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.

Something Inside So Strong
Gone Too Soon
I Am That Man

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?

Today I met with a Clinical Dietitian. We talked a lot about my experiences, what I know, what I’ve done, what I need to do. One of the frustrating things I’ve faced is doctors and other professionals that have set unrealistic or overwhelming goals. The doctor I used to go to told me I need to get down to 165 lbs. That’s almost half my weight; it just seemed impossible. This week we set three goals to work on until our next meeting in two weeks. 

1. No more than 2 Diet Cokes per day. Before I was drinking any where from 80 – 100 oz of Diet Coke. Drink water instead.
2. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday & Saturday walk Beemer for 30 minutes. She felt very sorry for Beemer when she learned that I never take her for walks (well almost never).
3. Eat breakfast at home 3 days a week. When I eat breakfast at work I eat a bagel-egg-cheese-and-sausage-sandwich. Bagels are bad.

So those are my three goals these next two weeks. I go back on May 4. So far today, I’ve already walked Beemer. When I had lunch after my meeting at Chipotle, I had water with my burrito instead of Diet Coke. I’ll also be keeping a daily log of everything I eat and drink. I’m using SparkPeople.com to do that. 

I plan on posting at least weekly on here to talk about how I’m doing. I may post more often as the mood strikes me.

I really liked Bahar and my meeting with her today. I really feel like having regular meetings with her will give me that edge I need to succeed.We talked about how I already have all the knowledge necessary to lose the weight I want to lose. What I need is a coach. Someone to whip my ass into shape, so to speak.  When I mentioned that I wanted someone to walk Beemer with she immediately asked me where I lived. If I were closer she’d have met me somewhere to walk with me and Beemer. She is going to text me to remind me to take Beemer for a walk when I get home and then on Saturday mornings. She asked me how confident I felt on a scale of 1-10 that this time I would be successful in losing weight. I was at a 6 or 7. Now that I have spent the last several minutes writing this post and reflecting on our meeting i’d say it is closer to a 8.

Great article.

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!!

Then, in Obama’s press conference tonight, he says that all pork that won’t create or save jobs has been removed, I find myself laughing in disbelief. If that is true, Mr. President, then you got some explaining to do. How, or how, Mr. President does $50 million for the Endowment of the Arts stimulate the economy? Combating violence against women is a good thing and I support initiatives that will help reduce such crimes, but why has $300 million been included to combat this violence in this bill? Will it create jobs or save jobs? I’d like you, Mr. President, to explain how. Oh and what about the Digital TV transition? They’ve already delayed it until June, so we might as well throw some money there. Another $560 million to fund the coupon program. $90 million to educate “vulnerable populations.” Will this stimulate the economy or save/create jobs? Please tell me how Mr. President. 

So Mr. President, care to explain?