BlakeRoberson.net

Yesterday my buddy Manish pointed out to me that I’ve only posted three things in the month of April. While I knew that I hadn’t been posting much lately, I didn’t realize how infrequent I’ve become with sharing my thoughts.

However, in my defense, Grad school has been killing me. It’s been test after test after paper after test after test. Seriously I feel like all I do is study all week long. But on the bright side, I’ve just got to take one last test on Saturday morning and I’ll be done with the semester.

Also, a lot of things that I don’t write about have been going on lately. Ex: fights with friends and various ups and downs with a few “lady friends”. While I do share a lot, I don’t share it all.

But an interesting note is that I’m leaving Sunday to go to San Diego for a week for an insurance convention. While the idea of learning about insurance for a week may seem boring, it’s oddly not. Since the job of most the people at this convention is to buy insurance, the insurance companies are very eager to wine and dine you. So it’ll be a week of free food and free booze and being entertained. Also, they’re bringing in Hootie and the Blowfish one night and then another night they’re having Cirque du Soleil. So it should be good times.

The other night I bought a CD from cdbaby.com. If you’re unfamiliar with cdbaby.com, it’s basically a website for musicians who aren’t signed by a major record label, but yet still good enough and/or driven enough to somehow put out a CD. It’s a great way to find some really good music.

But the point of this post is that after I made my purchase I got this email:

Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved “Bon Voyage!” to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Monday, April 14th.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby.  We sure did. Your picture is on our wall as “Customer of the Year.”  We’re all exhausted but can’t wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

Those people at cdbaby.com are funny.

I just read this article about a Metro Station performance in D.C. by violinist Joshua Bell. (It’s kind of long but I definitely recommend reading it)

Aside from the fact that the article is just interesting, it reminded me of something that happened about a month or two ago.

I was in Nashville with some friends at a Predator’s game and we ended up leaving early. I don’t remember all the details, but for some reason I was walking down Broadway by myself. As I crossed over 4th I saw a woman there on the corner playing the violin. It caught my attention because it was different than the normal street musicians you see playing in downtown Nashville. I smiled as I walked by and just listened as I was walking away. For some reason when I got to the corner of 3rd I felt compelled to turn around. I ended up going back and giving that lady $2. She stopped when I dropped the money in her case and told me thank you. I just smiled at her again and told her that what she was playing was really pretty. I then went merrily on my way.

I never told anyone that story because at the time I just thought the whole situation was really odd. I guess maybe not.

The intention ever since Heather and I split up was that she was going to get our cat Mallory once she got settled into her own place. Well on Sunday Heather came and got Mallory…

Although I knew it was coming, I was absolutely devastated. Honestly, I had never felt so lonely in my entire life.

However, since Mallory isn’t what you would call a “pleasant cat”, she didn’t take to well to the new place and the new people who were around her. So Heather called the vet to see if she could bring her in.  The vet told her that since Mallory was displaying fearful aggression, the best option would be to return her to me if possible because unless you ease a cat like her into that kind of situation she probably wasn’t going to stop acting the way she was.

So yesterday Heather brought Mallory back. While I was happy to have my cat living with me again, I know how terrible Heather feels.

It’s been pretty rough on both of us; but Mallory seems to be doing well.