The Bench Warmer

After 8 hours of Cold Calling Chinese and Mexican Restaurants without a single sale to show for my efforts, I got to thinking about the Bench Warmer. You can count on him to be at every practice. He suits up for every game. But he never actually plays. He might not have the multi-million dollar contract of the superstar, but he's still part of the team.

THAT's the player I want to read a book about.

Master of My Domain

No, it's not a throw back to a Seinfeld episode. The title of this post is a reference to the sad state of my website hosting. All I'm a master of is my Domain name, everything else about my websites have fallen victim to Yahoo/Geocities' ejection of all us freeloaders. So for the time being, www.davidboeve.com will land you right here into my occasional blog. Perhaps I'll dress things up again over Christmas break.

Oh, and by the way, I won't be hosting any movie review TV show filmed in Grand Rapids anytime soon, that honor went to Rachel Ruiz of WoodTV.

Boldly Went!

Who knew five strangers and video camera could be so much fun? In pursuit of my life long goal of speaking to a stadium full of people from a stage-in-the-round, I auditioned for the host position of a new weekly family oriented movie review television show produced for the Dove Foundation by Storytelling Pictures in Grand Rapids. That's right, the same folks that produced the video tribute to Gerald R Ford and The Reckoning. The latter film, sharing the story of the Dutch Resistance, hits a special cord with me after my trip to Normandy with the Holland American Legion Band this past June for the 65th Anniversary of the D-Day invasion.

So will you be seeing me on cable television any time soon? (I hope so!) Either way, I think it's amazingly awesome that I could audition for a nationwide television show without having to fly to LA or New York. A simple drive to Grand Rapids could bring me one step closer to replacing Ryan Seacrest!

Boldly Go!

Life is like plowing snow. Hesitation gets you stuck.

The snow was deep in my driveway yesterday so I leveled out the loader bucket, selected a low gear, throttled up, and released the clutch. Halfway down the driveway, while the tractor was laboring behind the weight of the abominable snow pile, I applied the left brake pedal to correct my direction. The simple act of slowing down one drive tire was enough to lose momentum and stall the tractor out. There I sat, axle deep in snow with a six foot pile pushed up in the middle of my driveway. Instead of veering slightly off the side of the driveway, I was now forced to push all of the snow to the side leaving ruts across the entire lawn to get the driveway opened. (Anyone want to volunteer to fix my yard next spring?)

Where's your hesitation? What's got you stuck? Fear of change? Fear of no change?

It's time to update my website, push new ideas, and boldly go

Misguided Dreams?

Some days I dread driving down the road because it becomes a tour of misguided and ill-directed dreams. This past Friday, driving down M-21 to Hudsonville was one of those days. Tree farm, green house, 18 wheelers, garden center, construction company, car lot, equipment sales, school...all things I've thought about doing. All things I've thought would bring happiness. All things I've done or thought about doing.

Those types of days come and go. So much time thinking about other things, wondering why they're working for other people and not for me... Friday I realized they weren't the right dream for me.

Looking back over my life I see a lot of experiences that individually lead to some of those previous dreams, but when I combine ALL my experiences they clearly point in one direction.

2nd Sax, Now This

Tonight marks for the first official practice for the Holland American Legion Band's international trip to Normandy, France in June 2009. It also marks the first time I've practiced with a real band since high school in 1992. I'm thinking I should have played more than Jesus Loves Me prior to going to rehearsal after not playing for 16 years. I missed a few notes... I also remembered how fun it is to play with a band. Who needs to be good when you're having fun? So now I have my 25 pieces of music to memorize by June of next year and one more rehearsal this week before we take the winter off while half the band winters in Florida.

16 years later it's more fun to play in a band than I remember it being in High School. Check us out. www.hollandlegionband.org.

Sax after 16 years

I haven't played the alto saxophone since high school in 1992 and here I sit outside the initial meeting of 50 Holland American Legion Band members planning on performing for 11 days in Europe for the 65th anniversary of the D-day invasion. I was supposed to go along to record and photograph the event, but they needed an alto sax player so my brother volunteered me. The first practice is next Tuesday. Will I be ready? Will I be ready to play with the beand next June? Will I even be able to play after all these years?