Jake's Life

New "Blog"

2010-09-08T18:28:00.002-05:00

Won't be using this anymore, please check out my new page:

jakeorch@tumblr

Hardy Fireball Hibiscus and iPhone 4 test pics!

2010-06-28T12:17:00.000-05:00

Okay! So I have a bunch of photos to share... These were all taken in my garden with the new iPhone 4... The very last picture is a Fireball Hibiscus... I got it earlier in the season, and as I was walking around the garden today I was SHOCKED to see how HUGE the blooms are!!

Here's the album:
http://gallery.me.com/jakeorch#100067

Enjoy :)

New iPhone 4 HD Video Test

2010-06-24T15:51:00.000-05:00

Got the new iPhone 4 after a long line wait. Here's some HD video I shot this morning! (be sure to actually watch it in 720 HD)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA51RRuf5Wg

Netsuke!

2010-02-08T16:40:00.002-06:00

Sooo the other day I was talking to a friend about this ivory camel I have. He asked me "Does it have two holes in the bottom?" I was so shocked that he asked that, because it does! He told me it's a netsuke (pronounced net-skee). Netsukes are used to tie purses carried by Japanese men in the 17th century, since their robes didn't have pockets! He told me my camel netsuke is probably worth over $300. Amazing huh? I love neat treasures like that.

Most snow I have ever witnessed in my entire life in Oklahoma this winter! I couldn't believe it when i woke up to see giant snowflakes falling from the sky. It sure was beautiful though... I felt reallly sick this morning, so when I did see the snow I told myself "Ugh, I'm so not going to class today...." and I didn't. I stayed cozy inside. Hope my profs aren't too terribly mad haha (psh, I only had 2 classes anyway). Hate being sick!

I have recently been obsessed with the Roland C-30 which is a digital harpsichord, which sounds and feels like a real harpsichord! It does all of the different styles of Harpsichords (Flemish, German, French, etc) as well as organ, celesta, and fortepiano! Not only is it really nice quality, but it's beautiful too. Here's a photo.

I looked up dealers who carry this in the area and the only one that came up was Albert Evan's... I called them to price it and it's $4,495, which isn't a bad price for how nice this thing is.

The C-30 inspired me to play Baroque music, so I went over to IMSLP.org and found some Haydn keyboard music. So much fun! Did I ever tell you about the time I went and played a real harpsichord? Heres a recording of me haha.

http://jakeorch.webs.com/dance%20and%20variation.mp3

(and can you believe that was recorded on an iPhone? Love the quality)

Anywhos.... I have orchestra tonight at 7 PM... I reallyyyy don't want to go, but being the only violist.... I feel like I realllly need to, sick or not.

Oh yea! I finished 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King. It was good. Not quite as intense as Pet Semetary, but still it was a good read. Next I want to tackle his new (huge) book The Dome. It looks good.

Anyway! that's it for today.

School Tomorrow!

2010-01-13T22:50:00.000-06:00

Wow okay! So I have totally failed the 365 photo challenge project thingy! Oh well. But man... back to good ole Southern Nazarene University tomorrow! 8 AM sharp for Biblical Literature! Haha.

We have been doing major renovations to Danny's shop (Lakeshore Florist on MacArthur and Expressway!) and are in the process of remodeling! It will be so amazing when it's finished. So far we have removed all old decor, ripped down wallpaper, ripped up carpet and tile, painted the ceiling tiles, and attempted to remove the glue on the concrete floor... Key word, attempted! We tried every method there is, but this stuff was made to stick, so we're going with a different flooring other than the original plan (which was stained concrete).

Another fun thing we've been doing is going to auctions! It's so fun and you get some great deals on stuff! We have gotten a lot of furniture and decor items for the flower shop and have some great ideas! I also... made a big mistake and bid on a box of 3 antique mantle clocks. I THOUGHT I was bidding on a box that had like 10 in it... Anyway I paid $17 for the 3 and HOPED that maybe at least one would work. Got home, opened the box, NONE WORKED. One didn't even have it's gears, and was just an empty clock! Haha. Still very cool, and can probably sell them on ebay for more than $17.

Anywhos, that's it for this entry.

P.S. the die- I mean lifestyle change is going okay. Could be better! But I have lost weight!! Yay.

#4

2010-01-05T02:17:00.001-06:00

#4, originally uploaded by Jakeorch.

Okay time for photo numero FOUR. This shows the huge differences you can get with a circular polarizer filter. Amazing difference on the colors and reflections!

First day of the diet, well lifestyle change, went pretty well! I have done this die- lifestyle change before and it made dramatic results in a healthy way. Time to do it for good this time!

Calligraphic

2010-01-03T01:35:00.001-06:00

#2, originally uploaded by Jakeorch.

Photo #2 of the year.
I was practicing some calligraphy and decided to take a few shots, and I like this!

Getting beat by a stick with nails !

2009-12-03T16:59:00.001-06:00

Thanksgiving was good :D. Hope everyone else had a great one.

A few days before thanksgiving my mom and I put up the Christmas tree and garland. It looks amazing! Maybe I will post photos later :)

So yea, today I had a piano lesson, and my teacher told me if I messed up she would beat me with a stick.... A stick with nails on the end! How horrible right?! haha. Then I was talking to her about a song we heard at a concert (about a sacrificial rite), and she asked me if I feel like sacrificing a baby! lol! She's pretty hilarious.

Anywho, this weekend we're going to Wichita for gift exchanging there. Should be fun :>

That's about it.

"Espresso? What is that?"- Coffe Shop Worker

2009-11-20T00:16:00.004-06:00

Ever gone to a café and the staff had no concept of drinking espresso plain?

So I went to my campus café and ordered a double shot of espresso... The cashier looked at me and said;
"And?"

I was taken aback by this comment and said;
"Just a double shot of espresso...".

"So you just want espresso with nothing in it? Just.. espresso?"
"yes, just espresso..."
"Okay." *Confused look on her face*

She turns to the barista (I wouldn't call her a barista at all, but whatever), and tells her;
"He just wants 2 shots of espresso... that's it"
The girl making the drink looks confused and makes a latte, or something I wasn't sure what it was, but she added something other than espresso to it, and the cashier said;
"No he just wants espresso, just put espresso in a cup and give it to him"

The girl making the espresso looks thoroughly confused now, but makes the double shot and hands it to me.

I look into the cup, no crema whatsoever. AT ALL. Zilch.

So, not only does this café not understand the concept of espresso shots, they also don't produce good espresso. (Did I mention it had a lot of grounds of coffee in the bottom?)

Unfortunately they have a sign that says "We proudly brew Starbucks Coffee".
Automatically the entire campus loves it.

New Obsession

2009-11-15T23:13:00.005-06:00

Yea, when I get obsessed with something, I get obsessed. I love espresso, and all of the drinks you can make with it. A few months ago I broke down and bought an espresso machine after MANY hours and days of reading reviews. I definitely got the best bang for my buck!
I decided to get the Mr. Coffee ECMP50. It's AMAZING for only $80 I have probably made enough espressos, lattes, and cappuccinos to pay for itself (going off of Starbucks drink prices of course). It produces a nice crema, and the steam wand is pretty nice too for lattes and cappuccinos. I have been having on average, 2-4 double shots a day with this baby (thankfully espressos don't make me hyper!).

So on to the pretty pictures.
This is a stock photo from Mr. Coffee of the machine. Isn't it good looking? Great quality too!

And now, an espresso shot a lovely Bodum Pavina, which I purchased.
I love how this photo turned out. It's actually an HDR.

And last, but not least, a little video I made pulling a shot. Now, keep in mind those of you who don't know how to make espresso, this is a semi-automatic machine, meaning you must fill your portafilter, and tamp it yourself. I left this out of the video.

Well I hope I didn't bore you too badly!

2009-11-13T14:03:00.006-06:00

Okay! I finally sync'd all of my photos from my iPhone to iPhoto, and there were a few that I wanted to talk about!
This fall was my first fall season to work at Under the Sun. It was pretty interesting! Very festive! Here's some pics of what it looked like.

I visited Under the Sun today to pick up my pay check, and it is so empty! It's aparently been very slow, and they have only had one person working the lot at one time. The season's almost over! I will definitely be working in the spring. I love my managers!

This is a local nursey/florist. Poinsettias already! Wow, the year is going by so fast.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do for gifts for people this year. I'm so broke it's not even funny... I guess I will just see what happens.

So, that's it for todays post. Just wanted to post these photos, show people what a nice place my work is during the fall season :)

Old New Pond Update?

2009-11-04T09:27:00.002-06:00

Haha, I'm confusing I know. So this video is from JUNE so that's why it's old, and it's new because I havn't posted an update from the pond AT ALL this year (I fail!). So yes, here it is.

Pumpkiny Time!

2009-11-02T00:53:00.005-06:00

SO yes, Halloween is over, and it was pretty fun! My best friend Brendan and I went and saw Sweeney Todd live at the Lyric Thatre at the Plaza. It was great! After that we just pretty much hung out, ate some pizza and carved this amazing pumpkin.

Speaking of Pumpkins, I have been working at Under The Sun for the fall, selling pumpkins and gourds and stuff, and we are completely sold out of Jacks, which are the plain orange pumpkins used for carving!

Earlier in the week I had carved a pumpkin and it turned out horrid! It was ugly and deformed,
and the only good thing I got out it were pumpkin seeds... The other pumpkin, the one in the pic above is from last night. I had to have another shot at carving, and it was successful! (Thanks to a carving tool kit)

Anywho that's about it

Much Needed Update!

2009-10-02T10:15:00.002-05:00

So, it's been over a year since I've posted on this blog! Crazy huh? Well, quite a bit of 'stuff' has happened since then. Probably the biggest think is university.. I started about a month back. I guess the next big thing would be I've been working at Under the Sun Garden Centers since spring. It's a great job for me since I love plants and love my co-workers (mostly).

Time to go into details on college life for me. I'm living at home, so some would say I'm not really living the FULL college life, but it's still such a big change for me. Ah, I suppose I should say where I'm going! Southern Nazarene University, majoring in Music Education. That's right! I plan to be a music teacher (for now at least)! SNU is so different to other schools. It's a very religious private university. We pray in class, have to attend chapel 2x a week (if we don't, we're fined), and we can actually talk about religion in class. At first I was kind of skeptical of all of this, as I hadn't been to church in years, let alone 2 times a week. But I'm really discovering some great stuff here.

On the music side of SNU, it's pretty cool! I'm in Survey of Music, which is a class where we listen and discuss different styles, and periods of music. We just went over the Baroque period (1600-1750), and are about to start on the Classical period. Then there's Fundamentals of Music. It's not quite as fun. We learn written theory, and aural theory. In aural, I have to sing. That's right! SING. Me, the instrumentalist. Oh well, it's pretty interesting to say the least! In private viola lessons I'm required 6 hours of practice a week, and on piano 4.

Last Monday I made my first classroom visit. If you're wondering what I mean by this, I have to have 12 hours of classroom observations for the education part of music ed. So, I was assigned a middle school orchestra class on a not so great side of town. It was definitely interesting to say the least. The class what quite out of control. Next week I'm bringing my viola and am going to play a Bach piece for them. I know when I was young and someone older played something, it inspired me. Hopefully I can do the same for these students (6th graders).

In other news, my mom and Danny got married! It was pretty cool! And my grandma and my biological grandma met for basically the first time. BIG tension leading up to it, but when the time came (after 25 years) it went very well! Happy night!

Last night I went to Dr. Melissa Lewis' viola recital. Dr. Lewis is my viola teacher of 3-4 years now. She's also the viola professor at SNU. Her recital was amazing! She played Bach, Clarke, Gershwin, Debussy, and Brahms. GREAT variety, and an amazing performance.

And on the tech side of things, anyone who knows me, knows that for the longest time I wanted an iPhone. Well, shortly after graduation I finally got one! Woohoo! I'm loving it so much.

Well, there's so much more I could write, but I'd be here all day! So time to wrap this up! Thanks for reading, and feel free to leave comments!

Update Time!

2008-07-20T14:20:00.005-05:00

Summer's goin' great! Been making lots of money to pay off my laptop. Almost have it compeltely paid.

Sooo, the pond has progressed amazingly. The water hyacinths have just... TAKEN OVER. I have to go out there and throw half of them into the compost pile quite often!
It's kind of ironic because last year, I bought water hyacinths a few times, and within a couple weeks, instead of growing, they just died.

The koi have also grown a LOT. At least triple in size.

I recently updated my iPod to the 2.0 software. It cost me about $10 to upgrade! But I must say, it was $10 well worth spent. I love all the free applications and games I can get on my iPod.

Well, that's all I have to write for now.

Here's an update of the koi.

Lots of Work! (Pond Pics)

2008-06-14T21:10:00.003-05:00

I havn't been home in ten days! Finally I am home and able to post, and take care of the garden/pond. The lawn was freshly mowed when I came home, which is awesome! Here are some photos of the pond today. The plants are starting to fill in nicely, finally. Love the potato vine. It's just too bad it's annual!

Macbook fun!

2008-06-03T17:24:00.002-05:00

So, I finally got my MacBook that I have been working so hard for. For the past 24 hours I have been using it and figuring out all of the cool features, and messing around with the programs it came with. I compiled a video of photos/video clips that we took in Photo Booth.

Here it is~!

Headless in the Garden

2008-05-27T20:29:00.006-05:00

So, It's official. I am getting a macbook this June. Exciting huh?!

Today was fullll of work. Woke up, went to my Grandparents at 10. Worked until 6:30! He pays $8/hr. I noticed my grandmother's old statues that she's had forever and asked her if she had a use for them, she told me no. So we loaded them up (One of them took 2 people), in my car and I took them home. They were made in Italy and are really old. Here's photo
s of them.

Is it weird that I like the headless one? My mom said the headless one had to go, but I protested. It's already in it's spot. I can't decide where to put the one WITH her head...

Well that's about it for today.

Until next time,
Jake

Spring Koi Pond Cleaning!

2008-05-23T16:39:00.005-05:00

So, my friend Brendan and I had both been planning on cleaning my Koi pond. It has been green for a month now and we had done many things to fix it. Not only had I used algaefix (a chemical), but I also cleaned the filter a few times, and did partial water changes. No Luck.

So today we did a major cleaning on the thing! We took the entire pond out of the ground and scrubbed every little patch of algae off of it's side. Here's a before and after video. You can finally see my new 2 koi. Enjoy.

School Year Coming to an End

2008-05-19T21:39:00.005-05:00

Another school year, gone by in the blink of an eye. It truly seems as if as each year passes, they go by faster, and faster. Next year will be my senior year in high school. Can you believe it? I can't. I went to the '08 graduation on Friday. It's really sad that some of my good friends are leaving. In fact, one of my best friends, Briana left. Today was my last day to see her.. for who knows how long.

On the bright side of things, I have a nice summer break coming up. A much anticipated summer break I should say. I plan on getting a lot of things done this summer actually. Let's start off with the outside stuff.

I plan on getting the yard super nice this year! The past couple of days I have done a lot of things to improve the overall look of the backyard. I moved/got rid of some plants that were nothing but an eye sore, I mowed the lawn, I removed grass and mulched the sitting area of the pond, I cleaned the filter, and the water of the pond, I planted various plants, I've been watering the lawn, and I've just been doing some nice little things that all add up in the long run. Although there's still a lot of work to do, it will all fit together in the end.

On the music part of this summer, I plan on getting a lot done as well. I have 3 pieces to work on. Hoffmeister Viola Concerto, Reger Viola Suite, and Trauermusik. All of this I need to work on daily this summer. It will be a lot of work, but with daily practice, I think I can get it done.

So, we get out of school on Thursday. Two days left, I can't believe it! It's exciting but sad also, because I know during summer I will miss school a little bit. Seeing my friends and whatnot.

Yesterday, my best friend Brendan and I both went to Best Buy. I finally got some nice headphones. I got a brand called "SkullCandy" I was intrigued by the sheer beauty of these kick ass headphones so I went to their website. I found the coolest backpack ever! Here's a link to it; Link Hydro Pack [HP1] : Skullcandy

It's a whopping $150, but it's worth it. I just have to save up now.
Anyway, that's all I have to say for now.

Until next time

Jake

Subscribe to Me!

It's Been a While!

2008-04-22T20:42:00.004-05:00

Well, hello! It's certainly been quite some time since I've added a post onto my blog. This is actually only the second post on this particular one, but oh well.

I actually have quite a bit to write today. I think we will start off with one of the more major things, and that's that my dog was put down a couple weeks back. Yes, my poor baby! We all miss Hoss dearly, and it was terrible that he had to go. He was my absolute BEST friend.
I had to have a dog to cuddle, so about a week or two ago, my mom bought my a baby Chihuahua. Shes tiny! Although the dog's mine, my mom likes to think it's hers, and likes to hog her. We decided to name her Princess, since that is what she is. My mom likes to dress her up, and treat her like a real princess, haha.

So, on the musical side of my life, quite a few things have happened as well. First, a while back we went to district solo and ensemble. My solo, quartet, and large ensemble all moved on to state, since they each received a superior rating. State didn't go as well. The solo judge was outrageously rough on us this year. In one day, 76 people had played his/her solo, and he only handed out 15 superior ratings (1's). He also handed out quite a few 3's... I did receive a 2 on my solo, unfortunately. I was pretty disappointed. At least I didn't receive a 3.
Then I had Side By Side auditions. First let me explain what Side By Side is... Side by side is an opportunity for students in OYO (Oklahoma Youth Orchestra) or OYS (Oklahoma Youth Symphony) to play in the Oklahoma City Philharmonic. He will side next to a philharmonic player of our instrument (Hence SIDE by SIDE). Well for the violas, only 3 people from both OYO & OYS tried out! Wow... small turnout for the violas! But get this, only 2 violist actually made it in! I was surprised they didn't let all three of us in since there were such short numbers. To make a long story short, I made it, and made second chair. All other chairs will be filled with Philharmonic players. That's about it for the music side of things.

Now on to separate topics. How about the weather? It's been amazing! High 80's!! Yahoo! It's about time. I enjoy working in the yard and the gardens, as well as at the water garden. And also the fact that summer break is coming up is exciting too.

Today was like any ordinary day.. I attended school, went home, took a nap with Princess, then went and walked on the treadmill at the gym. I think tomorrow I am going to the Art's Festival downtown, since it's in town. Anyway, that's about all I have to write for now.

Until next time,

Jake

Winter Break Coming to an End

2008-01-05T03:27:00.000-06:00

So, after enjoying 10 school days off, I only have 3 days 'til I have to go back.... It's sort of sad, because I don't want to go back! I enjoyed Christmas a lot. I basically got money from everybody, and in total I had $500. A bit of that was leftover from my birthday (Dec. 18th).

With my money I decided I would buy an 8gig iPod Touch. It's pretty nifty. It was a hard decision on what to buy, but ultimately I'm very happy with the decision.

I also got a rather random gift from my grandmother... Along with some cash she got me a frying pan... and a cook book. Apparently she thinks I'm interested in cooking. I guess I will use it one day. Ha ha.

So, on the other side of my life, there's music. I play viola and on the 16th I'm leaving for Tulsa to go to All State and play. I'm excited but I haven't practiced. Then there's also OSU honors orchestra. It's easy music, but I still need to practice it to get first chair... And then there's OYS (Oklahoma Youth Orchestra), and I go there weekly, but we've been off for the holidays and we go back on monday for that.. I wonder when I will start my lessons again.

Anyway, I'm not excited about school.. at all. I'm getting all new classes (except orchestra) and they're all like... hard classes =(.

Tonight I went to Barnes and Noble and bought 2 books, both bound in real leather, with stamped letters and gold pages. They were only $20. What a bargain! The books were "Complete Poems and Tales by Edgar Allen Poe", and "Grimm's Fairy Tales". They're really nice.

Anyway, that's all I have to say for now.