Welcome (back) to the Jungle

Well, I promised myself when I started this blog that I'd update once a week (give or take an occasional day) and no longer. It's been a while.

I named my dog J.J. Most of you probably know why I'd pick that that name. If you don't go to http://www.jazzmasters.nl/johnson.htm and read. Then go to http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000008ZK/sr=8-3/qid=1148735800/ref=sr_1_3/002-5477830-2625637?%5Fencoding=UTF8 and buy the "J.J. in Person" album. You'll be glad you did.

J.J. is a great dog. I've been finding out that rat terriers are incredibly smart dogs. This is good because he picks up on training commands pretty easily. It's bad because once dogs do something they learn that they CAN (even if they really can't), like go up on the couch. Therefore, he learns that things that are not ok are ok very quickly if Lisa and I aren't careful. He already knows "sit" and "down" even though he mixes the two up sometimes. I'm also teaching him to bring a ball that I throw back to me, which is a lot nicer for me than throwing it and having him run it over to a corner of the yard to hide it from me. Here are some pictures.

I figured out what I'm going to take next semester in grad school. I'm really excited about it. Grad school is going to be great. Little to no fluff to get in the way of getting good at the trombone. No ed classes. Weird. I'm taking lessons, ensembles (they do an Eastman like thing where you are part of a pool and play in band a orchestra on a rotating basis), trombone quartet (I miss you Quartal Simplex guys), trombone choir, a class called Schenkerian Analysis for Performers, and a class on Alexander Technique. And that's it. 12 credits total. Lessons are 4 credits. Sweet. The only thing I'm bummed about is having to drive such a long distance, but that's unavoidable so I'm not going to worry about it. If any body is in or around the cities and could offer me an occasional place to crash (for bad weather days and the such) PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE let me know.