First

Behold, I'm now a Blogger!

What an exciting day.

--update 1:08 P.M.--

So to kick off this new blog, I'd like to explain a few things.

- My URL address (baseballandapplepie.blogspot.com): This name was inspired by a conversation I had with my friend. One day in high school (high school....hahahaha), we were working on our speeches for Civics class; both of us happened to pick the topic "American exceptionalism." For those of you not familiar with this concept, American exceptionalism is basically the idea that the U.S. is friggin' awesome and superior in every way possible. Anyway, we eventually got distracted and started talking about pie. I mentioned that my favorite flavor is apple, at which point my friend wrote something about apple pie in his speech. "That and baseball--you can't get any more American than that," he told me. Fast forward to this morning, when I was thinking of a blog URL that wasn't already taken (even hiperson3673 wasn't available), I remembered that conversation with my friend, so I typed in "baseballandapplepie." Sure enough, it was available. Yay!!!

- The quote at the top: Clark Terry is a famous jazz trumpet player, probably one of the greatest to every play. I saw him perform at the Blue Note in the city two summers ago with his big band; it was truly an incredible performance. The guy was in his late 80's, yet his playing was like that of a man in his 20's. Never had I seen such musical vivacity in someone who could barely walk around by himself. Anyway (yeah, got a bit sidetracked with an anecdote), the quote reflects Terry's view on developing one's own style: Use the ideas of other musicians to formulate your own. As an aspiring musician, I use this quote as a motto for myself. Therefore, I found it to be a fitting title for my blog.

That's all for now.