Somusing

On October 2, concert pianist Rudolf Budginas visited Idaho Falls to do a concert. That afternoon he gave a master class to three teenage piano students, one of whom was our son Zed. Our whole family was able to be there, and we all really enjoyed it. The class was excellent. Rudolf was friendly and funny, but straightforward in noting areas for improvement and fun in guiding the students to better technique. A big part of his focus after hearing the students play was on getting them to relax and try to create the best sound for the piece. To not be boring. To enjoy playing. He said that a key to improvement is not necessarily long practice sessions, but rather, hard work and focus on improving a particular deficiency during regular practice sessions. Just passing the time playing and replaying a piece won't result in anywhere near the improvement that focused, hard work with a goal will. Which is advice that applies to most work I can think of. Thanks for sharing your...

Salt Lake City's freeways are liberally adorned with billboards to try to distract eyes from the road at all times. Ok, fair enough. But in recent years the percentage of them devoted to liposuction and other plastic surgery has grown rapidly. Now it seems to be something like a quarter or a third of them. Maybe they're just the most annoying to me and therefore the ones I most often notice. In any case, this is my least favorite of all: It's totally unattractive, from the lame verbiage to the ugly photo and hideous "graphic design," it's the supreme loser, all right. And here I am making more people look at it! Sorry.