Jeff’s Blog

This morning I got up at 10 'till 8 and took a shower in which I sneezed 20 consecutive times. After that, I came downstairs and ate a breakfast during which I did not sneeze.

Later, I went to my friend's house. His Alaskan friend was there, and we all watched Star Trek for a little while. My friend thinks it's hilarious, and I have to agree with him - the effects are awesomely bad, and that's why they're funny. When we had watched a sufficient amount of Star Trek, we walked over to our school for Jazz Saturday.

At first, there was just about no one there, which was surprising because normally I'm not early to stuff. Then my friend came in with a dozen donuts for 21 people. It was some intense action getting a good donut, but I managed to get one of the best kind.

A bit later, we started to play. The Fairview band director led the rhythm section/trumpet sectionals, and complimented me multiple times on my soloing, and traded fours with me so the drummer could get some experience playing while people were soloing. Later, he offered me a $200 bribe to come to Fairview as opposed to Monarch…

This week has been incredibly busy. There was nothing on Monday, and then everything yesterday and today! Yesterday afternoon, we had an early CCJA Practice (5-6 PM) because after eating a quick McDonald's dinner, I had an honor band concert. We played four songs that we had worked on that day when we had gotten out of school for a last rehearsal, and the crowd loved it. We even did an encore, which surprised me because it was honor band.

Today, I got up early for school jazz band practice, then after school I went straight to a piano lesson. After that, we drove over to the Ramada for Jazz-O-Rama! My group played Perdido, All Blues and another song which I don't know the name of. My solos were good on the first two songs, but the one I played on the last song is one I'd rather not hear again. Overall, though, we did very well.

And tomorrow night, I will see my piano teacher and a small group perform at Dazzle. To top things off, Saturday is Jazz Saturday at my school, so this is certainly one music-filled week.

Two days ago, I got up at about 8:30 in the morning because it was Easter. My brother and I ate a ton of candy that morning! I also got a DS game.

Around noon, we left for my aunt's house, where many members of my family met to celebrate the holiday together. When we first got there, we all talked to each other and caught up on events.

Lunch was delicious - ham, assorted fruit, lemon dessert jello stuff, and vegetables with vegetable dip. I ate most of it, but not all of it because I lacked sufficient hunger. And of course, there was really good carbonated limeade to drink. I drank a lot.

After lunch, my dad, brother and I went down to the park to play baseball. Shortly after we got there, my uncle joined us, and we played flies and grounders for around 15-20 minutes. We got back just in time for a delicious dessert of chocolate pie and some strawberry stuff.

Eventually, everone left including us. Then we ate burgers for dinner.

This evening my dad, brother and I went down to a baseball field to practice our skills and get my brother some practice for his team. My brother and I both batted, pitched, and fielded while my dad skipped the batting practice. It was really fun, especially once the sun went behind the mountains, and we were there for quite a while! Hopefully we can do it more often (like tomorrow afternoon).

Two days ago in language arts class, it was a very nice day, so we went outside to work. We all gathered around a pen that was sticking out of the ground. Unfortunately, that very same pen distracted us for pretty much the entire class period.

Yesterday, we were inside for LA; I guess we were too off-task on Monday. So yesterday, I thought up a word game (and wrote this blog entry, of course). The game works like this: you make up a word and write it down, write down the theme of a TV show, and then pick your favorite character or contestant from that TV show and write his or her name down. For example, I made up the word "threwn", American Idol's theme last night was Queen, and my favorite person on Idol is Bucky. This would produce "threwn Queen Bucky." It is a good way to pass the time in any class at school!

Earlier this evening my dad, brother and I went on a bike ride around the neighborhood. We didn't go very far; only a few miles. However, we want to get back to where we were last summer, riding up Coalton Trail every night with no trouble. We're just getting started. However, my brother doesn't usually come on those long ones.

But we're extremely busy this time of year, with baseball practices and games, honor band, CCJA, piano lessons, and my brother's fitness club. This week it looks like the next ride will be Thursday night, and then probably another Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. I hope we can start seriously biking again though, and maybe my brother will be game this year!

Last night was the first rehearsal for the district-wide honor band. There are seven people from my school in it, which is very impressive because it's no trivial matter to get in.

When we first got there, we were talking about amputating feet, and then the organizers gave us folders with music inside. The first matter of business was sectionals. The clarinets, oboes and flutes were all together, as well as the trumpets and two more separate sections for the low brass and saxophones. We worked on some songs, and after a little while, the whole band joined together.

The songs were extremely easy, and one of them we have actually sightread in normal band class, and passed it on as too easy. However, I think our band director, who is the director for the Denver Pops Orchestra, holds us to way higher standards than the other directors in the district.

Today, as a sort of birthday party (but not really), I had a DS party. I invited a couple of friends over who also have DS's and we played multiplayer on Mario Kart, Metroid Prime Hunters and Bomberman. I'm going to buy Bomberman soon, because it is an awesome game.

We drank a ton of soda, ate a ton of chips, and also ate pizza and leftover cake. And now I have Sonic Rush for DS, so I can play that also. That brings my grand total of games to 3!

Yesterday, we went to the Rockies Opening Day game. They played the Arizona Diamondbacks. We had pretty good seats, underneath the JumboTron (section 152). The game was pretty good, although it was incredibly low-scoring. The Diamondbacks scored in the first inning, but after that there were no points scored until the fifth inning! That tied the score. There were a couple more points scored, and it was tied at two. Finally, the Rockies won the game 3-2 in the eleventh inning with a beautiful slide into home.

It's my fourteenth birthday today!! This morning I got up at 7:30 AM (which, because of daylight savings time, feels like 6:30 AM) to open my presents! I got a Nintendo DS and Animal Crossing Wild World from my parents, and Mario Kart DS from my brother. I first played Animal Crossing, because it was bundled with my DS and easy to open. I got started in there, and played it more throughout the day. After I played a bit of single-player Mario Kart, we updated our wireless router and my brother and I began to play online! It was awesome.

Around 1:00 PM, we left for Coors Field. Today was a workout and autograph day for the Colorado Rockies, and we got about 8 autographs on a special Opening Day ball. The ones I'm happiest about are Matt Holliday and Garrett Atkins, but the others are awesome also. While we were there, we saw our friends. The workout was basically two sections: playing catch and batting. The batting was intense, and there were quite a few home runs.

Then, we went home. I charged up my DS so I could play it on the way to Mongolian Barbecue, where we ate for dinner and saw the same friends from earlier! One of their birthdays is April 3rd, so they were celebrating early because they were having friends over the next day. I had three plates of delicious rib-eye, noodles and pork and other meat, flavored with a ton of Kung Pao sauce (more each time) and Cayenne pepper. After you fill up your bowl and your sauce cup, you take it to the cooks who cook your stuff on this huge round table-like grill. After they cook it, they throw some sauce on and flip it around before sliding it onto your plate. It was intensely spicy, so I got a ton of drink refills, but it was so delicious I couldn't stop getting more. And because it was my birthday, I got free dessert! It doesn't get much better than that!

After we got home from that, we ate a delicious chocolate cake with awesome frosting. I played some more Animal Crossing and beat the 50CC Grand Prix section of Mario Kart DS. There's still a ton more left in Mario Kart, luckily. And while I was doing that, we were listening to the new Stevie Ray Vaughan and Rolling Stones CDs that we got for my birthday. I can't wait to put them on my iPod!