Boo Rain

No, the "boo" in the title is not a Halloween interjection, it's a cry of anguish and disgust due to the water falling from the sky. It's been raining a lot here lately and today is no different- it just started about an hour ago. I thought that maybe my trip to San Antonio would get me away from the precipitation for a few days but no, it's supposed to rain there as well. I guess I'll take my jacket. On the bright side, the high for the rest of the week in San Antonio is around 70 degrees. Maybe this trip won't be so bad.
Happy Halloween everyone, eat some candy.

Travel Time

I'm leaving wednesday morning for San Antonio. Yep, that's right. San Antonio, Tx. The UK Men's Choir is flying out of Louisville at an atrocious hour to go to Texas so that we can perfom a concert at the Trinity University Chapel on Thursday and then at the National Collegiate Choral Organization's (NCCO) first national convention. I've got mixed feelings about this trip, to be quite honest. I'm sure it's going to be fun, and I love performing- our songs are all about "The Life of a Man" and the audience will probably enjoy the show, but I don't want to miss class. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm a dork who doesn't like missing school. We get back really late Friday night so I've got to miss all of my classes on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. The make-up work will be the worst part. I just worry that I won't allow myself to have a good time on this trip because I'll be stressed about all of the work I'll have awaiting me on my return. Oh well, it will probably be more fun than I am expecting.

Making a Banana Split

The Muppet Show-Swedish Chef

Boy, this really takes me back. I laughed so hard as I watched this today... numerous times.

Favorite Picture

This is definitely my favorite picture that we've taken together thus far. I'm not really sure what it is about this one, but I like it a lot. It really captures the essence of "us".

Heck yeah!

I just figured out how to add titles to my posts. It was really easy to do, I just never thought about trying to figure it out before now. That's all I've got really. Nothing else. Well, maybe later.

The current musical mood is country. I'm listening to a lot of country today and really digging and focusing in on the simplicity of the bass. I have a tendency to over-play if I'm not careful so I'm trying to get this concept of simplicity in my head and trying to translate it over into the JMB. The current album is Electric Rodeo from Shooter Jennings and before that was Son Volt (more alt-country, really) and earlier today I listened to some of Shooter Jennings first album, Put The O Back In County. Now, that I think about it, I believe it was the Eagles that first got me on this kick on Monday.
For anyone who cares: I think I'm going to put some flats on my Rickenbacker this weekend.

I'm out. I'm off of Facebook and Myspace. Why? Time. It's as simple as that. I was getting quite terrible at managing my time correctly and these things were getting in the way of homework, studying, pracatice, and my quiet time and prayer life. It became most obvious in the last two and that is what finally pushed me over the edge. I realized that I was slacking off so much in my bible reading and prayer and I knew that I had to deactivate my accounts if I ever wanted it to change. But, have no fear. The blog will remain- actually I'll probably post a lot more since facebook, myspace, and my blog won't be in competition anymore. And, if you really need to get a hold of me, you can always email or call me. Stay classy readers.

What happened to fall!?! Did I miss something here? Last week I was walking around in shorts and t-shirts and now I'm here bundled up in a sweater, my nice toasty hat (which Mary Beth made for me), and my winter jacket. It's October! I'm not sure what the weather is supposed to do next week but I surely hope that autumn makes some sort of appearance before Santa shows up. Don' t get me wrong, I LOVE winter and I'm thorougly enjoying this weather and it's figidity, I just feel a little cheated- that's all.

Back to the dorm after an amazing weekend with Mary Beth. I spent the past few days in E-Town with her and her family. Well, not exactly her family. Actually her youth minister and his family, but they might as well be family. Mary Beth stays with them a lot (they actually look quite a bit alike) and treats them as if they were her family so that is how I will refer to them from now on. I drove there Friday night and just got back about an hour ago so I'm pretty tired and I'm about to go to bed. But, I hadn't posted anything in awhile so I felt this deserved a little bit of coverage. It's actually too late for me to have any sort of well thought-out comments on the weekend so any discussing I did wouldn't do it justice. Sorry if I got your hopes up and then let you down. Go check out Andrew's blog- maybe he's been posting some good stuff.

Have you ever had a great "this-is-going-on-the-blog" moment? If you don't have a blog then I'm guessing that you haven't- but everyone else out there knows exactly what I'm talking about. You may not find this one as amusing as me, but I've been laughing to myself at this for the past half hour or so.
So, I'm walking to the Funkhouser Building for my Geology class, in which I had a test today. I was walking through the part of campus surrounded by the various classroom buildings and I smelled a delicious aroma. Hamburgers and hotdogs. I looked around and saw a huge line and since I was running late for class, didn't have time to stop and partake of the free food (it's ok, there's always free food around here.) The test took me about 15 minutes to complete (I may not have done very well, but I sure can take a fast test, dangit) and so I started to walk back to my dorm, hoping that the free food would still be out there. As I approached the tables, I saw what the free food was all about: PETA Cookout. Hmm. Weird right? Ok, I thought, maybe it's all fake meat... but it's still free! So I got a burger and started to eat it- definitely real. What the heck huh? So then I started reading their posters and actually, the cookout was an anti-PETA cookout sponsored by the Republican organization on campus. They had a bunch of posters with different facts about PETA and why they disagree with them. And if that wasn't enough to make me laugh, I saw a poster telling me that it's Republican week here! In fact, yesterday was "Fun with Guns Day." I'm serious. Oh man, what a great start to my day!

I never thought I'd do this... but here you go. I'm on myspace now. Actually, I'm not really sad or anything, it will actually be quite helpful in keeping track of people- especially people that a) aren't on facebook or b) never check their facebook... you know who you are. Myspace is also a great place to find new bands. So, if you're on myspace already- send me a friend invitation, myspace friends= best friends for life! Ok, not really. But we can at least have some sort of connection right?

http://www.myspace.com/derekjohnhughes

I just got back from my dorm room after an amazing weekend at home in Frankfort with Mary Beth. She drove to Lexington on Friday to hang out and eat and then we went to a cool concert across campus- The British Export (Beatles Tribute band). They were really good and it was a lot of fun. Their first set was the early pop tunes and they wore the matching suits and it was a lot of fun with everyone standing up and dancing. Then we took a short intermission and they came out for the second set with the St. Peppers costumes on (complete with George and Ringo with mustaches). They played their later rock songs to close out the night- all in all, it was a really fun concert. I definitely couldn't stand being in a tribute band of any kind, but these guys were really good and you could tell they had done their homework on the Beatles.
Then Mary Beth and I drove back to Frankfort to stay at my house (Dustin is in Canada for the weekend so she took his bed downstairs). We slept in Saturday and just sat around for awhile and then went over to my friend Sarah's house for a short appearance at her birthday luncheon (she goes to school in Illinois and it was her first time home). Then we went to Louisville to meet up with my friends Joshua and Matt and Joel, one of Joshua's friends, and had way too much pizza and that night, I filled in for the bass player in my dad's southern gospel group at a concert right outside of Louisville. We went to church that next morning and then to a family reunion for the rest of the afternoon. Mary Beth had to be back in Louisville for one of her band concerts and we had to be at church by 5 for practice so had to part ways at that point. Although that may not sound like a great weekend to you- let me tell you, it was. It was so great to spend so much time with Mary Beth, it gets pretty hard not seeing each other very often (not at all during the weeks) so any time we can spend together is just awesome. I can't wait till next weekend when I get to meet her family.