Beethoven Over

Beethoven is finally over, I no longer have to sign those horrible high notes.  I actually found though that after a few weeks of practicing hitting the high notes was actually easier.  It all comes with practicing I guess, who would have thought.  The night of the concert was amazing because we sang with the orchestra.  Everyone was a little nervous, but everyone was excited.

I think the most excited people of the bunch were the college students because we wanted to be done with the practicing so we could once again focus on our homework.  It was fun practicing, but at the last couple of rehearsals I was really getting sick of the high school students because they weren’t taking it that seriously.  I mean they were, but they were high schoolers so that got easily distracted.  Which of course when a high schooler gets bored they start to talk about anything and everything.  Thankfully our director yelled at them one rehearsal so I think they were behaved a little better.  Well she didn’t yell at the students, but she did chew them out for not acting professional.   I was happy.

So the might of the concert went pretty smooth.  There was some confusion with the seating because some people weren’t there on Saturday to know where they had to sit.  I wasn’t there for part of the rehearsal because I was at work, but I was there for the last part of the rehearsal so I did know where I needed to sit for the last part of the concert.  Yet, everything worked out well in the end.

The orchestra sounded amazing and they did a fabulous job, even though they were extremely tired from playing so much.  They didn’t get many breaks during the songs, and we only had a ten minute break between each song.  However, they hid their weariness and played like they hadn’t played for hours.  The soloist for the night sounded beautiful, they were some very talented people.  However, they should have had mics because I heard a couple of people say that they couldn’t really hear them over the orchestra when they played.

The soloists still sounded amazing though, so all ended well by the end of the concert.  People were standing at the end of the concert, and our director came out three times because the crowd wouldn’t stop applauding.  I would have to say that this concert was the best performance night I ever experienced.  I would love to do it over again even through the pain of singing those horrible high notes.

Dogs from Eight Below

So I was watching Eight Below, and I thought I’d do a little research on the dogs that appeared in the film.  The type of dogs that appeared in the film were two Alaskan Malamutes, and six Siberian Huskies.  The character’s name for the Malamutes were Buck and Shadow, and the Huskies were called Maya, Max, Truman, Dewey, Shorty, and Old Jack.

Alaskan Malamute

The Alaskan Malamute is a member of the Spitz group of dogs and its breed can be traced back 2,000 to 3,000 years to the Mahlemuts tribe of upper western Alaska.  These were excellent companion dogs for the tribe members because they worked, hunted, and lived alongside a human. The relationship between the tribe members and the dogs was very close because it enabled them to flourish in the rough terrains above the Arctic Circle.

For a brief time during the Klondike Gold Rush of 1896, the Malamute along with other sled dogs became extremely valuable to the prospectors and settlers.

The Malamute also aided Rear Admiral Richard Byrd to the South Pole, and the miners who came to Alaska during teh Gold Rush of 1896.  This dog wasn’t made to be a racing sled dog because they were made to pull heavy freighting loads of supplies that weighed hundreds of pounds to villages and camps in groups of at least four dogs per load.

The Malamute needs to weigh about 75 to 85 pounds and have a height of 23 to 26 inches in order to be able to pull freight loads.  Some Malamutes have been known to reach 32 inches and weigh 160 pounds.  Weight difference usually marks the difference between the males and the females because females are usually smaller.

The coat is a dense double northern dog coat, and somewhat “harsher” than that of a Siberian Husky.  The colors vary between shades of gray and white, sable and white, black and white, read and white, or pure white.  The eyes are almond shaped and the colors vary in shades of brown.  The dogs are heavy boned in most cases.  The dogs height to length ratio is slightly longer than tall.

The tail is extremely furred and hangs just over the back like a plume.  The tail aids them in keeping them warm when they curl up in the snow.  They wrap the tail around their nose and face to help protect them against the harsh weather during a snow storm.  The ears are generally upright, but some dogs have the tips folded forward.

Malamutes are sometimes mistaken for wolves.  However, the differences between the two have a big range.  The dog’s head is not as wide, is shorter, and is smaller than a wolf’s head.  The dog’s neck is generally the same size, but the dog’s chest is bigger by a few inches.  The dog stands two inches shorter, is three inches shorter in the legs, and eight inches shorter in the body.  The wolf’s tail is longer and doesn’t curl over the back.  A wolf’s foot print is twice as large as the Malamute.

The above information can be found at this link.

Siberian Husky

The Siberian Husky is a breed that directly descends from the original sled dog.  The word “husky” roughly descends from the term “Eskie” which was also shared by the Inuit tribes who used the dogs for early expeditions made in Europe. The word “Siberian” derives from Siberia itself because it’s thought that Eskimo or sled dogs were used to cross the land bridge of the Bering Straight on their way to Alaska, even though that theory is disputed by scholars.  Breeds  descending from the Eskimo dog were once found throughout the Northen Hemisohere from Siberia to Canada, Alaska, Greenland, Labrador, and Baffin Island.

Siberian Huskies helped entire tribes of people to survive and push forth into Terra Incognita.  Admiral Robert Peary of the United States Navy was aided with this breed during his expeditions to the North Pole.

Dogs form the Anadyr River and surrounding regions were imprted into Alaska from 1908 and for the next two decades during the gold rush for the use of sled dogs, especially in the “All-Alaska Sweepstakes.”  The sled dog race was 408 miles from Nome to Candle and back.

The Siberian Husky are better racing dogs because they are smaller, faster, and more enduring than the freighting dogs that weighed 100 to 120 pounds.  The quickly dominated the Nome Sweepstakes.  Leonhard Seppala was the foremost breeder of Siberian Huskies for the competitions from 1909 to the mid 1920s.

1930 was the last year that Siberian Huskies were exported across the borders of Siberia.  Today’s Huskies are the descendants of the 1930 Siberia imports and of Leonhard Seppala’s dogs.

The male Husky ranges from 21 to 23.5 inches in height, while the female ranges from 20 to 22 inches in height.  The males weigh from 45 to 60 pounds, while the females weigh from 35 to 50 pounds.

The coat is thicker than most breeds of dogs it comprises of two layers: a dense undercoat and a longer topcoat of short straight guard hairs.  It protects the dogs effectively against harsh Artic winters, but the coat reflects heat in the summer.  It’s able to withstand tempeatures as low as -58 degrees F to -76 degrees F.

The eyes of a Siberian Husky are almond shaped, moderately spaced, and set slightly obliquely.  The colors can range from dark blue, light blue, amber, or brown.  Some dogs may have one eye that is brown and the other eye blue, or one or both eyes could be a half color of each.

The above information can be found at this link.

Why Innocent?

I have hit my boiling point with some of my friends.  I do not understand why some of my friends call me innocent.  On one side of me I am nice, caring, and giving, but I am not  innocent. There is a side of me that at times can be down right evil because there are  people that have passed through my life that I hate with a passion from their actions towards me, my family, or my friends.

However, that side is not a big part of my life, my good side is the side I spend my days in because that is who I am.  I am a genuine person; I care, I’m nice, I give, and my friends are mistaking it for innocence.  It’s really starting to hurt me that my friends aren’t  understanding who I am.  I honestly don’t know what to do anymore.  Why?  Why do they call me innocent?  Why can’t they just see me as genuine? I am not an innocent person, I wish my friends would wake up.

Sign Language Ending

Sign language at my job will soon be coming to an end.  My instructor will be done with her contract at campus, and the she will go back to Duluth permanently for the summer.  I am going to miss her because her classes were so much fun.  I’ve got to be honest though, her classes never seemed like classes since we started eating a meal along with doing sign language.

On Thursdays I was the only person showing up for the class, and it was so hard to sit there acting like a class when it was only the two of us.  So one Thursday my instructor asked if there was a bar where she could go and have a beer and I told her about a good bar down town. Not that I really drink.  Anyway, a few minutes later she asks me if I’d like to go somewhere else and have some food, and I said yes.

It was so much fun getting out of that stupid Conference Room at the hotel and going to a place were we could relax and talk, with voices or with signs.  Usually after an hour though we were just talking cause we just enjoyed each others company.   The day we started talking to each other is the day where she taught me sign language from a conversation instead teaching me sign language from a stupid piece of paper.

As the weeks have gone by, these classes have been more of a friend teaching a friend sign language instead of an instructor teaching a student.  It’s been wonderful because we’re more relaxed, and it became way easier to talk to one another.  It’s funny that the “classes” (because they’re not really classes any more) have been lasting like two hours because we just can’t stop talking.

Like tonight, our “class” lasted for five and a half hours.  We could not stop talking.  Everytime we came close to running out of something to say, one of us came up with something new.  It was great, I got to know her better, and she got to know me better.  She is really an awesome person, and I really wish that our classes could go on longer.  I am really going to miss her, she is a great teacher.

Presentation Done

I am so happy to have my presentation done with.  I didn’t say some of the things I wanted to say, but I did say a lot of important stuff that describes my project.  I also got some pointers on how to make my project more interesting for readers.  I think the videos went over well to because people started laughing when the person in the video started signing.  So thank goodness that’s over.

Presentation Tomorrow

So I have to do a ten minute presentation tomorrow about my Weblog and Wiki class, and I’m kinda nervous.  I mean I know what to say, and yet I don’t know if I’ll say the right things to explain my project properly.  My project is a wiki that discusses the American Sign Language.  My goal for the project was to discover the history of the language, and to give a little information about where the language is today.  I also have links to sites that offer videos to show how to make the gestures to express the words you’re trying to say to a deaf person.  I don’t know, I’ll get my presentation done I’ll just be really nervous when I present.

too tired to think

You ever have one of those days when you’re just to tired to think?  Well I’m having one of those days, and I really don’t have anything to blog about.  All I can say is if you have to get up really early in the morning, go to bed early cause you won’t be functioning by the end of the day.

Mini-Golf at the Mall of America

On Saturday the family and I went to the Mall of America to play mini-golf at Moose Mountain.  Dad won, and I came in at second to last.  Oh well, it was still fun.  I made my older brother proud by cheating and throwing the ball towards the holes a couple of times.  I have to say though the best part of the whole time was my older brother hitting his ball over the railing and into the private locker area of the Nickelodeon Amusement Park.  It was hilarious.  We were such a big group that we had to let people go ahead of us because we were taking so long.  Some of the best parts were the sound affects that came with some of the holes.  Like the second hole a train whistle would sound when you walked under the motion sensor.  On another hole a horse neighing would sound, and on the seventeenth hole a flushing toilet if you made your ball go down the right hole.  It was great, and on the last hole I almost got a hole-in-one.  I was off by like a centimeter.  Oh well it was still fun.

Twins Game

The Twins won!!!  In the eighth inning, the score was 7-9 so we were down by two and the bases were loaded.  Then Jason Kubel hits the ball into the stands to send all of the players home.  So, now it’s 11-9 and the next guy gets out.  The Angels are up to bat, and Joe Nathan is pitching.  For each pitch he winds back and throws with all his might to home plate.  He struck one man out, and the other teammates got the other two out.  So the Twins won 11-9.  Who-Ray!!!

My Book

I am published in a book, and now I have the proof to show people.  I cannot believe that’s I’m published.  I mean I knew I was, but to have the physical book in my hands really makes it hit home.  I also did a good job reading, all I did was explain how the poem came to be and I had people ooo at the end when I did my last line.  It was awesome.