SF Trivia

I'll open this post up with a Hello from the Golden State! California has been treating me well so far, and things should only get better once Erik gets himself out here and thus increases the number of 2012 trumpets in California by 100% (a constricting statistic, I know).

So, I have started my job, and have definitely entered the workforce...parts of it are still very strange (like how little time I have between getting home in the evening and bedtime) but overall I'm very happy to be here and excited about what's to come. This week has been, and next week will continue to be, full time training. For training, my company brings the six new full-timers from our two bay area offices and the LA office into downtown SF. I'll normally be working in Silicon Valley, in our Menlo Park office, with a 30 min commute, but for training my commute's about an hour because I have to head downtown. However the downtown office have a gorgeous view, because it's on the 20th floor in the financial district, and so that kinda makes up for it.

Most of what I've been doing is not worth reading...HR stuff, going over benefits, nine hours of Excel training (seven of those hours in one day)...but I'm getting to know people and feeling much better about being here. Sunday night I could hardly sleep; I tossed and turned all night and could hardly eat all day. I know, and you thought I was unflappable (yeah right). But my nervousness has abated as the week went on. We initiated a happy hour today that some of the senior analysts joined us for, and the bar had trivia which was slower than Legend's but infinitely more high tech, because the sound system was decent and, get this: THEY USED A SPREADSHEET FOR SCOREKEEPING. The crazy things they do out here!

Christina (C-Squeezy) has been in LA all summer working in an archive or something, and she's flying up to visit me this weekend. Since she is finally old enough to be allowed to drink I am looking forward to buying her what I'm sure must be her first drink ever (lolz). Since I'm missing out on all the Midwest Trumpet Reunions, whether planned or spontaneous, this will help give me some of that camaraderie I've been missing. I'm glad to hear so many trips are overlapping and people are visiting!

Wish I had a more interesting way to end this...but I don't. How about I end with a promise: I promise next time I'll have pictures (so that people will actually skim through what I write)!

Mountains and Marriages

As you probably already know, hiking is one of my favorite things to do, especially when I don't fall and break my body...

This picture is of Fifes Ridge in the South Cascades. We also had lots of fun being 5 year olds once we got to the top of this rocky point and threw rocks off the cliff. It is hard to describe how much fun it is to throw a rock and then count 5 seconds before you hear it hit the bottom. Or to throw rocks at other pieces of rock to break them. 

Two weeks ago, I climbed my first peak of the season, and encouraged my 2 hiking partners to the top of their first mountain! Mountain peaks are amazing because you have an unobstructed 360 degree view of mountains for miles on end. The fun thing about hiking in Washington is you can always see Mt. Rainier in the distance too, oh I love Rainier. There were so many ladybugs on top of the mountain. And a summit log! They are usually inside a waterproof capsule and are little booklets of people who logged when they climbed the peak, along with a little message. I enjoy reading other entries, and it is fun to write your name and short message. 

On top of Earl Peak, 7036 feet.

This past Saturday, my sister got married! I flew back to the good old Midwest, she got married in Madison, WI, and discovered that there is a huge drought going on. I live in the desert, but our grass is greener than Madison's. The ceremony was beautiful, and it was great seeing all my family. Some of you may have met my sister, Katie, she was a clarinet in the band. Although she married a Michigan Tech grad, she invited many of her Notre Dame friends to the wedding, and you would be proud to know the trumpets held the greatest contingent among her friends. Naturally, I requested the Fight Song, and we had a good time singing along (one emphatic trumpet, Spiderman, shouted Thunder quite loudly at certain parts, but thankfully he kept it PG).

Alex and Abby (on the right) were both ND trumpets, that means there two little kids (bottom) are destined to join the legacy! 

I was also reminiscient of the Backer when the DJ played classics like Sweet Caroline and Don't Stop Believing and seeing drunk relatives dancing. They even had a Kegerator at the reception! Good to know we have weddings to relive our college days.  So, someone get married in a year or so, it will make for a good reunion...

Trumpets in Minneapolis

As I read through the posts on here, I notice that my test post included a promise to write more about the adventures of the Trumpets on the Concert Band tour in Europe. However, since last year I bored many of you with 25000 excruciatingly detailed words about London and Paris, I will refrain from doing so on this blog, too. Instead, I will say that the trumpets didn’t drink and followed many of the rules and leave you with this picture taken after our midnight snack of wine and bread on the Seine, featuring a cameo by Mike Carter.

Trumpets in Front of Notre Dame

With the exception of the week of the Fourth of July, I’ve had a fairly quiet summer. Like previous years, I am working with people with disabilities during the day and fairly free most of the rest of the time, so the holiday week brought an enjoyable burst of socialization with Notre Dame friends. The week began with a round of golf for Tim O’Brien, his father, and myself, and – after a full, 45-hour trip to Exira, Iowa to join Michelle Letourneau, Cat Samson, and Brett Ensor for Michelle’s family Fourth of July celebration – I got to spend most of the following weekend with trumpets!

When we last left our hero, Erik and his father went their separate ways somewhere in the vicinity of the Twin Cities at an indeterminate date near the Fourth of July. On the evening of the fifth, Erik arrived at my house for the weekend. Fortunately, the front door was unlocked and Erik isn’t shy, so he let himself in when I didn’t hear the doorbell in the basement. After a late dinner, we spent the rest of the night relaxing in the basement, geeking out over photography/Apple products, and watching the second quarter of Mad Men, Season Five.

Friday afternoon we took Erik’s new car into downtown to pickup Tim O’Brien and Kevin Kelly at the U of M before heading to Hal Melia’s apartment to meet up with him, David Bratton, Kelsey Auten, and some guy that they met the night before. The whole group then walked a couple of blocks to attend the 2012 Cities97 Basilica Block Party, an annual two-night charity concert hosted by a local radio station to raise money to repair and maintain the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis. This year’s Friday night headliners included Train, Cake, and Mat Kearney.

It was a hot and humid day, similar to the first part of the day of the South Florida game this year. By the time that we got through the entrance and found our way to the main stage, Mat Kearney was about 15 minutes into his set. Within minutes, we got caught in a heavy rain, but the show continued. After no more than about fifteen minutes, though, Mat Kearney seemed to stop his song short and walk off the stage. Moments later a bolt of lighting in the distance confirmed that he had, in fact, left the stage. Despite the fact that organizers did not have the courtesy to request the presence of Usher 800, an official delay was obviously in effect, so we attempted to quickly make our way to an overpass to avoid the rain. Unfortunately, thousands of other people were trying to do the same thing, so we got as far as the edge of the bridge. Unable to find shelter and already soaking wet, we decided that there was only one thing left to do. We bought beer.

Trumpets During the Rain Delay

Eventually the rain stopped, the beer ran dry (or, at least, our bottles did), the temperature dropped by 25 degrees, and the concert resumed, so we roamed the grounds for the middle part of the evening, catching a few songs each from Imagine Dragons and The Head and the Heart. For the final acts of the evening, our group split, Tim and Kevin going to see Cake while the rest of us went to see Train. Although Kevin and Tim raved about Cake afterwards, I was a bit disappointed by Train. Their musical talent was obvious (there was no quality drop-off compared to their studio recordings, which I always find relieving), but a late start and an early finish due to additional inclement weather made for a frustratingly short show. We took advantage of the early release to get back to the car only moments ahead of a second downpour and then proceeded to spend the next half-hour in traffic downtown. After returning Tim and Kevin to the U, Erik and I went back to my house for pizza and another quarter season of Mad Men.

Saturday night brought even more time together when Hal brought not only Kevin and Tim but also Tommy Mitchell for a bonfire at my house with Erik and me in addition to a couple of my friends from high school. We ate fewer hotdogs and drank far more beer than I expected, and everyone seemed to have a good time (I recognize that I’m venturing into conjecture here, so I’ll leave it up to the others to refute that statement). The night ended with three games of Mafia. When everyone else left, Erik and I finished the last quarter of the season of Mad Men.

Those have really been the highlights of my summer. I received word this week that Jon may be up here (more time in the car after all?) the first weekend in August, so hopefully we’ll both have more to share then.

Joel “I kept it under 1000 words!” Graczyk

Learning to drive. Again.

Here it is, the unofficial sequel to BOXES! by Maureen Vigland. Join me for another exciting tale of a car bound for California.

As some of you know, for the past several years I've been the "proud" owner of a 1994 Chevrolet Lumina van (aka the Dustbuster). While this vehicle had its pluses, like being able to haul all of my stuff and a decent portion of Joel's from MN to ND, its likelihood of making it to Sacramento was deemed questionable at best. Then there's the consideration of my willingness to be seen with it ever again and well, long story short, this summer seemed like a good time to find a different car.

After two long weekends of driving around half the state of MN (along with a side trip into Wisconsin) and using up my entire cellular data plan on used car ads on Craigslist, my dad and I found a keeper. The car: a 2001 VW Golf 4-door hatchback, 98k miles, prior accident resulting in a new front end and a very reasonable price. The seller: a Russian guy with a small used car dealership selling this car on the side for his friend Sergy. We gave him the money, he gave us the key, and we went on our merry way. After leaving the car at a mechanic to get it looked over, my dad and I made one more trip down to Minneapolis (about 4 hours from my home) to pick it up on the 4th. That's where the fun began!

You see, this car had one catch...I didn't know how to drive it. Before the 4th, I knew approximately how a manual transmission worked, but had never actually driven one. After a few circles around a parking lot and some deserted side streets, I started to get a feel for it. At this point my dad and I went our separate ways, as he headed back home and I stuck around to visit relatives and trumpets. The first few days with the car were probably the most stressful days of driving I've had since I was 15. Highway driving was great, but city driving was a bit terrifying, as I had a bad habit of stalling the car whenever I wanted to start moving and there were cars waiting behind me. Our very own Tim O'Brien saved me by driving the one day we had to venture into downtown Minneapolis and slowly but surely I got the hang of driving again over the long weekend. It's amazing how quickly you can learn something new when you know that it's your only way of getting home.

Since getting back, the car has been keeping me entertained by fixing all the little things that are wrong with an 11-year old car.
Objective #1: Fix broken rear sit latch. Status: Accomplished with drill and tennis racquet stringing equipment (see photo). Why buy a new latch for $6 when you have extra tennis string lying around?

Objective #2: Replace burned out lights. Status: 2/3...side markers aren't that important anyway. This also led me to discover that the front end of my car was painted red in a former life. Too bad they matched it to the silver of the rest of the car. A two tone car would be a way better conversation piece at the very least.

This entire post would be rather silly without a picture of the car and since I've been a big fan of VW's advertising style for quite awhile, I decided to try my hand at making an ad:

And now for the happy ending: I haven't failed at driving in public any time in the last week and have already reached the conclusion that I will never own an automatic vehicle by choice. Hopefully I still feel that way after I drive it to California at the start of August!

Thanks for reading! (or at least skimming to see if there was anything good at the end)