My apologies for the delay, things have been getting quite busy. Forgive me?
Let's start with INAUGURATION 2013!! What a great trip, Public Allies took us on a 16 hour bus ride so that we could watch a jumbo-tron of Obama getting sworn in. And it was worth it. Being in that enormous crowd on the mall, flags waving, people cheering, it was a once-in-a-lifetime treat.
I also had the opportunity to see some of my dearest friends, which was lovely. We also took part in MLK Day of Service, we were at a school doing activities with the kids, putting gift-bags together for senior citizens, and laminating books for the school library. Of course I was stuck at the registration tables while Chelsea Clinton was making her rounds, but I'm not complaining.
I know what you're thinking, Adam, when is Bricklayers Foundation's album coming out?? You've been working on it forever!!! I know, we are still trying to get it mastered, and then our plan is to raise a little money and get it pressed (only onto eight-track of course), send it out to labels and record stores, and if we're lucky, do some touring. How cool would that be?
As you may recall I've been doing monthly variety shows with my friend called Making Out with Wes Perry and Friends. It's a hoot, just music, comedy, improv, storytelling, performance art, etc, and it's getting some excellent reviews. So excellent, in fact, that we had a special show at this tiny bar called the Hideout. That show was nuts, you can watch a video here. And here we are at our normal cozy spot, the Upstairs Gallery.
I've been playing guitar for My So-Called Afterlife, it's a hilarious musical about famous people breaking the rules in heaven. It's super offensive and funny and the music is fun, what more could you ask for?
Ok, now for the main reason I've been MIA for so long. Work has been intense, we found out we're not doing a summer program after all, so instead we've been recruiting kids to join our school in the fall. We'll be doubling the size of our school, so that's going to need some serious work.
But, the good news is we've started teaching our course on History and Statistics through Baseball, called "162." We just started our second week, and it's going really well. I am assistant-teaching along with a very talented man from the Netherlands named Gertjan. He is a great teacher but knows very little about baseball, so I am essentially his helper and never-ending source of information. Check out our course trailer! To be fair, Gertjan hit some bombs toward the end of our shoot, but he foolishly edited those out of the final video due to time constraints.
To give you an idea of our course, it is divided into 4 units: Origins (42), Performance (.406), Value ($228,995,945), and Strategy (116-46). I'll let you figure out all those numbers.
Our first unit is about where baseball came from and segregation. Second unit is about statistics and how they've evolved. Third unit is about money and how much everything is worth, and the last unit is about putting it all together and making a successful team based on your resources. Last week we took all the kids to see a White Sox game to keep score and interview fans, it was gorgeous.
So there it is. Life is busy, but I am happy. Staci is doing well at her job, although her hours could be better. More importantly, the weather is finally getting better! It is so nice to be able to enjoy being outside, I almost forgot what it was like.
So now it's April, and the sweltering heat is right around the corner. Bring it on!
And GO SOX!!
