If I could do just three things I would drink coffee, play chess, and practice weightlifting. Classical music would be playing in the background. Maybe I would do some fencing in my spare time. Some time, look up the movie called "By the Sword" on YouTube. You can watch the movie on YouTube actually. It's got that one guy from Amadeus, another good movie by the way which happens to be about Mozart. I've never fenced before, it's just got that classic sophisticated appeal to it, the same appeal that chess and weightlifting have. Yes, weightlifting is the classical music of the strength sports because it is a skill sport. Any body can play smells like teen spirit but it takes a master to play Paganini. What other activities have that classical lure to them? Obviously playing the violin does. I used to play the violin when I was younger, I didn't practice though and that instrument takes a ton of discipline. I remember going to recitals and seeing 10 yr old girls play with such mastery that is was down right scary and intimidating. They obviously practiced a lot. Sure, I could play, but I never learned how to read notes. I memorized all of my pieces for my recitals. The music book would be in front of me but I would be playing by heart. This was when I was still half ways innocent, I mean I always had my problems, but things were simpler back then. I remember towards the end of my violin lessons, before my teacher asked me to stop because I wasn't worth her time, she tried to teach me the vibrato. The is when you move your hand and wrist in such a way that it gives the note you are playing emotion, but the vibrato is a mechanical action and you have to loosen your hands and wrist in order to do it. Loosening up is something I still struggle with to this day. I took violin lessons at Luther College in Iowa where I grew up. That school is known for it's music department. The college is in a town settled primarily by Norwegians. Imagine me at 10 yrs old, a little Bohemian kid from a town over, getting my ass handed to me at recitals by 10 yr old blonde ethnic Norwegians. I play chess at my college here in Wisconsin. It's a chess club by definition only, really it's people who like to play chess getting together to play for fun. Just like the violin, I haven't studied chess, I just play to play, and get as good as anyone who plays a lot but doesn't study. I remember I wanted to quit violin plenty of times, but my mother wouldn't let me. She would cry, beg, and plead me to stick with the violin. She wanted to be able to tell her friends and people she meet, "this is Simon, our middle child, the violin player". This was back when my folks owned the Czech Restaurant in town and she would pay me to serenade the customers when I wasn't busy washing dishes. I'm sure that was hard for her to let go of, being able to describe me as the violin player. My folks have always been that way, when people ask them how they are doing they are the type that would avoid the question and say "well, my youngest is doing this, my oldest is doing that". I suppose when you are a parent, a parent is what you are, and you are defined by what your children are doing.
