I am in Cleveland, working a National Pastoral Musicians Conference. Our first day, we checked into a rather lovely hotel in downtown. The convention just before ours was a gay, lesbian and bisexual square dancing competition. I have to tell you that I never thought of square dancing as a GLTB sort of "sport", apparently it has a rather large following. VERY, VERY ODD...

Today I attended a cantor workshop, if you don't know what a cantor is, well, in the Catholic Church, they are the person that leads the songs because no other Catholics want to sing. All I can say is WOW, there shall be no complaining about the singing at my Cathedral. Wow, wow, wow. (True thoughts withheld to protect the innocent.)

Cleveland is an interesting city, right on the great lakes, close enough to the south to have a bit of southern etc. Being here has TRULY underscored how UN-diverse Portland really is. Portland must be the whitest city in the world. At any rate, our Hotel is lovely, connected to the old train station, right in downtown. I spent a couple hours walking around on Monday, hoping to find a store to buy the girls a surprise, not a damn thing. NOTHING. The whole downtown, like many urban centers, is devoid of almost any shopping. The train station has been converted into a "mall" there are really only three stores, Brooks Brothers, MAC and the Dollar Store. Very odd combination. Oh, wait, I almost forgot! There are a series of fountains that "dance" to the fast movement of Aaron Copland's ballet suite Rodeo (better known as the "Beef" song.)

Tomorrow I have to work our booth, proctor a couple of events and then fill in as the missing tenor in a Spanish/Gospel concert. Perfect...

Missing the family horribly...