We're in New York!

Well here I am blogging from the Super 8 in Syracuse, NY.
Joshua, Joseph and I made the trip out here today with Aaron England, Ethan Webb, and Luke VonHolten. Here are some pictures from the trip out.

We left home today at about 3:00am. Here's a picture of everyone in the back of the Suburban just after we left home.

On the way out we decided to take a little detour to see Niagara Falls. Here's a picture of the rapids leading up to the falls.

Part of the falls.

More of the falls.

DHL, Amilio Del Rosario, and Baseball.

What does DHL, Amilio Del Rosario, and Baseball all have in common?

They're all in this Blog entry! Read on to hear more about each of them.

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What could I be getting from DHL? Hmm...

Wow! All for me?

Earlier this week, I received a 860 page invoice from DHL for $121,011.72! Fortunately there was already a $93,327.07 deduction, so the net amount due was only $26,889.71. But still, I wanted to know what I shipped that cost so much! So, I started to look over the invoice.

Well, that's not quite how it went, but before I explain what did happen, let me give a little background.

At the beginning of April I sold a gas powered R/C Airplane with a 50" wingspan on eBay. Because it was so large, and also because airplanes are delicate toys, I had to ship it in a VERY LARGE box with lots of padding. The box was one of those U-Haul wardrobe boxes, about four and a half feet tall, and about three feet side to side. After the auction was over I contacted UPS about shipping, only to find out that it would cost me about $110 to ship! So I contacted FedEx, which was about $75. Still not happy, I contacted DHL. They only charged $17, so I decided to ship with them (OBVIOUSLY). Anyway, I never received an invoice (which is how I thought I was set-up to be billed), so I finally called DHL last week and asked for the invoice to be "re"-sent.

So it was with this history in mind that I opened the invoice this week. As you can imagine, I thought someone had either hi-jacked my account, or else there was some major mix-up with DHL. So I grabbed the phone and called DHL. They asked for the invoice number, so I gave it to them. The next thing I heard was "Oh, you shouldn't have gotten that!" I said: "So I don't have to pay any of this?" They said, "No you don't" (It was like pulling teeth to get any info from them). I asked "So, what is this?" They said, "You got the complete records of all the people that shipped like you did, over the internet". So (still wanting to make sure I was getting it straight) I asked, "So, I wasn't supposed to get this?" They said, "No, the bill-to address says 'Do Not Use, 515 W G----- Rd, etc...". I asked "So what should I do with this?" They said "Oh, you can just discard it".

I was ok with that, certainly a lot more ok than paying the $26,889.71, but I wonder how much UPS would pay for these records. :) I bet DHL was thinking PLEASE DISCARD THAT!

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As many of you know, our neighbor across the street from us (Jacob Bernhardt) is a very fine pianist. Over the past year he has started taking lessons from Amilio Del Rosario. This Monday I received a phone call from my piano teacher (Mrs. Bendorf) asking if I would be interested in sitting in on one of Jacob's lessons! Of course I was thrilled with the opportunity, both for the purpose of what I might be able to learn in my own piano playing, and also for what I could glean from a teaching stand-point. So last Thursday I spent the afternoon in Winnetka, IL sitting in on the lesson. It was great! I was especially happy that they were working on one of Chopin's sonatas! I was able to glean some pretty neat stuff about interpreting Chopin (my favorite composer for piano).


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Last night our family went over to MilkyWay Park where we got together with some families for a game of baseball. The first game went well. The teams were very even, and at first I thought we were going to lose, but then we rearranged our field positions and we ended up winning 13 to 8! The second game was Fathers and Daughters vs. Sons. The sons won 6 to 4. Here are some pictures from the evening.

5-19 Update

"Update", what a boring title for a blog post! Aren't all blog posts updates? Oh well...

The past week since the McDonald family left, has been a busy one. Although it hasn't been busy enough to have us five places at once, it has kept us moving from one thing to the next without much in between. Here's a quick overview of some of the "blog worthy" items.

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First (and even before the McDonalds left) was a Scholarship Audition at Rock Valley College on Tuesday, May 9th. I missed the official registration deadline (I had the wrong dates) but when I did call Rock Valley College, they were still able to squeeze me in! So, on Monday the audition time was confirmed, and on Tuesday I got to perform. Fortunately I had a full 15-piece program already prepared for the National Piano-Playing Guild Auditions, so I didn't have any problem finding music for the Scholarship Audition. The audition went well, and the judges appeared to be pleased. The choir director was there, so he did some voice exercises with me to see if the choir would be something I could join as well as accompany on the piano for some pieces. The results have not been announced yet, so I'm not sure what the result will be.

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On the evening of Saturday the 13th, Joanna, Joshua and I went to an Opera (La Bohéme) that I was given tickets to for my birthday. It was at the Coronado Theater in Rockford. I didn't know what going to an opera would be like, but I am pleased to say that it was great! The Coronado Theater was beautiful, and the music was gorgeous. I certainly hope to go again. Here are a few pictures of the theater.

The view from our seats. (Unobstructed during the performance).

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On Monday the 15th, I finished up a small engine job that I was doing on a tractor. The tractor was a 1983 Cub Cadet 582 Special (by International Harvester). Being as old as it was, it was built like a tank, and was very cool. I enjoyed working on it, and I was also very glad that we could use it to mow most of our lawn before the owner picked it up. Here is a picture of Josiah riding it around the yard at Jeremy's house (we mowed his lawn with it also).

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Yesterday, May 18th was the National Piano-Playing Guild Audition that I mentioned earlier. It was held at McHenry County College. This year's program was much bigger for me than normal (15 pieces) because I was going for the High School Diploma that the Guild offers if you complete this program. The piano wasn't anything incredible, but my performance for the judge went very well. There were a few glitches, but somehow you'd hardly guess it by looking at the judge's comments. Praise the Lord!

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Last (actually first chronologically) but not least, was the 1st anniversary of the purchase of my beautiful Kawai Grand Piano on May 7th 2005. I praise the Lord for providing this excellent piano, within my price range, and at such a perfect time. I don't think I could have accomplished much of what I did this year, if I didn't have it. Here are a few pictures from when we picked it up.

On the way down.

We made it to the ground! Still in one piece.

In the truck at last!

Thanks again Jeremy, Joshua, Joseph and Luke VonHolten for the extreme amount of work that you all put into safely transporting the piano down the 3 1/2 stories into the truck, and then up the porch into our house.

The McDonald's Visit

Ok, I've been told by a few friends that this is illegal, but I'm going to do it anyway.

What am I going to do?

It's the dreadful thing of linking to another blog about an event! I apologize, but I wrote the post on the other blog anyway, so maybe that helps.

Click here if you'd like to read about the time that we had with the McDonald family, while they were in town. It was a blast!

The Truck I Want So Bad...

Today I was going through pictures on our computer, and I came across some pictures from a lawn maintenance job that I did a few years ago, which involved a truck that I would really like to have.



Here is a picture of the hedge that we had to trim from about 9'-10' tall, down to 3 1/2' tall. Needless to say, there was an immense amount of branches left in one huge/long pile, running the entire length of the hedge. Luke VonHolten and I were trimming branches, while Joseph hauled them in the trailer of the lawn tractor. As the end of the afternoon was approaching, I told Joseph to stop hauling, and help trim, so that we could make sure that we at least got all of the bushes trimmed by dark. Well, we got the hedge trimmed, and it was just barely getting dark, so we went back to the tractor, to start hauling... It wouldn't start... Bummer!

I asked the owner of the place if we could use his blue truck to haul the branches. He said we could, but he didn't know if it'd start or not because he hadn't used it in a long time.


I went out to the truck and started cranking the engine. I cranked... And I cranked... Until all of a sudden it started to fire intermittently. This is when I realized how much fun this truck was going to be to drive! When it finally got to the point that it could stay running on it's own, I had to keep the gas pedal all the way to the floor so that it wouldn't die. Amidst the noisy rumble of the engine, and the great clouds of smoke being emitted from the back of the truck, Luke VonHolten and Joseph looked on with some of the biggest grins I've ever seen. It reminded me of a scene from the movie "The Flight of the Phoenix". Eventually I was able to take my foot off the gas pedal, and it had a beautiful sounding idle. I put it in gear and it died. For some reason Luke and Joseph found this hilarious. Grateful that I wasn't limited to five cartridges, I started it back up and helped it out a little with some throttle. To make a long story short, we started hauling branches in the back of the pickup, but it wasn't all to fast so Luke suggested the plow. At first I said no, but then I decided we'd give it a try. By now it was dark and we were working by the light of the headlights. There was one problem here, when we started using the plow it blocked the headlights so I couldn't see where I was going. So Luke climbed on the top of the cab to give me directions. It worked beautifully. With Luke on top shouting directions, the pile soon started rolling up like a big snowball, and before long we were pushing a huge-dense roll of branches (possibly twice the height of the truck) towards the fire pit.



I don't think I've ever cleaned up so many bushes so fast, or had so much fun doing it.