Monday, June 28, 2010

Still Alive, Lol

Yes, I'm still alive.  I spend a lot more time on Facebook these days, but I think I'm going to post some things here that are a bit long for FB.

Quick summary... moved to Chandler 10/1/09.  Found a nice house to rent that's really close to work and very convenient to everything and not too expensive either!  Moving was very stressful and it was hard to say goodbye to the many wonderful people I had met in Portland.  Also I re-injured my foot and though the podiatrist here said it was not broken, I had an extended period of being off the ice and trying to take it easy.  To be honest it still doesn't feel exactly normal even now and it's been a year.  Oh well.

I've been really enjoying being close to my family and my Arizona friends.  I have been singing with the Schola at Ss. Peter and Paul down in Tucson. The drive is pretty tiring (it's about 100 miles) for rehearsals but I love getting to sing quality music.

I bought a digital piano (Kawai Digital Piano 500, an older model) in November (?) and started taking piano lessons in January with Stephanie Koogler in Chandler.  That's been going really well and I played my first recital last Saturday (she has recitals for her students in June and December).  I played a setting of the theme from Dvorak's New World Symphony, and I also sang.  It went really well!

Skating has gone quite well, I have found a freestyle and a figures coach and with lots of convenient ice time available I have been skating quite a lot, preparing for my first competition since PCAS '08 next month (Cactus Classic).

I have been back to Oregon a number of times.  I am back about once a month for work, for meetings and facetime with my team.  Those trips are usually a one day up-and-back on the Intel shuttle -- pretty tiring but worthwhile.  I was up for a weekend in December for the Oregon Chorale concert and also the holiday show at SIA -- it was great to see my homies skating!  Then I was up for a weekend in early May and also early June, the last for the Oregon Chorale 25th anniversary concert.  It was terrific, and the Chorale invited alums to sing 3 songs for the occasion which was really great.  They are such an amazing group!  I will be up in August again for a figures competition and some hangin' with the homies.

I will try to post more often and I know I need to fix the comments on this blog.  I'll see what I can do.