I blogged from my Treo phone last Saturday about going to the Idaho All State Choir, Orchestra, and Band concert. It was one of the delightful serendipitous events that happens every once in a while. I had read about it in the newspaper and suggested to Nina that we should go to see the choir concerts. There were two of them, the Treble Choir at 2 p.m. and the Mixed Voices Choir right after. The Orchestra and Band concerts were scheduled to start at 4 p.m. Around noon we decided that we would go to the choir concerts and left about 1:30 p.m. to drive up the the Performing Arts Center.

We arrived to find the place packed and further, tickets were needed. The tickets were $5 apiece. Nina bought the tickets while I parked the car. We couldn’t find any seats on the main floor and ended up in the balcony. The picture at the left was taken from the balcony before the Treble Choir came in to perform. The choirs were astounding. They were so good, in fact, that we decided we’d stay for the Orchestra and Band concerts as well. Both the Orchestra and the Band were outstanding. We were well rewarded for our time to be there. One of the parents of one of the bass players in the Orchestra wondered if we had children playing or singing. She was amused that we were just there to hear the concert.

I did take some video while we were there. I didn’t bring an extra battery or an extra memory card and ran out of space on my 1gb memory card just before the Orchestra piece I was filming ended, so I don’t have anything of the band. I’ve put the videos up on Amazon Web Services so they should download rather quickly. Here’s the links to each of pieces of video:

• Some video of the concert hall. I took a bit before the choir concerts and another bit before the orchestra started.
• Some video of the Treble Choir singing “Holy Is the Lord”.
• Some video of the Mixed Choir singing “Wonder”
• Some video of the Orchestra playing the 4th movement of Dvorak’s Symphony #9, From the New World

When I was going to High School in Soda Springs (way back in the fall of 1959 through the fall of 1962), I went to the All State Band each year. I thoroughly enjoyed those opportunities. At that time the process was a little different. The bands and choir all-states were at different times of the year. Each school could send a few students for the band (Soda Springs didn’t have a choir program when I was there, so we never participated in the choir all-state activities) and I was able to go all four years as a percussionist. My Junior year the All State Band was held in Soda Springs. I remember going to Blackfoot one year, Pocatello one year, and Boise the other year. Now the All State are held at the same time and are held every two years. They are by audition where the student has to send in a video tape and they are then selected based on the audition performance and the places available (they only need a certain number of flutes or oboes, for instance).

We were very impressed with the level of musicianship displayed by these high school kids. The orchestra was just outstanding, definitely one of the best we’ve heard in several years.

The other delightful outcome was that while we were up in the balcony, we found that the sound was spectacular. I think it was better sound up there than down on the main floor.

Finally, I also took some video in dad’s shop after we did some cleanup on Monday, January 21st. Dad had been working for weeks getting his air compressor working once again. Air leaks were causing him lots of problems. After cleaning up the shop, we were able to get the leaks sealed. While I was taking the video, he plugged in the compressor to make sure it was working … and it was.

Our driveway faces east. The wind generally comes from the south or southwest. When it snows and the wind blows, the snow piles up in front of the garage doors. That was the case again this morning. I went out, fired up the snow blower, and moved the snow off the left side of the driveway so Nina would not have to plow through the drifts when she came back from Visiting Teaching. The wind, however, was blowing most of the snow back in my face. I was getting rather tired of that, so I decided to go buy a ski mask and goggles. As I was putting the snow blower away, the city Big Dump Truck with the snowplow UP came down our street spreading anti-skid, turned around, and drove up the street dumping anti-skid. “At least,” I thought, “he didn’t plow in my driveway.”

I went in, shed my wet clothes, and dressed to go downtown ski mask and goggle shopping. As I started to back my car out of our garage, the city Big Road Grader came up the street in front of the house with plow DOWN, scrapped all the anti-skid off the street, and deposited it on the side of the road (and in the front of my driveway).

“My tax dollars at work!” I marveled.

Today I needed to be in Boise for a meeting at 1:30 p.m. with the State Board of Education. The forecast was for snow and bad roads today and it started to snow as I was leaving the house at about 8 this morning. The roads going to Boise were pretty slick in some spots and completely dry in others. Coming home was no problem at all. Four and a half hours going over, three and a half coming back. All for a 90-minute meeting that hopefully something will come out of.

I stopped for gas at the Mountain Home exit on I-86. The Pilot station had gas for $2.97. Directly across the street (and I mean directly across), the Chevron station’s price was $3.14. Seventeen cents difference … or about $1.87 difference on the eleven gallons of gas I bought (at the Pilot station). The odd thing was that people were filling their cars up over at the Chevron station. Why? Inquiring minds want to know….

On another note, the oft-rescheduled Salt Lake City Podcamp will be held on March 15th. Looks to be a good event and worth attending. Signup available as well … click on the link!

President Gordon B. Hinckley, President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints died this evening. He had been defying his age (97 years old) for quite some time. He will be sorely missed by millions around the world. He will definitely be missed here! According to news reports, he died at about 7 p.m. this evening (Sunday, January 27, 2007). At 8:14 p.m. the first tweet came across on Twitter from @JesseStay. KSL.com had the news up at about 8 p.m. but newsroom.lds.org didn’t have the information up until 8:45 p.m. Literally as soon as the first news was reported, it went across the world on Twitter. That’s one of the astounding powers of this new communications medium.

A few minutes later, BreakingNewsOn reported via Twitter that Archbishop Christodoulos, head of the Greek Orthodox Church died this evening. Church news across the globe being reported first on Twitter. I have a Facebook page: http://profile.to/rolandsmith/. A short time ago I got an invite on Facebook to join the President Gordon B. Hinckley Virtual Memorial event (you may have to have a Facebook page to see this profile). It’s amazing to me how quickly more than 200 people had joined the event with hundreds of invitations out. This is the new media at its best.

I drove down to Salt Lake on Wednesday night so I could be up bright and early to go to Provo for the monthly CTO breakfast. That meant staying the night at Heather’s house … a definite upside to the trip. The guest bedroom is a great benefit as well. The CTO breakfast was another highlight of the trip. Not only were two One Laptop Per Child laptops there, we had a good introduction to Facebook applications. These breakfasts are definitely worth my time.

The next stop was at the Apple store. My Macbook continues to loose contact with it’s keyboard. In fact, it currently is in that state. I’ve plugged in an external keyboard which works when the Macbook keyboard won’t. Why does this problem happen? No one knows. It would not fail for the Genius at the Apple store. No matter what we tried, it worked just like it was supposed to. A definitely downside to the day. On the other hand, this problem has happened only at the house as far as I can remember. Maybe that’s a clue?

Later in the evening I went to the monthly Geek / Blogger dinner. The event was in West Jordon, well to the south of town where the weather was definitely not cooperating. There were a couple of inches of snow on the ground when I got there. My GPS wouldn’t take the address. Turns out that 3655 West is really known to Garmin as Dixie Avenue. Further, the building where the restaurant is located is being remodeled and there is no sign outside. I did arrive on time, though, and I had a delightful time. All in all, except for not getting my Macbook fixed, it was an upper day. I guess, though, that would make it a mixed day….