Uni

So many things going on right now.

Yesterday evening I rocked the house with a very little piccolo playing followed by the Haydn trumpet concerto and a rubber garden hose trumpet encore. The San Miguel sell out crowd was wonderful. Especially a very sweet lady in the 1st row. More on her and all of the concert craziness in an upcoming post.

Last year in December I wrote about the best Christmas present I ever received, Christmas Cornet. Following in a very close 2nd has to be the bicycle. There is no better site than the image of a shinny bicycle back lit from the lights of a Christmas tree early Christmas morning. As a child I was fortunate enough to see that site more than once.

I now look back and rate the quality of the Christmas gifts I have received as a child based  on a few requirements:

1. Years of use.

Cornet, trumpets, flugelhorn, mutes, bikes, records (lp's), cd's, books. Many years of enjoyment.

2. Where it takes you.

Buzzing into a tube has turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me. My love of cycling has taken me to many many beautiful corners of the United States and even a bit of Canada. I love the clean Canadians. Such a nice place Canada. Even better than where cycling took me is the fellow cyclist that I have met over the years. The same goes for music and performing. So many wonderful memories.

2011 has been a year of learning for me. Much of it self-inflicted and some of it just good ol' forced learning.  More on my nursing and extensive hands on male catheter (I thought I was going to throw up or pass out when I witnessed my 1st demonstration, which was also my last before I was to begin) practice in another upcoming post.

Something I am very excited to have learned this year is riding the unicycle. The unicycle is a blast. It's such a cool feeling to ride and not hold on to anything. The silence of the uni is also super cool. They make no sound at all. The cleanliness is another plus. No greasy parts at all. The pack-a-bility. I brought 3 unis (20" 16" and 12") down when Pearl, Rose and I flew back to Guanajuato in August. Take the pedals off and take out the seat/ seatpost combo and there's nothing to 'em. I think a uni would make a perfect gift for just about anyone but especially for the younger people on your gift list. It's also a very good work out. Great for your core and balance. Remember on a uni there's no coasting. Feel the burn. Oh, you can get a good 20" uni from unicycle.com for 112 bucks. This is what I chose for my 1st unicycle. And this is what I received:

I made a few modifications to my uni.

1. Odyssey plastic pedals that are white indoors but in sunlight the turn bright pink. More surface for my big feet. On sale for $5.

2. Root beer brown Animal seatpost clamp to replace the bulky but more convenient and more easily adjustable quick release type which comes stock. $10.

3. Animal Tom White Wall 20x2.20" tire. Higher pressure, more surface area, smoother rolling, more stable, big BMX street tire. $22.

4. Once I learned how to ride, I had some problems with flats. I'm 6'1" and 180 lbs. I have a life time sponsorship back from my bike racing days with Velox, the makers of fine cloth rim tape. So with a little help from my local bike store, problemo solved. No more flats.

Gordon is my local (when I'm in Texas) Velox representative.
He's also an excellent seatpost cutter.
Look at the size of that thing!

Just for fun go into your local bike store during the Christmas rush and tell them you're looking for a seatpost. When they ask you how long tell them, "700 millimeters" and see what their reaction is. More on what I've done with my 700 mm seatpost soon.

They say it takes 10 hours to learn how to ride a unicycle. I don't think it took me that long. A nephew (13yrs.) who not 1 person in our family, except for me, thought would have the determination to stick with it long enough, learned to ride in around 7 hours. It was so cool to watch. I'm so proud of him and my girls who have also began learning the joys of unicycling. Rose is practicing in the kitchen on the 16" uni as I type this.

If you order anything from the friendly people at unicycle.com please mention this post. They have no idea who I am but maybe if a few people order a uni then they'll give me a free t-shirt or something.

4 Wheeler

My neighbor Jorge is a constant source of amusement for me.

This is what he showed up with the other day

That's a big 4 wheeler. 

Or maybe a small truck.

Haydn's Trumpet Concerto

If you're in central Mexico and you're not busy this Sunday, please stop by St. Paul's church in San Miguel Allende. At 5pm I'll be performing Haydn's trumpet concerto. I'm very honored to be performing this work. Such beautiful music from the Classical period. It's going to be fun.

This is the first copy of the Haydn that I started working on in Junior High.
If you look carefully you can see the phone number
of an old girlfriend from my youth orchestra days.
Trumpet players get all of the girls.

Made Of Sugar

Wow! All of October and not a single post. Things have been a bit crazy as of late.

I spent the majority of October playing nurse in the lovely Metroplex community of Arlington Texas, my hometown.

I returned to Guanajuato on the 26th of October. Just in time for Beta Collide and Corpus Acrobatics (more on them soon). Upon my return, the lack of constant sounds is the thing I have noticed the most. In Arlington I was staying at my Grandparent's home which is surrounded by major interstate highways, 2 major league sports complexes and just about every type of eatery you can imagine (except of course for any very nice restaurants). I don't think there has been a moment of silence there in decades. Sad.

Yesterday, Pearl, Rose and myself all headed into town for our yearly Dia de los Muertos (2 Nov.) tradition of watching people assembled large murals on the streets. We also purchased a few things made of sugar for the girl's shrines in honor of Monarch and Rusty, the girls 1st 2 cats. Even in the early morning, with many of the shops closed, there is almost too much to take in.

I bought 2 things for my own collection.

I have a wonderful true story about someone just like the above foto.

I can't seem to get my camera to focus on this little guy. Maybe that's the way it's supposed to be.

I hope you enjoy just a few of the sites on Dia de los Muertos. Stay tuned for more.

Marching Suits

I'm going to do my best to try and capture a little of the "feel" of life here in Mexico with the assistance of a video every now and then.

Today was a holiday here in Guanajuato so the girls and I headed into centro to meet Michelle for snacks. We ran right into a parade. In Mexico, as I have seen in other countries except for the United States, they get every government employee they can round up and have them "march" in said parade. Nothing more exciting than government officales in suits followed by their sercretaries. If you watch closely you will see a few marching suits.

These clips were shot on our return trip up callejon Tecolote. If you listen carefully you can hear the drums all the way up the hill.

Split Oval

My love of bettles is 1 of the many things I have inherited from my father. Beautiful and simple, the people's car. Here are few fotos of a very nice split oval that I stumbled passed the other day. 

Clean.

What a good lookin' car.

Sanitary Practice

Being the father of 2 girls I am, like it or not, the athority on all things male. The physical part of this has always come natural to me. By physical I mean being there to open up all sorts of things, reaching those things placed out of my dauthers reach (I'm 6'1"), providing shelter from an unexpectedly large Pacific Ocean wave. I'm there. Now, when they ask questions things can become a bit trickier. Most of the times I have answers for their questions or will at least do my best job of pretending I know an answer. Then there are the un-answerable kinds of questions:

"Why do men have nipples?"

I guess I should know the answer to this but, I don't.

"Why don't you wipe after you go pee-pee?"

Ok, I think I got this. So, I go into the standard, or at least I thought it was standard, you shake it a bit and you're good. This is what all boys do I tell them.

While I didn't seem like the most sanitary practice to them, they seemed to accept that this was as universal as I had claimed.

My most memorable days during my 5 years with the Orquesta Sinfonica de la Universidad de Guanajuato, OSUG, were spent on tour in Egypt back in 2009. We spent most of our time in Cairo although we did travel to Alexandria for a performance in a beautiful hall and a wonderful lunch over looking the Mediterranean Sea. Back to Cairo. Michael Severens, a cellist with the OSUG, had a cousin who worked in Cairo and he had offered to take Michael out and show him a little bit of the town. Michael was nice enough to invite me and off we went. We had a blast. Over the course of the evening we went to:

A super cool club in an old victorian building that had a very cool very old elevator that took you up to the 2nd floor and that was all there was, no 3, no basment, an elevator for 1 level. Old school craziness.

A very nice restaurant on the banks of the Nile river. Yummy Egyptian food in a lovely outdoor setting. Very posh. More on this place in a minute.

An undergroud pub. Maybe my favorite spot of this wonderful evening. Drinking alcohol in an Arab counrty is a bit different. Besides, I have always been a fan of underground drinking.

We also stopped by the Cairo Jazz Club so I would know where it was. As it turned out Michael's cousin had a co-worker who sang in a blues/jazz group that would be playing at the club the following evening after our concert. So the next night once returning to the hotel after our concert, I crossed the street in front of our hotel, made my way accross the Nile and the few short blocks returning to the Cairo Jazz Club. The band invited me to sit in and we all had a blast. The trumpet opens so many doors. That was another fun night in Cairo.

Ok, back to the evening at the very poosh restaurant. I go to the restroom. As I enter I notice the attendant, I smile and make my way to the urinal. As I am relieving myself, out of the corner of my eye I notice the attendant is approaching me. This seems a little odd to me, but I'm not from around here so I remain relaxed.
He places a small neatly folded short lenght of toilet paper on top of the urinal dividers.

I didin't know what to do. My head was spinning. All I thought I knew of the post pee process was now in question. Until this point in my life I had thought of myself as fairly civilized. And then in this bathroom half way around the world this happens. I didn't have a runny nose. I left the toilet paper where it was. Did the "standard" shake, put it away, zipped up and quickly washed my hands and headed back to my friends at the table.

My girls loved hearing this tale upon my return. They still love hearing it.

Amazing to see these in person.

This place was next door to our hotel. Michael and another
cellist from Toluca took me here. We ordered grape and apple flavor
taobaco. 1 tasted good the other not so much.

I could have walked forever in the bazar.
My eyes have never been so stimulated.

The view from our hotel . We were right on the Nile.

I didn't have much time in Egypt but I think I made the most of it.