In Word

Why is it called the Land of Enchantment?

I can think of many other places that are way more enchanting than New Mexico. But it does have one thing in its favor: a pretty epic tournament.

Unfortunately, the actual tournament wasn’t very well documented…I guess I just found too many other things to do aside from take pictures. But I put together a slideshow of our adventures on the trip there and back, so for all you interested people, here you go:

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On The Road Again

I’m not really sure what to say, other than that I’ve been busy, as usual, and decided to take a moment to update here before we head out for New Mexico tomorrow morning. Maybe I should just refer everyone back to this post.

In other news, it’s spring!

(See?)

I had hoped to put together a video blog of the wedding shoot with Toni this past weekend, but somehow time has gotten away from me again. Who knows—maybe I’ll come up with something in New Mexico. We shall see!

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Two Together

Three days ago, I crossed the 50k mark for NaNoWriMo 2009. Also three days ago, I got to see one of my favorite people ever. Even better, she’ll be at my house for the next few weeks. Needless to say, happiness abounds around here.

Hope is simply amazing, and I am pretty much amazingly blessed to have her for three weeks. I have a feeling we’ll enjoy ourselves…but maybe that’s just me?

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The Beginning

On Saturday, ARC journeyed to New Braunfels for the first round robin of the year. It almost goes without saying that we enjoyed ourselves, hung out with lots of cool people, and had abnormal amounts of fun talking about the environment. I mean…what else would we do? (LD people, you don’t have to answer that question.)

Happy debaters—and a happy debate coach!

Former partners, turned LDers.

These guys…well, they had lots of fun. Maybe more fun than should be humanly possible.

Danielle and Christina, two loverly ladies.

It’s just kinda fun to scare people with the Maisano/Morgan name. (The initial fear doesn’t usually last long, but oh well.)

Afterward, we went out for dinner and checked out ballots. Fun stuff.

So, it was a good day. Full of friends and debates and candy and pizza and all sorts of awesome things. What could be better?

(For those of you wondering about NaNoWriMo…no, I’m not giving up just yet. Yes, the word count widget on the right is accurate. It’s so much more fun to make an epic comeback in the last week…right?)

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The Day ARC Saved The World

Most of you probably didn’t know it, but on Saturday, the world was nearly annihilated by a ninja named Anwar with an evil plot to destroy the ozone layer. Just thought I’d let you know. But as you probably guessed, the disaster was prevented by none other than a handful of nerds and soon-to-be-nerds with a knack for arguing.

And that’s pretty much what we did on Saturday.

But aside from saving the world, we also had a fun, exhausting, and even educational experience, teachers and students alike. Personally, this was the first debate workshop I’ve attended of my own free will. Two years ago, I was dragged in kicking and screaming. Last year, I managed to stay home, little knowing that somehow I’d end up debating all season long, anyway.

This year, I wound up teaching people who may or may not be in the same position I was in not so long ago. Ironic, no?

I had a good time. Who wouldn’t enjoy eating candy, throwing lego bricks, and talking about killer ninja monkeys?

Well…maybe you shouldn’t answer that question.

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Art of Observation

Sometimes I do get to places just when God’s ready to have someone click the shutter.

- Ansel Adams

(Unedited, straight out of the camera. Hence the crooked horizon lines…still, it bears mentioning that these are all copyrighted by myself. Thanks!)

Words cannot describe how happy I am to have a big sister willing to invest in the camera that took the above photos. I spent the evening of my birthday at the lake with my family, snapping pictures for a photography contest Toni and I were planning on entering. We turned in our submissions on Tuesday, and I must say that the cash prize for 1st place is extremely tempting…

On that note, thanks so much to all of you who took the time to comment and leave happy birthday notes! One of these days, I will overcome my bad habits of never returning said comments. Really.

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Lookout!

We’re back in Texas now—but rewind for some picture from our last days in Nashville. We decided to make the not-so-short drive over to the Chickamauga and Chattanooga Civil War battlefields. Chickamauga was your average battlefield, so I’m skipping to Chattanooga, specifically Lookout Mountain.

The fighting at Lookout Mountain is often called the “battle above the clouds.” If the weather back in 1863 was anything like it was the day we visited, I can understand the nickname:

The view behind us is supposed to be one of the top 10 views in the south. If you squint, you can imagine Chattanooga somewhere down there…

Above the clouds, indeed. On this side of the mountain we could catch a glimpse of the Tennessee River.

Posing in front of the…cloud.

And then it rained. Which was perfectly exhilarating and inspiring, but didn’t help the view much. Oh well…Lookout Mountain is still pretty cool.

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Finis

Camp is over. It’s July 27th, which feels pretty strange—like half the summer is gone before it even got here. As for last night’s performance, it went amazingly well. I can’t remember any mistakes or errors. It was a blast, and I think the audience enjoyed it.

Unfortunately, we had unforeseen technical difficulties. We were being filmed for DVDs and (hopefully) TV broadcasting at a later date. But as it turns out, the audio “hiccupped,” and come the end of the show, the tech crew didn’t have audio for a good portion of the footage.

So guess what?

We played it all again. Maybe about a third of the show…probably less, but it felt like a lot. We got out around 10:30.

But all in all, it was amazing. We said lots of goodbyes and exchanged lots of email addresses. The hardest part about leaving, for me, was realizing that I’d only started really hanging out with friends over the past two or three days…and we’d had a whole two weeks together. Makes me wish I hadn’t waited so long to be sociable.

Overall FASA experience: awesome.

The viola section, minus a few. We had a blast.

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Show Time!

We finished our first performance a few hours ago—and all told, it was pretty amazing. We’d never run the whole thing straight through, but now that we’ve managed it with only minor problems, I think tomorrow night’s show will go smoothly. It’s being filmed for television, so…it better go smoothly.

All the orchestra and band on stage for rehearsal. We’ve been spending a lot of time in those seats lately!

Tuning up for the performance.

Micaela, Tinsley and I had way too much fun waiting to get on stage.

We tried a serious pose…

*epic fail*

I’m really looking forward to tomorrow night. Seems strange that it’ll all be over—in one sense, this is the most exciting part of camp. I guess I won’t miss playing for at least six hours a day, but it’ll be interesting adjusting back to “normal life.”

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