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?