonder: does a doctor deserve preferential tax treatment over an over-the-road truck driver because he is a doctor and has worked for years and years to earn his six figure salary?

They may both work sixty or seventy hour weeks, but one brings home $50k and the other $250k. It seems that people in the super-middle class but sub-wealthy class are very highly concerned with maintaining their quality of life and getting all they can out of their money regardless of what that does to the lower income part of the population. On the other hand, there are a great number of multi-millionaires who donate freely–regardless of their motivation for doing so–and assist the middle and sub-middle class people which helps make up for the upper middle-class that fights for keeping every dollar in their own pockets.

Here’s the blog post I read that made me consider this issue.

http://www.lolife.com/blog/archives/000002.html

What a crazy world.

Am I a Bad Dresser?

Now let me start off by saying that I don’t think I’m a bad dresser.  Most days I really don’t care enough to get all decked out, but I know some people who….wow.  That’s all I can say about that.  You know those people that always look like they just stepped out of the latest issue of Vogue or something?  Is that how we’re all supposed to dress or is it okay for me to put on my wrinkled shirt from Wal-Mart that my Dad bought me?

It may be that I’m not paying close enough attention, but there are two guys I know who I’ve never seen in the same outfit twice…ever.  Granted I don’t see them everyday, but it’s still something to think about  A friend of mine from high school and I go to dinner every Friday but she takes forever because she has to find something to wear and then change into it and then do make up and all this other stuff.

It’s good to know I’m not in the minority on the not getting decked out bit, but still…seriously?

Ollie Williams

I don’t get to watch a lot of TV so I get stupid quotes stuck in my head all the time and the last time network television I watched was Family guy a couple of weeks ago.  It was the episode where Quagmire lost his job as a pilot and the guys tried to help him get his job back by drugging the pilots on a flight so he could save the day.  Of course it didn’t work out that way and the plane started to plummet to the ground.  So the Quahog Channel 5 news (I think?) went live with Ollie Williams who yelled,

“I’M AT THE WRONG AIRPORT!!!!”

then he was off screen.  His character always says ridiculous things like that and then he’s off screen in less than 3 seconds.  If you don’t know who I’m talking about you need to youtube him because Ollie’s one of the most hilarious characters I’ve seen in a long time.

URCAD

The Undergraduate Research Creative Achievement Day.  Sexy title, eh?  The Provost’s office sponsors this event where they allow undergrads to do research in a field of interest which is a pretty neat concept.  A friend of mine went to a bunch of different concert venues and took samples of the acoustical qualities of the space to use for recording so by clicking a button in your one room studio you can sound like you’re performing in Carnegie Hall.

I know a lot of people who use the money (about $1500) to go to summer festivals and stuff like that.  I decided to do some research on pacing a solo recital essentially trying to develop a set of criteria that will allow a vocalist to optimize a solo program for audience enjoyment, technical challenge, and feasibility of completion by interviewing different voice teachers  and doing some score study and analysis to identify points in standard literature that present problems for developing singers.

I’ve been wracking my brain for the past couple of weeks trying to synthesize all of the information and write this proposal but fortunately I finally got it cranked out.  I’m thinking the idea itself is pretty cool.  Hopefully the folks over at the Office of Undergraduate Education will thin so too and let me do it.

What exactly UMBC’s inclement weather policy?

I absolutely without a doubt do not understand UMBC’s inclement weather policy.  Apparently a half an inch of ice on the ground is only worth a 2 hour delay in UMBC land but in Morgan State University, Towson University, Coppin College, Baltimore County Public Schools, Howard County Public Schools, the Baltimore County government and just about…well everyone else’s world, that kind of weather is grounds for closing.

This is my 6th semester at UMBC and I can’t recall an occasion in over two years where we’ve closed for bad weather–even when everyone else is closed.  Now I understand some school systems and organizations close for absolutely nothing, but 295 was closed this morning, most other major universities were closed today, and it took me over 20 minutes to walk to class without falling.  I think that says something, don’t you?

Don’t email me to tell me the sidewalks are treacherous.  I’m aware that the sidewalks are treacherous because that’s what happens when ice falls from the sky.  Throwing a bunch of salt on it doesn’t solve the problem either.  People still can and did fall today and yeah, it was funny but I don’t think it should ever come to that.

When I was in high school, I used to get really irritated when other school systems would close and we’d have an hour delay or something ridiculous like that purely because I didn’t feel like going to school.  A few years out, I have a different reason: it’s not safe!!!!  People always say “oh well the roads are fine.”  Really?  All of them?  If you can’t guarantee me that no one will have a weather-related accident on ANY road a driver would use to get from point A to point B, don’t say “the roads are fine.”  Some professors and students travel great distances to get to work and the roads may not be fine where they’re coming from.  Why else is that statement unacceptable in my book?  Just because the roads are “fine” does not mean the sidewalks are traversable.  Cars only take you from parking spot to parking spot and in most instances–especially at a university–you’ll have to walk a good distance before you’re in the safety of a building which means the sidewalks also need to be safe and they weren’t today nor were they last week when we had those icy conditions and you know what?  You can count on that being true all the time.

Classes were pretty empty today, right?