MAG Part Deux

I went home at christmas and brought back the copy of MAGazine that had been forwarded to my mom. Its the copy with MY ARTICLE on Lily Yung in it. :) Now i'm a doubly published national magazine contributing writer!

How cool.

Its been a lot of months since I wrote that article and I'm proud to say that i'm very proud of it, its good!

GO ME!

Metal Arts Guild MAGazine!

Its been a busy month for my CV bibliography!

A few days ago i got my copy of the Fall issue of Metal Arts Guild's MAGazine in the mail, the issue that my article on Stephen Fox Clarinets is in! So exciting!!!!

A few days later i was asked to contribute another (more technical) article on Lily Yung which was a lot of fun to do because not only did i get to do more writing for a professional-type organization of my peers, but i learned lots of stuff as well... particularly about 'rapid prototype technology'.  Look out for that one in the winter issue of MAGazine. 

P.S. I couldn't have done it without my LOVELY and mildly threatening editor and best friend Maegan. :) Thanks babe!

Anyhoo, i'm proud of my little article, its on newsstands now!

Halloween Haggle

This time of year is often made easier for me by my friend Shilo's tendency to have a themed halloween/birthday party, thus narrowing down my options for costume choices each year and taming my unruly thought process. 

This year, alas... I'm going it alone, despite trying to enlist new friends here in renton to agree on a group of costumes I was once again stranded on an island of uncertainty.

UNTIL!:

I found the best website for halloween costume ideas at

http://costumeideazone.com

Its awesome.

There are so many clever and classy ideas for costumes that all i need to do now is narrow down my favourites.  I have T-minus one week to make this happen and i'm very excited to go to the city with the girls and check out the Fremont parade and go samba dancing by the Troll. :)  

Happy haunting everyone! (I'll add pictures of our first seattle halloween after the big day!).

POST HALLOWEEN UPDATE!:

For my costume I wore:  GRAPES and Wrathy type things like devil horns and a mask made of purple glitter and had a 'wrath stick' with grape leaves all over it. :) Duh, i was GRAPES OF WRATH!

We had an AWESOME time and ROBOT (Marie) stole the show.. litterally!  She jumped on stage at one point during the narrative performance at the Troll Birthday Party and cut in on the two main characters dancing together after the crowd chanted 'robot' 'robot' 'robot'. What a hit!

It was FUN WITH ROBOT night, and we even scored a free organic pumpkin from a guy at the supermarket who thought we were hilarious!

Mary Poppin's went looking for two children among the crowd with the help of a british tommy and his friend 'guy from the amazing race'. 

ALSO:  I SAW TRON!

IT WAS AWESOME!

Sorry, i didn't get a picture but i did get a really limp high five. That guy probably worked for Microsoft.  I love living in a town full of geeks!

After the parade and aerobic's (hen we wandered the festive streets of Fremont and found among other things, my counterpart of the night 'Deviled Eggs' and Mary Poppin's got some facetime with Sarah Palin on the way back to the car!

So Much Fun!

My secret is purple!

In the last year i have started to seriously accumulate a life full of the colour PURPLE.

It has become VERY apparent recently when without realizing it I ordered 3 things from Zappos.com in the very same colour. 

Things that are purple:

Eyeglasses

Sneakers

Striped cardigan

toque 

polka dot pj pants

watch

binder

Sparkle Eyeshadow

ball point pens

shoulderbag

So whats is it about colour that attracts? Perhaps in this case it was a subconscious shift.  Purple traditionally signifies power and royalty, maybe its a nod to my ineffable confidence of late?  Wiki also says that Hendrix favourite colour was Psychadelic purple... maybe the fact that i go to school across the street form his gravesite is having an effect: or more possibly, that i'm drinking beer with musicians that we aquire from the Chevron across the street from Hendrix's grave! :)

Anyway.

I'm proud to tell ya: I LOVE PURPLE.  Its my new power colour. 

Green didn't even see it coming.

P.S. I'm listening to Gogol's 'Start Wearing Purple' right now!

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!

Wrapperoo!!!

A multi-amazing dress...

Always one for the mutli-functional solution, i decided that i could use a new addition to the wardrobe that is comfy and doubles/triples the practical space it takes up in my suitcase.

This is it!

Its the wrapperoo... 

Can be worn in oh, so many ways!

Or as a long fall skirt!

Or as a suspender top dress with a t-shirt!

I'm so happy with how this turned out, i think the next one i make will be reversable:)