JacPat.com

I’m going to start a podcast called “Fun With The Euphonium” which will feature me playing short arrangements and possibly original compositions on my euphonium, recorded on multiple tracks and mixed together with Cakewalk Music Creator 4. It won’t be a regularly scheduled show; whenever I get the inspiration and time to put something together, I’ll post it. I figure this will be a way to keep me practicing and playing, and a good way to learn more about arranging, composing and recording/mixing, all on my computer–several interests mixed into one.
Take a look here and let me know what you think!

Bakersfield College’s Pep Band is looking for former BC Band members to play with them at the October 20 Homecoming game. Rehearsal is at 6:00pm in the BC Band Room on Wednesday, October 17, and we will meet again in the Band Room at 5:00 pm the day of the game. Dust off your instrument and join in the fun! E-mail patrick@jacpat.com with any questions.

Oops! We did it again!

Meet Marble, the latest addition to our family. She’s about 9 weeks old and we’ve had her a little over a week now. Since Maggie has so much color, Jacki and I thought we’d get one in black & white

Munchie was pretty much fine with her from the start, but Maggie took a long time to adjust–she’d hiss and growl and was generally inconsolable for several days.

She came around, though, and now they play all the time. We hoped this would be the case, as Maggie never got to play with the older cats. Michael and Munchie were too set in their ways. Munchie seems to like Marble so far, and Maggie has a new playmate, so everyone’s happy right now.

Jacki’s going to kill me when she sees this on the Internet, but it’s too adorable to leave out!

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

We lost our fourth pet in the ten years we’ve been married. Michael, the cat we rescued after she was abandoned by the tenants of the former rental house next door, became ill over the past few months. I had to take her to the vet for the last time today. She had lost a great deal of weight, was listless and unable to jump up to her food dish. Michael weighed only 4 pounds, 9 ounces this afternoon, down from 4 pounds, 15 ounces a week ago.

The vet suspected cancer, but she was too weak to undergo a biopsy and treatment probably would not have helped at this point. They had already ruled out kidney problems and hyperthyroidism with blood work, and the test for the feline AIDS virus has not yet produced a result (though it seems unlikely to be the cause, we went ahead with the test because while her blood work did not come back positive for the virus, it was not conclusively negative, either. We need to know so we can get our other two cats tested if necessary).

We had to put another cat, Michelin, down last year, and our dog Emmy about five years ago. Our other dog, Oso, died from congestive heart failure in the back yard about a year before that. I have been present for all of them. It doesn’t get any easier. I know it’s better than having them suffer like Oso did, but there’s this nagging little doubt as to whether they are really sick or someone made a mistake and they’ll get better after all. I mean, you don’t just take Grandma down to the doctor’s office to have her put to sleep just to “put her out of her misery”, right? Or take Junior out and shoot him because he broke his leg? No! We fight as hard as we can and even sometimes use machines to do the fighting. It’s just that our pets are not self-aware and have no concept of mortality – they just get sick and die; they don’t understand why.

Come to think of it, neither do I.

I know I’ve been promising my sister-in-law a Maggie update, but I just had to share this: we tried something amazingly cool last night — outdoor movies! I built a 12′ x 6′9″ screen out of 1-1/4″ PVC pipe and a painter’s tarp, rented an LCD projector from work and brought out a DVD player and an old stereo for sound, and we watched “Fantastic Four” under the stars (and blankets–the temperature was in the low 50’s!).

This was kind of a proof of concept, the idea being to host movie parties in the warmer months. I got a lot of ideas from a web site I stumbled across, the Backyard Theater forum. I love the idea of outdoor movies, and this is incredibly easy to do.

The screen took about 2 hours to build. I measured and cut the PVC and put it together with elbows and tees, then cut the tarp to size (a little larger than the frame). I added grommets around the perimeter of the tarp, then laced it to the frame with twine. The screen stood on a couple of pieces of rebar pounded into the ground next to the high fence/wall at the south side of our yard.

I tested the projector on supports of varying height and distance from the screen until I found the right spot. Next came the DVD player and bookshelf stereo system and voila! Instant theater. We dragged out a couple of lounge chairs and drinks and enjoyed the show. It was a little cool outside, but the test was a smashing success. We’re going to host a DVD viewing party with highlights from my 20th high school reunion, and this will be the perfect way to show it. I’m also looking forward to showing Independence Day outside in July.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite