MAGAZINE HEAVEN!!!!

I love living in the u.s. right at this moment. 

I just spent 40.00 and am now subscribed to: 

GQ,

(Yup, that's the pic of Judd Apatow (and crew) for GQ man of the year)

 

 Marie Claire

 AND Domino

(DELICIOUS DELICIOUS HOME DEC!)

... Ahh... Thats 34 Magazines at just 1.25/magazine!!!!

I feel all powerful right now. 

Magazines are my eye candy, my inspiration and my FAVOURITE distraction from reality, and right now, the reality is that i'm BROKE.  Instead of taking the plunge and going 'window shopping' because it always ends up hurting my wallet, i will have to stay home on my free days just to be able to get through the stack of magazine articles that await me. 

I am so excited to live vicariously through the glossy images of other peoples fantastic lives/homes/boyfriends.  Okay, that sounds lame, but its true. 

My mouth is watering just thinking about it.  

Yay Yay Yay!!!

Repair s'COOL!!!

BIRT stands for Band Instrument Repair Technician, and that is what i am going to be!

I have been putting this off for a few years to make sure that its what i want to do. 

I came out here to Renton, WA (15 minutes south of Seattle) last june to check out the area and meet Darryl Hickman the instructor of Renton Technical College's program. 

Now that i'm finally here, and it feels so RIGHT.

This week has been primarily introductory, lots about the syllabus, safety and info about the industry. We are the number 1 program right now (out of four in north america) and Darryl is the president of the NAPBIRT association which is pretty helpful come december when we start looking for jobs. 

The other day Darryl was explaining some of the components of the tuba and then fully hauled off and THREW IT INTO THE FLOOR!!!!  He was like: 'It used to be hard for me to wreck instruments so that you guys could fix them... now its kind of FUN!!!'

Dude.

I'm pumped for some dent removal, and some serious brazing and re-padding challenges. The one thing that i'm sort of wary of is of re-learning to play. We have play-tests on 5 instruments: Clarinet, Trumpet, Trombone, Alto Sax and Flute. 

I went and got all my mouthpieces/reeds yesterday and have started to re-learn on the Clarinet that i dis and re-assembled in fridays class.

One thing that is an unofficial part of the curricula is to go out and get involved in the music community.  I'd like to build some competency and play with the community band in Ballard if i can, but a bunch of the guys are already starting up plans for gig's and that. 

We went out friday night and hung out at a jazz show as a group... its cool how diverse our backgrounds all are (musicians/anthropologists/metalsmiths/music teachers/tinkerers) and its good to know that we have people who play the playtesting instruments as their primary instruments because i'll know who to ask for help!

Monday my half of the class is starting with brasswind and chem-cleaning.  

We have a whole new instructor named Dan and our classes will rotate back and forth to do woodwind with him after 3 weeks. 

I just ordered a stopwatch so that i can time myself, speed is a big advantage in this industry and I'm going to do my best. In nine months, I hope to be on top of the pile!

Can't wait for monday!