Monday, April 21, 2008

Piper of the Day

If you check the results of my most recent competition, you'll see I had a first place and a second place. This was good enough to earn Piper of the Day for grade 2, and I got a very nifty trophy. I'll upload a picture of the trophy once I get it off my camera (didn't bring the cable with me), but in the meantime check out the videos of my competition. Needless to say, I'm very pleased and the trip down was well worth it.

**Update 4/26/08** Photo added


March, Strathspey, Reel: Major Manson at Clachantrushal, Arniston Castle, Lexy McAskill



Piobaireachd: The MacFarlane's Gathering

Competition Journal 2008 #2

The results from my solo piping competitions.

Loch Norman Highland Games, Huntersville, NC, April 19 2008

Event: MSR
Judge: Doug Ross
2/4 marches submitted: Major Manson at Clachantrushal, The Clan MacColl
Tunes played: Major Manson at Clachantrushal, Arniston Castle, Lexy MacAskill
Result: 2nd

Event: Piobaireachd
Judge: June Hanley
Tunes submitted: The Massacre of Glencoe, The MacFarlane's Gathering
Tune played:
The MacFarlane's Gathering
Result: 1st

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Landmark!

A landmark day of the year. Today was the first day this spring I played outside! It was a gorgeous spring day, clear and sunny, no wind, and enough grass for me to walk around on. The pipes were sounding ok, not great but I hadn't played them for a few days so I shouldn't complain too much. It makes it feel like spring is really here!

Monday, April 14, 2008

Irony...

Here's a useless fact I learned on the History Channel. The ancient Romans were big fans of bathing and built huge and wonderful bath houses. They stole that from the Greeks, incidentally, just like their mythology. Anywho, after the fall of Rome bathing fell somewhat out of favor until the 18th century or so (talk about a smelly few centuries) when it experienced somewhat of a return in popularity. The main tool of this new fad, i.e., the bathtub, was brought to the U.S. by Benjamin Franklin upon his return from... **drumroll please**... France.

Saturday, April 12, 2008

I feel so dumb

This is a companion post to the previous post about the cell phone. That post includes a picture of the apparently fried SIM card from my phone. I showed the SIM card to Chris at breakfast this morning and he said "It's a picture of a person. The brown part is hair, the tan part below it is a forehead, the white part on the other side is the sleeve of someone next to that person." I looked at it differently and said "Yeah, I guess it kinda does look like that." Turn your head to the right while looking at the picture, it's easier to see.

Went to Radio Shack to see what I could find out. They tried a new SIM card, which was attached to a card about the size of my driver's license. Printed on that card, sure enough, was a picture of two people, one seated with brown hair. When punched out of the card, the SIM looked just like mine. So no char marks, no smudge, just hair.

And it sounds like the problem isn't with the SIM card, it's with the phone. Still under warranty (by about three weeks) so the manufacturer should fix it for free.

New faith in customer service

Customer service is one of those things that can really make or break my relationship with a company. Good customer service keeps me coming back, bad customer service keeps me from coming back. It's all about the attitude of both the company and its employees: if the company has a good system and views the customer service section of its budget as an investment instead of a required expense, it's likely to be a pleasant experience overall. If the employee views his or her job as being to serve the customer instead of a source of a paycheck, it's going to be a good experience.

This is brought on by a customer service encounter I had today, related to the apparent death of my cell phone.

The first involves Radio Shack, which is where I bought the phone in the first place. I tried to stop over Friday afternoon and found a sign on the door that they were closed in order to move to a new location. Figures, the one time in my life where I really HAVE to go to Radio Shack (at 3:30 on a Friday afternoon, no less) is the one day of the store's lifetime that it's moving. The sign said they should be open Saturday in the new location (another strip in the same town), so I drive over on Saturday. There's a sign on the new store saying they won't be open until Monday; argh. There are people in the store unpacking boxes, so I knock on the door to ask if there's another Unicel dealer in town. I wasn't trying to get them to help me, just to send me somewhere that could help me.

Here's the good customer service part: the response was "No, there's not another store in town. What's wrong with your phone?" When I explained the problem (I assume it was to the manager), he called one of his other employees (the one who knows cell phones) over and said "See what you can do for this gentleman." Aside from the fact that I am hardly a gentleman, and even though the store was closed, they did the best they could, which included calling the old store to find out where the SIM cards were, digging through a box to find a different SIM card to try, and determining that the problem was with the phone and not the SIM card. They said "Unfortunately we can't send it out now; our computers aren't up yet so we can't put in a service request and since we're not open FedEx won't be by until probably Tuesday." With the store a mess and not even open, they did what they could. I was happy; I'll go back to Radio Shack in the future because of it.

Still no working phone, but a renewed faith in the customer service of a national chain.

Friday, April 11, 2008

Companionship

I'm dogsitting right now for a friend who went down to Boston to visit her daughter. Marg (the friend) asked if I'd watch Ruth (the dog) until she got back on Saturday, and since I like doggies I'm happy to do it.

I'm sitting in an armchair in the living room at the moment, and I found myself wondering why it is that I keep talking to the dog. I mean it's obvious why most people talk to dogs, but Ruthie is entirely deaf. She didn't hear me come in this afternoon and jumped when I walked past her sleeping on the floor. No matter much I say "Hi Ruthie" or "Good girl" or anything like that I know she won't hear me, but I keep talking anyway. Might as well be talking to the wall.

Or not, since the dog has a great deal more personality than the wall, and even though she can't hear me I still get more response than I would from the wall. Not that walls aren't nice, but they're usually rather wallish and not terribly friendly.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

I feel so helpless

My cell phone apparently died tonight. I was in the middle of a conversation with a nice girl, and it just stopped working and said "Insert SIM card." The SIM card is a little removable piece of plastic that holds information about the phone, including the phone number. If you switch phones, just pop the SIM card into the new phone and it takes you contacts and phone number with it; minimizes the amount of switching. If you travel internationally, buying a SIM card specific to the region will allow you to use your phone there without buying a new one.

I'm hardly a SIM card expert, but mine doesn't look right. See the picture; seems like it should have that black smudge. Kind of bothers me that it was in the middle of a conversation, the card and phone are both less than a year old, and in 2008 who can survive more than a few hours without having the cell phone handy? I don't know what I'll do until I can stop by Radio Shack to see what they have to say.


Followup for this picture here.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

The final answer

"Being able to lose weight without the hard work was great."

This is from a commercial on right now for one of those weight loss supplements. The only ingredient of a diet that has ever proven effective is sweat.

Nuff said.

Monday, April 7, 2008

Is it just me...

...or is it kind of amusing that a side effect of several ED drugs is impaired vision? I mean they told us as kids that a related action would make us go blind (not to mention the hairy palms). No wonder it's a side effect!

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Groups of critters

Last year I found a website that listed the proper names for groups of certain animals, and some of them are really amusing. You have the standards, of course, like a flock of sheep (or birds), a herd of cattle (also llamas or deer), a pod of whales, a pack of dogs, but there are some that are really odd. Examples listed below... feel free to add some more.

Clowder of cats
Cuddle of kittens
Parliament of owls
Murder of crows (my favorite)
Intrusion of cockroaches
Colony of beaver
Obstinacy of bison (also my favorite)
Troop of kangaroo

And one more: creatively enough, you can have a group of guinea pigs. No kidding.

Competition Journal 2008 #1

The results from my solo piping competitions.

New Hampshire School of Scottish Arts Indoor Festival, Concord, NH, April 5 2008

Event: 2/4 March
Judge: Paula Glendinning
Tune:
N/A
Result: Scratch

Event: Strathspey/Reel
Judge: Vic Frank
Tunes: Arniston Castle, Lexy MacAskill
Result: Break down

Event: 6/8 March
Judge: Andrew Douglas
Tune: Pipe Major Donald MacLean of Lewis
Result: 1st, AGL

Event: Piobaireachd
Judge: Donald Lindsay
Tunes submitted: The Massacre of Glencoe, The MacFarlane's Gathering
Tune played:
The MacFarlane's Gathering
Result: 2nd, AGL

First competition wrapup

If you have a good memory and have been paying attention, you would have noticed that the counter on my blog expired yesterday morning at about 10:00, and I was counting down to my first solo piping competition. The counter has now been reset for my next competition at the Loch Norman Highland Games in Charlotte, NC.

The day was an interesting one, a combination of ups and downs. The band bus arrived about 8:15 am, and I got there at the same time since I rode on the bus. The solo competitions were scheduled to start around 9:00 and we had a few who were playing around that time. I helped find a place for the band to hang out and helped some of the younger ones get ready for their own competitions and checked the schedule... my own competitions were supposed to start at 12:30, so I had some time to kill.

The morning was spent in a combination of listening to others play, changing into the band uniform, and warming up my own pipes, and I went to check on my competitions. All of the judges were running behind, and since I was last on the order of play (which is usually a good thing) I was definitely concerned with my solos interfering with preparations for the band contest. The band was on last as well, and didn't have to tune up until about 3:00, and by 2:30 I had only attempted one of my solo competitions. I say attempted because that was what happened; officially it's a break down because I didn't finish the tune. In the second part of my strathspey I played a wrong note, fuzzed around for a bit and couldn't get back on, and just stopped. It's disappointing, only my second breakdown in five years of competing. I blame it on a combination of not enough practice and not paying attention; it won't happen again.

I waited for a bit and then played my 6/8 march, and finished around 3:00. I felt pretty good about the 6/8, and from the look of things it was the only event I was going to actually finish. The 2/4 march and piobaireachd were both running so far behind that there was no way I was going to play them and be able to do band stuff too. Grrr. So I put my solo chanter down, got the band chanter, and put myself out of the solo piping mindset.

During a break in the band tuneup (the band contest was also running behind, since some of the judges were behind in their solos), I went to get my scoresheet for the 6/8 march: 1st place with the designation of "above grade level." I can tell you that redeemed the day for me. Continued warming up, played the band contest, and ran back upstairs to check on the solo competitions. Piobaireachd was actually so far behind that the second to last competitor (right in front of me) was just starting his tune, so the steward said "You want to play?" Heck yeah! I missed the 2/4, but I was going to play another one.

The tune went fairly well, and there was a nice little chat with the judge after. He said "You're a very good player, and you've been we'll taught. I'm surprised I've never heard of you. A few little finger things, crunluaths not always consistent, but the music is there: good phrasing, good tempos, good transitions." That made me feel good; he said the competition was really tough so I wasn't expecting a prize (one wrong note and some finger things), so you can imagine my surprise when I went to the scoring table on the way to find 2nd place with another above grade level.

The band placed second out of five, and I'll post videos of the whole band contest on YouTube by this afternoon. Now it's time for breakfast, and to call all my piping friends to tell them I feel like a good piper.

**Addition: I have started a journal of competition results. Click here.

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

The most depressing holiday

Some people claim the most depressing holiday is Christmas or Thanksgiving, where lonely single people see everyone else reveling with family and friends and the weight of their lonelitude and singleness really hits home. Some people say it's Easter or some other good Christian holiday, which adapt old pagan traditions and cause people to lose sight of the Christian meaning of the day. Or maybe Memorial Day or Independence Day, where the sacrifices of those who fought make and keep our country free are lost among parades, fireworks, and cookouts.

But no, to me it's April Fools that's the most depressing holiday. "What?" you say, "How can anyone with a sense of humor like your be depressed by a day of pranks and hoaxes?" Let me explain.

I love a good prank. I love a creative way to have fun at others' expense, like the Swiss Spaghetti Harvest of 1957, weakened gravity for a day, the left-handed Whopper, Alabama passing a law to change the value of pi to the "biblical" value of 3, or a travel section featuring the idyllic island nation of San Serriffe.

The problem is I'm not creative enough to come with any good ones. This leaves me with an outsider's view of the day, where I can appreciate the creativity of others but can't participate myself.

Sigh.