Chuck's articles!

Look out world - here comes Maestro Chuck!

Chuck was featured in the entertainment insert of the Columbus Republic newspaper on Friday. He graced the cover and his article took up the entire page 4.

How about that model pose? If you click on the images, you can get a larger version if you'd like to read the article.





I was so happy with how this came out. Isn't it a great article?

And then, they put him back in the paper on Sunday! He just had a little mention in the "around town" section.

I'm so proud! I didn't know I was married to a celebrity! :)

Friday Lunch

Last Friday, the Jacobs School of Music had a little staff recognition luncheon. We have over 100 staff members! The Dean spoke and also mentioned that the Second Annual JSoM Staff Halloween Contest is ON!! I feel like I have left my mark at IU and started a nice tradition.

Everyone was a little bit grouchy because seating was assigned. Usually everyone sits with their friends or just their own office colleagues. We had to do "team-building" exercises so that the event would qualify to be sanctioned by the University, which apparently meant that any prizes/gifts given out would be tax-free. What a relief.

I didn't get a prize, but everyone got a nice Jacobs polo shirt. The best part about my table was that I met another Buckeye! There is a girl named Katherine who just started working in the Admissions Office - she just got her masters at Ohio State!

And today, Chuck had lunch with Leonard Slatkin, who is in residency here at IU for a few weeks. I believe starting next year, he'll be full-time faculty. Apparently he was impressed with the idea of Chuck's Pirate Concert in the mall with the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra (which was a big success, by the way). Yaarrrrggghhh! I hope to have pictures of Captain Chuck doing the Pirate Dance soon to post here.

Go Bucks!

Run for the End Zone!

This year I am the Jacobs School of Music team captain for the Jill Behrman Run for the End Zone 5K race!

This is a very fun event that raises money for a good cause. Proceeds from this event will benefit the Jill Behrman Emerging Leader Scholarship and Jill’s House, a residence for patients undergoing outpatient cancer treatment at the Midwest Proton Radiotherapy Institute facility in Bloomington.

If you want to join the team (you don't have to be part of the JSoM to join us) let me know! The race is Saturday, October 13th.

GO COLTS! 41-10

Last night was the NFL season opening game between the Colts and the Saints, and my friend Gaye and I were THERE!!!


The city of Indianapolis had a free outdoor concert featuring Kelly Clarkson and Faith Hill in the circle. We didn't really get to see them up close and personal, but we heard them sing!


That's Kelly Clarkson somewhere in there.


And that's Faith Hill across the street.



Doesn't Peyton look scary in that picture? Those were hung up in several places around downtown. I have to admit that while it was pretty crowded and hectic and crazy, it still wasn't as crowded and hectic and crazy as Buckeye football.


The RCA Dome holds 57,000, a little more than half as many people as the Horseshoe. It was LOUD in there! The Colts don't have any special cheers or anything that is specific to their team (i.e. OH! IO!) so I didn't have to learn any words/moves before the game. :) However, they cheer COMPLETELY DIFFERENTLY than what you would be used to. When the team is playing defense, they cheer like crazy, and when the offense plays, they try to stay as quiet as possible. I guess it's because it's so loud in there that the opposing team players can't hear each other when they are calling the plays.

This is the Colts during warm-ups. You can see that we had pretty good seats - close enough to see everything! Gaye's aunt had given her the tickets. We also got a bunch of cool free Colts stuff! We got a towel to fling around, and a keychain, and a cold-drink huggie-thing. And we got a nice program that had pictures of all the players and their info.

Three Buckeyes are rookies for the Colts this year: Anthony Gonzalez, Roy Hall, and Quinn Pitcock. Gonzalez was a first-round draft pick. I was excited to see that there were a lot of #11 Gonzalez jerseys in the crowd! There happened to be about 5 sitting next to each other two rows in front of us.

I noticed that several of these guys wearing the Gonzalez jerseys had shaved heads, like Anthony Gonzalez. And then I noticed that one of them looked JUST LIKE him!!! It had to have been his brother. No question. So that was pretty cool!

So of course I was trying to eavesdrop when a lady in the row in front of us started asking them questions, but with the crowd noise I didn't hear anything. But one of the guys pointed to the big ring he was wearing and she was asking him about it. It looked like one of those ginormous bowl championship rings - and it had what looked like a Block O on it! However, the O was on a blue background. So from what I can tell from googling, this was not a Buckeye championship ring. Plus, the guy did not look beefy enough to be a football player. So I am very curious what that ring was!


And did I mention John Mellencamp played a pre-game show in the stadium? He's up there somewhere. We actually saw him. Gonzalez's possible brother was sitting to the left of the guy with the towel on his shoulder, but he's not in this picture.

It was a great game and the Colts won, 41-10!

Go Colts!

RIP Mrs. Clouse

Mrs. Clouse died this week. She was the lady whose 100th birthday the Jacobs School of Music celebrated back in the spring. Today students, faculty and staff lined the side of Jordan Avenue in front of the JSoM buildings to pay their respects as her funeral procession drove by.

Are you ready for some football?

My friend Gaye and I are going to the Indianapolis Colts' season opening game tonight!! Watch for us on TV!!

And poor #5-ranked M*ch!g@n lost to Appalachian State. I've been crying all week for them. Really.

He's home now!

I'm so glad Chuck is home now.
(Within a matter of a half an hour of being home, he had fixed my computer, so I am back "online!")
Lenny was really glad to see him too - we were surprised he reacted so much! He wouldn't stop "kissing" Chuck when he came in through the door, and he was jumping up and down. Maybe he smelled the Mozart chocolate balls in Chuck's bag....

Actually, Chuck's luggage didn't arrive until Thursday night at 11:30 p.m., so I didn't get to see all of his fun souvenirs until then. I am going to miss reading his travel blog, but I think we'll try and have it printed somehow.

Besides the computer, I also managed to do something to the coolant-stuff in my car, and the battery of the Roomba, and the automatic shower-cleaner thing, so it's nice to have my fix-it husband back for that too. :) I did manage to keep Shrimpie alive and healthy, and even growing. He molted while Chuck was gone!

It's Labor Day, but my boss asked me to come in and work today. I'm a little tired, but that's fine - I bank an extra day and a half off for coming in today, which I am going to use in October. I'm flying out to Connecticut to see my sister and go dress shopping for the wedding! Yesterday, we went over to our friend Amanda's for a little BBQ with her fiance Aaron, who was visiting from Minneapolis. It seems like he really likes his new job up there with Target. Their wedding is exactly two weeks before Annie's next summer - it will be a busy June!

It's nice to be relaxing now that the audition pressure is over - I'll let you know when I hear results. And I am really enjoying my new job! My first few big projects are over - I created a website and had to prepare a bunch of material for the big teacher/studio/registration meeting. Now I'm working on collecting and organizing the materials for our 5 professors who are up for tenure and/or promotion.

The next big thing coming up is Chuck's Bloomington Symphony concert - the Symphony ARRRGGGGHHHestra children's concert, featuring "pirate" music. I'm working on finding him an eye patch to wear, and maybe a hook to conduct with.

He's Baaaack!

Well, not quite yet.  As you can see from my Uter widget on the right, Chuck is flying home tomorrow.  I will be happy to see him, though I'm not sure Lenny will be as thrilled when it's time to go to sleep, and he gets expelled from the "big bed."

Somehow, I don't think Chuck will find Bloomington as exciting as Salzburg.  As hard as that is to imagine...  That's one of his photos he's taken.  If you want to see more, email him for his Salzburg blog address!

You may have noticed that my Nike Plus running widget has been the same for several weeks.  This, unfortunately, is not a computer glitch.  I have forsaken running (and cleaning the house, for that matter) for practicing piccolo. I have had two auditions, and one more coming up on Saturday.  The first one was for the sub list for the Terre Haute Symphony, and I CHOKED!  It was terrible.  I got so nervous and I flubbed my piccolo solo piece (Vivaldi).  I was having a Bad Tone Day - the flute equivalent of a Bad Hair Day.  :)  The excerpts went fine, though.  Chuck's boss was listening behind the screen, and I think that made me nervous.

But I had to play for him again last night, for the Columbus 3rd flute/piccolo audition!  I really got my nerves under control this time, and I played a decent audition.  It certainly wasn't perfect, and there were some things that SHOULD have gone better but didn't.  I don't think it was good enough to win, but I felt like I had redeemed myself from my embarrassingly terrible audition LAST year.  So I am relieved to have that over - I've been working hard for that for about 5 weeks.  And it turns out that I made the sub list for the Terre Haute orchestra, anyway.  (Probably the very last line at the very bottom of the sub list!)

Lenny has been my "coach" the past few weeks.  When I would go over to school at night to practice, he'd sit in the practice room with me and eat his chewy bone, and occasionally chime in with the high notes.  So last night, before I left for Columbus, I patted him on the head and thanked him for being my practice buddy.  In my other hand, I was holding my piccolo, and he leaned over and "kissed" the end of it.  I'm sure it just smelled tasty to him, but at the moment it seemed like a very sweet gesture!

And as you can see, he's been very helpful with the housework while Chuck's been gone.

Lenny Sleeping

New Office

Big news!

Wedding bells will be ringing soon! Congratulations to John and Annie - they are engaged!

Off to the Races

In the spirit of the Games, Chuck and I wore Team Latshaw t-shirts.

As our team captain, Lenny wore his Team Latshaw handkerchief to match us.

We decided to wear them on the first day of competition. The two Russell teams competing that day got extremely intimidated and immediately had to go change their outfits. So everyone came up with matching team t-shirts.

Mom and Dad came up with matching Red Sox shirts.

Gary and Marlene had Washington & Lee football shirts (the team that Scott plays for).


The first event was relay kayak racing. The goal was to paddle out to and around the buoy, back to the dock where you jumped out, your partner jumped in, and did the same trip around the buoy. First team back to the dock won.

Some athletes competed more earnestly than others. (And may I add, some CHEATED and splashed more than others!)

It was a little unclear - this was the "Slow" Olympics, but this was a time-trial kind of race. How would the winner be determined?

Chuck won the honor. In the course of trying to cut to the inside past the buoy, he capsized, and thus proved himself worthy of the gold medal.

If you click on the picture below, you will get a slide-show of some more pictures from the kayak racing day.

Tommy Makem

Dover, New Hampshire's own celebrity, Irish musician Tommy Makem, died this week. He used to go to our church.

What's going on

Sorry to interrupt the trip narrative, but I thought I would give a report on how I'm doing with Chuck in Austria.

I am sad to report that the clown fish has died.
I was very good about feeding him, and he was just fine when Chuck left. Somehow he got really sick and deteriorated every day. I knew the day before he died that he wasn't going to make it through the night.
Chuck said I didn't do anything wrong, but I feel bad. He also said that one of the operas there in Salzburg has clownfish in the staging and as props. Weird!

It's been a bad week for pet care - I also messed up Lenny's allergy shot. I managed to poke the needle completely through the fold of his skin, and it squirted out the other side, rather than in to his body. And that was the last dose in the bottle of serum - the new one hasn't arrived yet. So he's a little itchier than usual.


I went and saw the Simpsons movie without my husband. He claims to not want to see it, but I think that he would like it. It was pretty good! I also rented "The Sound of Music" to see some of his scenery there. :)

But the big good news is that I have a new job! I had a series of interviews this Friday and Monday, so I've been a little distracted from everything else. (I apologize to everyone about my weekend cell phone blackout!!)

I will still be working in the Jacobs School of Music. I will be moving upstairs in the same building (no more basement!!) to one of the Dean's offices. I will be the only one there in the office, and it has a huge window, and I will be making more money. All very good things. Rather than working with the students all the time, I'll be working with faculty members on tenure/promotion issues and I'll have more long-term projects.

With new student orientation coming up in three weeks, it throws my office into a little bit of a tailspin, so I'll still be helping out for a little while. Just about everyone has been very happy for me and very supportive.

Olympic Event: Scrabble!

Not to brag or anything, but Team Latshaw DOMINATED the Scrabble board!

Since there were six people playing, we played on one board with two sets of letters. That was really fun, and it really messed up any kind of strategy that would ordinarily be used.



I happened to be the overall winner of the game. It was certainly my best event.

The Birthday Boys

The reason the Olympics were held that week in July was because it coincided with several important birthdays in the family.


DAD

My Dad turned 55! He is officially eligible for the Senior Discount at Wendy's.
Gary and Marlene brought him a very special cake - his favorite kind - yellow cake with no frosting.





We got a little crazy when we got Dad his gift - we bought him an iPod Nano, and loaded it up with music for him!

Could he handle this technology?

He has mastered his new RAZR phone (even Call Waiting now!), so we were confident he could use iTunes and his iPod. He is a Titan of Technology - a Wizard of the Web!



The only problem came when he and I went running together with our iPods. My iPod said we ran 4.25 miles, but his said we ran 3.75 miles. D'oh! I think we both have to calibrate them. I'm going to believe mine for now.

GARY



My Uncle Gary turned 65! Wow! His birthday gift was an Old Man Outfit - seersucker shorts, this lovely shirt, and a white belt.

He wore the shirt proudly for the golfing Olympic event.



LENNY

Lenny turned 9 on my dad's birthday - talk about an old man! That's about Uncle Gary's age in dog years. I think Lenny needs a Hawaiian shirt.


Lenny partied a little bit too hard for his birthday. He thinks he's still a puppy, but his age catches up with him.

The Opening Ceremonies

The Russell Family Slow Olympics Opening Ceremonies happened on Friday night, when the Bernardi family arrived. In total, there were 11 Russells there - me, Chuck, Mom, Dad, Gary, Marlene, Linda, Michael, Stephanie, Jen, and Lauren.

Uncle Gary, being the eldest (and the winner of last year's Slow Olympics) had the honor of carrying the Olympic flag.



We had the Olympic Fanfare playing as we processed around the campfire. I'm sure the neighbors thought we were having some kind of satanic cult gathering.









We had ceremonial s'mores, some more sparkler art, and had a great time around the campfire.