Catching Up With Pictures

---

Doing some catch-up with pictures...


Slauson Middle School's orchestra wows the crowd at Hill Auditorium. This was at the Ann Arbor Public Schools Orchestra Night, at which all the public middle and high school orchestras performed.


Here's K after the concert at Hill Auditorium.


A few weeks ago, K was playing another instrument (piano) at Solo and Ensemble. Here's a picture of him and the hardware he collected.


Rounding out K's pictures for the time being, here he is at the MATHCOUNTS competition a few weeks back. Four of these students will be going to the state competition.


Here's M posing for the camera at his Solo and Ensemble. As you already know, his piano solo and sax trio performances each won him a blue medal.

---

Some Links
Got an hour? Watch "Mythbusters" host Adam Savage build a scale model. He's made other model videos as well.

That's it. I'm quitting my job and going back to school to learn how to make one of these. I hope my family doesn't mind.

How do people come up with the ideas to make these things? Genius!

---

Music, a Movie, and a Book

M (left) plays with his sax trio before the Pioneer High band concert. A number of different ensembles were given a chance to play for the audience, and they were as impressive as when the bands played as a whole.

It's Cold!
It’s been a while – here’s an update from chilly Ann Arbor.

K completed the MATHCOUNTS season by attending the local competition on Monday (he got the day off school!). They practice once a week on Wednesdays after school. Now that they’re done practicing for the year, we’ll have to find him some math to do on Wednesdays.

Music Men
M and K both completed their regional Solo and Ensemble performances recently. M played a piano solo, and a saxophone trio with two of his Pioneer classmates. His solo and trio both received “I” ratings. K’s first performance at a Solo and Ensemble was a piano solo, on which he got a “I” rating. Great job, guys!

A Movie and a Book
We’ve now all seen the movie Selma, about the civil rights movement, and highlighting the walk from Selma to Montgomery in 1965. J and I saw it several weeks ago, and the boys saw it today on one of their days off school.

I’m almost done reading The Idea Factory, a book about Bell Labs and its decades of invention and innovation. Bell was a government-approved monopoly for many years, and in return, Bell offered their patents either free of charge or at a low cost to anyone else. They invented the transistor, satellite communications, and many other things that are still in use today. The transistor is probably the single greatest invention in the history of electronics, allowing products to move away from large and expensive tubes to be smaller, use less energy, and be easier to mass produce.

---

Stay warm!

---