Finally found the New York Cupcakes store in downtown Seattle. Yeah…
Not bad, but not up to par with Trophy Cupcakes in Wallingford. In fact, even second-tier Cupcake Royale beats out NYC, if just for the selection of flavors. New York Cupcakes is just straight up cakier and boring-er. Give me a peanut-butter-and-jelly cupcake from Trophy over New York Cupcakes’ signature black-and-white any day.
I got to play with a steel drum group for the first time last night. It was a blast.
The sound of the steel drum just makes me feel so happy. They’re expensive, but I want to get my own instrument just to play around on.
It’s definitely a challenge, though. I’m musical, but we’re not reading music. It’s listen, memorize, play it back. And I’ve got to learn polyrhythms – my homework for this week is to be able to walk to the beat while clapping a syncopated calypso rhythm with my hands and singing a different syncopated rhythm.
This is new to me. There’s not a whole lot of polyrhythm in classical clarinet music.
I’m so excited. Between guitar, bagpipes, and steel drums, I’ve got plenty to keep me busy.
My neighbor: “blah blah blah my bagpipes”
Me: “Wait, you’ve got bagpipes?!”
My neighbor: “Sure. They’re in the basement. I don’t really play them anymore. Wait, let me go get them.”
I’ve always wanted to learn to play the bagpipes, though I never thought I’d actually go through with it. I guess it was fate.
I’ve already been through a rollercoaster of emotions. First, really excited, then really discouraged at how hard it was to get a tone out of the chanter. But then I found out there’s only about twelve notes to learn to finger. Twelve notes! I’ll be playing bagpipes by next week.
Oh, and today’s my first steel drum class. Life is so good.
I need to name my business. I’m going to networking events, getting clients, scheduling speaking engagements, and I don’t even have business cards. Business cards and a web presence are now top priority for me.
I came up with a number of possibilities for naming my business. In the old days, I’d ask friends, or post on my blog, or even get a focus group – but now there’s Google AdWords. All I have to do is throw the possibilities up on Google AdWords, see what company name gets the best clickthroughs, and I’m set.
Let the voting begin!
You can take a ball of mud and polish it until it has the sheen of marble. These are utterly amazing. Who knew?
