Carnival of Family Life: The Herald Trumpets Edition

Welcome to the Car­ni­val of Fam­ily Life. This Edi­tion is ded­i­cated to The Her­ald Trum­pets, cur­rently com­mem­o­rat­ing “Fifty Years of Flourishes.”

The Her­ald Trum­pets are the offi­cial fan­fare ensem­ble for the Pres­i­dent of the United States. Based in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., they are part of “Pershing’s Own,” the United States Army Band that per­forms at his­toric inter­na­tional and national events, includ­ing Pres­i­den­tial inau­gu­ra­tions, to wel­come vis­it­ing dig­ni­taries such as the Queen of Eng­land and Pope, and at Olympic cer­e­monies. They reg­u­larly per­form for the Kennedy Cen­ter Hon­ors and the annual hol­i­day cel­e­bra­tions “A Capi­tol Fourth,” “Christ­mas in Wash­ing­ton” and “The National Memo­r­ial Day Concert.”

On Sun­day, May 3, 2009, the Lodi Com­mu­nity Band wel­comed The Her­ald Trum­pets, along with the 59th Army Band, the “Governor’s Own,” to the stage of the Char­lene Pow­ers Lange Per­form­ing Arts The­ater at Hutchins Street Square here in Lodi for “A Patri­otic Celebration.”

The con­certs began with the splen­dor and pre­ci­sion for which The Her­ald Trum­pets are renowned:

Fam­ily Cook­ing & Recipes

Renee V. Rouse presents Fam­ily Meals for Under $5 posted at Frugal-Living-Skills Blog.

Rani presents Cin­na­mon Orange Sug­ar­less Cook­ies posted at Christ’s Bridge.

zabgg presents Quick Cook Episode 20: Sushi Roll posted at Veg­e­tar­ian Culi­nary, a video tuto­r­ial on how to make sushi rolls.

It was a once-in-a-lifetime oppor­tu­nity for Lodi audi­ences to expe­ri­ence the Her­ald Trum­pets in per­son, as well as for the mem­bers of the Lodi Com­mu­nity Band and 59th Army Band to per­form with “a national trea­sure.” Lodi Com­mu­nity Band Direc­tor Robert E. Gross noted, “They sim­ply do not per­form on the West Coast, with rare excep­tions.” Indeed, prior to last Sunday’s con­certs, the Her­ald Trum­pets had not per­formed in Cal­i­for­nia since they appeared with the Hol­ly­wood Bowl Orches­tra on July 4, 2002.

“We def­i­nitely make a big­ger impact away from D.C.,” Mas­ter Sergeant Todd Bald­win told the Stock­ton Record. “Peo­ple haven’t heard a group with so unique a sound. It’s so pow­er­ful. It evokes a more excited, enthu­si­as­tic response.” That was cer­tainly the case with Lodi audiences.

Fam­ily Crafts & Activities

Fiona Slat­tery Lohrenz presents Begin Organic Gar­den­ing With Me! From Scratch! posted at DIY Organic Gar­den.

Grandma presents Foam Fun Makes Cute Grandma Gifts posted at Grandma Gifts Of Love. Since busy grand­chil­dren are usu­ally happy grand­chil­dren, these projects might keep grand­par­ents and grand­chil­dren busy and happy.

Praveen presents Tao of Sim­plic­ity: Goldilocks Sto­ries posted at Tao of Sim­plic­ity.

Jen­nifer presents Fun with Seeds and Seedlings posted at Diary of 1.

Fiona Lohrenz presents A Late, Great Idea posted at Child Care Only.

Helene Zemel presents Piano Prac­tice Tech­niques that Every­one Can Use posted at The Piano Blog, offer­ing eight tech­niques appro­pri­ate for both begin­ners and advanced players.

Of course, before you can per­form, you must rehearse. So on Sat­ur­day after­noon, all mem­bers of the ensem­ble gath­ered together to get acquainted and practice.

First, we were intro­duced to Cap­tain David Paroby, Direc­tor of the Her­ald Trum­pets. Orig­i­nally from Warmin­ster, Penn­syl­va­nia, he holds a Bach­e­lor of Music degree from the Cur­tis Insti­tute of Music and a Mas­ter of Arts degree in Music Edu­ca­tion from Colum­bia Uni­ver­sity. He spent four years as a per­cus­sion­ist with the United States Marine Corps before secur­ing a posi­tion with the U. S. Mil­i­tary Acad­emy Band in West Point, New York, where he served as a fea­tured per­cus­sion soloist and clin­i­cian. He entered the U.S. Army Band Offi­cer pro­gram in 2004 and was com­mis­sioned in Decem­ber 2004 as an Offi­cer Can­di­date School Dis­tin­guished Mil­i­tary Grad­u­ate. His mil­i­tary dec­o­ra­tions include the Army Com­men­da­tion Medal, the Army Good Con­duct Medal, the Marine Corps Good Con­duct Medal, the Global War on Ter­ror­ism Ser­vice Medal, and the National Defense Ser­vice Medal.

Fam­ily Finance

Credit Shout presents Best Credit Cards — Edi­tors’ Picks 2009 posted at . Select­ing an appro­pri­ate credit card might save your fam­ily a sig­nif­i­cant sum each year, so if you plan to use a credit card, these reviews might be helpful.

Jim DeSan­tis presents 3 Major Ways Your Life Insur­ance Com­pany May Be Scam­ming You posted at On Line Tri­bune. The first and most impor­tant ques­tion is: Does our fam­ily need to include life insur­ance in our finan­cial plan?

Dur­ing the Sat­ur­day after­noon rehearsal, we also met WO1 Ron Wol­cott who directs the 59th Army Band. He con­ducted the com­bined Lodi Com­mu­nity and 59th Army bands dur­ing the per­for­mances. He has served for 17 years with the 59th Army Band as tenor trom­bon­ist, bass trom­bon­ist, assis­tant drum major, assis­tant con­duc­tor, and sec­tion leader, but has been the com­man­der since April 2007. He holds a Master’s Degree in com­po­si­tion and arrang­ing from Cal­i­for­nia State Uni­ver­sity, Chico and free­lances with the Par­adise Sym­phony and the Par­adise Brass Quintet.

Bank Champ presents Failed Banks Not Required to Honor CD Rates posted at Bank Champ. If you had CD’s with a failed bank, you will want to check into this.

jim presents How To Get A Free FICO Credit Score posted at Bar­gaineer­ing.

D.R. presents Is Bud­get­ing Keep­ing You Poor? posted at The Dough Roller. Bud­get­ing can improve your finances, but check out these “seven ways bud­get­ing could be mak­ing you poor.”

David presents Why low inter­est credit cards are not always the best option posted at Credit Card Offers IQ.

Michal presents Mon­ster HDP 900G Black­out Power Cen­ter Surge Pro­tec­tor posted at Energy Sav­ing Gad­gets, describ­ing one way to reduce your family’s monthly energy cost.

Momma presents 25 ways to save money and bar­gain shop posted at Engi­neer a Debt-Free Life.

The Smarter Wal­let presents Microsoft Money Soft­ware Review: A Look At Money Essen­tials posted at The Smarter Wal­let, a review of a money man­age­ment pro­gram that can help you man­age­ment your fam­ily finances.

Jacques Groe­newald presents Make Easy Money On Ebay posted at Mon­keyprofit.

nickel presents What is a 529 Plan? posted at fivecentnickel.com.

Jesse Moran presents How to Pro­tect Every­thing You Have Worked For posted at CompGifts — The Fru­gal Way of Liv­ing.

Finance Tips 101 presents How To Get An Ath­letic Schol­ar­ship posted at Finance Tips 101.

Fam­ily Health and Wellness

Aparna presents Fenu­greek (methi) for health and beauty posted at Beauty and Per­son­al­ity Groom­ing, explain­ing how an herb fre­quently used in Indian cui­sine, rich in pro­tein, cal­cium, phos­pho­rus and iron in their nat­ural forms, is eas­ily assim­i­lated by the body and pro­vides many health benefits.

Relax presents Should we worry about the recent flu pan­demic? posted at The Wise Curve.

zerwing@gmail.com presents How to Burn fat While Sip­ping Tea! posted at All Types Of Diets.

Erika Collin presents How to Pre­pare for a Pan­demic: 100 Tips, Tools and Resources posted at Mas­ters in Health Care.

Before we knew it, Sun­day after­noon arrived and it was time to relax and savor the event for which we had so dili­gently pre­pared with eager antic­i­pa­tion. For me, one of the high­lights was per­form­ing “Olympic Fan­fare and Theme” with the entire ensem­ble under the direc­tion of Cap­tain Paroby. The piece was writ­ten by John Williams for The Her­ald Trum­pets and debuted at the 1984 Los Ange­les Sum­mer Olympic Games. I am seated imme­di­ately to the conductor’s right as you view the video, hap­pily play­ing my flute under the direc­tion of a mas­ter musi­cian, feel­ing priv­i­leged to be in the com­pany of so many other fine musi­cians, doing what I love most.

In addi­tion to their other duties, The Her­ald Trum­pets play dur­ing bur­ial cer­e­monies at Arling­ton National Ceme­tery. “It’s even hard to esti­mate [the num­ber of ser­vices I have played dur­ing my tenure],” Bald­win said of his group’s solemn duty at Arling­ton, the national mil­i­tary ceme­tery. “At least 10 (buri­als) a week for 25 years. That’s prob­a­bly kind of a low average.

“Emo­tion­ally, it can be dif­fi­cult, although every­one deals with it in their own way. You learn to dis­tance your­self a lit­tle bit. We’re doing it for fallen heroes, though dur­ing the cer­e­mony we’re quite a dis­tance form the fam­i­lies. So we don’t have inti­macy. We play stan­dard chapel hymns and marches down to the grave site.”

Shortly after Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001, they per­formed “Heroic Fan­fare,” com­posed espe­cially for the occa­sion, in Lin­coln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall. They shared that inspir­ing num­ber with Lodi audi­ences, as well.

Fam­ily Humor

Jean­nie Ander­son presents Brown Show­ers Brings Trained Bow­els posted at The Adven­tures of Mr. Busy­pants.

Super Saver presents Out­smarted by a Four-Year Old posted at My Wealth Builder.

I also enjoyed per­form­ing the extremely chal­leng­ing  “Amer­i­can Salute.” You’ll rec­og­nize the tune!

Par­ent­ing Tips & Advice

Kerry presents How to Cre­ate a Daily Oasis in Your Home School posted at A Ten O’Clock Scholar.

jen presents Name our baby daugh­ter con­test posted at The Chron­i­cles Of Windy Ridge. You could win a lovely prize if the proud par­ents select the name you suggest.

Emma presents Tod­dlers at 18 months: skills check­list posted at Baby-Log.

Chief Fam­ily Offi­cer presents Office chair mat as a high chair mat posted at Chief Fam­ily Offi­cer.

Fam­ily Rela­tion­ships & Self-Improvement

Travis presents Deal­ing With Needy Peo­ple posted at Per­sonal Web Guide. Chances are, at least one of your fam­ily mem­bers fits the descrip­tion. This arti­cle might help you deal with him/her.

Susan Gais­sert presents I Want a Com­mu­nity posted at The Expand­ing Life.

Bryan presents Just to clar­ify; that is not what a “real man” is sup­posed to look like. posted at Sci­ence. Why not?, a reac­tion to an arti­cle included in a prior edi­tion of the Car­ni­val. [All opin­ions expressed in arti­cles included in the Car­ni­val are those of the indi­vid­ual authors. Inclu­sion in the Car­ni­val does not con­sti­tute endorse­ment of or agree­ment with the var­i­ous view­points presented.]

Don­ald Latumahina presents Exper­i­ment: A For­mula to Achieve Suc­cess posted at Life Opti­mizer.

Fam­ily Travel

Sil­i­con Val­ley Blog­ger presents Name Your Price With Price­line: Get A Bar­gain Vaca­tion posted at The Digerati Life.

Marina K. Vil­la­toro presents Hal­loween in Costa Rica posted at The Travel Expert(a).

No patri­otic cel­e­bra­tion would be com­plete with a stir­ring and crowd-pleasing ren­di­tion of “The Stars and Stripes For­ever.” If this doesn’t make you want to stand up and salute, noth­ing will!

Thanks for par­tic­i­pat­ing in and sup­port­ing the Car­ni­val this week!

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Tech­no­rati Tags: Blog Car­ni­val, Car­ni­val of Fam­ily Life, Lodi Com­mu­nity Band, The Her­ald Trumpets

On the Same Topic:

• Car­ni­val of Fam­ily Life: The Merry Christ­mas 2009 — and Final — Edition
• Car­ni­val of Fam­ily Life — Thank­ful­ness Edition
• Car­ni­val of Fam­ily Life: Happy Hal­loween 2009 Edition
• Car­ni­val of Fam­ily Life: Sep­tem­ber 2009 “Fall Into Fall” Edition
• Car­ni­val of Fam­ily Life: August 2009 Edition