The Rohr Family

Just a list…

1.  People that are constantly late.

2.  When I am late.

3.  Violins that are out-of-tune, especially in an orchestra.

4.  When I ask my children to do something and they tell me, “ok.  Just a minute…” and then don’t do what I asked.

5.  Sopranos that are flat.  As in musically, not chested.

6.  When I make a mistake while making dinner and the dinner isn’t as good as it could have been.  

7.  Retail service people that don’t provide service.

8.  Being told that the McDonald’s ice cream machine is broken.  (That is a lie, people.  I had friends that used to work fast food that told me they would tell people the machine was broken because they didn’t want to have to clean the machine.  Apparently, it isn’t that easy to clean.)  Can 3 stores have broken ice cream machines?  

9.  People that send emails telling me that Proctor and Gamble is headed by a Satanist.

10.  Forwards on email that have some sort of conspiracy in it, like saying Madeline Murray O’Hare is trying to take prayer out of school.  She is dead!  Snopes is an excellent site to find out if these rumors are true or not.

11.  Emails stating that Obama might be the antichrist.

12.  Little boys bathrooms.  (Stinky!)  Also cat litter that hasn’t been changed.

13.  Eggplant.

14.  Children that leave their stuff where they drop it.

15.  Being told, “I don’t like that,” when I tell someone what is for dinner.

16.  Going out to eat for a special occasion and having crappy food.

17.  People that get paid to do something that they don’t do.

18.  Gossip.

19.  Dog smell.

20.  Dog drool.

21.  Sniffing dogs.

22.  Jumping dogs.

23.  The smell of the fish department of any store.

24.  People that need to get the last word in.

25.  When someone insists that they are right and you have the proof they aren’t, but you don’t say anything because you don’t want to offend them.

26.  Emails that state “if  you don’t send this to 10 people in ten minutes, you will have ten years of bad luck,” or other such luck related statements.

27.  When children don’t study for tests and say they are ready to take the test.  The same goes for children that say they practice, but you can tell they don’t.

28.  People that use the “f” word in every sentence they speak.

29.  Age spots.

30.  Gray hairs.

31.  Nylon socks.  They make my feet sweat, which in turn, makes them smell horribly.

32.  Having to shave my legs and then getting a nick.

33.  Trying to wax/shave my bikini line.

34.  When someone yells at my kids.

35.  When someone is mean to my kids.

36.   40 watt light bulbs.

37.  Spit up on my shoulder or down the front of my bra.  (Yes, that has happened.  All you can do is laugh.)

38.  Pencils that squeak when you write with them.

39.  Sleeping too late in the morning so you’ve thrown away your day.

40.  The smell of raw chicken.

Julie Kids, Music

These were taken at the June 5th recital.  I had 14 students perform at this recital, and 10 at the other one.  I decided that I would play a piece this time.  At Christmas, I had a couple of parents ask me to play and I was totally unprepared to play anything–I hadn’t memorized anything.  So I figured I better play something this time around so they know their kid’s piano teacher can actually play.

You can see I have a maternity dress on now.

Elizabeth played “You’ve Got a Friend in Me.”

As Daddy would say, “Isn’t she beautiful?”

Alex was a big help–and big as well!  He’s growing up!

This is me giving last minute instructions to my students.

David was the one taking pictures, so we don’t have one of his pretty face, but I will try to catch him at some point.

Julie Music, Piano

I posted Monday about the Aviom Switch I made which worked so well I get to make five more!

I took the cover off so that you could see those little wires and jacks and tiny switch crammed into that one inch by four inch metal box. There are nineteen different solder connections to make for each box.

I probably should have thought this whole thing through a little better.

It took me over two hours to complete the first one, so I am looking at ten hours of work ahead of me.

See, this is what happens when Davie gets bored – he creates little projects to keep him busy.

Very busy.

David Music

Our church has an Aviom monitoring system for the musicians and singers.

I helped lead the way in getting them installed and they are simply amazing. Imagine sixteen individual channels of audio at your fingertips giving you the ability to hear exactly what you want of each instrument in stereo.

They are a performers dream come true.

Our configuration is that the vocalists have floor wedges connected to the Avioms. This has worked out well in that each singer can mix in their own monitor settings without the need to communicate back to the sound board. There are some limitations with this setup however, primarily that the sound techs have no control over the overall stage volume.

There are times when everyone is turning up their monitor to hear and before long you have a serious volume issue on stage.

Because of this, I decided to move my team over to headphones to tighten up our playing and eliminate the problems of a loud stage. Since six of our Avioms are connected to amplifiers, this presented a problem of how to remove the feed from the amps and plug in headphones without creating a “buzz” as the ground was interrupted.

I couldn’t find what I needed searching on Google so I decided to make my own.

I wanted something small enough to fit on the Aviom mixer that would give me an out to the monitor and an out to headphones that could be switched without breaking the ground to the amp.

Here is the material I used:

2 – Metal Step Flashing $ .58
1 – 1/4 ” Grommet $ .30
2 – 1/4″ Stereo Jacks $ 4.00
1 – 1/8″ Stereo Jack $ 4.00
1 – 2 Pole Toggle Switch on/off/on $ 2.95
1 – 1/4″ Stereo Plug $ 1.50
24″ Microphone Wire $ 2.00
Metal Screws $ .98

I came up with an idea for a 1 x 4 x 1 inch box and proceeded to create a prototype out of cardboard.

You can see the cardboard model in this shot as well as the marked up flashing. I ended up using a different switch in the final design so the square hole was not required.

Layout on flashing.

The flashing was just the right size for this project and easy to work with.

Alex modeling safety glasses.

He put these on as a joke, but a piece of metal ended up bouncing off them! Protect your eyes when you work with this stuff!

Drill out all the holes for the jacks, switch and microphone cable. The final version has 2 holes on the switch side, one for the switch and one for the 1/8″ jack. The first switch I purchased was a 2 pole on/off which would not work, so when I found the small toggle I added the smaller jack as well to eliminate the need to use a headphone adapter since most headphones use 1/8″ plugs.

Drilling out the hole for one of the 1/4″ jacks. Be sure to clamp the piece down, you don’t want it flipping around slicing your fingers! Sadly, from first hand experience, thankfully I was quick!

Once the holes have been drilled, cut out the tabs with a tin snips.

Completed piece ready for bending before the modification for the new switch and jack. You will have to use your imagination, but there are two smaller holes on either side of the square hole on the finished piece. Obviously the square hole would not be needed.

Bend the tabs up ninety degrees with a hand seamer. You can see in this shot the marks for the new holes.

Completed bottom section with the ends down for soldering.

Install the grommet and feed the microphone cable through about 4 inches past the grommet into the box. You can use any length cable, but I only needed about 16 inches for the Aviom.

To secure the cable in the box, I slit the insulation down the length of the cable jacket to the grommet and stripped back the insulation to expose the wires. After unwinding the shield from the insulation, I removed the insulation to the grommet and twisted the shield into a wire. I then slit the stripped outer jacket down the backside giving me 2 pieces or halves to tie a knot against the grommet to keep the cable from pulling out.

Using another 5 inches of microphone cable, I removed the wires and shield and used them to make up the jacks and switch. Again, I twisted the shield into a wire which was soldered to the sleeve terminals on each jack, cable and case. It is important to tie all the shields or grounds together to keep the amplifiers quiet.

The rest of the wiring is simply attaching all the tips to the tips and all the rings to the rings through the double pole switch. When the soldering was done, all the sides were pushed up into place creating a compact box.

I don’t have pictures for this because I forgot to take them, and once I had it assembled the last thing I wanted to do was pull it apart!

The cover was simply a 3″ x 4″ piece of flashing bent at 1″ increments with some holes hacked in to pass by the switch, jack and grommet.

Here is the completed switch which worked perfectly without so much as a click when switching between headphone outputs and the powered monitor. It was as quiet as a church mouse. I attached this to the back of the Aviom with some industrial Velcro on the bottom, positioning the switch and jack pointing up.

Next time I would do a better job cutting out the cover holes and install the switch so that it toggles to the output side instead of reversed like I have it. I thought about re-wiring it but figured if the church wants me to build 5 more I will fix it then.

Update: Inside wiring picture can be found here.

David Music

They are kind of like bunnies with strings. Once you get 2 – they start breeding.

The 2 on the right were gifts, the acoustic to the right of the white board was my first Takamine Jasmine. The one on the left is my first “real” Takamine G Series. The bass on the floor is one I picked up on eBay for $60.00. My daughter has started playing that one, which is just plain fun to watch. My son Alex made the hangers last week and they work really good and keep the axes handy.

I gave him the Jasmine last year and he has been practicing religiously. Someone at church overheard him praying for an electric guitar, so they gave him the black Strat for Christmas. It is a reproduction, but a great guitar nonetheless. He is getting pretty good at playing and it is fun to have him play with us on stage at church.

However, the girls at church have started noticing my artistic muscular dashingly handsome son.

I wonder if there is room on the wall to hang him for a couple years.

David Music Church, Guitars, Kids, Music

This week has been an interesting week. Up until now, I have had only the occasional student that didn’t practice due to sickness or vacation, etc. I have a student, however, who we’ll call Tammy, who hasn’t practiced at all. I’m talking about since she came in October, she has consistently not practiced. Tammy is in 6th grade, so she knows what is right and wrong. She came to me from another piano teacher, whom I don’t know, and said she was in level 1 or 2. I DON’T think so. She can’t tell me what the notes are, she can’t tell whether they are going up or down, and she constantly asks me if she is supposed to play with both hands. (If you see notes in the Treble Clef, your right hand plays, and if you see notes in the Bass Clef, your left hand plays.)

So she comes on Tuesday. Of course, the first thing she says to me is, “I practiced, but we were really busy this week, but I did practice.”

After hearing the first song, I’m skeptical.

I look at her practice log and she has 5 days of practice in (supposedly).

So I torture myself listening to another song that she can’t play and finally I say, “Tammy, it would be a lot easier for Mrs. Rohr to know where to start if you tell her right away that you didn’t practice. You know I’m not going to yell and scream at you.  I may be disappointed, but that’s the way it is.  If you told me right away that you didn’t practice, then we wouldn’t have to sit here and listen to songs that you don’t know.”

“But I did practice.”

“Well,” I say kindly, “I’m wondering how you don’t know this song at ALL if you practiced for five days. That usually doesn’t happen. Mrs. Rohr can tell if you haven’t practiced. Did you have a chance to do any songs?”

She looks at the practice log and gets an “ah-ha!”expression and says, “Oh…… I filled in the practice sheet by accident. I thought I was practicing this weeks songs, but I actually practiced last weeks songs.”

Yeah. Right. How could you not know what your lesson is when I write it on the practice sheet AND in her notebook, with the date?

So we struggle through the lesson.

At the end, I decide to speak up.

“Tammy, I know that you are a Christian, and you know that I am too. I want to follow what God tells me to do, and honestly, I’m having a hard time having your mom pay me for your piano lessons and you not learning anything because you don’t do what you are supposed to. I just don’t feel right taking her money if you can’t do what you need to do to become a good piano player. I’m going to make you a deal.”

She looks at me, and I forge ahead, “If you come to me next time, I expect you to have practiced and not to lie about how many times you practiced. If you can’t do that, I think we will have to talk to your mom, because I just can’t continue to get paid by her when you aren’t learning what you need to learn. So that is the deal. If you practice, and show me that you practiced, then great, otherwise, we will have a chat with your mom. Do you understand?”

She nods. I pat her shoulder. I was kind and nice, but man, I had to lay it out.

“So, come next time having your practicing done, Okay?”

She agrees and that is the end of it.

I know I was probably too easy on her, but I also didn’t want to make the kid cry. When you are one-on-one with a child, just you and them, it is pretty easy to make them cry. So I was kind, but firm. I gave her the benefit of the doubt, but I knew she was lying. I don’t get how you expect to get away with telling your teacher that you practiced when you haven’t. It’s not like you can play the songs–that is why you PRACTICE them, so you can get better at them.

Duh.

Well, she has a whole two weeks to practice before she comes back to me. I wonder what she will come up with?

Julie Music, Piano

Since we are going to be doing worship again on Sunday, I thought I would try to get some songs together for David to look at.  I went through all the music we had and found about 7 songs I thought we could do.  One of the titles struck me as funny:  “Come, Now is the Time to Worship,” As if anybody thought differently, now we all know for sure, that yes, it indeed is the time to worship.  Not later, but NOW.  Don’t go, come here!

So anyway, on Wednesday, we made copies of a bunch of music for our team.  Stuff that we would like to do in the future.  We have decided to put them in a binder for everyone and bring them on Sunday.  We will pull the music we are doing that day and put it in the front, otherwise, everything is alphabetized.  That way, if David feels like taking stuff in a different direction, we will all have music to use.  I also got music for 3 songs we would like to do in the future.  I still have to put them together as chord sheets, but they will go into the binder as well.   David is the creative behind this whole thing, and I am the organization.  Not that I mind, I like doing stuff like this.  I love to organize and anticipate what I can do to make things easier.  I am also thinking I might make up a CD of future songs we would like to do, so that we can listen to it and learn it faster.  (Instead of sitting down in front of the piano and learning a new song, sometimes it is easier to listen to it and get it down in your head before you try it.)

Maybe I will post some of the other songs we want to do at a later time…

Julie Music

Unbelievably, another week has gone by. It has been incredibly busy around here, and I am getting into the swing of things.

School is going along well. The kids each had their first math TEST last week and both got an A. I was happy about that. We are having a geography test on Monday and a science test on Wednesday. Spelling will be getting underway–finally! I have been kind of slack with the spelling. We are doing a geography project. A topographic map. It was something I remembered from my school days and we got a map of Chesapeake and will be getting that done this week, hopefully. I will post the pictures.

The piano lessons have been absolutely amazing. Who would have thought that there would be so many people that want lessons? I have 30 students. I had Alex take the sign down on Friday, because I think this is it, for the year. It is a nice little business, and it is going well, for being the first week. I am enjoying it, and we are talking about possibly converting the garage to a studio. (Down here, there isn’t much need for a garage, per say, so lots of people take that opportunity to add another room to their house.) That won’t happen for awhile, but it is nice to think about it.

We got word from church that they want David and I to take the 8:30 praise and worship service. We are excited and the kids will be singing with us too. On Friday, we played/sang for the intercession that evening. We had a great time! Our drummer and bass player said they didn’t want to quit playing. Neither did we, it was so fun. I’m hoping that they decide they want to be part of our team instead of the 10:00 team, because we all work well together.

David is going out of town tomorrow!  I hate it when he is gone, but at least it is only for a night.  He is going to the trade show in Chicago with his boss, the boss’ son and another guy.  We will drive him to the airport tomorrow at 5 a.m. and pick him up on Monday at 10:00 p.m.  I will miss him!

Another week gone by…

Julie Crafts, Homeschool, Music, Piano