Day Off: I took the day off from reading blogs and blogging yesterday. It was somewhat involuntary, but refreshing at the same time. Sticks played last night in his high school band spring concert — the jazz band and his combo played (more on that in another post) — and we got some nice video. Video is a resource hog. There’s no way to render video and do anything else at the same time. Sticks wanted to have it burned to DVD in time to take with him to his drum lesson this afternoon, so my computer was tied up with the extraction, editing, and rendering process. I made the deadline but am resolved to build a separate machine for video only.
Driving Lessons: It appears as though I have assumed the position of driving instructor. Every time Bigdog tries it, they both come home in a temper. Bigdog tends to lean hard on issues that are less important to me. For me, the priorities are stopping smoothly and in time, signaling, checking blind spots, and staying at the speed limits. For Bigdog, parking is a big issue. He hates it when the car isn’t parked perfectly straight, and comes down hard on Sticks for doing it. It’s such a weird dynamic — the two of them are kindred spirits as long as Bigdog doesn’t try to teach Sticks anything. The minute the teacher hat goes on, the hypercritical words begin and there’s a complete lack of communication.
So today was freeway day. Sticks gets an A+ — he didn’t even make me smash my foot into the floor of the passenger side in a futile attempt to slow down the car or prevent a terrible crash. Parking, not so great still, so we spent some time practicing. It’s nice to see his confidence build, though. He’s not as shaky as he was the first couple of times.
Decisions: April 26 is Sticks’ drop-dead date for making his college decision, since we have to mail the UNT response on that day. UNT is in-state tuition, and about half covered by scholarships. CSUN is about 35 miles away from home (he could live on campus or at home, but if he stayed here he could keep his students), they’ve offered a scholarship that will cover just about full tuition, pays for his private lessons (presumably with his current teacher since he is one of two drummers that is affiliated with the Jazz program at CSUN), and he’d be close to the recording industry hub. UNT has a huge, awesome program. CSUN has relationships with Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band — one of Sticks’ goals is to be their drummer one day. Their program is not yet as strong as UNT, but it’s definitely building in that direction. The pros and cons of each are just about evenly balanced.
Bottom line: It’s a really difficult decision and one I’m trying to let him make without sharing how much I’ll hate him being out of state if he chooses that direction. I figure it’s hard enough to weigh pros and cons without mom inserting her guilt to the equation. I’m sure he knows in his gut where I am with that anyway.
Updates as they happen… 
Technorati Tags: driving lessons, college, decisions, video management
