I don’t even know why I am writing this blog right now or why I thought to myself “gosh, I haven’t written in here since February – maybe I need to update.”

Well, here I am at starbucks… and working on my drill where there’s a mess of scores in my lap and chicken scratch covering almost all of the space in and around all of the music notes and expressions.   I’m a tad overwhelmed with things at the moment and the one and only thing that I can’t stop thinking about it my mom.

This is my first mother’s day without my mom.  As much as I believe she is always here by my side in spirit, I can’t express how much I miss her right now and how much I miss the hugs, holding her hand and those special moments of the past that make me smile and cry when I think about them.   We had fights…  we had disagreements…   but if there was ever anything that happened in my life that was rough or a hurdle I had to jump over, she was always there to help me and guide me.

More than anything I’ve ever experienced in the past, I’ve now come across the most difficult challenge I’ve ever had and probably will ever experience in my life…  and of all people to not be here for me, she isn’t.  I understand that I can always talk to her and pray and think of her.  But whenever I had a problem in the past, no matter if I was 8 years old or 28 years old, she would know what to say and it would never be what I expected or thought of on my own.  Sometimes it was always obvious…  but with the new experiences and emotionally compromising events I’ve had in my life, I had no idea what to say, think, feel…  and after talking to my mom, she was always able to help me get to the ‘next step’ no matter what the situation or circumstance.  She wouldn’t ever have to have a solution or even the perfect option…  but knowing she was there for me and hearing he say it was all I needed.

As I look to the future and without her being there for me now…  I’m not sure what to think or feel or do.  I’m really scared.  I’ve never been so scared in my entire life.  I hide behind the fact that I have a job to do…  people to call and design drill for…   friends to see to distract me from the inevitable future.

Rather than think about the future, I’m doing everything I can to stay in the present – today and now.  And possibly worry just little about tomorrow or the next day.  After that though…  it just gets me down so much that I can’t seem to function properly.  It’s nothing too serious…  but I just lose focus on the things I need to do today and now and I don’t have time for thinking about the future.

I have no idea what will happen tomorrow…   next week…  a month from now…  a year from now…  or even 25 years from now.  But what I do know is what is happening right now, today…. and how I feel right now, today.  I miss my mom very much and I need her more than anything.  I don’t think I have ever openly asked God for help until right now…  and I am asking God…  please, I need you…  I need your help and I don’t know who else to turn to.

This is going to be my last blog for a very long time.  I don’t think I write very well anyway, nor do I think anyone really reads these.  Maybe someday in the unknown future I’ll get the chance to write again…   but until that day comes, I’ll be spending each and every day worrying only about the present and not get caught up thinking too much about the past and what my life used to be.  I have spent a lot of time lately thinking of what could have been or should have been…  and doing so has unfortunately made me extremely depressed.  What I will be doing from now on though is everything I can to get from one day to the next and be as happy as I can from one day to the next – not letting anything get to me and keep breathing.

A lot of changes are coming in the future… and with that will be a lot of confusion, questions, sadness, anger, worries and even bigger hurdles for me to jump over.  I don’t know what the future has in store for me but I do know that whatever comes up or occurs from here on out, I will confidently step up and do my best to take on whatever challenge awaits me, be as positive and optimistic as I can about whatever the situation is, no matter how bad it might be, and I hope to God that I will have family and friends there to help when I need it.  I will always have hope and continue to pray for a future of happiness, friendship, peace and love.

Those are my thoughts and I am ready to take on this new chapter in my life…    These blogs are now a part of the past, and from now on I will be living in the present while looking forward to and preparing for whatever the future holds.

Thank you to everyone who has read or followed my blogs.  I can’t imagine all of the time you’d have to set aside to read some of my longer entries, but I appreciate every second anyone spent reading my blogs and every comment any of you have ever made to me about them.  From the bottom of my heart – Thank you!

- George

Well…  as many of my friends know, I use Twitter for almost 90% of my “updates” and usually that comes from my phone or ipod touch.  I’ll admit that as much of a “techie” guy I consider myself, I’m still very ignorant and behind the times regarding much of the social networking that’s out there these days.  For instance, I signed up for Linkedin a while back, added many “connections”, yet I have no idea what to do with that profile or why I even have it.  It keeps telling me to add this and that to finish it and I just don’t wanna.   I’m sure that someone will tell me eventually, but this is really the first time I’ve ever asked (albeit, in a blog).

I don’t wanna write for 2 hours about random junk as I usually do, but I kinda wanted to touch on the Twitter thing and mention something I just found out recently.   As I said, I tend to be a bit behind on the social media thing… not that I’m not into it, but if something changes (like a Facebook redesign, for example) I could really care less, nor would I notice unless I read a million updates on people saying “omg! facebook changed the design again?!?!…  gahhh the world is ending…”    (blah blah get-a-life blah!)

But a while ago, Twitter added this new feature called “Lists”.  I saw it…   didn’t really look into how to use it and just figured it would be useless to me.  I tend to ignore these things at first rather than dick around with them.  I’m just too lazy, I guess.

Speaking of – I still haven’t used half the tools on Pyware yet…   people sometimes ask me, “how does this tool work?” and I say “umm, I don’t know… never knew that existed or what it does.”   (…really)

Anyway, after a while, I saw I was added to my friend Bill’s account under two lists.  I looked at the links and saw it was a compilation of different people, organized under that list’s name thus making it easier to keep those people all in one group.  Well, yeah… cool.  Lists are to create and organize groups of people associated with one thing or another so you can click on and view just those people when you want.  Yeah, okay.  Easy!

So, I went through and created a few lists to organize the people I follow and just use it for the reasons it’s there.  I mean, easy, right?  Well, yeah… but the reason I’m writing this is because I found out a neat little trick that people probably don’t know about, and after talking with my friend Brian about it last night, he didn’t know of it either and both of us agreed that this makes for a much easier and simpler experience with Twitter, by doing a bit more organizing of the people you want to “follow”.

Now, if there’s an official page online that explains this in plain black and white (or red and green… whatever…) and I’m just WAY late to the party, then please just don’t tell me. I don’t care.  I work a lot and have no time to read all that junk because I’m always constantly buried in music and drill and photoshop stuff.

So, these lists…  you can create them and add people to them and you can follow their updates through lists (which are essentially bookmarks)…  but WITHOUT actually following them in typical “Twitter” fashion!  (again, I feel as if I may sound like Captain Obvious here, but just let me have my moment, ok?)  ;)

I find it somewhat annoying that there are a few people/celebs/businesses that post like 45 times per hour.  Not that I’m really complaining that much, because after all, I DID voluntarily choose to follow them.  However, there’s gotta be some of you out there that agree with me that sometimes it’s just very random that so-and-so posts a blog-like message that covers 16 tweets in a row…  only that you have to read it backwards/bottom to top.  haha!  Random.

As I was organizing my lists, I went through and created/added all of the ones I wanted to and pretty much cleaned up my account which I hadn’t touched in a while.  After I finished organizing everyone into lists, I went through again and noticed a few random store sites and info sites I was no longer interested in following.  So, I just “unfollowed” them and went about my business.

Today, I went through and just for fun, I bookmarked each of my lists, so I can just click on the one I want and when I want.   When I clicked on my “shopping” labeled list, I saw a few sites that were showing that I used to follow but I coulda sworn I unfollowed.  Hmm…  Twitter has had issues before…  I just thought it was a random snafu.  Then I looked at the profile and saw that I was NOT following them.

Realizing that I unfollowed them yet didn’t remove them from the assigned lists I created, I experimented on some random place (Banana Republic, I think), I saw the pulldown menu for lists, added them to “shopping” and reloaded my list page for “shopping”.  They showed up there!!!

So…  this is totally awesome.   I may have found a way to actually simplify Twitter (for me) by doing a bit of organizing and arranging of the people I wanna follow or am interested in updates from.  And what I did in the process was made sure I had all of them in the proper lists and then I proceeded to unfollow them!  :)  This way, they will no longer show up in my default feed and the only people/celebs/companies that will are the ones I really care about each time I log on.

I have now created a few more lists and will add people/organizations to those lists to “follow” without officially following them, and this will keep that home page clear of clutter.  Those people will only show up on my created lists and I don’t have to follow all those people anymore if I don’t want to.

I’m not saying I’m going to unfollow all of my friends.  No no no…   This is only for people like celebrities, companies, fan sites, things like “Google” or random accounts I was “following” who don’t follow me, that I only wanna read about once in a while.  Sometimes I don’t care about these Star Wars fan pictures at some costume party yesterday.  But I like to follow them for days I really need to kill time.  That’s why they went into my “entertainment” list and I’ll click on that whenever I wanna see all that stuff at once.

I added a ton of people/organizations to all of my “Lists” and now am able to view whoever’s updates I want, when I want and without all the clutter of mixed friends with ESPN with Shaq with Amazon with Weather… etc.   It’s just a home page with all of my friends’ updates, the few companies I follow that I wanna check on regularly and the few celebrities who’s updates I genuinely enjoy reading.  :)

Not to say I wasn’t aware that I could just create a “friends” or a “favorites” list.  I did that and that works fine and all, but this is just to simplify everything all together and to only see what I want to see, when I want to.  :)

Twitter is cool…  it is what it is and I’m always using it to update whenever I feel like it, post pics n vids, as well as posting blogs, like this one.  It’s already “simplified” in a matter if speaking, but with their addition of “Lists” and giving us the ability to add people to a list without officially following them really makes me happy and it’s kinda nice to still have easy access to all of the info I want with just a click or two, but only have who I really want on the home page.

Thank you, Twitter.  I’m probably a year late getting on that bandwagon, but that’s ok.   I tend to be behind on all this stuff, but that’s just how it goes sometimes.  :)

I won’t deny that several drill moves I have incorporated into some of my shows are inspired by other designers’ work and even some that are right out of some drum corps shows. All I can say is that it mostly comes from what was asked of me by the people who hired me and I always do my best to modify it the best I can to prevent it from looking like an exact duplicate of the original.  I am not at all comfortable copying drill moves as it is unethical and disrespectful to my fellow colleagues and designers.  Many times I was able to create something equally effective and unique and I am very happy with most everything I have designed.

I have been able to take the time to study what other designers have done in the past and take that “idea” and make it into something of my own.  In a way, that’s what we all do.  Not that we look to other designers for ideas because we’re not creative enough…  rather the little things, like finding a drill move/motion in the way the lights are spinning on the ceiling at some church event you are at or looking through a kaleidoscope and seeing drill in the images as they spin.   Those are only a couple examples of what I have experienced at times.  When it comes to seeing another band or corps or indoor group perform, I see little things in the motions and movements that can spark another idea that turns into something I write in a future show.

Along with drill moves such as the “Cross to Cross”, the “Diamond Cutter” and the “Crab Wedge”, one of the most admired and talked about drill moves from the 1990′s is the “DNA Helix” that was written by Greg Poklacki and performed by The Cavaliers in their 1995 “Planets” show.  I remember seeing this as a young 18-year-old thinking that was one of the coolest drill moves I’ve ever seen.  At that point in my life, I could never even imagine I would be writing drill someday…  nor even going to school for music.  At that time, I was on a course to major in art and become some sort of commercial artist or architect.

When I began writing drill, it was because I had a passion for art and music and my goal was to create unique, creative and fun shows for marching bands, with great staging, complex drill moves and something that expresses myself as a musician and artist.  I love what I do and I try my best each year, and with each drill move in each show, to get better and find new interesting ideas for the designs I create.   It’s not always easy, but I believe that the same applies for all of us in the business.

That being said, the one thing that has been brought up a lot over the past 3 years is me being accused of copying Greg’s design of the DNA drill move in the 2006 show I wrote for Pasadena Memorial high school and then later for the Dutch Fork high school band in 2007.   Although the drill moves may look similar to most, I can assure you all that for one – I did it all on my own. Two – I never once studied Greg’s DNA helix design as I wrote it.  Three – if you take the time to really compare them, which is something I only did after the fact, you would see that although they look similar based on motion, the shapes and “3D” effect in the animation are completely different – and that said “3D effect” or “screw-like motion” is what I was going for the whole time with the design.  Maybe I see it differently because I spent so many hours working on it and I don’t have a very fresh perspective.  That could then just be something I can’t do anything about. :\

Lets talk about how this all came about in the first place.   The show that was chosen by the PMHS directors is an original show by John M. Meehan and it is called “The Hypar Effect”.  It is a three-movement show and those movements are titled 1-Dome. 2-Sphere. 3-Helicoid.

At the first design meeting we had at TMEA in 2006, we went through the show, movement by movement, and talked about the sections we wanted visual emphasis on…  and others that were music emphasis.  Your typical break downs.  We didn’t want to break it down too much too early, so it was just a lot of throwing anything on the table that sounded cool.

When discussing the closer, the assistant director mentioned to me that he thought it would be cool to have some sort of “rotating helix or screw” move to represent the Helicoid, which is what the tune is titled.  I asked him, “what is a Helicoid?”  He kinda looked at the head director and smiled, laughed a little and looked back at me, almost as if he wasn’t sure how to explain it, and said it has something to do with a mathematical equation and when animated it somewhat resembles an Archimedes’ screw – or as he put it, like a “DNA” strand.  Although I knew what he meant by DNA, I didn’t really picture The Cavaliers 1995 show drill…   but I did want to see what the heck it was, just to be sure.  That’s why I’m thankful we have Google!

When I got home and looked it up, I found the Wikipedia page about the Helicoid, and that actually linked to the Wikipedia article on the Archimedes’ screw.   Both pages I found to be somewhat complex to understand in the matter of trying to figure out how to create a drill move out of it.  (I don’t remember for sure if it was Wikipedia I got all my info from at the time, but looking at it now, it is all basically the exact same information and diagrams).

Finally, I found this video – which I think is the best visual representation of the Helicoid animated in 3D form.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

After studying several videos of animating Archimedes’ screws and a few helicoid videos – mostly the one posted here from the 0:53-1:08 mark – I then went into Pyware and gave it a whirl.

I was working with Mitch Rogers at the time and I would send him drill files of me attempting to make this work – mostly unsuccessfully at the start.  I went through about 100 different versions of this from March through May that had my head spinning off my body – literally.    But when I finally got the motion to work, I had originally figured it out set horizontally, or parallel to the sidelines.  My plan was to flip it straight up-n-down vertically on the 50.  I knew it looked a bit funny set horizontal, but it just worked better to write it that way initially so I could get the paths correct.

The only issue I ran into when trying to do the final draft was that I needed to figure out where to put it in the drill and how to get in and out of it without killing any of the band members.    The first “final” draft I completed of the move was before I even wrote a page of the opener.  And since I knew this would go in the closer, I had plenty of time to figure that out.

Setting that Helicoid draft aside, I began writing the drill for the band in early May.  A few weeks later I got to the closer and spent maybe 3 days debating on the placement of the drill.  I was at a complete loss because there wasn’t enough time in the drum solo to have the drill go through enough cycles/counts to be effective.  And if I were to place it at a point where they are playing, I’d have ensemble issues all over the place because the Helicoid went sideline to sideline as originally written.

I then talked to Mitch and we decided it would be best to set it on an angle and have them march it during a part of the show they are playing.  The placement of it, I believe, couldn’t have been more perfect.   I was more confident than Mitch that it would be executable while playing.  I completely understand the concern, but I knew the band well and those who were teaching over there, and knew that so long as they stuck to the coordinate system, worked on each of the 4-count moves and didn’t blow through it, it would be achievable.   I even went out to spend some time working with them, and I think that helped out some.

After it was all said and done, I can say with confidence that I am extremely happy for what I was able to accomplish with that drill and none of it came from any kind of copying or studying of Greg’s drill, although I am constantly accused of doing so.  There’s really not much more I can say except that it wasn’t until about a year after I wrote that drill that I actually went back and compared it to Greg’s DNA drill move.  I only did that because I was asked by the director at Dutch Fork HS if I would touch-up that drill and fit it to their numbers, which were actually very similar.  He said something along the lines of “I see you put the Cavaliers DNA move in the show…” or something to that effect.  I don’t remember the exact way he worded it, but he did say DNA and Cavaliers, as if I stole that move, or even the idea, and put it in the show for my own pleasure.

Well, it should be evident that although these drill moves look very similar, I put a lot of effort into the studying of the Archimedes’ screw and 3D rendering of the Helicoid equation and many, many hours of trial and error on Pyware coming up with what I believe is the best representation of the Helicoid in marching band form.

The “DNA” and “Helicoid” are very different drill moves and I hope that everyone understands that.  I do see that the paths for those marching look similar, but the effect I was going for was the “turning screw” and I believe I pulled it off quite well.   It is also just one of those cases, like in composing or movie making, it’s almost impossible to do anything original now a days without comparing it to something that has already been done in the past.  Yes, designers are coming up with new a innovative ideas every year – but as for me and being only in my 5th year as a designer in 2006, I’m proud of what I was able to accomplish with that design and there’s nothing that anyone can say that will take away from that.

Greg’s DNA drill:

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

My Helicoid drill:

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

I never intended it to be a copy nor do I feel I copied any of Greg’s drill.   I hold Greg in very high regard for what he has done as a designer for this activity and he is one of the many designers who has inspired me for many years.  I’ve learned a lot by studying what has all been done by designers all over the world, and for those who know me best know that I am always trying to do something different and something that I believe has never been done – perhaps looking for something to define me as a designer without going about it in any selfish way.

After the completion of the 2006 drill for Pasadena Memorial HS, I felt I had found it with that Helicoid drill move, only to have those dreams shot down year after year with the massive number of emails and comments I receive accusing me of copying the “DNA” drill, even from Greg himself – though his e-mail was extremely kind and complimentary, he commended me on the job I did and even complimented me on “improving” the original design he wrote.  I definitely appreciated the compliment, but I was not expecting that drill move to be directly compared to the “DNA” drill.  I never once looked at or studied the DNA drill for reference and as I said before, although the motion is similar, they are very different drill moves.  If you watch/study the motion of the Archimedes’ Screw, along with the last part of the Helicoid video, hopefully you’ll be able to see what I was trying to accomplish in the drill design.

I understand that maybe this whole post was pointless or might come across as me being overly defensive about a sensitive subject.  It is just an unfortunate issue that has become more annoying to me than anything, where I feel I am almost burdened by this ONE drill move I did 4 years ago and am constantly being criticized by my friends and colleagues for plagiarizing, when in fact that was never my intentions, no matter how similar the designs are to each other.

I am not worried if my hard work on that drill goes unnoticed or unappreciated…  but I hope that more people can understand that the “Helicoid” drill I wrote had a specific purpose and was intended on representing the title of the movement and the wishes of the directors at PMHS. I hope that doesn’t sound like I’m saying “they told me to write it”…  no no no…  I had a lot of fun doing it and I’m very happy with the way it turned out.  I just don’t want it to look the way everyone assumes it…   they just see it in the show and without knowing the title of the tune or even what a Helicoid is, everyone jumps to the conclusion that it’s “the Cavaliers DNA move” and assume I copied it just for the sake of doing it.  That’s just not the case.

I know there are several of you who have seen that drill move on my website and probably thought the same thing or something similar.  I understand.  Had it not been brought up yesterday when talking design with my friend, I wouldn’t have thought of it in that way.  It’s cool…  

By the way… $10,000 is a LOT of money.  But a $10,000 iTunes gift card?   Really?  I love music…  I love movies…  and I love ipod/iphone apps.  But really?  I don’t know much about the limitations of an iTunes gift card, but last I heard you could only use an iTunes gift card to purchase things that are in iTunes.  I could be wrong…  but again, I ask…  really?!?!  10-grand??

Let me tell y’all a secret.  I have been buying from Amazon.com since 2000.  I only know that because amazon keeps records of all of your past purchases on your account. Not that I really care or pay that much attention… I just noticed recently when browsing around the “My Account” options.    I can actually go through and see all of the purchases I’ve made since I bought a book on amazon.com in August of 2000.

That’s not the secret…  the secret is that I was totally bored one day and went through every single order I made and added it up, just because I was curious as to how much I’ve spent in almost 10 years from that one company.  I won’t tell you exactly what that total was, but I will say that it was not even CLOSE to $10,000.   And in that stash of stuff purchased from amazon.com was a 46″ HDTV, stereo receiver/home theater set, many PS2 and PS3 games, dvd players, TONS of DVDs, CDs and Bluray movies, computer hard drives, keyboards, mice, software, shoes, midi keyboard, foot stool, office supplies, printer, books, rice cooker, ceiling fan and many many more things I don’t feel I need to list.

So, knowing that during the span of TEN years I spent much less than $10,000 on all of those things, most of which I still have and use everyday and are part of my everyday life, wondering how I could spend $10K in iTunes alone just baffles me!   I don’t spend money just to spend money…  I’m actually fairly conservative, regardless of some of the nicer stuff I have.  I sacrifice a lot just to be able to afford some of that stuff.  But that’s besides the point.

The point is…  what in the world would the winner of a $10,000 iTunes gift card do with all of that money?  Am I missing something?  Can you use it towards buying anything in the Apple store, like computers, ipods and software?  If so, then I guess my whole rant is moot.  But if it’s limited to only what is available for sale in the iTunes store…   WOWZERS!!!  I am not going to be envious of the person who actually wins this – IF it’s legit.  :)

I think these little givaways and contests are cool and all…  but sometimes you look at it and see the mega huge number and say to yourself “WOW, I wanna win!!”  But then it all boils down to the details and fine print.   I didn’t go through and dissect the hell outta this contest, but as much as I would love to have every album I want in the iTunes store or every movie, this is almost a joke.

Dragging it on and doing the math further, lets say you buy $10,000 of music albums alone.  Let’s see…  that would be $10,000 divided by the average album that runs $9.99.  That would mean you could purchase 1,000 albums.  I happen to have 889 albums (60+ GB) in my iTunes collection, or so it says.  Some of those “albums” are just unorganized single track tunes I haven’t gotten to yet.  But all of that consists of mostly music that I bought on CD starting about 20 years ago.  My iTunes collection is close to 1,000 albums, but spans over about 20 years of  purchasing CDs – as well as purchasing various iTunes albums in the past 4+ years only.  And to think, I am fairly content with my collection of music – not a whole lot that I’m dying to get a hold of these days.  (nor the time to listen to it all either).

Looking at this another way…  say you get only about 500 music albums and then spend the rest on movies and TV show episodes.  The way iTunes works, it auto downloads both the HD and SD versions of any shows that offer it, and as far as I know, you can’t stop it from downloading both.   I have purchased some movies on iTunes and although it’s awesome to have on the computer, you can ONLY play it through iTunes, iPhone/iPod or Apple TV.  So…  yeah, this would be a dream for any Apple fanboy who’s got the entire Apple media collection in their mansion.  But you still have to download this stuff.  Last I checked (last night) it took about an hour with decently fast DSL internet to get one episode of LOST.   So, you spend about $5,000 of that gift card on movies and TV shows…   not really gonna ask where you’ll put it, because I know you’ll buy a new HD if needed…   but how long will it take you to download it all??   Doing the math again, it were me and my internet connection (not the best, I know, but better than average), seeing that most movies are about $15-$20 (about 294 movies to fulfil the $5K), if it took about 80 min per movie to download, I would be stuck having to wait about 392 hours or about 16 DAYS of just downloading movies.  Just the movies.

Gosh, I am probably starting to sound really annoying huh?

(…starting to?)  :P

Yeah, I know…   I guess this is what happens on little sleep.

Anyway – rant over. I need to get back to work anyway.  I needed that break…  It was bugging me and I had to say something.

My cell phone bill is due today…  crap!  

Overall, the trip to TMEA for me this year was more fun and more successful than any of the past years, and I had a blast in such a short time.  All of the people I got to see and spend time with was great, and I am glad I spent so much time at the Pyware booth, getting a few issues ironed out that I needed.  And, funnily enough, teaching me how to do some of the simplest things with the tools that I was just unaware of.  Guess I shoulda just read the manual.  That’s the “man” in me that says I can figure it out on my own.   Oh well.  ;)

So, overall the only tough thing about this whole weekend was trying to be in multiple places at one time.  I did a great job bouncing from one restaurant to another hotel to another bar to another hotel and to another restaurant.  Although it was exhausting, I got to see everyone I wanted to and I just felt relieved to see and talk to everyone I saw.   When I moved back to Michigan without being able to say goodbye to most of my closest friends, it just felt to disconnected…  abrupt?  or something somewhat empty…  you know?  It’s okay though, because I know I probably hadn’t seen most of them since the TMEA before, but it’s always great to see and talk to old friends, as well as make new ones.

Well, for now that’s all I got.  I need to head through security and find a space to pass out for a bit…  hopefully not missing my flight.  But next stop, snowy and colder Michigan.  Boo!  :P