2 Wins & A Fail*

Since disappearing for (almost) the entire month of November for NaNoWriMo, tons of things have happened.    I'll have to use a few blog posts to explore all of them, but the biggest is that Annie and I are leaving downtown Oakland, CA, and moving to the not-so-bustling college town of Lexington, KY.  Annie's job is transferring her there for a temporary assignment, and aside from Zumba, I've got nothing that I'm attached to in CA.  In fact, I'm super excited to not live in CA.  Yes, that means that I have to return to the ranks of unemployed until I find something there (but at least it's dramatically cheaper to live, and Annie will be making more $$).  This brings me to the wins and fails.

Win:  I found a job that I can do from home that pays better than my work at the wind power plant.  (Thanks, Jill!)  It involves editing online homework/tutorials for engineering textbooks.  Currently, I'm working my way through Alexander's unreleased 5th edition of Fundamentals of Electric Circuits.  I'm pretty much being paid to do engineering homework, and it couldn't be a more perfect job for me.  It will also allow me to bring in a little bit of income during the transition so that I'm not 100% relying on my sugar momma.

Fail:  For the first 10 days of November, I was on track with NaNoWriMo.  I wrote over 20,000 words, covering 40% of the competition's goal.  At one point I told Annie that "it's writing itself".  It had direction, and I was piecing together a fictional story that was feeling very new and interesting.  It wasn't perfect, since it was practically a continuous word dump, but I was enjoying it, and I was going to win.  Then, I found the job above where I could make money from home.  I had to start a few days a week, immediately, and my novel took a back seat.  Here we are at the end of November, and I haven't written a single thing after the first 12 days or so.

Win:  Pentatonix won The Sing Off last night, and they deserved it!  Unrelated to me, yes, but relevant.

Pentatonix: 5-member a capella group from Arlington, TX.

At the beginning of the season, I posted how Delilah blew my mind.  That was the last time that they impressed me.  *Lied, ♪ Dream On ♪ was bomb ass.*  I'm still madly in love with Amy, the girl who sang the lead in ♫ Grenade ♫, *and I just found out she's Mormon*.  In the background of the first few weeks, Pentatonix continued to impress more and more.  At a disadvantage compared to groups with tons of people for big harmonies, their futuristic a capella sound was original and consistent each week.  I found myself watching their youtube videos over and over again.  Here are some of my faves:

I was posting individual videos when I came across that one with most of their best performances.  ♫ Video Killed the Radio Star ♫ was their best performance of the season.  I find myself randomly singing the chorus of ♫ Love Lockdown ♫ now.  Best Youtube comment:  "I heard Kanye covered this song."

Most true Youtube comment:  "That's one bad white boy..."

This is only on the list for the ♫ Motownphilly ♫ riff.

Just like The Voice, it's really refreshing for the best talent to actually win.  Thank you for ruining that concept for half of a decade, American Idol & the Bible Belt.  Granted, The Sing Off episodes are an hour too long, but I didn't listen to a single intro or any of the judges comments, so I got all of the episodes down to about 20 minutes.

I'll be doing a 12 Days of Xmas Music Videos, so start tuning back into the blog every day starting December 1st,
~RoB