And I Can't Fight All Your Battles for You

Those are from the lyrics of "Away Frm U" by a group called Oberhofer that was in an Expedia commercial or something. Interesting little song...

So this week I (finally) started the physical work on the Eagle Project. Sent out the call to arms, and 10 people answered Monday night, and we began by taking out the old:

It was a beautiful night to start...

A Concrete Capstone in Mid-Air!

So we took out the Redwood Sign to reveal...

Yet another sign!

So that's what it looks like right now - caution taped, moldy, and very much de-constructed. The plan was to get the electrical work in and then get it capped Saturday

This is Andrew Smith - Eagle Scout, Amazing Electrician, and friend. He's gone above and beyond, you can contact him at smithwiring.com

Wednesday I took the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

And Thursday I got sick. At noon I drove Matt to band practice, came home and sat on the couch with a fever and chills for two hours, picked him up, and grounded myself for the night. And then I slept 13 hours. And so anything I had planned for this weekend went out the window as I've been sidelined.

Last weekend my brother had the same thing, for about four days, and self-diagnosed it as hand, foot and mouth disease. Following this trend, I should be back Sunday. I hope. But until then I'm on the mend. It's really frustrating because it takes away my depth perception (so I'm sort of wobbling around) and so I can't do much except for type here and wait until it passes.

The Windowpane Makes a Show of Rain

That's from the chorus of the song "Reply" by the Spring Standards.

Last Friday I was again at a Riverhounds game and last Saturday I was again at a house concert to again see the AMAZING Spring Standards. I try and not be bitter about terms and conditions, but to save my own ranting/you having to deal with that I will not comment about the Riverhounds game except to say we won, and took a selfie with a camera guy (because we're nerds).

I can, however, talk about the Spring Standards. Basically, we were invited again by my aunt and uncle to listen to the Spring Standards live and acoustic. They were great as always and I have more music now after acquiring two CDs from them.

So this week was about squaring away summer work, Eagle project stuff, and some other miscellaneous things that came along the way. I have a date set for the Demolition work on the sign, Monday. Stay tuned, and I should be able to share more on it, but as for now I know that Monday we're removing stuff and smashing some stuff... this should be interesting.

I'm taking this as a lesson in brevity as I can't think of anything more really and cutting it off here. I start senior year in about two and a half weeks and quite frankly I'm nervous. I'm more nervous about getting summer work and this eagle project done before the first day than I am for senior year itself. I don't know.

And I Would Drive One Hundred Miles...

[A note: I wrote this on 8/1/14, but for some reason (probably because it's disjointed) didn't post it. So here it is.]
Yeah, don't tell me, I know those aren't the lyrics. I don't care.

Recently I was going through my SD cards (the cards that I plug into the camera to take pictures onto) and realized that I take a lot of pictures. As a side effect, however, a lot of the pictures I take don't see the light of day. For the vast majority of them, it's perfectly fine -  I think I've taken something like eight or nine thousand pictures since the acquisition of the D90 - but for others it's kind of sad. I'm doing my best to take the ones I want to save, edit them, and post them to Flickr immediately.

When I post to Flickr, I inevitably get lost in the thousands and thousands of pictures up there, and I'm always inspired, and always wondering how do they do it? But that's another story for another time, how photographers make the pictures they post. Most of the time though it's Photoshop or Lightroom.

There's something satisfying about letting a creation free into the unknown as 'done'. So my updates to flickr and everything else are giving me that.

I've also been given creative license to write the script for this year's halftime show. It's the end of the two-week band camp already, and so I sat and wrote the script last week. It's very simple, and we follow the same pattern every year:
[Ladies and Gentleman please welcome the Carlynton Golden Cougar Marching Band!
The band is under the direction of...] and then I proceed to list everyone on staff. I've timed myself down to about 37 seconds last year with enunciating every director, section leader, dog, cat, and even me. It's an interesting process. Then I announce the drum majors, and finally what the show is.

Here's last year's: http://novelwithoutanending.tumblr.com/post/94064523221/alexanderpopichak-this-is-me-announcing-for-the

It donned on me in writing this script that, again, this is my senior year. I am writing the script for my last season. I'm trying to wrap my mind around it, but I don't think it'll hit me until the band festival, or maybe during the last game. Nevertheless, I don't want to dwell on it too much. I want senior year to come as it will: if it will be fast, so be it, if it will dilly-dally, then let's savor it.

This year's show is Batman, and in writing the script I have to explain the differences between the three batman themes (they sound different, but you can't just say 'Batman Theme' because in name they're the same, so I have to source it [TV series, Movie, New Movie]).