February 21st, 2009 Scott
Today is Gina’s birthday and we booked a whale watching tour for the day. The humpback whales from Alaska come here to mate and spawn and can be seen from January – March. Booking a tour is risky though because the weather can cause cancellations. Almost worse though, is bad swell and good weather. We had a beautiful sunny, low wind day. However, the swell was at 10 -15 feet high (the other whale watching boats would completely disappear from sight in the swell), which made for about 15 or so of our 60 passenger on our boat abruptly review their breakfasts as they got seasick from the waves. I’m glad I took my Dramamine and picked a safe stable spot low in the back of the boat to sit. Many people were up on the flying bridge which I know is a bad spot to be if you are susceptible to seasickness.
We motored out of Naha due West toward the Karema Islands and found the pod shortly there after. We watched them surface once every 10 minutes or so with about 6 other boats of people at very close range. Once in a great while, a whale would suface enough to get the classic look of the tail fin coming completely clear of the water. These animals are massive! To be this close to them was a fairly cool experience.
We stayed about an hour longer then necessary and came back in after about 3 hours on the boat. It costs us about $50 each which included a bus ride to the marina from the base where we booked the tour. A good day was had, but I doubt I’ll do it again soon.
"Pirate III" or "Pilot III" depending on the translation
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February 15th, 2009 Scott
Our Japanese lessons have been going well. A couple of weeks ago, we officially finished the Survival Japanese curriculum. Now we have actually started learning verbs other than ‘to be’. I can now say the following verbs in Japanese:
to:
change clothes
brush teeth
wash
sleep
wake
have
study
work
pay
buy
use
make
wait
eat
drink
read
snore
take a bath
take a shower
I was actually able to ask “Do you have a small refrigerator?” in the store the other day. Even better, I could understand the answer.
One Little Victory.
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February 15th, 2009 Scott
A group of triathletes have gotten together to form a time trial series here on the Monday’s of three day weekends. I missed the first one, but the next one is tomorrow morning at Camp Hansen, the base just north of where I live. It’s a 9 mile 2 lap course and I feel pretty good with my recent training. I’m light and in shape, but it’s all been base miles so it’ll be interesting to see what my top end power looks like. Also, today was the ‘long run’ day so my legs will likely be a little shot from that but I took the tempo down in an effort to do a little better tomorrow. I’ll let you know how it turns out.
I ended up 13 seconds out of first place and only 4 seconds out of second place. I could’ve won if I’d just payed more attention during the pre-ride and not missed my turns! Argh! Someday I’ll win one of these.
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February 7th, 2009 Scott
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February 5th, 2009 Scott
I’ve been neglecting entries in the blog again. It’s that crazy Facebook stuff combined with Far East Auditions, Japanese lessons and my first real training program for over a year combining to create little down time. Of course, when I do get downtime I rarely want to spend it front of a computer so the blog gets relegated to the bottom of the stack.
Far East Honor Band is an event that’s held the third week of April each year somewhere in the Pacific Region of DoDDS. It’s held in the same location for two consecutive years and then moves on to another school to host. Last year and this year it is at Yokota Air Base in Tokyo. The 14 DoDDS high schools in the Pacific Region can send auditions via mp3 files to the regional arts director who then arranges to have the tapes sorted into a ranked order. Then, depending on the budget and the constraints of the host school, the size of the band, choir, string orchestra, and jazz band are determined and the top students that fit into that number are invited to participate. For our students, that means a flight off island to mainland Japan. Leaving the island for a week is a big deal. It’s cool that it’s in Tokyo, but we really don’t get any time to do anything off base. The week is filled with 8 hour rehearsals capped with a concert on Friday night and we return to Okinawa on Saturday morning. I’m usually wasted by the end of the week because of supervising students for 24 hours a day combined with running rehearsals and sectionals gets tiresome. We don’t hire outside adjudicators. We share the directing and rehearsing chores amongst the directors from the school. There are always more band teachers than pieces to perform so each year some teachers sit out. This year, I am helping with the jazz band. Last year was the first time they had a jazz band and I am looking forward to working with that group this year. I submitted 33 auditions and hope to have 18+ make it. Last year we had 16 make it with 10 more as alternates. Seoul American High School from Korea always has the most students attend, even though they are not necessarily the largest school. They have quality students and a quality music program there. Perhaps someday I’ll get as many students in as they do.
We host it the next two years starting in 2010. That’s a bummer for our students because they no longer have the chance to get “off island” for the week. It’s also a ton of work for the choir director and I to organize the event. I think it’s Guam or Korea’s turn to host. Guam never has and Korea hasn’t for over 20 years. Kadena (my school) hosted it five years ago.
I recorded all of my students doing the audition and this took many hours after school since the start of the new calendar year. My recording software showed over 670 individual takes for 68 auditions. From those, I pulled the best 33 that have a shot at making it. We’ll find out in a few weeks whether they make it in or not.
The entire thing is much like an All-State Band back in the states, except on a smaller scale so the level of musicianship isn’t as high. It’s more like a league honor band in that respect. It’s the best from 14 high schools.
I’m on my second week of coach driven training. I hired a coach and he is setting up my training via an on line calendar. It’s been really really good for me. He alternates the hard/easy workouts in such a way that I always feel fresh for the next workout. He also has taken the boredom out of swimming by breaking it down into interesting sets. My running has improved dramatically at lower hear rates and my endurance in the pool is coming up. I still have a long way to go to get to that 2:15:00 Olympic Distince finish though. I’m registered for the Ishigaki Tri at the end of spring break in April. That’s not quite enough time to be in top form, but I think I’ll be better than last year with training and experience I have now.
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