Eclectic Eccentricities - in other words yet more rambling 8)

Wow what a weekend.  On Friday many of my co-workers at the "widget factory" were running around freaking out about the snow to come.  I would get accumulation prediction updates on the quarter hour.  By the end of the day i was getting pretty annoyed and began acting like a sarcastic Chicken Little. Probably not the best Christian response i know, but i really believe such hysteria is what contributes to such poor driving and panic shopping that drive most of us crazy.  I still remember some morning-drive DJ's from the 80's (Don & Mike if memory serves - from WAVA 105.1 (now a Christian music station)), poking fun at the Washington DC metro drives and would "urge" everyone to go out and buy bread, milk and toilet paper before the shelves were cleared of such commodities.  Well, i had to apologize on Monday... there really was a lot of snow.

This past weekend my beloved and i took the family out of town for a mini-vacation of sorts.  What a mess we came back to. I had invited my friend RAM over to watch the Sunday Night football game ~ the Panthers versus the Minnesota Vikings, but after arriving home on Sunday afternoon and seeing how bad the roads were between the interstate and my house we felt it better for him to not come over.  In the end i was glad he didn't come over.  1) He is a Vikings fan and the Panthers had a really good fourth quarter, 2) and i was concerned for the road conditions.  He probably would have come over if i had asked him to.  But for me, as a Carolina Panthers fan, it was nice to see the Panthers win a prime-time game at least once this season! It was sort of a Christmas present.  8)

With all of the snow and the change in my schedule i was at a loss as to what i was going to do for my Music Monday offering.  On Sunday, on my way home, one of my coworkers calls me up and asks to take Thursday off (i am sort of the team lead).  This would mean that i would have to work that day (i had already scheduled that day as a "use-it-or-lose-it" vacation day.  So in order for it to all work out i took yesterday off so that he could have Thursday... well, that totally threw me off. So, this morning i had two old classics that i've probably used before, but as i was catching up on my blog reading i read about the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. This is what inspired me at my fellow ADD blogger:

In 2007, one of their members, Mark Wood (a graduate of Juilliard), came to our county and combined the orchestra members of all of the counties elementary, middle and high schools and put together a concert that is still talked about today. The schools had been individually practicing the pieces for 2 months. The idea was to teach kids that "Orchestra Rocks".  Afterwards he signed autographs and posed with each kid for a picture.

 To me that was just too cool.  I also really like their music which helps, and even though i've already used this song once this year... i just had to put in TSO's version.

Despite the brutal defeat of the New Orleans Saints by the Dallas Cowboys on Saturday, i am still a rider on the 2009 Band wagon.  Geaux Saints!  One thing i noticed on Sunday night is that i enjoy the games when i am really unconcerned with the results.  I mean, eleven out of twelve teams that make it to the post season end their year with a losing game.  So, even though the Panthers have nothing left to play for, and i am rooting for the Saints to go all the way, i still want the Panthers to win on January 3rd, and i will not lose a lot of sleep if the Saints don't come back to the Superdome with the Lambardi Trophy.