Sorry I took such a long period off. I wanted a break for the Thanksgiving holiday. Actually these next two weeks are going to be insane and I make no promises when it comes to post consistency. I've had some pretty intense weeks in my life, but I think these next two are going to be up there with the best of them. It's always so sweet when you come through on the other side of a hard period of responsibilities successfully, so I look forward to that.
So much that has happened since I last posted...I'll start with the disappointments. My Thanksgiving cheesecake was a disaster. You know what they say: "Pride goes before the fall." I was pretty proud of my last cheesecake success, so I offered to make one for this Thanksgiving. The night before I forgot to leave out the cream cheese and let it warm to room temperature, but I figured it would be fine if I mixed everything real well. Boy was I extremely wrong. The cake came out totally wrong...wrong consistency, wrong taste, wrong look, just wrong. We didn't even take it to the meal.
Another big disappointment was my haircut today. In Columbia this bald dude cut my hair (kind of funny), and he was awesome. I would just give him a basic idea and then tell him to do what looks good, and he never let me down. Up here I have gone to two different people and tried this strategy and have been sorely disappointed, especially today. I told the girl I didn't want it a whole lot shorter, and it looks like she didn't do anything at all. She also didn't really thin out my sideburns, which I specifically asked for. I ended up doing that myself when I got home, which is dangerous. I guess I'll keep looking for a hairdresser. I plan on just trying various people at cheap places until I find the right one. The guy that cut my hair in Columbia was just at Hair Cuttery, but he had been doing it for so long that he was very knowledgeable.
Now for the good stuff. Thanksgiving was alot of fun at both houses. We had a game night with my family the night before, which was exciting. Apples to Apples frustrated me like always, but Catch Phrase was fun. Apparently Taboo is not Kristi and I's game, but we did have some ridiculous cards...such as "sulk" and "cantaloupe." On Thanksgiving we went to my parents' house for lunch and Kristi's Aunt and Uncle's for dinner. Some old family friends, the Greaves, came to my parents' house and it was good to see them. We always go around and say what we're thankful for, which gets a little emotional, and then sometimes play Thanksgiving trivia. This year the stakes were high; a $25 gift card to Outback, so Kristi studied for 5 minutes. She came in first, but for the record I came in a close second. I tried to save room for dinner, but it was still rough. Eating that much turkey in one day makes me not really care for left overs like I used to.
The day after Thanksgiving just consisted of shopping and work. I don't really buy much when I go shopping after holidays, but I enjoy the hustle and bustle. The mall mainly gets me in the Christmas spirit. That's right, nothing says Christ coming to earth quite like good ol' American consumerism. Seriously though, I do enjoy the mall around the holidays, especially on the day before Christmas. This year I did buy some Clemson sweatshirts for my dad and I and some t-shirts for my community group leader. He is a big Mizzou fan, but has kind of adopted Clemson as another team he cheers for.
Speaking of which, Saturday came and it was time for the big game. As I mentioned before, Matt gave his tickets to me so I could take my dad to the game. We left around 9:15, stopping at McDonald's for some breakfast on the way down. It was really cold, so I was glad I had bought an orange sweatshirt. I was pretty apprehensive about the game, but it turned out to be amazing. Our line has improved so much over the last few games, it makes me excited about the future. I also want to point out that my predictions all came true. My first, the most impressive perhaps, was that we would only lose one game after GT, and it would either be to FSU or USC. My second was that USC was not as good as people thought, and we were improving, and that if our defense hung in there we would have a chance to beat the Gamecocks soundly. Oh how true that turned out to be. We went to Anchaeux's after the game for my usual Blackjack sandwich, and then came home. It was a really fun day, especially to be able to spend with my dad. Here's a picture of us where we sat:
Our seats were actually right under the upper deck overhang, which was nice because we didn't get wet. Here's a picture of a prayer huddle before the game:
And here's a good picture of the scoreboard afterwards:
I figure that game had to be tougher than usual, even for Gamecock fans, so much so that I actually felt bad for them while leaving. I've seen several pictures of Spurrier where he wouldn't really even look Dabo in the eye afterwards. I think he was pretty exasperated...here's a video that shows what I'm talking about:
Sunday was a good day too. I felt like the morning sounded really good, and there was not really any mistakes on my part. In the evening I worked on recording a new song I wrote. I am going to try to write more often, just to keep the creative juices flowing. Also it will give me a chance to try new mixing techniques. This track I used an interesting stereo mic setup for the acoustic, and carefully chose a pick to get the right attack sound. I also pretty much ate the mic for the vocal track, pressing my nose against the pop filter. I used a limiter pretty liberally on both the acoustic and vocal tracks. I had a cold, so I couldn't pronunciate very well, but I was really happy with the vocal sound I got. I was also pretty happy with the acoustic sound, although there is a little comb filtering, and I recorded it a little hot so there is a little distortion in the low end at loud parts. All in all it's really good sounding, and an alright song. Here's a link if you are interested in listening: It Starts Tonight.
This is a long post, but I definitely need to talk about today. I spent most of the morning and the afternoon waiting to talk to a financial aid advisor. My new academic advisor told me I should be eligible for lottery assistance, so I wanted to ask about that before I payed this semester's bill. All the waiting was worth it, because I will be getting tons of money back from this past semester, and will only have to pay half of the spring semester. Talk about some good news. They should do a better job telling students about that.
After Tech, I got my disappointing haircut and then stopped at a Simpsonville Chinese restaurant for lunch. Their house fried rice was OK; I guess I will just never find anything as good as Red Bowl (r.i.p.). I came home, took Lucy for a really long walk, and then looked up some drum technique videos on YouTube and practiced some. YouTube is amazing...seriously.
Around 5 I made sure to watch the press conference with Dabo Swinney, where he was officially announced as head coach. I don't know how anyone could have watched that and not have gotten really excited about the future of the program. If you didn't see it, you really should watch the first little bit, which you can find here. If not, at least please read this article about the guy. I am pretty excited to have him representing our program, and I really hope he turns out to be the great coach everyone thinks he will be. He's already got a good start!
Kristi came home and we went to Ouback (with our giftcard), and then to TJ Maxx and Petsmart. I got Lucy the lamb and rice ScienceDiet this time, and she seemed really excited about it. I think it's just the novelty...soon she won't care about her food again...except for when Oliver tries to eat it of course.
So there you go! My past few days in a nutshell. They have definitely been great, which is nice building into a tough week or two. Tomorrow should be fun as I am going to eat lunch with my mom and then go into work. Hopefully there is some soldering for me to do!
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