my new co-worker

Sometimes, it's the little things in life that bring us such great joy.

For example, yesterday I bought a space heater on Amazon.com, and it's working its little heart out to keep me warm at work. My boss gets hot easily and walks around in a t-shirt, while the rest of us are bundled up in fleeces. But now I will no longer need to stop every 10 minutes to sit on my hands. (Productivity, anyone?)

Raise a glass, if you will, to my new co-worker, the Lasko 5812!

Incidentally, this means that half of our four employees now use space heaters.

(And I'm pretty sure I get to claim this on my taxes, too, so... that's handy.)

angels we have heard on phones

I saw an Apple commercial that showed a quick shot of an app for the iPhone called Holiday Bells, which has a major octave scale of handbell sounds that you can play by tapping the screen. (It also has jingle bell sounds that can be activated by shaking the phone.)

I decided to upload a video of myself playing "Angels We Have Heard On High": check it out!

about this Christmas song 4

I have previously posted demo recordings [1, 2] of piano arrangements I've written of Christmas music, with the caveat that these are ideas and not finished pieces. I've been working on another one, which I have struggled with a bit. I was going to post it yesterday, but wasn't happy with what I considered my "best" take. But giving it a day's rest and listening to it again gave me some new ideas which I then put together tonight before the thought escaped me.

And so now I present, Joy to the World.

Once again I must give credit to my subconscious inspirations for this piece: Jim Brickman, with a little sprinkle of something related to contemporary Broadway.

and I'm still here

So much has happened in the past two months since my previous blog post. Nothing particularly earth-shattering, but enough to keep me busy (and as I said previously, facebook has stolen most of my blogging motivation).

Since late August I have been playing the organ at Westlake Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) during their search for a new music director. While it was made abundantly and genuinely clear that they love my music, I did not apply for the regular position since I'm still not at a point in my life where I want to be doing that every Sunday. And the past month when I've had shows every weekend and two solid weeks of rehearsals has reminded me exactly why!

However, playing for that church has made me feel much better about my finances after the health insurance fun I had earlier this year and my CAT scan checkup. But also -- and I made sure to tell the congregation this -- it feels great to have my musical talent respected and appreciated. There's a difference between expected, routine applause and genuine, spontaneous applause because people feel so moved. This church absolutely exhibited the latter, and there were more than several Sundays I drove home feeling great because of it.

In November I once again returned to Magnificat High School for their fall show, whereupon I had the opportunity to play my favorite show of all, Ragtime. I absolutely love this score, and it was great to play it with such a good orchestra.

And before that show even closed, I got a call from the music director of Peter Pan at The Beck Center saying their Keyboard 2 player dropped out. So the day after I was done with Ragtime, I was in nightly rehearsals for Peter Pan. As amateur/semi-pro theaters go, Beck pays very well, and it is good to expand my network into yet another venue. Peter Pan plays every weekend in December and the first weekend of January (except Christmas and New Year's), sometimes with two shows on the same day.

It just so happens that today is one of those days. I had my car worked on this morning in Elyria, had a quick breakfast at Jim's Coffeehouse, and am now blogging and attempting to catch up on life in the brief two hours I have at home today. In-between performances I'm rehearsing with a band that plays at the Westlake church and probably grabbing a fast food dinner. Such is the life of a freelance musician. Especially one who's single.

As for my regular job, things are pretty much the same as before, although we moved into another building in Grafton. Despite being a smaller operation, we are actually now in a larger space, for various reasons. I now have an office, rather than a half-room off a hallway, WITH a window. The actual work itself is the same as I've been doing for over six-and-a-half years.

I'm not going to speak at length on the whole health care debate going on in this country, but I will just note that earlier this year I looked into moving to a smaller, cheaper apartment in order to offset my new-found medical expenses. My new health insurance doesn't cover nearly as much as my old plan did. And my "employer" (in quotes because I'm an independent contractor) didn't have to offer me coverage. Frankly I'm amazed they could cover me at all, being independent. I pay the full premium, but at least it's group coverage.

Had it not been for that, I would not have been able to get health insurance, at all. Allow me to put that in bold as well: I would not have been able to get health insurance, at all. As a self-employed cancer survivor, the best deal I could get was Golden Rule through United Healthcare, who wanted me to be in remission five years (it's only been four for me), and even then it would exclude anything related to the cancer. So that CAT scan I had in July would have been a cool $6000 out of my pocket. At that point, looking for a cheaper apartment would have been the least of my worries.

In other words, not only my living conditions but my career options have been dictated by the way the health system works in the United States. Now, as I said, fortunately I was able to get group coverage through the company I'm working for, so I did end up staying in my Strongsville apartment (which I really like), but only because I cut back drastically almost everywhere in my budget. This means I'm spending far less to support The Economy™, which obviously isn't doing so hot right now either. I put Netflix on hold, stopped using Proactiv solution, and I almost never see my friends in their community theatre shows unless I can go on a free preview night. And all of those decisions were related 100% to my increased medical expenses.

Now, it's not all doom and gloom. For sanity's sake, I kept my "roller coaster budget" the same, which is about the only vacation I ever take. I still go to Seekers Coffee House every Saturday for my $5.00 breakfast. I'm still better off than many millions of Americans. And as I said above, being a substitute organist and picking up extra gigs here and there has helped immensely. But I still have my long-term future to think about, and being able to get group health insurance plays a large role in that.

I'm not saying that any of the various bills being bantered about in Congress right now is the best or "right" option. I don't know enough about all the bills to say definitively which plan is better; but frankly, neither do most people who are getting red in the face screaming about socialism and Hitler and whatnot. I dare say most Congresspersons don't know either, and are just coddling their emotional, snap-judgment constituency in the run up to the 2010 midterm elections. In other words, business as usual.

OK, so I guess I did speak at length. :)

annual bbq

Just a quick post to say I'll be playing piano at the Lorain County Historical Society's annual BBQ tomorrow (Saturday) from 5:00-8:00 p.m. A $30 ticket gets all-you-can-eat ribs and chicken (provided by the awesome Big Dog Catering of Wellington), side dishes, and desserts. Silent auctions, raffles, fun stuff like that. Cash bar if you'd like to buy your pianist a drink in lieu of tips, hint hint.

It takes place at Jack Matia Honda, 823 Leona Street in Elyria, near I-90 and the Turnpike. Call the LCHS office for tickets today: 440-322-3341.

let the voting begin!

I'm a finalist in a contest to win a scholarship for PlayhouseSquare's Cabaret 101 class. This is a great program that teaches the art of putting on a cabaret act, including developing skills in singing, presentation, creativity, and self-confidence. I know one of the instructors and am very interested in the class, and if I win this contest they will waive the admission fee!

If I don't win, I won't be able take the class, and you all won't get to see me perform a 15-minute set at the Idea Center at PlayhouseSquare this November. :)

Anyway, voting goes until next Thursday (a week from today), so I'd love it if you would all help me out. You don't have to register or anything; just click the link below and scroll to the bottom to vote. Of course you're also welcome to watch all three videos if you really want to make an informed decision. :D

Vote here

Here is a description of the class from the website:

Mondays October 5 - November 23, 2009
Cabaret 101 is an 8-week series of classes designed to teach participants about this exciting music genre. Background and experience are not necessary. In the relaxed and supportive class environment attendees will learn about the art of singing a song in an intimate cabaret setting, discover a new form of self-expression, tap into creativity, and discover new self-confidence. By the end of the session, participants will perform their own 15-minute set. The lessons and skills you learn in Cabaret 101 can build your self confidence as a performer, an actor, a salesperson, a manager, and even a parent. Class size is limited to 8 participants. Appropriate for 21 years of age and older.

the decline of the blog

I've been on Facebook just over two years now, and in that time most of my friends have joined too. In addition, I've "friended" various acquaintances I've met while doing theatre and through mutual friends. It's nice being able to casually keep in touch with people I would probably otherwise not see or communicate with more than a few times a year, if that. In some cases, thanks to commenting on friends' Facebook status messages I've fostered new friendships that would have otherwise fizzled out had I merely met them once at a party and then rarely saw them in person afterward.

Plus, the nice thing about electronic communication is that it waits for you. You get to it when you get to it, based on your own schedule, instead of leaping out of the chair like a Pavlovian dog at the sound of a ring. If I speak to a friend on the phone, I might have to sit with a phone to my ear for half an hour or more. If we use instant messenger, we can work on other things at the same time, perhaps even talking to other people online. With IM and email, we can carry on discussions of no particular consequence that would be ridiculous to waste time with on a phone call. For more important correspondence, with email there's a written, easily searchable record of it. And I can do it at any time of day -- while I'm thinking about it, before I forget -- whereas a phone call can only politely be placed by 9:30 p.m. at the very latest. This doesn't always mesh well with my theatre schedule.

I know many people don't see it this way and prefer to use the phone -- or, in the more likely scenario, not keep in touch with people at all -- and that's fine too. It's not my thing, but to each his own.

In any case, I generally update my Facebook status at least once a day, and friends will often leave comments; sometimes the back-and-forth banter will result in full-fledged conversations right there for mutual friends to see. It effectively becomes a message board. But one consequence of this is that I feel less compelled to blog now. Most of my blog readers will have already read my thoughts in my Facebook status messages. Hell, with my phone, I update my status every time I ride a new roller coaster!

So what has been happening lately is that I blog once a month, twice at best, and there's too much territory to cover in a single post. For example, I just noticed that in July, I neglected to mention the weekend I spent by myself at the cottage. This included stopping at Cedar Point on the way there to kill some time on a pleasant Friday night. With very little effort, I rode ALL 16 coasters in the park! In under five hours! (I didn't count Jr. Gemini since you normally need a child with you to ride it, although sometimes you can get lucky.) And the next day I spent almost four hours making a chalk drawing of the cottage -- not only my longest drawing session since college, but my longest ever without a break. It was great, and a beautiful day to just relax.




Budgeting
In time I may write more about the first year living on my own and what I've learned, but suffice it to say that I've cut back drastically on my spending. It's not that I was particularly high-maintenance to begin with, but I adjusted my budget to make up for the increase in my health insurance and medical costs. I cut out things like Netflix and trimmed back the line item for seeing theatre. By eating healthier, I'm spending less on groceries because I no longer stock the cupboards and freezer with snacks and convenience foods (aside from eating less in general). And after February's gas bill, I turned down the heat and started wearing my fleece and slippers at home.

But it wasn't all about cutting; several things worked in my favor. I effectively got a small raise where I'm working, although it wasn't explicitly called that. In addition, my unused vacation/sick time from when my old company closed is being paid out, which is a nice little sum. To top it off, my rent did not go up when I renewed my apartment lease like they had originally said.

Probably the biggest difference is that my music income has been much higher than I originally estimated in my budget, and I was pleasantly surprised to see the numbers once I wrote down all the gigs I had already done this year and had coming up. Since then I've added a few more, mainly subbing as an organist in churches. I will probably get back into music directing next year too. (This is not to say I'm making more than I did in previous years; rather, I had always grossly underestimated it, since I theoretically cannot predict how many gigs I will have in a given year. But in reality, I always make more than that estimate.)

So, I'm still keeping the cutbacks I made and I'm being more careful about discretionary spending, but with my redone budget, I'm able to keep living in the same apartment another year and even -- what a concept! -- put money in my Roth IRA. I really like my apartment (it's the perfect size for me, on the first floor, and my neighbors are whisper quiet) so I'm glad I didn't have to move, in spite of the crappy health coverage situation.

However... I left my vacation/travel budget the same. It's very important to me to have that outlet for amusement parks in particular. And speaking of which, Stu scored some discount tickets at work for Darien Lake, so we'll be making a day trip over there next Saturday. And so, The Year of the Awesome continues.

aaaaaand another month goes by

Merry Christmas in July!

I'm enjoying some awesome Caruso's coffee at Seekers Coffee House as I type this. I'm here because, sadly, weekend business is slow at Jim's Coffeehouse and they are now closed on Saturdays until at least after Labor Day. I hope they can weather this recession. I dare say I hope we all can. At the barbershop this morning more than several of us commiserated about our lousy job and health insurance situations.

Yes, I am very grateful to have any job in this economy. After my struggle to find health insurance -- any at all -- I finally was able to get coverage through the company for whom I'm working. The provider is still United Healthcare, as I had before, but the coverage is quite different -- not so much in what it covers, but what percentage of the cost.

I previously paid for half my premium and my employer covered the other half, and I knew this time around I would have to pay the full premium... but this premium is more than double what I paid before... yet it has no dental rider, has a deductible, and has an out-of-pocket maximum that is more than double what I had before. So for my increased premium, I'm getting significantly less coverage. Significantly. Yes I'm using a lot of italics in this post.

On the plus side... if there is one... I will be able to deduct any medical expenses above 7.5% of my income from my taxes. And since the IRS considers self-employed individuals to be "businesses," yes I will be itemizing for the first time.

And it shouldn't be too difficult to reach that yearly out-of-pocket maximum, because I had a CAT scan a few weeks ago to check on my Hodgkin's. I'm very happy to say that today marks the four-year anniversary of my last radiation therapy treatment, and I'm still in remission! I will have a blood test and X-ray in January, then another CAT scan a year from now. After that, it will just be the blood test and X-ray once a year. Hurrah!

So yeah, to say the least, I'm none too happy about this insurance situation, especially after all the screwing around I had to do to get it. (Even though they received my application in late May, I did not receive my new card until the day before my CAT scan in early July, for various reasons totally unrelated to me. Although I was the one who had to take action to get it fixed. Several times.)

It still beats having no coverage at all, and I know others are in far worse situations than I am; however, it does tend to break one's optimism.

IN OTHER NEWS, Becki and Matt are getting married today! And tomorrow afternoon I'm playing for Fairmount Performing Arts Conservatory's Into the Woods. There are just three shows left: tonight, tomorrow's matinee, and tomorrow evening. More information can be found here, and if you scroll way down, you can even read my bio.

So that's where things stand right now. Life is life. And I don't know where the hell July went.

about this song 3

I have posted previously about how I sometimes feel the need to record piano arrangements when they pop into my head, lest I forget them. I had another musical muse moment a week ago and finally recorded it tonight.

Like the others, this is just a "demo" and not something I'd call finished. However, it's an idea and certainly listenable. I've arranged a medley of several traditional Christian folk tunes: Holy Manna, Down in the River to Pray, and Beach Spring.

As before, I'll tip my hat to the likes of Ms. Line, Mr. Hayes, and Mr. Brickman.

Manna River Medley

plus 9! (or 12)

Lately it seems like this blog is more about the new roller coasters I've ridden this year... and today's post will be no exception. Last weekend, the Stu/Laurie clan and I trekked over to Indiana to visit Indiana Beach and Holiday World. I would compare Indiana Beach to a "mini-Geauga Lake." Holiday World is much larger and features a sizable water park. In fact it's so sizable that I spent more time walking barefoot on concrete between attractions than actually being wet. And yes my feet ached the next day. However I was good with the sunblock and suffered no pinkitude.

In any case, I added nine coasters to my count between the two parks, for a total of 83. Three of them made it into my Top 10 Wooden Coasters list, which just reiterates how severely lacking Cedar Point is in that department.

I neglected to mention previously that we also made a day trip to Lakemont Park near Altoona, Pennsylvania several weekends ago to ride the world's oldest operating roller coaster. Yes, it's mostly a nostalgia ride, but it's also interesting to see how they were made back then; and it isn't without its minor thrills. Lakemont is also home to another woodie that made my Top 10, the Skyliner, which doubles as outfield decoration for the Blair County Ballpark.

In other news, despite this being The Year of the (Theatre) Hiatus, I have agreed to sub for some rehearsals of FPAC's Into the Woods. The Fairmount Performing Arts Center runs a children's theatre camp, and I am now serving as Assistant Music Director for this production. In addition to covering two rehearsals a week when the Music Director (my friend Mike) can't be there, I will be conducting the orchestra the evening of July 19th. Plus a little bit of money and getting to meet new people. The usual story.

Since I have gotten a pretty significant amount of coastering in already this year, and I normally avoid the parks in July, I don't feel bad about this break in the hiatus. And it still leaves my weekends free (which are already booked with other stuff). Besides, I'm pretty close to using up my vacation budget, so aside from a few Cedar Point trips later in the season, I'm not planning anything big. It's not even July yet and my Cedar Fair pass has already paid for itself.

I'll also mention in passing that I've lost 20 pounds since early April by way of healthy eating. Walking around all these parks probably helps a bit too, but I'm mainly watching calories and portions. After the first week or so of being hungry all the time, my body has adjusted itself to expect less. It's also saving me a bit of money on food, which is a happy side effect, considering the job situation.