Studying, Piano Lessons, and Remembering Childhood Piano Practicing

Text Book for Piano Class

I have enrolled in a piano class this semester.  We recently received the piano from Carries' parents.  It is very similar to the piano I used when I was young.

The book we are using in the class is the "PianoLab: An Introduction to Class Piano".  I almost forgot I had to order the book as I had checked on the class before the semester started, but did not see the book listed.  I checked again this past weekend and realized I could find the book listed under "Find My Books" of our campus portal.  Sure enough, there was the book listed for the class.  A few short Amazon searches and we had a book in-route to our house for class that started Wednesday night.

When I was young, I took piano for many years.  I took the Suzuki method of piano.  I started in grade school and from what I remember I took it all the way through junior high.  In fact, when Carrie asked me how long I took lessons, I think I told her it was for 12 years.  That might have been an exaggeration... it just felt like it went on forever.  With the Suzuki style of piano, I did not learn to read any music.  It was all memorization.  Well, at least through the first couple of years of lessons.  I think at some point, the lessons did try and teach us to read music, but being a kid, it was not something I was too interested in learning.

Mom and I had a lot of "fun" learning new pieces.  Of course, she struggled to get me to practice and then we struggled through my memorization of the piece.  I remember my dad being in the family room watching TV while mom and I struggled through lessons for the night.  I am sure dad enjoyed hearing the piano played while he was trying to watch TV.  My mom recalls at a summer workshop that I was attending that the teachers finally realized after years of my taking lessons that I could not read music.  I think I blocked that out as I do not remember it at all... or the ability to read music!

So, I have started this new class.  We had our first class, as I mentioned, on Wednesday night.  We are starting with the basics.  Posture, hands, keys, how the peddles work, and much more.  This was all on our first night of class.  We have homework to do for our next class Monday night.  It did bring back memories of some of the Saturday morning workshops with my piano teacher when I was little. Memories of going through treble and bass and trying to memorize the lines and spaces.  Memories of the "Every Good Boy Does Fine" or Good Boys Do Fine Always" to help you remember those lines and spaces on the treble and bass clef.  Ah, the memories when I was young and not caring whether I learned it or not.  Not, the goal is to learn how to read music and then be able to sit down and play at a piano from any book that I pick up.  Now, I am not saying I want to be able to sit down and play perfectly as I recognize that it takes practice to be able to play a song; I would like to be able to simply sit down and play a song with both hands from start to finish.

When asked in class about treble or bass clef, yeah, I could not remember the notes each represented. I could though recall where Middle C was located. So that was good to know I at least remembered that much from my young years taking piano.  Everything else from those early years, while it  sounded familiar, were no more clicking in class Wednesday night then they did when I was in lessons years ago.

The intent this weekend is to spend about two hours studying for class Monday night.  Learn the treble and bass clef well enough to be able to look at the staff and recognize the individual notes.  I think I can handle that without too much trouble. After all, I do not want to embarrass myself in class on Monday when we are asked to go to the board and mark the notes.  I did leave my notes from class at the office, so I will need to stop by the office to pick those up and make sure I cover everything.  I also plan to sit down at the piano in our house and try out a few of the items we did in class Wednesday.

Wish me luck in my class and maybe in a future update there will be a sample of what I am playing.  I am excited to be taking lessons and I want to make the most of this class.

Videos from Game 1 of 2015 World Series ... Rediscovered on my Phone Today #Royals

Carrie and I had the opportunity to attend Game 1 of the World Series on October 27, 2015.  Of course, we were there to cheer on the Kansas City Royals!

We did some tailgating in the parking lot prior to the game.  It was raining steadily as we sat in the parking lot.  We had purchased the tickets the day before when Carrie saw them advertised on StubHub for cheap.  It was not planned in anyway.  What a great night though we had!

We wore our ponchos into the game as it was raining steadily while in the parking lot and prior to the game.  Just about the time first pitch was supposed to happen, it did stop raining.  We made it to our seats which happened to be our favorite area to sit.  We love sitting in left field by the fountains. The seats are roomy and we are close to the beer!

During the game, I broadcast via Periscope and forgot until today that I had recorded those clips to my phone too.  We got excited last week with the re-signing of Alex Gordon and after looking through my phone for pictures/videos, I came across these and wanted to share them too.

The first video is from before the first pitch.  Everyone is ready and #TheK is packed! We meet the two guys next to us which were a lot of fun. One was a manager of Johnny's West in KC and the other was the bartender for Johnny's West.  Could not have asked for better guys to sit next to for a game let alone my first ever World Series game.  It is rather long at 12 minutes.  I also did not realize that with Periscope that I could shoot it wide screen until late in the second time shooting a video.

Bottom of the 9th inning and Alex Gordon hits a home run that sends us to extra innings. It starts off with Salvy at bat. This video is a little over seven minutes long. When Gordon hits that home run, we all go crazy! There were high fives everywhere... hugs....  I realized after watching this whole clip that at about the six minute mark when someone on Periscope said to go wide screen, it does not change when I posted it.  Oh well, you can still hear us yelling and the plays. "Enjoy the rest of the game" was my last comment in the video and little did we know it would go on a while after that... Fun night!

I am not going to apologize for my screaming during the videos.  That was something new that I started toward the end of the regular season.  Trying to throw off the opposing team.  Plus, I feel like it is good luck, so I keep doing it for other sports too.

Image Copied from KC Royals Web Site

The Royals ended up winning the World Series... in case you did not know...  Carrie and I only made it to the first game.  The rest we watched from my lucky chair where I yelled, screamed, and cheered for the Royals.  Looking forward to the 2016 to start and it is good to hear and read about contracts and new additions to the Royals. #ForeverRoyal is right!  I know I have been a fan since I was little and so fun to see the #Royals the past past and last year making it to the World Series.

Sometime this spring, Carrie and I will be traveling with brother-in-law Greg and his girlfriend Erin to watch minor league games in Arkansas.  We are all looking forward to that and hopefully we will see some up and comers that will soon be playing for the Royals.

Go Royals!!!!

Old iPhone 5 and Wanting the Newest Features... Why Not?

Don't you love it how technology tries to keep you "current"?  Well, more accurately put, the companies that produce the technology that we (I) like to use keep us current by forcing us to upgrade our phones, computers, cars, etc.  Just so we can get the new gadgets, new features, or just look "cool".

OK, I admit, I have an iPhone 5 which at this point is over three years old.  In terms of a phone, it is old.  A friend of mine just recently upgraded their iPhone 4 to the iPhone 6.  I am not that bad, but it does make me frustrated when my iPhone 5 (released September 21, 2012) can no longer do the fancy new features that are being produced for the "new" phones.

Case in point, my phone will not do the WiFi calling nor will it do the newly published iOS 9.3 feature of Night Shift which was released earlier this week.  So, I have the new operating system and I have been providing feedback for likes, dislikes, and suggestions for features, but my iPhone 5 will not do the new cool feature.  What's the point of allowing me to test my "old" phone with the beta software if the cool new feature will not work?

I have been part of the iOS public beta program since it was released.  I have the Mac OS beta installed too along with the iPhone beta.  Overall, I have enjoyed the experience.  I got tired of reporting that the phone app on the iPhone with the beta software is slow or crashes.  I think I have reported this issue every other time the beta has released.  Once again with 9.3 I am seeing the slowness with the phone app.  It either takes forever to change from contact, keypad, or voicemail or simply crashes back to the home screen.  I provide the feedback and the next release it is fixed.  This makes me wonder if it is because I am running an old iPhone 5 and it works great in iPhone 6 or 6 Plus, but who knows.  It keeps happening to my old phone.

I still remember when I was a BlackBerry fan.  I really enjoyed the Blackberry!  Well, more appropriately the BlackBerry 8330.  It was probably my favorite phone and never thought I could start using a phone without a keyboard.  The only frustration with that phone (BlackBerry) was that not a lot of people were using it, thus, there were hardly any apps for the phone that I could utilize.  The funny thing now is that with my iPhone, I use a core set of apps.  When I could not get those other cool apps for the BlackBerry, I jumped ship to get the cool new phone.

The core set of apps that I use now include email, Twitter, browser, calendar, FaceBook, fantasy sports, and a few other odds and ends.  Probably all apps that could easily have been done back in the day on a BlackBerry.

Back to my current phone of iPhone 5....  It is over three years old.  It is an old phone by any standards.  I plan to keep it at least until iPhone 7 which is due to be out in September 2016.  I am sure I will continue to test and complain about future iOS beta installations.  I will continue to complain about the horrible battery life my phone maintains (i.e. it dies with anywhere from 5 - 10% battery life).

The Night Shift feature released in iOS 9.3 public beta sounded perfect.  I have a bad habit of as soon as I wake up I grab my phone to check email, Twitter (see previous post), and a glance at FaceBook.  Even though I have auto dim set on my phone, the screen is usually so bright that I can barely look at the screen without my eyes watering.  It does not matter whether it is 3 am or 6:30 am when I wake and grab my phone to see what has come through since I was sleeping, I still am drawn to the phone to check what was happening.  Not the best habit, but so far I have kept from responding to email or Tweets at those odd times.

Anyway, because of my old phone and the fact that Apple decided not to release the Night Shift feature to anything less than a iPhone 5s, I miss out on this new feature.  Granted, as some friends said, this is likely because the iPhone 5 is unable to handle this feature and I agree, but I feel like I am missing out with this old phone.

OneDrive for Business Next Gen Sync Client for Personal and Business Accounts

I signed up for a beta test a little over a two months ago to test the new OneDrive Sync tool.  It had worked well where I was primarily using it on my work computer.  The beta was to test new processes for the OneDrive sync as well as finally make it available for the Mac OS too.  During the beta period, I did not have a chance to try it on my MacBook Air where I am limited on local file space.  

As of today, the OneDrive for Business Next Generation Sync Client is now available.  It is available for PC or Mac.  Just as it did during my testing, it allows to sync everything or only certain folders.  Since I installed the new client on my work computer, I did not have any problems with file syncs.  Unlike the old OneDrive for Business client where it would often fail and I would have to re-sync everything, this new client seems to have resolved that issue.

The new client allows me to specify what folders are synced for both PC and Mac versions.  Extremely handy if I want to only sync certain folders to be able to work on files at home.  I have only installed the Mac version as of this evening, so after I run it for a few days I will post another update.  I am happy to see an improved OneDrive client that will work between multiple environments.

Windows installation directions available at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=717725.

Mac installation directions available at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=717727.

Problem with Comments Corrected

I was made aware of a problem with posting comments to items I post.  That issue has been resolved.  Thank you to @davedelaney for letting me know.  I had checked that they worked a while back and did not realize that they were not working until Dave sent me a Tweet about it following our #blogchat last evening.

If there are any other problems, please feel free to contact me through this web site or via Twitter.

Chats via Twitter and My Experience

I have been using Twitter since April 2009 when I first created my account. In the early years, I did not use it too much.  I created the account simply to see what all the cool kids were using.  In the past few years, I have been using Twitter on a regular basis.  I enjoy Twitter much more than FaceBook and typically use Twitter to interact with others about an event whether that is a sporting, television, or other major event being discussed.  Mostly I have used Twitter to discuss Royals, Chiefs, Washburn, or KU.

Recently I had heard about #TwitterChat. This was new to me, so I wanted to find a #TwitterChat I could participate.  The first few I found were not so much "chats", but rather random people posting web sites to check on the topic.  I checked a few others finding the same thing of not a lot of discussion back-and-forth with the Twitter accounts, but simply people posting web sites to check on the topic.

I found a couple of web sites that listed Twitter Chats that had been compiled by various people.  Again, a few of these were helpful and a few were not.  I would find a topic I wanted to discuss and search for that hashtag finding no discussion at all was taking place on the particular topic.

I did find a Twitter Chat schedule that seems good and each of the times I have checked the schedule, there are actually chats occurring at the scheduled times.  The one I found is hosted on Google as a document.  It is simply called Twitter Chats 2.  By way of this chat schedule, I participated in my first #TwitterChat last Sunday.  It was a great time and I connected with others on the topic.

The chat I participated in was simply about blogging with a hashtag search of #blogchat.  It was exactly what I expected from a chat where a topic was posted by the moderator and people began responding, connecting, and interacting on the topic.  The topic of #blogchat meets every Sunday at 8 pm CST and I plan to take part in it again tonight.

My goal is to post on a regular basis here on my blog.  It was a inspiration to take part in the #blogchat and get ideas, motivation, and see what others were doing with their blogs.  Obviously having a blog, I want people to read and participate in said blog.

One interaction I had during the #blogchat last week was that I do not get a lot of comments, but I can see that people are accessing and reading the posts.  My thought on why I do not get a lot of comments was primarily because I post so inconsistently.  I believe if I start posting on a regular basis that will result in regular followers that will begin to post comments.

The #blogchat is very fast paced.  A lot of posts and it is recommended that you use a client that can separate those discussions in a easy manner.  I use Tweetbot for Mac and iOS that does this for me.  Many people use TweetDeck or HootSuite for this purpose.  I see fast paced discussions when following sporting events, but unlike those, I do not try to read or respond to every post like I did with the #blogchat discussion.

Until next time, have a great week!

Remembering December 30, 2014 -- A Year Later -- My Dad's Passing

It has been well over a year since my last post.  The past year, I have not felt much like posting.  I have not done hardly any exercising since 2014.  Part of that has just been plain laziness... the other part is that as many of you  know my Dad, Alvin "Beebe" Haverty, passed on December 30, 2014.  It was a surprise to all of us as he had gone into the hospital for the flu.

It seems like just yesterday that Carrie and I were planning to leave early December 30, 2014 morning with Brenda to drive to see Javier and eventually Corrie on New Years Eve.  That all changed when I got a call shortly after I had awoken on the 30 of December.  The call came through about 6 am after I had just realized that we had no hot water in the house.  I am not sure why, but I still feel like it was a sign from my Dad that he had passed.

A year later and it still feels like I can pick up the phone to call home and talk to my Dad.  We miss him so much.  After his passing, I was able to go back and get a number of voice messages that he had left.  Usually they had to do with computer questions needing some help with something.  Not until after his death and the past year working with files he had updated did I realize he really did a good job with computers, Excel files, and browsing the Internet.  He had things very well organized and actually used Excel formulas.

A typical message I would receive from Dad (and Mom usually in the background) is the following...



I recall when I was in grade school when Dad and I attended a class on Apple programming.  It was not even at my school as we went to another school across town.  I remember learning and writing programming with my Dad in a coding class.  My first one ever and that was well before I knew I would be doing anything in computers.

So many great memories of Dad that they keep going through my head.  What to talk about and what to share from pictures to voice messages, that has been part of the struggle.  Finally, I decided to simply post a message in his honor.

I just remembered another voice message I wanted to share.  When we first got Oliver (our Japanese Chin pictures in the first picture above), we would put a camera on him so we could monitor him during the day while we were at work.  I shared that stream with my parents one time and they really enjoyed checking in on Oliver throughout the day.  They would be watching the video feed knowing that Carrie and I would be home soon and once they saw us come through, they would call my cell phone to tell me all about it.



Dad did well with Excel files, browsing the web, etc., but as he got older some things just baffled him.  The video camera being able to show our dog was one of those baffling things.  When we would be over and show a YouTube video or movie on their TV via the Internet, he would comment how he was not sure how that could happen.

I wanted to keep this short and it has managed to get lengthy.  I miss Dad a great deal that words cannot describe.  I am thankful to have my Mom in good health and a strong family to laugh, cry, and remember about our Dad and be there for one another.

Pictures to remember Dad are available on Flickr.  The recording of comments at his funeral can be found on my YouTube channel.

The funeral service from the January 10 (approximately 36 minutes) service is below. Thank you to Trinity Lutheran Church in Lawrence, KS and Audrey at Warren-McElwain Mortuary and Cremation Services for their help and support!



Until next time, have a Happy New Year and thank you for reading as I remember my Dad.