Back from vacation!

Almost a year without blogging, decided I was well overdue for a blog.

Got back from a few days in Williamsburg at Busch Gardens/Water Country. We decided to do it in the middle of the week so there would be a bit less of a crowd.

We started with Busch Gardens. Weather great at 93 degrees. Not a cloud in the sky. Rode all the coasters. Rode Griffon for the first time, and that was great! I've been on a ton of roller coasters, but this was the first that tips down the drop and hangs there for about 5 secs, then drops you 90 degrees straight down.   The food there was really good- best for an amusement park (was a show on Food Network about Amusement Park food and it featured Busch Gardens). We saw a few of the shows- wow are they cheesy. They had an Oktoberfest thing I was interested to see since I play in one at Mountain Lake in October. Musicians were decent, but the singers/dancers- think Disney meets Germany. All the traditions were done very stale and done like a broken record- no authenticity to it, kind of a shame. Ours is better.  Other than that, we had a good time

Water Country was day 2. Once again hot weather, no clouds. Perfect weather for water park. Only one problem- sidewalks were scorching hot. Felt like I could relate to firewalkers to a very slight degree- less you think about the pain, the better.   Thank god for sandals we brought. Was a fun, relaxing day. Some pretty cool slides, a bit more people than I thought, but great time.

Headed back today for a weekend at home to just hang out. We're gonna go see The Dark Knight tomorrow, which I've been waiting to see since the last movie.

Glad to be back and looking forward to gaming again!

Posted by Pulsaris @ 6:11 pm EDT | Permalink | 2 Comments

LET FOOTBALL BEGIN!!!!

I've been waiting for this day for quite a while, and I am PSYCHED!!!!
My team, JMU(James Madison U), plays its first game tonight against UNC. I wanted to go to the game, but wasn't able to get tickets. Thankfully the game will be online on ESPN 360 at 6pm tonight.
Until then, I'll be watching some other fellow I-AA schools hopefully take down some big teams- well make them close.
JMU actually has a pretty strong chance of making it a game.
Locally, another REALLY big game in Blacksburg, for obvious reasons. While I'm not a VT fan, I've become much more so since the tragedy. The town of Blacksburg has really been waiting for this game. You can feel the anticipation and love of the university and their team.

Now time to give some love to my alma mater
GO JMU!!!
GO DUKES!!!

and now to give some some love to my alumni marching band, the Marching Royal Dukes (this is the 2006 edition-I graduated in '03 but played same things). These videos were taken from a band competition JMU hosts every year, which is why there are aren't any people on the other side of the stadium!
James Bond Medley



And now some love for my trumpet section- Firedance!



Posted by Pulsaris @ 10:22 am EDT | Permalink | 1 Comments

Fixed youtube/drum battle

Well, I finally figured out why the youtube vid wasn't working. I was pasting it and for some reason it wasn't reading it right when I used the clipboard.
The video of my last blog is now up and running. Hope you enjoy.

Today I added a video from a group called Blast. They originated from a drum and bugle corps(Star of Indiana) and now perform on Broadway. This part of the show is called drum battle. Pretty cool stuff.




Posted by Pulsaris @ 8:17 pm EDT | Permalink | 2 Comments

New direction in my blog

Since many of you on the site only know the side I game with, I figured I'd finally open up a bit and blog about the real life "Pulsaris"

My name is Jason. I live in Radford, VA with my wife Kasey. We've been married for 3 years and couldn't be happier. I work in Blacksburg as an administrator for Tuck Chiropractic. I work mainly with the billing of the insurance. There are 9 different clinics all over the area that are part of the business. It can get pretty chaotic having 2 people do the entire insurance billing for 9 clinics! Some days I enjoy it, other days- not so much.

Outside of gaming, I have one really big passion- music. I've been playing trumpet for 17 years. I went to college at James Madison University and played in the marching band all 7 years I was there (the 7 years thing is a story for another day!), and was section leader for 2 of those years. Best trip- we went to Europe and played for Monaco's 700th anniversary in front of the palace- really cool! We also did 2 parades- Cannes, France and Genoa, Italy. The only parades I ever did where we WERE the parade, nobody else. Pretty cool.

I was a member of the Cadets Drum and Bugle Corps (located in Bergenfield, NJ) for two years- 1999 and 2000. The most memorable and toughest summers of my life. For those unfamiliar with drum and bugle corps- its basically professional marching band. You work about 14-16 hours a day just marching and playing- travelling all over the country and competing against other drum and bugle corps. The last week of the season takes place in August- championships week. Quarterfinals contains all the corps competing for the championship and only 17 go on to the Semis. 12 from the semifinals go on to Finals. Finals is the dream for any member of drum corps. Crowds as big as 30,000 pay big money (as much as 125 dollars for THE best seats in the house- avg cost is about 50-75 bucks a seat) to see the top 12. Winner gets the title of DCI(Drum Corps International) Champion, a trophy to be displayed at the corps home and medals and a championship ring(the super bowl ring of the marching world). I was extremely honored to have won finals in 2000.

Currently, I play in 3 groups. The main group I play in is the Bedford Community Orchestra. I also play in the Blacksburg Community Band and a German Oompah Band- The Sauerkraut Band. There's nothing better than getting paid to drink beer and play music!

I'm hoping that with my blog I can share my passion for music.

For starters, here is my last performance with Cadets- 2000. It is music from Disney's Millenium Celebration- in Epcot when they had the big fireworks show. (I'm one of the trumpet players in the front row during the showoff section- and yes, we are playing on each others horns. )

(woohoo i fixed youtube)

Posted by Pulsaris @ 6:43 pm EDT | Permalink | 4 Comments

I'm back!

.... at least for 1 blog entry. I keep telling myself I'm gonna update this thing often and it never happens, so no more promises!

While many know I'm a musician and love music as a whole (with the exception of a few music types), I have really come to dislike FM radio. I've known it all my life, but it's just annoyed me beyond belief lately. I work in an office where they play soft rock on average. The station is called Q99 in Roanoke. The thing that really bugs me is lack of creativity in music selection and "playlists" they use. They play the same damn songs EVERY day. While I understand the usual hits that they're probably supposed to play, they also play songs over 10-20 years old every day like they just came out a week ago. While I like some of those songs, why play these songs every day and not mix them up. And these songs aren't necessarily ones you'd think were classics to a point where they need to be played more than once a day every day (I think one is called "Leader of the Band" or something like that). The same song loops over and over. Why not actually mix it up a bit? I can't be the only one listening to this station wanting something just a little different. The others I work with were feeling the same way and we decided to boycott so we went to another station. Once again, more looping of songs, but at least they mix the older songs a bit.

And here's the big one for me: If I ever hear that song "How to save a life" again, I'm throwing the radio out the window.

Posted by Pulsaris @ 6:12 pm EDT | Permalink | 2 Comments