Update for 12/24/2017

Worship team

🙂

Sunday the Advent Orchestra had its performance. I thought it turned out well. By that point my tone was pretty good, and I hit most of the notes cleanly. And the songs took turns getting stuck in my head.

I wish I had the endurance to play my part exactly, but when you only play about once a year, high notes take a toll. So to pace myself through the run-through and two services, I wrote some lower parts to play in the spots where my music wandered up to high Fs and Gs. I ended up improvising a little too. It made me wonder what an orchestral jam session would be like.

I also thought a little about what I could do to get myself to play the horn more. I don’t know if I want to join a performing group, but maybe I can find some music to play on my own with recordings.

Movies

😎

On Sunday Tim and I watched The Last Jedi. 5/5. I think it helped I didn’t have many expectations. I agree with Film Critic Hulk that the film represents a new, broader direction for the series and that this is a good thing.

The other movie I watched last week is in the next section.

Christmas

Here are some highlights from last week’s segment of my Christmas vacation.

Monday

🙂

My flight was on Tuesday, but I took Monday off too so I’d have more time to pack and such. Plus I’ve always liked the idea of tacking some staycation days onto a vacation. I still stayed up late to finish some technology setup, but at least I wasn’t packing in a panic.

Tuesday

🙂

My flight to Texas was on United. They’ve improved their overbooking system. The check-in kiosk asked if I’d volunteer to take a later flight for an additional voucher, so to be nice to my fellow passengers I said yes, but it turned out they didn’t need me.

Wednesday

🤔

Wednesday my siblings and I took our customary walk down some residential streets. We had an interesting time observing the styles of the homes and decorations in the area. We also found this strange object.

12/20/17. A strange box on a tree we came across while my sister and brother and I were out on a walk. What is it? The bark is glued on with some kind of goop.

A post shared by Andy Culbertson (@thinkulum) on Dec 28, 2017 at 12:26am PST

Thursday

🙂

Thursday the family had our annual movie outing. This year it was The Man Who Invented Christmas, about Charles Dickens’ writing of A Christmas Carol and its connections with his life. The film was funny, had beautiful sets, and gave an interesting look at the creative process.

That night we started on a 1000-piece puzzle, “Trimming the Tree” by Terry Redlin. We worked on it rather intensely over the next few days. It was fun, but the parts covered by words on the box cover were annoying.

My sister and I gave the game Once Upon a Time another shot, this time joined by our mom. We threw in our two cents, but our mom won rather handily. I was pleased that my part of the story was simpler than the one I tried to tell at Thanksgiving.

Friday

🙂

Friday I accompanied my dad to the cafe where he’s a regular to pick up Sunday’s breakfast pastry. On the way back he told me about the remarkable doughnut shop group he’s a part of. It’s like something out of a novel or a movie, a bunch of older men who meet there daily and chat. This kind of thing.

After that we had a nice time all trekking out to divide and conquer the grocery store. It turns out a family vacation requires a lot of groceries, and we wanted to conserve our mother’s energy. It was over in a jiffy too, after we took some time to split up the shopping list and make sure we understood it.

Saturday

😉

Saturday night we watched Spider-Man: Homecoming. It was a rewatch for me, and it confirmed that I really do like that movie. While that was going on, I continued work on a secret project that will be revealed in the next update!