Baylor Fanhood

I was having an SMS conversation just now and I sent this text message... I liked it enough that I wanted to share it, but it's too long to send via twitter.

"Baylor fanhood is an acquired skill involving optimism immune to disappointment by either the media attention we receive or the performance of the team itself. My dad is a master; I am on year 24 of study and still only consider myself a novice."

Tagged

Nancy tagged me several days ago and I'm just now getting around to responding. So now I am supposed to post six interesting facts about myself, and here are the ones I have chosen:

1) I listen to Christmas music at all times of the year. Particularly the summer. I listen to it the least in December. I don't know why.
2) I secretly believe that playing basso handbells makes me look macho. I know that this is patently ridiculous, but I believe it anyway.
3) I want to be in a Muppet production as a Muppet who looks and sounds like me. This wish was inspired by a dream in which an ex-girlfriend cursed me to being a Muppet and I ended up liking it, so she changed me back out of exasperation. This was almost certainly put into my subconscious by the "Smile Time" episode of Angel. Also somebody once told me I laughed like a muppet.
4) I love the process of traveling almost as much as being in the place I am going, but only when I am with the right traveling companions (my roommate Ray, for example) or completely alone. Even commercial flights, when taken alone, are therapeutic experiences for me.
5) The ONLY time I like being alone is when I travel. This will all change when I meet my wife, though, because she will also love to travel and will like all of the same road games and audiobooks as me. I say this with this kind of certainty because it may well be a deal-breaker. If only road trips were acceptable as second dates, it would save everybody so much time.
6) Even though I haven't been in Oklahoma since the holiday season started, I have been humming the B.C. Clark Anniversary Sale Jingle throughout this road trip. I was unaware of this until my waitress at the sushi place in Vegas asked me to stop.

Wow, two posts in one day... I think it's been a long while since that's happened.

This = More Like It

Ahhhh... much better.

Since last I posted, I've spent two days in Las Vegas, which, while fun, were not exactly what I think of when I take trips like this one. It was a bit too hectic, too much noise. Not quite... Spartan... enough for my taste. When I get away, I enjoy some hustle and bustle as much as the next guy, but my current locale is much more my speed.

I'm sitting in one of my favorite places in the world. The Higher Grounds Coffee Shop in Pagosa Springs, Colorado. Common Grounds in Waco is a nice place and all, but whenever I'm in there I get the distinct feeling that I'm not the right kind of cool, or not cool enough, to be in there. First off, I can't grow a full beard and I rarely wear my emo glasses. Second, I don't own any Tom's shoes. Thirdly, I don't listen to any Indy music that didn't spawn from Five Iron Frenzy. Since Pagosa Springs isn't a college town, the coffee shop maintains the relaxed atmosphere I really enjoy without giving me the impression that I'm being out-pretentioused by the dude on the couch with all the stickers on his MacBook. Not that there's anything wrong with those guys, or Common Grounds, for that matter, I just tend to feel out of place there is all. I'm a small town guy by birth, so places like Pagosa make me feel like I'm really on vacation; Vegas and Waco don't. So, sitting here in this small town, surrounded by snow and beautiful, still mountain air, I'm relaxed and calm and not concerned with much of anything other than how early I want to go to sleep tonight so that I can start snowboarding tomorrow morning.

I spent last night in a sleeping bag in my car, parked in the parking lot that's about thirty feet from the rim of the Grand Canyon. It was pretty uncomfortable, but only because I still have a tire in the back of my car leftover from the events of last Saturday. When I woke up, I was a little saddened to see that it was foggy as all-get-out and that I couldn't in fact see anything past the rim. I'm actually not sure if I was seeing the rim, I just couldn't see anything past the rail. I got some pictures, which I'll upload when I'm back in Waco, to show you just how thick the fog was. If you've ever flown a plane through a rainstorm, you'll have an idea what it was like.

So I left the canyon a few minutes after sunrise (which is when I awoke, hoping to get a glance of the sun coming up over the canyon... doh) and headed for Pagosa Springs. I spent the day driving, relaxing, and listening to audiobooks, and now here I am. I snowboard tomorrow, then when I get off the mountain I'll depart directly for Waco. I don't imagine I'll make it the whole way without stopping to rest, since snowboarding is probably the only thing I tend to have the motivation to do until I collapse (since I only get to do it a very few times per year). I imagine I'll pull into Waco around noon on Friday, at which point I'll pack up my computer and head to Oklahoma. Or maybe I'll chill for a day or two in deserted Waco, I'm not sure. The beauty of all of this is that I'm making it up as I go. I've had a vague plan in my head from the start but none of what I have planned has actually been what happened.



This is the most effortless smile I've made in weeks. In fact, I didn't even realize I was smiling until I saw the picture. This trip has been a very good thing indeed.

I've Seen Better

I don't like being negative on here. I don't like having a negative attitude in general. It puts me in a bad mood and I'm incapable of hiding it and it makes people not want to talk to me, and who enjoys that? But I'm about to unleash a little negative energy, just because I'm kind of needing to and I'll phrase myself better if I do it here.

My day started, more or less, at midnight last night. I got out of a movie with some folks, and nobody was hanging out afterwards, so I got home and realized I wasn't all that sleepy. I decided I would skip town for a couple of days. Anybody who's been following me here for awhile knows I do this from time to time. Sometimes alone (Pagosa Springs 2004, Omaha 2006, Puerto Viejo in Costa Rica, Pagosa again in 2006) sometimes not (Chicago 2006, New Orleans 2008). Last night I left with no particular goal in mind, although I did pack my snowboard just in case.

I have an application on my iPhone that tells give me snow reports for all of the resorts in America in order of their proximity to me (Snocater if you're wondering, it's fantastic). I checked it before falling asleep in my car at a rest stop in the Texas Panhandle last night, and it told me that Wolf Creek was the nearest resort that had received snow in the past week. So I decided I would go to Pagosa again. Then I woke up and started driving again, and everything started the long downward spiral into the most difficult personal road trip day I've ever had.

First off, I made reservations in Pagosa. Shortly after, dad texted me to tell me there were blizzards incoming. I checked the snow reports, and sure enough, "severe winter storm" warnings at all of the resorts that were open in all of Colorado and New Mexico. So I had to decide: drive the seven hours back to Waco, or power through and pick an alternate location? I decided on the grand canyon and cancelled my reservation in Pagosa. This cost me 10% of the room to do since I was making a "day of" cancellation. Then I pulled off for gas and got hit in a speed trap and got a speeding ticket. I brushed this off, and headed towards Flagstaff (nearest sporting goods store before the grand canyon) to pick up a below-freezing rated sleeping bag. When I got to Flagstaff, all of the sporting goods stores were closed down for a concert in downtown.

So I had to change my plans again. I had been planning to make my way to Las Vegas tomorrow, but I decided I would go tonight. I called ahead to make a reservation for a room, just to be sure I would have one when I got there. It was a non-refundable reservation at the Bellagio, simply because if you're going to go to Vegas then you need to do it right. Two hours away from Vegas, my front left tire blew out. I pulled off to change it. While I was changing the tire, in sub-freezing temperatures, in started to snow. Hard. Then, when I got the original tire off, while I'm standing there shivering and freezing, I put the spare tire most of the way on. It got hung on a lug nut, so I reached around to change the angle of attack a bit. That's when the jack gave out and broke in half. The tire nearly came down on my hand, but I pulled it out just in time. My rapidly moving hand knocked the spare off of the lugs. It fell under the car, which landed on the tire and popped it. It popped my SPARE TIRE.

I called a tow truck service. They said it would be 30-45 minutes. I waited an hour and a half and called them. They forgot about me. They sent a second guy. Another 30 minutes. I called again. Guy #2 went the wrong way. I called again. Guy #3 found me, but only after calling me on my cell and having me explain where I was three times to him. He had been checking the wrong side of the highway. All the while I'm soaked and shivering in my car.

He started to change my tire after replacing the spare into its rim and reinflating it. His jack broke. He had a spare jack. It was too short. He pulled out the first one and it worked again. All of this ended up costing me $120. I drove to a Best Western and will take my car to Wal-Mart to get new tires tomorrow. I think I have to fix my brakes now too since the car has landed on them three separate times.

Ugh. On the bright side, I do have my health, and I am still alive, and I have a family who loves me very much. But I don't think I can remember a worse day in recent memory, and this is supposed to be my vacation. Yargh.

Baylor Opera Fall 2008

I promised several people some months back that I would do a better job of alerting them to my performances with Baylor opera. I even said in September that I would post an update about exactly that. However, I haven't really had any concrete information to give out until this week. And now I do. If anybody is willing/able to make it, here's where you can see me perform my next role:

Baylor Opera Presents: Cavalli's L'Ormindo
Where: Roxy Grove Hall (the tumor growing out of Waco Hall, on the side facing Armstrong Browning Library)
When: Saturday, November 22nd at 7:30pm (there is also a performance on Friday, which will also be fantastic; however, people wanting to come hear me sing in particular should come on Saturday)
How much does it cost? Nothing. It's free entry to both students and the public. Come enjoy a free show!
Do I need to speak Italian to enjoy it? Not at all! We are singing in English and have updated the text and staging to better reflect contemporary life. I think we've found some great comedy in the text, and the performance should be perfectly accessible for anybody who enjoys music at all.
Are you done typing questions to yourself? Yes I am.

I'll see you there!

Bursting In On Your Shrink

It's kind of a television convention that when one of your main characters is in therapy, at a certain point they're going to burst into their therapist's office inappropriately while said therapist in the in the middle of an appointment. Usually this comes about because of some awful thing that has caused the protagonist's emotional dam to burst, and the therapist gets ruffled but ultimately helps out our lead character.

I think it would be humorous, if there were a show about a therapist, to have a recurring character who would frequently burst in at inappropriate times with problems that aren't really that severe. I'm seeing things like, "My shoelaces just won't stay tied, it's really irritating," or "Hey, I'm a little hungry and can't decide what to eat, what should I do?" It's probably only funny in my head, and really wouldn't work as a running gag, it just seems like this is the kind of thing that needs to be made fun of by somebody, somewhere.

It's Not Morbid if You're Just Pontificating

I don't spend much time focusing on death. I acknowledge in my mind that it's something I'll face one day, almost certainly sooner than I would like, but other than that it's a topic that just doesn't cross my mind all that often. There's life to be lived right here and now, so to focus on the end of life rather than live it would seem to be a waste.

But every now and again (particularly after I've been watching Pushing Daisies or Six Feet Under) my mind does begin to drift that direction. I don't really think about how I'll die or anything like that, but I wonder what my funeral will be like. If I were to die mysteriously in my sleep tonight, who would speak at the memorial that would likely be held within the next week? Dave Fuller? Sam? How many people will go? Which (if any) of my ex-girlfriends would show up? Would my service be in Oklahoma, or in Waco? And if in Oklahoma, would it be in Hinton or OKC? Where would I ultimately be buried? What kind of music would be played, and how sincere would people be when they say things like "I'll miss him" to each other?

I remember overhearing a conversation between two people a few years back in which someone was explaining to the other person how at his church, they kept on file a "funeral plan" for when that person died. It contained an obituary as well as an order of service for their memorial, and a few other things which I can't seem to recall at the moment. They would update the file periodically, so if you were to suddenly die out of nowhere then your obituary would be up-to-date. This seemed to me then (and still seems to me now) to be fairly morbid. But I can't decide if I like or dislike the idea of having all of that planned out. People use the phrase, "that's what he/she would have wanted" pretty frequently, but honestly, I'll be gone and won't care all that much. The service would not be for me. It would be for those who are still here and want to say goodbye; am I really qualified to tell them how to do that? I'm not sure that I am.

I think, because I like to be in control of things, I can see myself making a document that would outline this (I haven't, but I can see myself doing it if I were in a state of mind similar to my current one). But I also think that my desire for those who love me to have the service they feel suits them best would prevent me from ever telling anybody about it... or even saving the document, really. I'd feel weird knowing it was there.

Apologies if this seems like a depressing topic. I'm not trying to bring anybody down, this is just the most interesting thought process I've had in the last few days and wanted to make sure I got it typed before it went away forever (or at least until I watched another episode of Pushing Daisies).

BUT... since I feel like making a list, I'm going to have some fun with this topic. Feel free to play along in the comments.

Top 5 Songs I'd Like to Have Played at My Funeral (in no particular order)
1. Gloria - braveSaintSaturn
2. Invictus - braveSaintSaturn (the title is misleading; the song has the exact opposite meaning from the poem of the same name; rather than being the "master of my fate" or "captain of my soul" it is a song of deference to God; very lovely)
3. On Distant Shores - Five Iron Frenzy
4. Don't Stop Believin' - Journey
5. Waiting for My Real Life to Begin - Colin Hay

I'm going to return to attempting to sleep now. Have a good Wednesday, everybody.

Listening to - In Excelsis Deo by Roper

Why Today is Fun

I went to check my mail just now. As I was walking to the mailbox, the pay phone next to the pool (which I have never noticed before) starting to ring. I looked around, and seeing no one else there, decided to answer.

Me:"Baylor Plaza pay phone, this is Random Passerby speaking, how may I direct your call?"
Caller: "Um... what?"
Me: "You have reached the Baylor Plaza pay phone. Have you dialed in error?"
Caller: "Um... I'm sorry."
Me: "Thank you for calling today, and please do not hesitate to call in the future if you have any further questions. We appreciate your business!"

They hung up halfway through my spiel.

Five O'Clock and All's Well

I've had a hard time coming up with much to say in the past week. I've tried to post something about three or four times but each time ended up deleting the draft because I simply can't think of anything "worthwhile" to say. There's very little conflict in my world at the moment, and my biggest concern is memorizing music for auditions and the upcoming opera (more on that in a post coming within the next week). All things told, I'm a pretty happy camper and have been for some time now. And any student of literature knows that a protagonist without conflict is a story nobody's going to read for very long. So, even though I'm fully aware I'm not a character in a story, I have a hard time trying to communicate something that is (at the moment) not a terribly exciting narrative.

I've seen several of my friends on Facebook as well as several blogs post thoughts about today being the seventh anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center. Some of them have been quite poignant. There was the story of one guy who had just gotten out of drug rehab when the attacks occurred, and then used his newly-acquired zest for life to help those in need. It's a great read if you've got the time.

I have nothing so moving. I remember the whole day almost perfectly, from finding out what happened while I was in choir practice (when someone told us we turned on the TV and didn't get much done after that) to finally falling asleep at sometime after 3:00 in the morning. But it's nothing life-changing, so I can't attach much personal significance to it. I was saddened, sure, and I posed some philosophical thoughts that seemed deep to me at the time, but that's about it.

Mankind can be dark; in an attempt to seek God's (or in this case, Allah's) will, these men committed unquestionably evil deeds. This can lead to despair at the human condition, a feeling that it's hopeless to try to make anything better. It's the times we're tempted to give up that we are allowed to really show our quality.

"Sometimes, the bravest thing of all is to hope." - braveSaintSaturn

I leave you with this:



One of my very, very favorite songs, quite expertly combined with one of my favorite movies. I don't know who made this, but I love it. Well done.

Listening to - "Daylight" by braveSaintSaturn

Musings on My Future in Blogging

I've been going through the older entries here. I started this blog years ago to get my thoughts out of my head and into a place where I could come back any number of years later and see how my thinking has evolved or changed. It's strange to me how familiar all of the entries seem even though I remember writing almost none of them; I typically would write one and never read it again after posting it.

In doing that, I noticed how much more transparent I used to be when writing here. There were actual stories, and sometimes I would write my complete thoughts on some significant mental conflict I'd been having. In reading the entries, I can see that my writing has become less linear and coherent and is now far more sporadic and largely seems meant to promote whatever I'm enjoying at that particular moment in time (music, books, politics, what have you). Hardly compelling reading.

I'm not entirely sure what to do about this; lots of people read here via my FriendFeed, or on Facebook, or by actually just visiting the Blog. And I love that. I love thinking that maybe my thoughts are interesting or unique enough to be worth peering into from time to time, even if that's not necessarily the case. But full transparency here, like I used to write, is less of a good idea now. It used to be cathartic, but now I think I would feel a little too on display. A little bit naked, open to scrutiny or judgement from people who only know me through facebook or from back in Hinton, when I was more or less a completely different person from the one I've grown into.

So I've got to find a balance here. I want to share what's going on in my life and how it's affecting my thoughts, because there are people who read this (Nancy, dad, Ashlee, Nick, Cobb, and others) who take genuine interest and use it as a way to keep up with me. Other people have told me that they have read it as a way to get to know me better. Still others have read it to find things that they perceive to be wrong with me and then attempted to use them as arguments against me in battles I tried to leave behind years ago. Surely there's a way for me to do this, and do it well, while not leaving myself open to attack.

I'm going to give it a shot, simply because as I said above, I like doing this. I plan to post more frequently, which shouldn't be too difficult given my relatively light workload for this semester. Here's hoping you hear from me soon.

-John

Listening to - the Dr. Horrible soundtrack (now available on iTunes!)

Nuptials, Romance, and Car Thieves

My brother got married!


(image from my wonderful aunt Nancy's blog)

I don't think our family could be any more thrilled. I couldn't have asked for a better sister-in-law, and I look forward to seeing the life that she and Rob make together.

While I was in Fort Worth for the wedding, riding around with Rob and my dad running errands before the ceremony, someone broke into my car (which I had left in the hotel parking lot). The thief left behind my camera, iPod, a couple of CDs, and headphones. They did, however, take my Garmin GPS unit and my atlas. Dad has postulated that maybe they mistook my atlas for instructions for the Garmin. I've decided that some poor schmoe had gotten so hopelessly lost in the madness of the D/FW metroplex that he abandoned social and legal limits just for the sake of finding his way back to civilization. Having experienced firsthand the chaos that accompanies your typical drive through the area, I have to say I almost feel sorry for the guy.

Other than that, though, it was really a beautiful weekend. Lots of love, lots of happiness. I'm in Waco now for a couple of days, but on either Tuesday or Wednesday I'll be driving to Oklahoma to meet my baby brother, Macarthur! Big week for the Carmacks! I've got a new (to me) sister, and a brand new brother, and all it cost me was a couple of maps.

Listening to - Pre-Ex-Girlfriend by Five Iron Frenzy (I'm on yet another Five Iron kick... probably because of the new bSS album coming out in September)

So then. I may have gotten myself into something I'll wish I hadn't done.

I got talked into (re: was asked one time to) join in a Triathlon Relay in Oklahoma City with Nate on August 3rd. I'll be the swimmer. I have never swum competitively in my entire life. I've got six weeks. Guess what I'm about to go do (hint: not watch TV).

For what it's worth, I've lost some weight and added some muscle, so if there's ever a time in my life when I could quickly train for this kind of thing, this is it.

December:



May:



Clearly I'm in better shape in the second photo, but a 450m swim race... this is going to be tough. Here's hoping!
Listening to - Still Alive by Jonathan Coulton

People frequently ask me what it's like to be colorblind. The other day, I got confused while trying to buy lemons and walked directly to the oranges before realizing they were the wrong size. Just to show that I am not an idiot, I decided I would take a picture with my trusty camera phone and run it through a colorblind filter. You tell me if you wouldn't have been a little confused at first.

Here's what anyone else would see:



And here is what I saw:



To me, those images look identical, so it's my assumption that the filter is an accurate representation of what I see, but it could be a little off and I would have no way of knowing. Either way, I think you get the idea.

Semi-Important Announcement Ahead

Many people who read this blog are very old friends or acquaintances. Others are newer friends, some are strangers, and others still are people who have almost no association with me but this came up in their Facebook feed because they're "friends" with me and that's the kind of thing that happens. The following applies to all of these people, but the apathetic among you may prefer to simply skip to the summary at the end.

For the rest of you, I have a little story. It might be just this side of cheesy, I don't know, but if you're interested in a brief summary of my musical life, then read on.

In my youth (and yes, I say this with the full awareness that it is odd for someone only 24 years old to use a phrase like "in my youth") I was primarily what was known as a "band kid." I didn't join choir until three years after I had started playing the trumpet. When I did join, it was mostly because I couldn't think of a decent reason not to and I had the time available in my schedule. For several years, this served as a precedent for my priorities: band came first, with voice following behind as a not-particularly-prominent second. I was decent at both, sure, but I liked band more.

So I came to college and wanted to be a band director. Then I found out how much time that would require me to stay in the practice room, and within a year I decided to change from instrumental to vocal music education, because I figured on that being less practice time. I was right, but being a music education major only made sense as long as I was going to be teaching band, because I had no interest in conducting choirs; so a year later, I changed to church music. That didn't really pan out either, so then I (seemingly randomly) became a business major for about three semesters before finally returning to the music school. I had decided that even though I hadn't been able to find a decent fit for my interests in the music school, I needed a musical outlet and I needed it frequently. So I came back as a general BA in Music, a more general degree that would look appealing on grad school applications if I decided to go with a post-graduate degree in another field. It was then that I met my current voice teacher, and everything got all messed up.

You see, this guy decided for whatever reason that I had a voice and just needed to be shown how to use it. So he went and got me all excited about singing. Then he told me I should be in the opera, and because he hadn't steered me wrong to date, I said sure. Now I've gone and gotten to where I love doing it. And coming up soon is my first opportunity to perform in an honest to goodness opera, and in spite of my desire to appear to be the embittered, disaffected college student, I'm pretty freaking excited about it. So if you're interested in music, or are just a friend of mine and want to see what I've been up to lately, you should come to the show.

And so here's the announcement the skippers were looking for. To get their attention, I'll use boldface.

What: Baylor Opera Performances
When: Sunday, May 11th; Monday, May 12th; Tuesday, May 12th, 2008k, 7:30pm (my performance nights will be Sunday and Tuesday, but there will be other fantastic singers on Monday performing the same shows, so come that night if you want to as well)
Where: Jones Theater in the Art Building on Baylor University campus
Why: Because you support the arts, and more importantly you support your friends

Hopefully I'll see you there. If you're curious, I'm "Bob" in Menotti's Old Maid and the Thief.


Listening to - Adelade by Anberlin

In case you couldn't make it, here's my recital in its entirety:



Thanks again to those who came! And no guilt for those who didn't... seriously, that was a gross day. The people who came were troopers.

Thanks for all of the birthday messages and whatnot, everybody. It's not even noon yet and already I'm feeling very loved. You are all great.

I grow very weary of Baylor fans telling me that voting for Ron Paul is foolish simply because he won't win. If you really feel that way, why did you go to all those football games?