Life Is Such A Sweet Insanity.

Since today was the first beautiful day we’ve had (at least when we’ve been here) this year, I decided to celebrate by going on one of my roadgeek rides. Today’s journey took me to the Southern Tier of The Empire State, including the thriving metropolii of Auburn, Ithaca, Elmira, Owego and Binghamton.

I rarely will admit this, but I love New York.

I observed a couple of things:

– It was refreshing to see the rapidly melting snow and to realize that the only portion of the state that I drove through that still had snow was our area.

– I thanked the Universe for Wegmans for with my water and iced tea consumption during this ride, I basically drove from Wegmans to Wegmans so that I could use their conveniently located restrooms in the front of each store. I consider my urine too good for the Wal*Mart potty, God Bless Wegmans.

– I ate relatively healthy courtesy of Wegmans, as they had a wide selection of healthy choices for lunch and snack.

– I discovered that there is a certain quaintness to several Southern Tier village downtown areas, including Horseheads, Elmira, Owego, Endicott and Sayre, Pa.

– I don’t miss my mustache like I thought I would, as I caught the eye of more than a few. Humility 0, Confidence 1

The ride was absolutely gorgeous and I made several notes for my roadgeek website and took several pictures as well.

Along the ride I listened to about five hours of podcasts on my iPod. I am now well-versed in all things Mac once again. Sip of kool aid anyone?

Life is good.

Now that I’m awake and can hopefully write coherently. As I mentioned last night, I was co-host for a local scholarship pageant, Miss Mohawk Valley. This was my third time as the host, and this year I shared the duties with the current Miss New York, Bethlene Pancoast. I was a little nervous about sharing the spotlight in this regard for two reasons: 1. I often see myself as a bumbling fool when I’m on stage and Bethlene has a wonderous stage presence about her and 2. I don’t have a lot of experience with co-hosting as during my radio days I was mostly a solo act.

It turned out that my fears were for nothing (which is usually the case) as I had a wonderful time at the gig. The executive director of the pageant provides me with a script and asks that I stick to it. I rarely do that and to keep things interesting I save my ad-libs for the actual performance. I like to add an air of spontaneity. For example, last night I took stopped the show to take a picture of the audience.

As you can see there were about 100 people or so. Perhaps the chair-fillers were in the rest room as this was just prior to intermission. One unintentional ad-lib was when I flipped two cue cards instead of one, skipping a contestant during the talent portion which meant I introduced the wrong one, throwing the entire backstage crew into a panic as walky-talkies started squawking “he’s skipping! what’s he doing! stop him!” and sets started moving around to adjust for my erroneous dialogue. Bethlene came out and corrected me, and all got back on track. To cover, I made a few jokes about “deja vu” as I ran through the same dialogue again at the right time. Next year my agent will have to make sure there’s a teleprompter instead of cue cards written in crayon.

All in all, it was a great experience. The new Miss Mohawk Valley is Theresa Tokarowski, originally froom Amsterdam (N.Y.) and an exceptionally talented graduate of the Manhattan School of Music. From here she goes to Miss New York and then from there she would go on to compete for Miss America.

I really admire the ladies in these pageants as some are just finishing high school, there seems to be a lot of outfit changes involving dressing assistants, there’s that whole talent thing where you have to be absolutely spectacular in less than two minutes and it has to be absolutely nervewracking to be asked a question that will most likely be politically charged yet have nothing to do with world peace. I found Bethlene to be an amazing woman in that she is completely down to earth, yet confident and strikingly beautiful. And Theresa is like her in many regards. I wish them both success.

Then there’s me, the goofball on stage comparing myself to Ryan Seacrest and hamming it up on stage. I guess I did o.k. though, I’ve been asked to come back next year for more fun.

Here I am with Bethlene and the contestants, getting ready to make the big announcement.

And here’s a photo of Earl and I with Miss Mohawk Valley 2007.

I’m dog tired. The day started early this morning, we had rehearsals all day long and then the big show was tonight at 7:00 p.m. It’s hard work being the emcee for the Miss Mohawk Valley scholarship program pageant!

Here I am pictured with my co-host and Miss New York 2006, Bethlene Pancoast.

I felt I needed to get super spiffed up to hit the stage tonight. 🙂

The experience was wonderful and I’ll write more tomorrow.

This weekend I hit the stage for the first time in a couple of years. It is the annual “Miss Mohawk Valley Scholarship Program Pageant”, and while some would chuckle to think that I’m competing for Miss Mohawk Valley I am actually the emcee. Actually, this year I am a co-host, sharing the emcee duties with the current Miss New York. This winner from this pageant goes to Miss New York, and then Miss New York goes to Miss America, so it’s mildly exciting.

The last time I had the honor of being a host for this show was two years ago. I hope I’m not a little rusty and that my jokes have not run stale. It’s a good thing I have a script to follow, so I don’t try to funny with words like “shizzle”.

I suppose I’m going to have to get cleaned up in order for the tux I have to look right. Perhaps I’ll share a picture on the blog by the end of the weekend.

A couple of days ago I mentioned that I used to be a tuba player and that perhaps I’d like to start playing the tuba again. A few said I should go for it and find a band to play with and my mother suggested I should look into joining my alma mater’s alumni band.

The Alumni Band only did one gig – in 1996.

Until this year.

I’ve started the ball rolling on getting an Alumni Marching Band together for my hometown’s Field Days (think town festival) in August. There’s already been considerable interest.

I think I’ve found my “keep busy” activity for the summer and I’m wicked excited about it.