December Coffeehouse

So tonight was our December Coffeehouse. In all I performed in three songs. The first was Santa Claus is Coming to Town, the second was the Grinch, and the third was Frosty the Snowman with the ukulele club.

I played the banjo ukulele for all three songs. I will include links to the first two songs, however we absolutely butchered Frosty and I deleted it from the camera. Nobody needs to ever see that.
I will also include a link to the teachers performing another song. It is REM's "End of the World". While I am not in this, they did a great job and it felt very apropriate considering the date.

so here they are:

Santa Claus is Coming to Town: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCPSbRcbrtI

The Grinch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8bfnto7R1A

End of the World: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVCVQCQDhjI

Graduation

On a good note, this weekend Beth finished her Masters program and was able to graduate at a nice commencement ceremony at UVM. I am so proud of her and I know that she has worked extremely hard for this. We were able to enjoy the ceremony with Beth's parents who visited and we enjoyed spending quality time together. It will be nice to get some down time with Beth now that we don't have to worry about getting homework done. I will post some pictures from graduation at a later date.

Newtown

Newtown is in my thoughts and prayers at this time. It is too hard and could in no way reflect on all the memories, and emotions I have been going through these past three days. I will simply say at this time that it is surreal to think that the President of the United States was in my high school, speaking on the stage that I was on every day for 4 years, consoling children and families in the band room where I stored my euphonium and practiced. I wish he had visited for a different reasons and I pray for the families directly affected. I selfishly thank God that my direct friends did not have children that were injured, although there are definately a few connections to my class which is only expected given the size and make-up of this community.

Alaska

It's not often that Vermont and especially the next town over is the lead story in the Anchorage Daily Newspaper. Too bad it's for this. This is extremely creepy. The disappearance of the Curriers was a huge mystery up here until a few months ago when the news reported the suspect was in jail. Now that this has happened we are hearing more and more. It is scary how random things like this hit so close to home sometimes. RIP to the families involved.

http://www.adn.com/2012/12/03/2711884/keyes-described-as-a-force-of.html

Civic Duty

Voted today!!! Yes.

Coffeehouse

The coffeehouse went well tonight. We started with our cover of Mumford and Son's song Little Lion Man and then later the ukulele club played I'm Yours by Jason Mraz.

In the first song the camera messed up so it didn't film the start but that's okay. Here's the
link: Little Lion Man

In the second song Chris and I play with one of my AP Chem students who also does vocals. Unfortunately Evan the Music director was back near Beth when filming and he was talking through the whole performance.... sorry. Here is a link: I'm Yours

Coffeehouse and other stuff

     Sandy has hit and thank goodness there was very little impact at our house. It is horrifying looking at what it has done and the current impact it is having on many places in the United States. My Connecticut friends on facebook have been without school all week and gas is getting more difficult for them to find. At least most of them have still got power and the trees that fell didn't do too much damage.
     We are also very happy for my Uncle John who is home and recovering well. We wish him luck on his efforts to quit smoking. That must be a nightmare.
     Halloween was a good one at the Richey household as we were able to get about 20 to 25 trick or treaters. While most were children in costume, there were a few that were teens out looking for trouble. We heard multiple m-80's going off at around 8:00 to 8:30 near our house, but our mailbox was not a target. It reminded me of Newtown growing up and how the cabbage night and halloween night antics were so prevalent. We have been pretty lucky that this has been all but absent over the years here in Vt.
     Now on to the good news. Tonight is the Fall Coffeehouse and I am planning on playing. My initial goal was to play mandolin on one song with the other teachers, however the chords are really difficult for me to master in the time needed so I will be playing my ukulele instead. Since I have my uke out anyways, I will be also playing with the second performance of the CHS Ukulele "club". I did not play with this club for their first performance in the last coffeehouse because, honestly, I didn't know they were starting that night. I am debating whether to play my normal Uke or to play the banjo uke. It will probably be the normal uke though.

This is the poster for this month's coffeehouse. The girl who is doing the artwork is one of my AP Chem students and she is doing a fantastic job. I particularly like the "hands" in the steam.

Here was the poster from the first coffeehouse this year:

I hope to have Beth film these performances and will get them up on my youtube channel as soon as I can.