The Life of Bryan

The Turtle Creek Chorale, Dallas’ world-renowned male chorus, announces it will host:

VOICES FOR HAITI: An Emergency Benefit Concert Marathon
Friday, February 19, 2010
Cathedral of Hope
(5910 Cedar Springs Road, Dallas, TX 75235)
6:00 p.m. to Midnight

On January 12, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti just outside the capital city of Port-au-Prince. The devastation – in lives lost, property destroyed, and families displaced – is immense. In the last 500 years, no country in the Western Hemisphere has been battered more than Haiti – the nearly complete annihilation of its native population in less than two decades, a brutal slave regime, foreign military interventions over hundreds of years, dictatorships supported by western powers, blockades of aid and more recently devastating hurricanes – and now the earthquake.

“What can I do to help?” is a question so many are asking as they witness the struggles of the Haitian people to recover from the devastating earthquake that continues to take the lives of so many men, women and children. The answer is simple – do what ‘we’ do best and perform!

Joining the Turtle Creek Chorale in this six-hour marathon of mini-concerts is ENCORE!, The Women’s Chorus of Dallas, Cathedral of Hope Choir and Orchestra, Men’s Chorus of Hamilton Park Baptist Church, Resounding Harmony, Liz Mikel, Linda and Larry Petty, Anton Shaw, Gary Floyd and the cast of Theatre 3’s I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, past winners of Dallas’ very own Voice of Pride, City Councilmember Pauline Medrano and many others. Del Shores, creator/director of SORDID LIVES, will also be presenting comedy and signing autographs.

Corporate sponsors include American Airlines/Rainbow, Cathedral of Hope, Caven Enterprises, Creative GrafX, Dallas Voice and WRR Classical 101.1FM.

Dr. Jonathan Palant, Artistic Director of the Turtle Creek Chorale, says of the event, “It’s a fortunate coincidence February 19th also marks the 30th birthday of the Turtle Creek Chorale. Hosting an event of this magnitude and for such a worthy and timely cause is precisely the kind of gift we had hoped to receive for this momentous occasion. The four pillars of our mission are to Entertain, Educate, Unite and Uplift. I believe Voices For Haiti not only realizes these, but it exceeds all expectations of them as well.”

A suggested $25 minimum donation will be taken upon entrance and 100% of all monies raised will benefit the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund (http://clintonbushhaitifund.org/index.php) and are 100% tax-deductible. All logistical and performance aspects of this concert marathon are on a volunteer basis.

For more information, please contact the Turtle Creek Chorale office at the Sammons Center for the Arts, 3630 Harry Hines Boulevard, Suite #306, Dallas, Texas 75219, by phone at 214-526-3214 or online at www.turtlecreek.org.

So this week is the Creating Change Conference presented by the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force. The Turtle Creek Chorale will be singing at the conference on Friday. I’m looking forward to singing. Here are the songs we are singing Friday:

Something Inside So Strong
Gone Too Soon
I Am That Man

http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/27/editorial-engadget-on-the-ipad/

This was an interesting read but I got several bones to pick here.

1. I don’t understand the hubbub about netbooks. Why would you by a netbook if you have a notebook/laptop? That just doesn’t make sense to me. And if you really are the person who uses a desktop for most of your work but occasionally need a laptop to do stuff on the road, why settle for a netbook. To be honest, most people that are faced with this situation are in a financial situation good enough to afford a laptop. Netbooks to me are a poor man’s laptop.

2. The iPad was not built to be a content creation device. I may have hoped for that, but what we got was a device built for consuming digital media.

3. What’s with all the bitching and moaning about lack of flash. I’m trying to think of a site I go to on a regular basis that uses flash and I’m drawing a blank. Most of the time I see flash on a website, it’s an ad of some sort. I also hate a flash designed website. They are slow! and not only because flash is slow, but because the designer felt a need to include fancy animations and shit.

4. I do think that Safari on the iPad will be a better browsing experience. People complain about a lack of a physical keyboard. The only website I visit on a regular basis that I type a lot is CGR. Most of the others is just reading and maybe doing a quick search.

5. I like magazines because they are easy to hold in one hand and read an article and drink my jack and coke. The same with books. I can recline back in my reading chair (yes I have a chair specifically for reading) and surf the web like I read a book or magazine. Brilliant!

6. The lack of camera… honestly, I don’t plan on taking pictures with it nor do I think I would want to. I don’t do video chat. There is one person I know and talk to through phone/IM/Texts that does. I have a feeling that this is true for most people (though I could be wrong).

7. This device will be perfect for watching a movie on long flights. I’ve got 2 trips this summer that involve 8 hour (or more) flights. The battery life on this will be perfect for watching the movies I want to watch (and not the movies the airline tells me to watch).

8. iWork looks like it will be cool and very useful. Though until I try it out for myself, I won’t be able to say for sure.

So there are some of my thoughts. I’ll be one of the early adopters on this device. Comments?

So the iPhone 3.0 software was announced and I am very excited with this update. Here are some new features that are being added that I’ve been waiting for:

Ruin Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan

So quietly tucked away into the stimulus bill that Barack Obama claims is so vital to our nation, is a little provision that will give the government the power to decide how best to take care of your health and control your doctor. So not only does the government think it can spend your money better than you, it also thinks it can make medical decisions better than you and your doctor.

Call you senator and demand that they require this provision to be removed from the stimulus package!!