Another week, more activities.

After all the festivities from last week/weekend, it was just nice to not do anything this week/weekend. On Tuesday, John and I went to the DM Symphone opening night gala and Joshua Bell was the soloist. If you remember, I was most impressed with him last year when I saw him up in Ames and I have to say that he did not disappoint one bit. I've yet to see anyone who is as technically gifted as he is. Perlman comes to mind, but he's in a world of his own. I was very family with the piece that Bell played and he made it sound so alive. He played a piece from the Red Violin soundtrack and it was a short, yet mesmerizing piece. Needless to say, he earned and deserved his standing ovation. What a great way to get the year started!

On Friday, Maria and I went to the World Food Festival that took place at the East Village. I went there two years ago and it was a good festival. This year I dragged Maria along with me. We went at a time when most people were still at work so there was not a big crowd which was fine by me. I had some Bosian, Ecuadorian and Greek food. I was surprised there weren't that many food vendors there. One would think that a food festival should have a plethora of food vendors but that was not the case. A would say half the vendors had shops in the greater DM area and I did not patronize them since I would much rather go to their restaurant. After the food festival, we had gelato. Can you believe that it's pretty much fall and this is the first time I had gelato? I normally have gelato when it's the summer season, but for some reason or another, I've not had any.

Saturday was a pretty mellow day. I watched two dvds then was off to the library to return them. I borrowed more dvds then spent some time in the library. I also went window shopping for a grill for the church. The grill we have it pretty much dead so I offered to do some research and price shop for our new grill. Now's kind of the season to buy grills since it's not in season and most places are looking for get rid of whatever grills they have onsite. I looked in the consumer report guide and found a couple that were ranked pretty high and were within the price range.

Sunday was a nice day because after Mass, I went out for brunch with Ginny Pearson. Ginny moved back to DM after spending some time in Kansas City and realized that she missed DM so she moved back here. Ginny has been a widow some years now and I've always liked Ginny so whenever I get to spend time with her, it's always nice. She showed me her new condo where she's living and it's a nice condo. I got a haircut after that and watched my Broncos play. I've yet to see them play this whole year so it was a good was to spend the day.

That's pretty much how the week/weekend went. Next weekend will be a busy one too because St. Kate's has its 10 year anniversary celebration and as much as I would like to be present at all of the festivities, I won't be able to do that. I'm headed up to Ames for a performance on Friday and on Saturday night there's a classical performance. I will however be able to make it to a Dan Schutte workshop next Saturday morning and it should be a very good worshop. Schutte is the famous composer for many familiar songs that are sung at church.