"With the echo of Mendelssohn's tune...."

And it's a pretty good echo! *L* The concert began with the ESO playing Mozart's "Symphony No. 41 in C, K. 551". Very pastoral and very nice. I freely admit that I did snooze a few times but hey...I've been up since 6 am so cut me some slack! *G* Next we had a brief intermission and then our competition winner. The music was Mendelssohn's "Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in E Minor, op. 64".

Marat Gabdullin is a very nice looking young man who was born in Russia and began studying the violin at age 5. By age 7 he was a soloist in a performance of the Vivaldi Violin Concerto in A Minor with the Ufa Chamber Orchestra in Russia. My ears, especially when it comes to violin music, are completely untrained, my brain, however, is NOT...and Vivaldi at 7 years old is pretty doggone good!!!

Not only did he play the entire performance (approximately 40 minutes of music) from memory, he also showed a presence and sense of performance you don't generally see in someone in their early 20's. The violin was no more and no less than an extension of his arm. If you watched his face as he played you could actually see love for the music and love for the mere sound of the violin flow across it. In fact, it appeared that his love of the music was so great that, when he received a standing ovation, he almost looked embarassed - as if to say, "I'm just the vessel but isn't this music awesome????" *L*

Marat won the 1st prize of $3000 and apparently the competition was quite stiff. They introduced the second place competitor and, for the first time ever, awarded a second place prize because this young man was also so good. Doug Newell, our Maestro, explained about getting some pretty well-credentialed adjudicators to judge the performances and he was really glad that he didn't haveto make the final decision - the three finalists were all that good!

All in all it was a very enjoyable evening - David and Marilyn have excellent seats! *LOL* I'm generally up for taking their tickets any time they offer them. They have front row in the balcony and since it's such an intimate venue they are probably among the best seats in the house. Aren't connections wonderful sometimes?? *G*

"But I'd be done seen about everything..."

You may not know this, but Oklahoma has a minor league hockey team, The OKC Blazers. And as I'm sure you know, sports teams have fan appreciation nights. Well, I'm not sure if it's only in Oklahoma, or only in the midwest, but I'm pretty sure it's only in America. The Blazers are teaming with the FFA, 4H clubs, and the American Farmers and Ranchers for "The Blazers Give Away The Farm Night". Yes...you heard me correctly....and yes...it means what you think.

Tonight the Blazers host the Colorado Eagles at the Ford Center and will give away nearly $4,000 worth of livestock after the game. Student members of 4-H and FFA who attend the game and register at the AFR booth will be eligible to win a hog, a goat, a lamb, or an Express Ranches heifer. And this is in the 'big city'!!! Oh my God!! *LOL* What is this place I've moved to????? Attend the game....and win a farm animal! Geez.

Now mind you, in the MUCH smaller town of Enid, Laura and I will be attending the symphony tonight. Her boss and his wife have season tickets but they are out of town this weekend so she and I will be seeing:

Mendelssohn in Leipzig
Felix Mendelssohn's 200th birthday party alla the Leipzig Gewandhaus,
featuring the winner of the ESO's 2009 Mendelssohn Violin Concerto
Competition for Oklahoma Young Artists ~ Marat Gabdullin

I hope this young man is as good as the paper is touting him to be and I REALLY hope I can stay awake through a concert of soothing violin concertos. *LOL* We'll see if I make it. Hey...at least nobody is trying to give me a goat! *ROTFLOL*

"Whoa oh ohhhh, listen to the music..."

Okay...I was inspired by Life In A Lovely Heart to research the #1 songs on my birthdays (I have just a few more than you, Puddy-Girl) and then to make a list of songs I like that might surprise you. The results of this inspiration are as follows:

#1 on my birthday - August 7th

2008 ... "I Kissed a Girl" by Katy Perry
2007 ... "Beautiful Girls" by Sean Kingston
2006 ... "Promiscuous" by Nelly Furtado featuring Timbaland
2005 ... "We Belong Together" by Mariah Carey
2004 ... "Slow Motion" by Juvenile featuring Soulja Slim
2003 ... "Crazy in Love" by Beyoncé featuring Jay-Z
2002 ... "Hot in Herre" by Nelly
2001 ... "Bootylicious" by Destiny's Child
2000 ... "Incomplete" by Sisqó
1999 ... "Genie in a Bottle" by Christina Aguilera
1998 ... "The Boy Is Mine" by Brandy & Monica
1997 ... "I'll Be Missing You" by Puff Daddy & Faith Evans featuring 112
1996 ... "Macarena [Bayside Boys Mix]" by Los Del Rio
1995 ... "Waterfalls" by TLC
1994 ... "Stay (I Missed You)" by Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories
1993 ... "Can't Help Falling in Love" by UB40
1992 ... "This Used to Be My Playground" by Madonna
1991 ... "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You" by Bryan Adams
1990 ... "Vision of Love" by Mariah Carey
1989 ... "Right Here Waiting" by Richard Marx
1988 ... "Roll with It" by Steve Winwood
1987 ... "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" by U2
1986 ... "Glory of Love" by Peter Cetera
1985 ... "Shout" by Tears for Fears
1984 ... "Ghostbusters" by Ray Parker, Jr.
1983 ... "Every Breath You Take" by The Police
1982 ... "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor
1981 ... "Jessie's Girl" by Rick Springfield
1980 ... "Magic" by Olivia Newton-John
1979 ... "Bad Girls" by Donna Summer
1978 ... "Three Times a Lady" by The Commodores
1977 ... "I Just Want to Be Your Everything" by Andy Gibb
1976 ... "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" by Elton John & Kiki Dee
1975 ... "Jive Talkin'" by The Bee Gees
1974 ... "Feel Like Makin' Love" by Roberta Flack
1973 ... "The Morning After" by Maureen McGovern
1972 ... "Alone Again (Naturally)" by Gilbert O'Sullivan
1971 ... "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart" by The Bee Gees
1970 ... "(They Long to Be) Close to You" by The Carpenters
1969 ... "In the Year 2525 (Exordium & Terminus)" by Zager & Evans
1968 ... "Hello, I Love You" by The Doors
1967 ... "Light My Fire" by The Doors
1966 ... "Summer in the City" by The Lovin' Spoonful
1965 ... "I'm Henry VIII, I Am" by Herman's Hermits
1964 ... "A Hard Day's Night" by The Beatles
1963 ... "Fingertips (Part II)" by Little Stevie Wonder

Uhmmm...yeah. I pretty much lost the train of music after 1996, although I have heard "I Kissed A Girl". I don't believe I've heard most of the songs in between though. *LOL*

As for songs I really like that might surprise you:

"Straight To Number One" by Touch and Go
"Disturbia" by Rhinannon
"Kryptonite" by 3 Doors Down
"1985" by Bowling for Soup
"Between Raising Hell and Amazing Grace" by Big and Rich
"Smooth" by Carlos Santana and Rob Thomas
"Glamorous" by Fergie
"House At Pooh Corner" by Loggins and Messina
"Panama Red" by New Riders of the Purple Sage
"Baby Doll" by Pat Green
"Somebody Loved" by The Weepies
"Waterfalls" by TLC
"Get Right With The Man" by Van Zandt

I am also a major "Parrothead", a frequent visitor of the "Martini Lounge", and a "Zydeco" fan. I'll listen to Big Band, Swing (country and regular), Broadway, some Metal, and even an occasional Rap song though I totally dislike hardcore and 'gansta' Rap (think "Wild Thing" by Tone-Loc, NOT NWA's "Straight Outta Compton"). In short - if it's good music, good lyrics, or a tiny bit odd - there's a chance I'll listen to it at least once. If I like it I'll listen more. And if I love it I'll listen for the rest of forever. As Nietzsche said, "Without music, life would be an error."

So come on....'fess up....what are YOU listening to??? *G*

"Ice, ice, Baby..."

And believe me, it "sucks, sucks, Baby"! Yep, the winter storm is coming through and decided to spit on Enid. I left the office and went to my car and found about 1/8 inch of ice on one side and about 1/16 inch on the other side. Sounds like such a tiny bit doesn't it? Yeah...I was scraping my little arms off for about 20 minutes and hadn't really made even a dent in it - then God sent me an Angel. Rusty, one of our Maintenance guys, came out to salt the sidewalks. I thought it was strange that he came over by the car and poured a little pile of salt near the curb. And then he showed himself to be that Angel I mentioned. He told me to stand over where he had just salted so I wouldn't slip and fall, and proceeded to take my ice scraper and scrape my windows front to back! When he was done he stayed and made sure I got into the car without slipping, and asked if the other ladies from the office area had left yet. I told him they had not and he said he would go in and get their keys and warm and scrape their cars so they would be ready when they left.

Yes, Virginia, there are Angels. And one of them is named Rusty.

Thank you for sending one my way, Lord. And St. Peter, when you record today in your book, please make sure to put several VERY LARGE check marks next to Rusty's name. Sounds like a deal to me Guys - you send him the blessings and I'll send him some cookies! *G*

"Time has come today...."

Okay, not a total emergency but definitely something to take care of. The current computer is slowly leaving us. Within the past few months we have experienced 2 "organ" (hardware) failures and it is slowly sliding into total system shut down. Not to mention the fact that it is truly a dinosaur in tech years. Luckily we placed it on "heart-lung bypass" after the first failure so all important files are on separate external hard drives and all important programs are backed-up. We also budgeted for the time when we would have to choose its successor.

That time has come today. The local Staples had a good deal on an HP machine with a 750 Gb hard drive, 8 Gb of RAM, SuperMulti DVD burner with LightScribe, a graphics card with 256 Mb of dedicated memory, and running the Windows Vista OS. The currently running computer has 256 Mb of RAM total! This new one should fly! *LOL*

Of course, we also had to get a new cable modem since the current one is not compatible with Vista and we had to upgrade the Microsoft Office to 2007 for the same reason. Staples did throw in the HP printer though - not a bad deal considering the curent printer is approximately 12 years old and the cost of one black ink cartridge for it is more than the cost of both the black AND color cartridges of the new printer. It's still a deskjet, not a laserjet, but I'm totally okay with that. My little deskjet has been an absolute workhorse. And it was free too at the time! Can't complain.

But the new puter is ordered and will be in on Thursday. Oh, and they are also going to set it up in the store. Once we pick it up all we will have to do is plug it in, connect the external drives and modem, make a few modifications, and fire it up. Much better to let them download the 4 hours of updates and install the full version of Office than for us to spend time doing it.

The only thing I'm unsure about is how long it will take to get the email program back up and running. We're currently trying to remember the passwords we used and such. If nothing else I will have the hotmail and gmail available so I'll still be accessible over the net. And I'll let everyone know as soon as we get the email straightened out of course. Right now it's kinda like Christmas all over again....I can't wait!! *LOL* I'll keep you posted!

"When the moon....

...is in the 7th House..."

I saw the coolest thing the other night! On Tuesday, Dec. 30 there was supposed to be a conjunction in the night sky where you could see three planets and the moon. We went outside just after sunset and lo and behold...we saw them!! It was exceptionally cool! First you had to find the crescent moon in the Southern sky...then look slightly to the West of the bottom tip...and there was Venus! It's so bright and pretty, it looked like a diamond sparkling up there! Okay, so then you were supposed to draw a line from Venus towards the Southwest directly to the spot where the sun went down and there they were! Jupiter and Mercury right next to each other riding just above the horizon! Jupiter was brighter than Mercury but not as bright as Venus of course. Mercury looked like a tiny reddish light sitting there - Jupiter sparkled a little but like I said, nothing like Venus. I was so amazed at this sight - I just thought that was the neatest thing ever! *L*

Oh, and since I'm not really fond of "resolutions" - I've made an "agreement" with myself that I will try to post once a week, circumstances permitting. I may have to do it once every two weeks now and again but hopefully I won't have to drop to posting only once a month. Hmmmm...but even that would be better than lately. *hanging my head in shame* All in all - I really intend to try and post more often. But we all know about "the best laid plans of mice and..." ... Totos!

"I saw three ships come sailing in..."

"...on Christmas Day, on Christmas Day..."

This is one Christmas song that lends itself beautifully to being done in the Celtic style so naturally it was one of the songs performed by Mithril! *L* On Saturday evening we attended a performance of the Enid Symphony Orchestra at Symphony Hall:

A Celtic Christmas with Mithril

One of the World's most sought after
Celtic Music Ensembles

Now mind you, it wasn't as Celtic as Celtic Woman, but it was pretty darn good! The four performers who are Mithril are extremely talented and you can tell they have a deep love of Celtic music. Their songs were performed with energy and they were backed quite well by the ESO. They split the evening, some songs by the Orchestra, some by Mithril, etc. It was excellent!! I have several Christmas cds by Celtic performers and now I can't wait to start playing them!

If you want to know more about Mithril take a look at their website here. And if you would like to see or learn more about the ESO and Symphony Hall, then take a look here.

Enid is very lucky to have the Hall, the Symphony, and our Maestro. And the city does indeed support all of the above. I've seen larger towns that either don't have them or, if they do, don't support them at all. Enid is pretty good about it though.