Way Overdue!!!!

Ok, so I know that I am way behind in publishing an update, but this is the busiest time of the school year for me - finishing concerts, collecting all of the instruments, and doing my recruiting for next year - plus with the holiday weekend we have been pretty busy. Luckily we had the camera, so here we go...

Living in the national capitol has some perks. Just across the border into Virginia is the Wolftrap National Park for the Performing Arts. It is an outdoor amphitheater that has performances throughout the summer. Things there usually cost a lot, but on Sunday The Marine Band was playing a free concert. The concert started at 8:00pm, and the gates opened at 6:30pm, so we arrived at around 5:45pm and the place was PACKED!! I have to give some props to the Park Rangers who were working to get all of the cars and people in. They were well organized, efficient and really on the ball.

Owen had fallen asleep on the drive there, which was good because it was going to be a late night, and no one likes a cranky 3 year old. (No one likes cranky 31 year olds either. What to know what makes me angry? Toll Roads - see below.)

It was an incredibly beautiful day, and as you can barely see, this line goes all the way off the picture. I didn't take a picture of the line behind us, it was almost twice as long!!

Owen was out cold, which didn't make it any easier to carry all of our stuff, since he was now listed as one of the items that we needed to carry. (But again...happy 3 year olds = win!)

Owen finaly woke up (yep, that is how long we stood in line, not moving) and was a little confused as to what was going on, until he saw the picnic basket, which led to this exchange with his mother:
Owen: "Oh, we are going on a picnic."
Beki: "Why are we going on a picnic?"
Owen: "Because we have a picnic basket!"

That is good "man logic". "We have a picnic basket, therefore we must go on a picnic!" That fits right up there with the better known "I have clubs, therefore I must play golf," its close cousin "I have a pole, therefore I must fish," and the socially unaceptable, "I have an itch, therefore I must scratch!" Of course these all pale in comparison to the great mantra of female logic, "I breathe, therefore I must shop!"

Anyway, here is the boy just after his profound statement!

Eventualy (Again, props to the Park Service because the gates opened right at 6:30) the line did start moving and we entered the ampitheater. It looked as if we were an hour late, there were people everywhere. This was not going to be one of your "have a little grass between the nearest balnket and us," type of evenings. At this point there was an important choice to be made. We could fight our way down to get a place with a view of the band, or we could push through to a place that would provide us with a better view of the fireworks. Now, as a famous - or infamous ("Ah, Dusty! Infamous is when you're more than famous!") president once said, "I am the Decider," so I chose the spot with the fireworks, because when your 3, a bunch of people with shiny uniforms is cool, but fireworks blow your mind!

So sometimes when you are trying to take pictures of events with the boy, you have to do a little posing. He was not interested in having his picture taken, he was interested in eating the fruit salad.

Eventually we got him situated, and everyone was happy!

The camera can never manage to fully grasp the awesomeness of the Cheeto-Face!!

The band finaly came out, and the concert began!

Now, as I am sure that you are aware, I am a band teacher. I love band music. The Marine Band is pretty much THE BAND in the band world, so I was very happy to be there. (I must also brag and remind you that I am friends with one of the Tuba Players!! We are such geeks that we spent almost 2 hours in his basement a couple of weeks ago listening to awesome tuba music and looking at the folder for this concert and the cd recording they are doing this year. SUPERGEEK)

What really made my day about this entire experiance wasn't how much I enjoyed the band, it was watching the boy totaly rock out!! They played some lively marches - duh, they are the Marine Band, the one that was led by John Philip Sousa - and the boy was clapping, dancing, pretending to play the bass drum, and just generally beimng silly. Which proved a couple of points to me.

1. Music is awesome and naturaly makes us want to move and express ourselves.

2. Good Music makes children silly - this explains everyone who has ever witnessed high school/middle school band rehearsal.

3. Good Music + Alchohol makes old people silly - this explains the behavior of everyone else at the concert!

4. If my 3 year old son with no musical training can find the beat, why in the name of all that is holy, can't my percussionists?!?!

Here is when the music started. He was just incredibly happy and excited!

Then he stood up and started hitting his coloring book like it was a bass drum.

Then he added sound effects while playing his "bass drum."

Then things got really silly and Mommy and Owen started being funny!

And we then reached the climax, where he jumps on papa and starts punching him!

Stop! You must not Hop on Pop!

The boy did calm down a bit when they started to play some less catchy music - thankfully we had plenty of coloring books and trains! He did get excited for the end of the 1812 Overture, and he really liked the clapping in Stars and Stripes Forever. Once the concert was over we watched all the people who had sat down below shuffle out to find a place to watch the fireworks, while we just stayed put.

Family Photo before the fireworks!

I must say that one thing that they know how to do here - besides taxing the hell out of you - is firework shows. I guess when it is on the taxpayers dime you really don't have to spare any expense, and it was fantastic! The grand finale had to have as many fireworks as the rest of the 20 minute show. It was a giant sky full of color!

We had thought that getting out of the parking lot would take forever - but again the Park Rangers were fantastic - and we got out of there in no time, we thought that we would be back home before 11pm. All was well, until someone decided to crash their car on the freeway (more on this later). So in the end it was pretty late when we got home. We got Owen in his pj's, and then went about cleaning up our picnic. When we finished we noticed that we hadn't seen the boy...this is where we found him:

He had crawled into our bed and was out cold!!

The next day was Memorial Day, which, in addition to being a time to give thanks to the men and women who have sacrificed to keep this great country free, was a very important day in the Renberg household. My wife has become quite good at motivating me to do specific projects around the house. In this case she did not like the little fireplace/smokebox that we had out back, and wanted me to get rid of it. She told me that if I made it go away, that in its place I could get an outdoor grill. There are a lot of bricks in the fireplace/smokebox, and I didn't want to waste them, so I came up with my own clever project.

Public Enemy #1

The fireplace, not the children

With some help from the missionaries (I believe the conversation went like"Hey Elders, you want to come hit some bricks with a sledge hammer?" "Why yes, I believe we do!") we turned the fireplace/smokebox into a terrace wall in the front yard.

The Great Wall of Renberg!

Hail to the Victor! I would like to point out that even though I really wanted the expensive one, I was quite sensible and bought an economical grill.

We had our dinner outside, which Owen thought was great...

Especially when he discovered the drive through window!!!

Chowing down!!

!!! Warning: Angry Rant!!!

The Beltway is the third worst commute in the country according to TheDailyBeast.com, so unless you live in Honolulu or L.A. you are going to have to listen to my angry ranting about driving here!

The first thing that ticks me off about driving here are toll roads. They are everywhere here, usually on the roads that actually get you places. I understand that they say that you have to pay a toll to pay for building the road, but then I think to myself - "Wait a second, I pay ridiculous amounts of property tax, sales tax, income tax, and gasoline tax. How is it that I am being taxed again (because that is what a toll is...it is a tax) to use something that I am already paying taxes for?

The second thing that you need to know is the freeway hierarchy on the Beltway. There are 4 lanes on the Beltway and the speed limit technically is 55 mph. The unwritten lane breakdown goes like this:

Far Right Lane - Tree Hugging Hippies in their "environmentally friendly" hybrids (Which when you factor in the increase in your car payment and compare it to the small amount of gas savings, is actually more expensive then your normal car), tow trucks, sissies, Old People, and people waiting to exit - Speeds between 45-50 mph. (Yes, that is right, the right lane doesn't even go the speed limit.)

Middle Right Lane - Local Truckers, Minivans, School Busses, and people waiting to exit - Speeds between 50 - 55 mph. (I am not kidding about the people waiting to exit from the second lane, this happens all of the time!)

Middle Left Lane - National Tuckers, Tour Coaches, and most regular cars - Speeds between 55 - 65 mph.

Far Left Lane - Cops, Luxury Cars, Sports Cars, and one Silver Hyundai Sante Fe - Speeds between 65 - 80 mph. (People rarely drive over 80, but of course there are exceptions.)

You will notice that the cops are driving 80 in a 55. Like most things in D.C. the rules are just guidelines to be broken! The only way that you will get pulled over on the freeway is if you are weaving in and out of lanes. Now as long as everyone sticks to this, things go smooth, unfortunately all it takes is one person hanging out in the wrong lane to cause serious traffic back-up. Yet the bozo driving 50 in the left lane seems oblivious to all of the cars going around them, which then creates the situation where the left lane is moving at 50, while the middle left lane is moving at 80, and the right 2 lanes at 45...Good Times!

Last thing about driving - I think that how a person drives shows a lot about what kind of person they are. You know that guy who drives up in the turn lane in traffic and then cuts in front of you? Chances are it isn't just when driving that he is a jerk. If I were in charge of hiring people for a big company, rather than having an interview, I would just have them drive around town and get a feel for what kind of person they are.

Final Rant...

I try not to get to Political, but I am getting sick of politics. Today our fearless leader spent the morning praising the latest job report from the Labor Department as proof that the economy is recovering. By this evening the stock market had crapped out. Now, what does this tell us? It tells us that as a country we are sick and tired of our leaders pissing on our heads and then telling us it is raining. Everyone knows that 95% of the new jobs are temporary census jobs. Everyone knows that the Census has been firing and rehiring people to inflate their numbers. Stop telling us that the stimulus created or saved millions of jobs - you can't prove that, and even if it did create/save 3 million jobs, it did that at a cost of $262,000 per job. (That is way more than I make...I want one of those jobs!)

I am sick of one side of congress not wanting to do anything because they want the other side to fail. I am tired of the other side of congress coming up with bills that are designed not to help the country, but to force the other side into difficult political voting situations.

I am sick of people trying to place blame for the oil spill on each other. Lots of people failed to do all they could have, but at the end of the day, it was an accident, and 11 people died. There are 3858 wells in the US section of the Gulf of Mexico. There was an accident on one of them. It is a tragedy, but it was an accident. Nobody intentionally blew up the well, and the government isn't intentionally letting it get out of hand so that they can take over the industry. Lets get over the political gamesmanship and get down to fixing the problem.

I am sick of people thinking that just because they say something loud enough, it must be true. You can yell all you want that Israel boarding ships in International waters is illegal, but the truth is that they have every legal right to board a vessel that has intentions to go through a blockade. Blockades are perfectly legal by the way. I am sick of people acting surprised when they attack soldiers with pipes and chains and they get shot.

As you can see, there is a lot that I am sick of...like this rant. /end rant