Today ends a fairly busy week. Last night, Linh and I had the opportunity to cater/host a party for our former AP US History teacher. Her husband turned 60 and her friend’s husband turned 50. They really did all the hard work the day before; we just cooked and served the food so they could enjoy themselves a little bit instead of worrying over whether or not the pork tender loin was burning or not. The home was beautiful (easily a two-million dollar Paradise Valley home) so we were more than happy to play there for the night.That was Saturday night. Friday I stopped by Joe and Aaron’s graduation party after running a few errands then went back home for a bit. I promised Adrienne (far right) that I would go see her in the show Side by Side by Sondheim. I told her I would go last week but, at Linh’s nagging, I stayed home to study math (the 56% was worth every point!). So, I went this past Friday night. For a church sponsored community theater, I was actually impressed. The cast was small and solid and all of them have had years of musical theater experience. For those of you not familiar with the show, Side by Side by Sondheim is more of a collection of Sondheim songs strung together by turning points in his career. There were our favorites from Company (though not really my favorite) to songs that are rarely performed because they were either cut from a show or were only broadcast on TV once or so. All in all, it was an interesting insight into Sondheim (I even bought the book “How Sondheim found his Sound” because of it).
Going back to Wednesday and Thursday was Dobson’s 25th Anniversary two-night performance. Dan and I spent from 8 AM Wednesday morning until showtime that night setting up for it. We even decided, after looting Dobson’s AV room, that we could actually do live video! It was an idea that sprung to life about 4 hours prior to the concert so we hurried and ran all the Coax cable Dobson had all around and hooked up all our camera so we could project live video on the wall of the auditorium. We got many compliments from parents saying that it allowed them to see their sons and daughters up close for the first time.We even put Linh to work on one of the cameras. She just liked playing with the headset.
Thanks to a very special few band moms and band students, they were able to transform about 4 of our practice rooms into something of a museum, highlighting many of the awards and accolades Dobson has earned over the past 25 years. Very cool.

So now, the only thing on my calendar is lunch with a couple of friends, possibly a poker night, and Friday Night Live coming up this Friday. I’ve got to get all our old videos back to Ryan so he can put them up on his site. We’ll probably get together soon and do that.

Happy Mother’s Day, mom!