Classical Music

What do you know about classical music? Turns out I know a lot more than I realized.

If you learned about classical music, who taught you? I taught myself. There was no music program in school that taught me about symphonies and composers.

Could you name ten composers of classical music?Actually I can name quite a few composers. One of my favorites is Mozart. Once I watched the movie, “Amadeus” I became an instant fan. Not because the man was so great or the movie was so great, but because I finally understood what goes into making symphony level music happen.

Can you name all the instruments in an orchestra?  Yes, I can name them all by sight with a common name. I can’t go into the fine details, like the different kinds of clarinets or saxophones, but I know all the different percussion instruments and have tried to play just about every instrument except the harp.

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Parenting Plans

About the only time anyone even thinks about a “Parenting Plan” is when they are going through a divorce or a court proceeding that deals with child support and child custody issues. Why don’t they make people talk about parenting plans when they first get pregnant? Why don’t they make parents learn all the different issues and discuss them, come to an agreement and be held accountable for parenting their children?

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Music Programs

As much as I love music, I never really got much music in school. We did have a so-called music teacher in elementary school, but that teacher would just come to our classroom about once a month and spend an hour teaching us to sing weird songs, like Christmas carols and cowboy songs or patriotic songs.

My friend Raymond is a teacher in the public schools here and he complains about the same thing happening. With this being Music City USA, you would think that music would be pumped up a little in our schools. But no.

By the time kids get out of elementary school, it is too late for most kids to lean anything about music unless their parents have been paying for them to take music lessons and force them to be in the school band or orchestra – if the school even has one. What a shame more kids can’t be exposed to all the varieties of instruments and types of music and let them appreciate this important art form.

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Thats MY Trash!

Something everyone has to deal with is trash. Almost everyone has some method of disposing of the packaging, empty containers and no longer useful items that accumulate in your household. I have used a lot of different disposal methods, depending upon where I lived and what services were provided.

When I lived in my first apartment, we had to take our bags of trash to a dumpster that was parked in the back parking lot of the whole complex. The dumpster was hauled away and replaced with an empty one about once a week, so depending on what day you drove down to the dumpster area, you would toss your bag into a huge empty bin or throw it up on a huge pile of other people’s trash because the bin was overflowing.

Now I put a large plastic dumpster that was provided by my trash collection company at the curb once a week. They send a big trash collection truck and a couple of men around my neighborhood every Thursday morning. So I push my dumpster up the driveway and park it on the curb on Wednesday nights before I go to bed.

Sometimes I forget to push the dumpster up there on Wednesday, but I usually still have plenty of time to get it up there on Thursday morning. I just like to get it done early and not have to worry about it on Thursdays. But this morning I discovered that overnight someone had gone through my trash! That is just unfathomable to me!

Who would go walking around my neighborhood rooting through people’s trash cans? What are they looking for and what did they take from my trash? I am totally freaked out about this. But what do you do? Call the police and complain that someone stole your trash? Yeah, right.

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No Rental Cars

Last weekend I wanted to rent a car and go to my mother’s house for Easter. I don’t think it is a good idea to drive my car on the interstate that far and risk having it break down on a holiday. Plus the expense of car repairs just doesn’t work for me right now.

I called the rental car companies and asked for a car for 2 or 3 days and every one of the told me there were no cars available. I can’t understand how a rental car company can just run out of cars. How stupid is that?

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