The Fantasy season has officially begun for me – I just finished the first of two live drafts. I’m typically a loser – I’m not sure I’ve ever done better than a losing season, though I’ve had a couple of great starts (before star players are seriously injured). Here’s to a new year, and hopefully at least an even season. =)

Left just after work on Thursday.  Had a meeting with a… difficult… colleague, then a “touch base” (bizspeak drives me crazy) meeting with my managers.  Then, off to Pennsylvania.

Day 1: Driving.

We drove for 8½ hours.  There’s a whole lotta nothing between Indy and Blue Ridge Summit, where my folks live.

Day 2: Hershey Park.

Dave’s first time at Hershey – Leah and I took him.  It’s been 8(?) years since I’ve been to HP, so there was a lot of new for me, too.  Turns out Dave’s not a fan of the “scream coasters” – kind of a bummer for him.  We avoided riding them during the day to save him the waiting in line, but Leah and I wanted rode a few late, just before the park closed.  Thankfully, the longest line we waited in was only half an hour long, and Dave rode a tame coaster twice while he waited.  =)  My favorite: the StormRunner.  That’s a fun coaster.

Here’s us on the Chocolate World ride (which, since the last time I rode it, has gone from educational and borderline boring to being on multimedia steroids):

We had a true Near Eastside weekend.

First, Friday. Arsenal Technical High, our local IPS school, is performing its spring musical this weekend. Two kids from church were involved in Beauty and the Beast: Kaylin was a bar wench/flower wreath and Zach ran the spotlight. It was a fun show – the kids did a GREAT job with some pretty tough stuff. They worked hard, and it paid off. =)

The show they performed was the Disney Broadway version. I think the musical and plot additions to the movie for the play adaptation really diminished the story – the music was badly written and the lyrics were laughable. Some of the plot additions took away from the character development. Even with the lackluster script, the kids shone. They’re high school kids, but there were some really artistic moments. Mostly, the play was just… FUN.

*on my soapbox*

You live near a high school. Even if you don’t have kids attending, you should be going to see plays and musicals and concerts. These kids work so hard – and may not have a single person there to see the product of months of study and practice. Your property tax goes to support the school system. Your presence should support the kids themselves.

*off*

Second, Saturday. Went to the 7:30am – yes, AM – prayer meeting at church, then spent an hour or so helping to start cleaning out Janet’s house. This sweet, simple, homely old woman who was a fixture at our church died this past May. Her brother, who owned her house, donated the house to the church at the beginning of the year (for tax reasons, maybe?). It used to be a nice house – she lived there comfortably (and, I’m sure, messily).

Then, along came David F. This man, about the age her son might have been, moved into the vacant half of her double and began insinuating himself into her life. He was a con and she was incapable of seeing how he used her. For years. By the time she died, her house was literally in shambles (the house was getting run down because Janet’s brother doesn’t live locally and didn’t take care of things that needed to be fixed; DF did some “repairs” and really messed things up). Also, it was filled to the brim with junk and garbage and bugs. Just… deplorable living conditions. Throughout the last year and a half of Janet’s life, the health department was all over her house. It was awful.

So, today. Now that Janet has passed away and the house belongs to the church, we’re going to rebuild it for a big family in our congregation. The first step is cleaning out the mounds of trash and junk that were left. We filled a truck bed to overflowing with humongous black trash bags, and ended up filling a large dumpster. It was just a start. There’s several Saturdays’ worth of trash still in there – and we only were working on one side of the double.

It was hard to do, both physically and emotionally. I am allergic to dust and mold… and the place was a hot mess of dust and mold. I was thankful for the cold – I can’t imagine what the dust, mold, and smell would have been like in the spring or summer. Some of the piles included stinky, wet (there are holes in the roof), worn out clothes – Jodi and I happened upon a big pile of dirty underwear and had to leave the house because the smell made us gag so badly. But what bothered me more than my allergies or the assault on my senses was the fact that at the end of Janet’s life, everything she owned, everything that meant something to her, was thrown away without a thought. We were shoveling her precious memories and keepsakes in to trash bags – with a snow shovel and some dustpans.

Of course it had to be thrown away. It was a hazard to health – literally – and most of it was just… junk. We saved maybe an end table, a lamp, and a few books, but everything else will be gone.

I can’t imagine how someone could have lived like that. I also can’t imagine dying and being forgotten like that. Where was her family? Why didn’t they take care of her while she was living? Why didn’t someone kick DF out before her completely ruined her house? Why didn’t they make sure she was okay? And then, when she died, why didn’t they love her enough to take care of her things, at least to clean out her house? Didn’t they want to save some of her treasures? Wouldn’t they have wanted to honor her memory by taking care of the place in which she lived instead of offloading it to the local church to do the work? To do what we would with the eyesore the building had become?

We, at Woodruff Place, loved this old woman. Pastor called her a lamb. We laughed at her antics, but we all loved her – every one of us. We couldn’t do much about her living situation, but we will honor her memory by making her house a home again – a clean, safe, warm place for a family to live.

Still, even thinking of our “project” in this light wasn’t enough to make me feel quite right throwing away everything the woman had ever owned… I have been feeling… heavy… all day.

Bowling, originally uploaded by tara.aukerman.

We spent the day with good friends of ours in Marion. We packed in various activities – one of which was bowling.

I’m not a very good bowler – I’m really, really happy to get more than 100 in a game. David usually wipes the floor with the rest of us – no matter who the rest of us are. =)

But this time, I was the victor – I scored 190! That’s me, with the strike, strike, spare, strike, strike, 7, strike, strike game!

please?, originally uploaded by tara.aukerman.

It was the best of times… I love the SuperBowl. I loved this particular game – watching the NE Cheaters’ defeat was very… satisfying. Watching this game in HD was GREAT. Here I am, once again (and mostly jokingly) begging David for HD cable. Here he is, once again (and mostly jokingly) ignoring me. *sigh*

David bought me a Zune!  =) 

I came home from work, he took my laptop bag and lunch box from me, and said, “Do you want a present?”  Of course I responded in a very excited affirmative – a surprise like that from my husband is a BIG deal (he’s a planner and very practical – not much into surprises).  He gave me a pair of scissors, and I said, “Thanks!  Scissors!  Just what I always wanted!”  He laughed and pushed me into the living room, where a box sat on a chair.  We opened the box and there it was – my very own Zune!  (For you non-computer folks, a Zune is Microsoft’s version of a video iPod.)  I’m so pysched – it’ll be PERFECT for the flight to Hawai’i!

Yay!  I’m still excited about it.

Techno-babble (disregard, moms):  I’ve been playing with it for the last few hours and have figured it out – all but ripping DVDs to Zune formats.  I downloaded several applications (shareware-style stuff) and the best I’ve seen so far is called AnyDVD Converter.  The DVD to .wmv conversion is fast, and doesn’t require a DVD to .avi step before going to .wmv (a big plus on the speed side of things).  The video quality is stellar, the audio quality is good and rich – the only problem (and I imagine this is something to do with me and my computer, or else this program wouldn’t be rated so highly) is that my audio and video aren’t syncing up.  I only tested one DVD (but several times, from scratch), so I’m in the middle of ripping another DVD to see if it was the disc’s fault (fingerprint, or something else that would cause file reading drama).

Techno Update:  The issue is the video conversion – it’s dropping frames.  It’s very subtle, but very consistent – it’s dropping 1 or 2 for every 30 or so.  =)  So, now to figure out how to stop it dropping frames.  I’m hoping it’s just a resource thing on my machine, but I’m not completely sure it is.  *sigh*

Last night, I dressed up as a very large Dorothy Gale (thanks, Mom!).  The Indiana Wind Symphony, in which I play the saxophone, had a Halloween concert at a local middle school.  The entire [professional] ensemble dressed up in costumes to play some really fun music.  The first half of the concert was movie music from Gone With the Wind, Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets, The Wizard of Oz, and Star Wars.  During intermission, there was a costume contest for the audience.  The second half was more serious (but still Halloween-themed) literature.

There was another Dorothy onstage with me – my costume was better, and I wasn’t wearing a wig, but she had a REAL dog in her basket.  A real dog!  On the stage while we played!  Dorothy costumes were popular…  A little girl in a Dorothy costume won the audience contest, and when she came onto the stage to get her prize, the tuba players behind me reached up and patted me on the shoulders, saying, “Better luck next year!”  I told them that next year, I’d have a dog, too!

Pictures probably won’t be appearing anywhere on the internet.  =)  At least, none of me.

Anyway, I’m trying to convince the folks who run our website (and haven’t been interested in my help, even though I do this professionally) to start posting/podcasting our music.  I think it’d be a better way to get our stuff heard, and possibly generate more interest in the ensemble.  I know they make professional-level recordings of each concert – which sound a heckuva lot better than my husband’s little mp3 recorder’s recordings.  Even with his little recorder, though, you can tell that we don’t play like an amateur community ensemble.  For one thing, we’re in tune!  For another, we actually play challenging music.  It’s too bad David’s recordings sound so muffled and miss all the mids, or I’d just start having him record concerts and post the music myself.  =)

Anyway, family – if you want to listen to the concert (again, not a good recording at all), you can go here: www.aukerman.org/IWS.

Since David has been away since Thursday and since I haven’t been feeling well, I’ve spent most of my free time for the last few days on the couch.  Watching Heroes. 

I resisted for an entire season, thinking I watch enough TV and that this show is complicated enough to require a religious viewing – rather than an as-I-have-a-spare-Monday-night viewing (as I could do with a sitcom).  I was right.  I do watch enough TV, especially now that shows are starting to come back on.  And this show is complicated.  But it’s fantastic.  Bethany (closest girlfriend) assured me that it would be well worth my tube time, so I dived in.

Hi.  My name is Tara.  I’m addicted to Heroes.

Things, I think, are finally back to normal.

I am at home.  My husband is at home.  My dog is at home.  We have no large trips looming in the near future.  Dave’s started school again.  I’m back into the swing of things at both of my jobs.  I even found some time to do a little extra stuff today! 

And football season is started, which means I’ll be watching TV again. 

20 minutes and counting…

I just watched, for 2 hours tonight (!), America’s Got Talent. It was awful. I couldn’t tear my eyes away. After all the grief I’ve given cousin Jen for watching American Idol, I am feeling rather guilty. =)

What hooked me was a commercial promo before the show even started. They showed a kid (with no audio – someone was doing a voiceover) doing a dance I immediately recognized, even without sound. This kid did some moves from a Bollywood film called Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai – a movie I watched in college. I know the moves because I had a roomie who frequently practiced them.

So I waited anxiously to see this.

(The movie version is here.)