To be continued

And after that busiest week of the year came another busy week, with two nights filled with a cappella music in the theater and lots of other activities. Meanwhile, my "to do" list has grown and is not really shortening yet...
But, today, I've finally planted strawberry plants in our garden, I've been to the travel agency to get some travel brochures (wheee! :D) and I enjoyed the beautiful weather! It's just a pity my energy level is a little low, else I could already have written two concert reviews, finished my choirs website and finally cleaned the windows...
I think reviving the blog is being continued in May ;)

Busiest week of the year

concerning birthdays...
Next Sunday it's Martins birthday and I've just chosen the cakes I'm going to make tomorrow. So if you like cheesecake or "Fantaschnitten mit Pfirsichschmand", you should come over on Sunday to try some :)
Now all I have to do is think of something to eat for dinner for 6-10 (?) people on Sunday... And make a grocery list!

(A) Time to kill?

I'm in a James Bond mood, sorry. I was just practicing a medley for my choir with James Bond themes - that's all - and I thought it was about time to write something in my blog. I almost never have time to kill, but if you are bored I guarantee the following will fill at least the next hour, if not the next two hours. Let's say it's a small a cappella sub road I'm taking here. Maybe you've heard of the following artists, maybe not. Let's start with Corey Vidal, which I first only knew because of his interpretation of Moosebutters Star Wars Medley. If you like it, you should check his other videos on Youtube. If you like interactive videos and want to know about his disgusting but hilarious blender adventure, you should start here. Talking about Moosebutter, you might also like Mr. Tim. If you're into computers, you should check out his Hacker's Holiday! If you want to hear about a more serious subject you should listen to Professor Bernhard Steinerhoffs lecture about rhythms of life (and you might want to check Beardymans Youtube channel afterwards). Last but not least, if you're not bored, but actually really in a hurry, you could listen to the 30-Second Original A Cappella Festival. Oops, we're completely back to a cappella now... sorry. Well, considering that fact, I could also add the note that the weekly podcast Mouth Off is really worth listening, as long as you can handle two Americans with a slightly irritating way of talking (probably "typically" American, as we should say?) as hosts. Have fun :)

A neverending addiction?

I'm browsing the internet to find the best place to buy some a cappella cd's. I was hoping to find one online shop where I could find all the cd's that are on my wish list. Not that I would buy them all at once (I don't want to hurt my bank account too much all of a sudden), but just to know that I could buy them all at once (and by knowing, maybe I would buy them all anyway). But that shop doesn't exists, I guess. The European shops don't sell the American albums and vise-versa. And another 'problem' turns up: While searching, I discover more and more cd's I'd like to buy...
Maybe I should just start buying music on iTunes - it's probably a lot easier. But actually I prefer to hold a physical cd in my hands...
Anyone got tips? Advice? Group therapy?

Rock4 in Concert

It's been a while since I wrote a review for my website. I haven't visited that many concerts in the past months, due to... due to what actually? Maybe the fact Martin and I are both too occupied with other things (singing with VPS KeK, singing with Amusing, singing with Half Past Nine, you name it...) caused it. Anyway, to see Rock4 last Friday was definitely a good thing to do! And I even found time to write a review about it :D
The pictures are not that great, but considering I was sitting far, far away it's not that bad. So go check it out on my website and don't comment here, comment in my guestbook instead and make me happy ;)
By the way, I actually wrote two reviews. The second one is in Dutch and will be published on the website of BALK soon.

Dessert

That's what I call dessert! :D

The only "problem" is, I ate this at 14.30 after a huge lunch and now I'm not hungry anymore. Guess I'll skip dinner completely today.

Where in the world?

Maybe you know the monthly Sightseer Newsletter from Google. Martin always receives it and showed me the following question:

Can you find where this feature is in Google Earth?
Here are a few clues:

• This location can now be "viewed" from the "street" as part of a recent update.
• It is in the half of the world now experiencing increasingly longer days and shorter nights.
• The location was once home to a very important figure of WWII.

We knew the answer within 2 minutes. Do you too?

68

I'm updating my a cappella fansite. I will probably upload the newer version in another couple of days. Slowly my website is growing into a compilation of all the a cappella / vocal groups I know. Right now I've listed 68 groups on my website:

A'Cappella Expresss, Aquabella, Audiofeels, Basix, Basta, Bauchklang, The Bolyki Brothers, Boyz Nite Out, Cadence, Cash-n-go, Chapter 6, Cluster, Cosmos, D-Base, Echte Kerle, Flying Pickets, Fork, Füenf, 5 vor der Ehe, Gabbahey, HighFive, The House Jacks, The Idea of North, iNtrmzzo, JuiceBox, King's Singers, Klangbezirk, U-Bahn Kontrollöre, LaLeLu, The Magnets, Maybebop, Medlz, Montezuma's Revenge, M-Pact, Mundart, Musix, New York Voices, Ommm, Overboard, Overtone, Pust, Rajaton, The Real Group, Riltons Vänner, Rock4, Rockapella, 6-Zylinder, Shiva Knows, Sonos, Stimmrecht, Stouxingers, Straight No Chaser, Swingle Singers, Take6, The Glue, Tonalrausch, Vane, Velvet Voices, Viva Voce, Vocado, Vocaldente, Vocal Six, Voca People, Voice Male (USA), Voice Male (BE), Voices Unlimited, Waschkraft and Wise Guys.

Did I forget any significant others? (I probably did) Feel free to let me know :)

15. Sparkassen-A-Capella-Festival

Aaah, the fifteenth Sparkassen-A-Capella-Festival in Dortmund is coming up (May 23/24)! I don't know if we'll go there, but there'll definitely be a good chance. Here's the line-up:

Vor dem Start des Festivals schnuppern Newcomer große Festival-Luft: In diesem Jahr stehen who’s that? aus Köln auf der Bühne.
Die 6-Zylinder gehören schon viele Jahre zur ersten Garde der Vokalsembles. Mit ihrer neuen Show „Acapulco“ haben sie einmal mehr bekannte Popsongs, unbekanntes Liedgut und witzige Eigenkompositionen zusammengemischt: Also auf nach Acapulco, die Sonne putzen!
GANZ SCHÖN FEIST sind Grenzgänger zwischen Comedy und A-cappella: Popacappellacomedy nennen die drei Kleinkunstpreisträger ihr eigenes Genre. Ihre Programme sind schönstes Miteinander von Comedy, Musik und dreistimmigem Satzgesang.
High Five aus Offenburg begeistern ihre Zuhörer und Fans aller Altersklassen mit jugendlichem Charme, authentischem Auftreten und einer erfrischenden Musik.
BLISS (Schweiz) entstand 1999 spontan – und hat sich nach zahlreichen Auftritten zum festen Bestandteil der schweizerischen A-cappella- und Kulturszene entwickelt.
MundArt aus Leipzig stehen für "Voc'n'bass" und erobern als fünf selbsternannte Kreuzritter der Mundspagatdisziplin die Herzen der A-cappella-Fans.
Rockapella (USA): Die fünf Gesangs-Virtuosen sind Superstars in Amerika. Schließt man beim Zuhören die Augen, fällt es schwer zu glauben, dass die Musiker – allen voran der beste "Vocal Percussionist" der Welt, Jeff Thatcher – keine Instrumente benutzen!

Shootout

I read a nice article in the local newspaper. It's about workshops for (amateur) photographers, among them a workshop about photographing a live band. Wow, I bet I can learn a lot of cool stuff there!! This week I took a look at the events website..... the prices to participate start at 200 Euro..... and after reading all about the event I guess I'm a bit too much an amateur to participate....

*I want a new digital camera, one that looks a bit more professional. Maybe then I'll dare subscribing* 

But it's still very expensive, don't you think?
www.theshootout.nl

Boring?

I still don't know the word 'boring'. The past week has been a good example of that. I decided I could write about it in this blog, which I hope to revive the coming time. With so many different things I do during the week, there should be enough to write about, right?
So here's an overview of last week:
Saturday Dutch Festival for Vocal Ensembles. I spent the complete day in Almelo, heard/saw many groups and filmed the performances of VPS KeK and Drienerlalala. Also loved Pur Sang, the Groove Factory, Dutchmen, Fem@il. Unfortunately I couldn't hear Hifive, who won the festival.
Sunday Started editing (cutting) video material (VPS KeK) and visited a concert of Amusing in the afternoon, which was fun. Filmed their performance as well. At night I can't sleep, my head is full of music. I decide I could make a teaser video for VPS KeK. Suddenly my mind is clear and I know exactly how I want it to be. After that I fall asleep.
Monday My day off from work. Thrilled about this review. Spent most of the day behind the computer, making a teaser video for VPS KeK. Making the video was pretty simple and I finished it a lot sooner than I expected. To read the comments on Facebook was a lot of fun and I kept checking their brand new Facebook page and saw the amount of fans grow. In between I cleaned the bathroom.... housekeeping..... *sigh*.

Tuesday Looong day at work. I started at 8.30. First I wrote an evaluation report for one of 'my' kids, then I installed the printer, that's been waiting to be installed for over a year, on the kids computer, and installed some plugins (finally we can watch YouTube on the old thing!) and watched this video with them. The rest of the afternoon I worked with the kids as usual. I had dinner at work, because I had to do a presentation in the evening and traveling home and back again takes too much time. I was pretty nervous for the presentation, which I shouldn't have been because all went well. Got home at 22.30, tired but satisfied.
Wednesday Another day at work. In the morning there was a social skills training with the kids. In the afternoon an evaluation with my trainee and her teacher from school. In the evening I was more than tired and did nothing but checking mail, facebook and cutting some videos (Drienerlalala).
Thursday Partyday. Followed workshops djembe and salsa with my colleagues. Despite the enormous cost reduction my organization is facing there's money to pay this.... Loved the workshops though ;) Normally Thursday night is choir rehearsal night, but it got canceled because of our director being ill. So instead I redesigned the website for VPS KeK. Always nice to do some designing with Photoshop.
Friday A very normal day at work which ended with frustration because the computer system we use is so damn stupid!! After a year, I still can't use it without facing problems. The interface is the most customer unfriendly I've ever seen.

And now? Friday night... I'm waiting to get hungry. Then, I'll do some cooking and  tonight will probably be filled with more webdesign, or video editing, or maybe we'll watch a movie in our home cinema (we haven't even done that yet this week!). Or I'll write another blog post, about music, computers, websites, something like that. Sometimes I wonder whether or not I chose the right profession. On the other hand, when my job would be filled with music, computers, video editing, webdesign, my life would get boring, wouldn't it? Working with my kids gives me the perfect variation I like.

Let's see if my honey is getting hungry. He's upstairs right now. Cutting video material ;-) And I can hear him singing.
*sigh. I love my life*
Maybe he'll even cook today?

Join the Real Community

With Facebook as a main tool to communicate with friends and stay up to date with lots of people and vocal groups around the world, this blog is slowly becoming unnecessary. My main interest at the moment is expanding my 'a cappella collection', by finding and listening to new vocal groups.

The scope of content at Facebook is growing enormously, and an attempt to do networking there, in a qualitative manner, easily disappears in the everyday flow of info about people's various activities.

So, what I need, is a site with a focus on one field of human activity: the world of vocal music. The Real Group launched a website for this purpose only and I'd like to invite all my friends in the vocal world to join this community.

Maybe, one day, Facebook will become unnecessary for me as well. And so we move on, and move on, and move on, and move on.

Camping

Despite the two hours delay on the way there, caused by a problem with one of my rear tires, and despite the storm on the first night, I had a wonderful weekend camping with friends in the dunes near the North Sea.

I'm really glad I noticed the ticking sound in my right rear tire when I slowed down because of a traffic jam and I'm also glad I decided to leave the highway to find out what it was. To cut a long story short: I needed a new tire immediately. If I would have continued driving, I definitely would have had a blown tire.
We were using the new tent of one of my friends and found out it withstands heavy rain, thunder, stormy wind and hail as big as M&M's. Our neighbour, in a caravan, told us we could always wake him in the middle of the night if things would get worse. A very comforting thought, because we couldn't imagine the weather getting much worse from there. Anyway, we stayed dry and safe.
On Saturday and Sunday it was sunny and we enjoyed the weather and the beach. Personal beach tennis record: 93! Wheee! :P

Pictures from the Azores

Azores (Faial & São Miguel) 2009

Back home from the Azores

Monday night we got back home from our holiday on the Azores. We spent one week on the island Faial and one week on the island São Miguel. Both places were beautiful! We've been exploring the green islands and saw big volcanoes, hot sulfur springs and steaming fumaroles, huge crater lakes, steep cliffs, beautiful waterfalls and about a dozen sperm whales.
The over 1800 pictures have already brought back to a selection of 670 pictures, which is still to big to put online. But we'll do our best to upload a smaller selection in our Picasa Webalbum later this week.

Half Past Nine

Movie&Movie's

With not much vocal activities right now (no choir rehearsals, no festival organization and administration, etc.) there's lots of time to watch movies in the evenings. I can recommend V for Vendetta, The Prestige, The Wedding Planner and The Holiday. The first two are really great if you love original, unexpected plots and the last two movies are more 'girls only' and should be watched with a friend and lots of M&M's.


The only bad thing about this week is that I can't go to Europa Cantat and I'll miss Rajaton.... :(

But I'm looking forward to Ice Age 3, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and G-Force!

Proud

Today I felt a bit like a kid on fathers day. You know the feeling when you made something special in school for your dad, with a little poem which said "you are the best dad in the world!" and you'd feel proud when you could give it to him.
Today I felt so proud of my dad. He came to visit us - and he came by bike. For those who don't know: he doesn't live next door, he lives practically on the other side of the country. Luckily, the Netherlands are not that big, but it's still 162 kilometers!!
After work, I was waiting for him at the end of our street, and there he was:

Borkum

And because all good things come in three: I've written another review for my website. The last one for this season. It's a review from our trip to the island Borkum which included a Wise Guys concert. Apart from the concert, we had a wonderful weekend on the island with sun, sea and beach.

Balve

I've just uploaded a new review on my website. This time an English one, describing the concert from Vocaldente in a cave in Balve (Germany) last Saturday. It's less detailed than usual, but I don't think it's short. Somehow I am not able to write short reviews. But I can write short blog posts! -end-