Last year I officially gave up on my Fitbit Charge 4. It was great until it wasn’t. Since I’m a glutton for punishment, I got yet another fitness watch. This time, the Amazfit GTR-3 on a recommendation from a co-worker.
The pros and cons? Pros: great battery life, customizable color screen, built-in GPS. My only real complaint is around the face automatically turning on/off. When I look at the face it won’t always automatically turn on, so I’ll go to press the button on the side and a split second before I press the button, the face will self-activate.
What happens is similar to “Layout Shift” on websites. Your finger or cursor is over a button, then bam! Something else loads and moves something (that you didn’t intent to tap) right where you were.
What happens with the watch is it displays the face for a split second, then goes into the menu system because I technically pressed the button while the screen was active 😖
The workaround for me has been to enable the always-on screen functionality, which lessens the battery life from 21-days to 7, but I’m OK with that because it beats charging every day.
GPS
What I really got it for was the GPS. I’ve only used for fitness tracking twice, but I can already tell it’s going to be a better experience. My first ride was on a company retreat in Mexico. There was a resort “Bike Tour” which I use in quotes because we rode bikes from the resort up the road to the adjacent marina town, and then went to the grocery store 🏪
Elapsed Time
Moving Time
Distance
Average Speed
Max Speed
Elevation Gain
Calories Burned
01:04:42
hours
00:19:50
hours
2.32
mi.
7.01
mph
11.24
mph
7.55
ft.
145
kcal
While I was in the grocery store, after a certain amount of time, it warned me about turning the GPS off to save battery while my activity was paused. Then when I unpaused it there were no issues 💪 (unlike my Fitbit). The only real issue was I forgot to press start until halfway to Puerto Morelos 😓
Take 2
Now that I’m home and winter seems to have actually gone away, I tried it with a bike ride here and everything went as planned.
Elapsed Time
Moving Time
Distance
Average Speed
Max Speed
Elevation Gain
Calories Burned
00:30:31
hours
00:23:56
hours
3.40
mi.
8.51
mph
18.82
mph
121.39
ft.
171
kcal
I’m looking forward to seeing how it does out on the water. That was the death-blow for my fitbit. When I’m in the water I don’t want to be fiddling with my phone. So far, so good 🤞
I never like the idea of getting a kid summer stuff (bikes, skateboards, etc) for Christmas because in Minnesota you have to wait another 4 months before you can even think about using it. Getting her a stand-up paddle-board (SUP) for her birthday in May would be a better idea.
I didn’t actually make it 6 months, only three. In that time, the price on this thing didn’t budge. As much it looks like a top-quality boat, I was reluctant to drop $500 on something that might not be a hit. So I kept looking 👀
What I found in November is the Retrospec brand, an LA-based outdoor recreation and fitness company. They also have an eight-foot paddle board for kids for $250. I subscribed to their notifications and waited, but I didn’t have to wait long, and was able to snag the board on sale for $200.
It sat in the box for a couple of months waiting for my daughter’s birthday to roll around. She opened it earlier this month, and finally over Memorial day weekend, we were able to take it out.
The board itself is great, it comes with everything all nicely packed in a backpack to carry it around. Inflation was easy and honestly I’ll probably keep it inflated for the summer. We just take the fins off while moving it, and they’re easy to snap on and off.
She did great on it, even on a windy day 🌬️ The only time she had a problem was near the shore when the wake board boat wake came in, creating some big waves! 🌊
My only regret is that we didn’t get a photo of her on the maiden voyage 😓
I just got done with a fantastic first season with MBI Winds, a new independent hornline that competed in WGI’s Winds class. Our goal was to create an outlet for horn players of all instruments and all ages. We set out to show how hornline culture is cool 😎 And it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
Having worked with RVS since 2020, I felt there was enough momentum from graduates to make an independent group happen. At the start of the season it seemed promising. This was a screenshot of the registration list that wound up in the staff chat for RVS:
AND there was another Independent group from Mankato that was supposed to come out in Exhibition.
The timing seemed right! But I underestimated how hard recruiting is. Recruiting is hard. Harder than getting a college degree. Harder than marching an entire season of drum corps. It was draining! 😓
It wasn’t just me. I soon came to find out that both Minnetonka and Mankato would not be coming out this season for recruiting reasons. I kept at it through late January – that was when we filled our remaining saxophone spots. I was content to keep the group at 20 members even though the drill (and budget) was written for 24. Otherwise I would have gone insane 🤪
Independent Groups are Hard
We don’t have a captive audience like a student body. Members are paying to participate. They can decide in an instant that it’s not worth their time or money. This fact is not lost on anyone inside an independent organization, but I’m not sure if outsiders realize it.
We don’t own any real estate, so facilities are a big deal. The days of hand-shake deals with local band directors are over as just about everything goes through Community Education. Some of the best things Independent Groups can do are:
Partner with a local church or other space that might not otherwise receive income/donations to use their facility.
Find a school district that operates without a Community Education management system and negotiate a partnership directly.
Negotiate a deal with Community Education based on the number of rentals (this is rare, but sometimes possible)
Paying for all of our facilities means we must maximize what we can do in that time. Sometimes the work isn’t sexy, so we must fall in love with chopping wood & carrying water.
All instructors & administration of independent groups are underpaid. In most cases they need to be – to ensure affordability for the members, and the survival of the group. Staff should be there for the love of the activity & the members. If money is what you’re interested in, you’re better suited to finding a scholastic program in a ritzy neighborhood.
Independent Groups are Important
The success of any independent group is usually reflective of the success of scholastic groups in their region. Band directors – think about what your goals are. Not just the goals of your program this year or the next 5 years – over your entire career. One thing that is not lost on me is making music last a lifetime.
50% of students are going to quit playing after high school. What if we could encourage students to keep playing just a little longer by asking them to follow-through on something outside of school? Independent groups (including community bands!) are part of that equation.
How can people help right now? Local band directors, we need your help specifically. None of the things I will suggest are groundbreaking.
Answer your email and return phone calls. I get it, we all have hundreds of unread messages. For every band director I contact I typically get a 35% response rate on messages.
If someone from an independent group is asking for interested members, ask. Even if you think no one is interested, just ask. If someone is interested, great! If not, then you can at least say you did.
We are on the same side. MBI Winds maintained a policy that outside music commitments come first unless it impacts a competition. Recognize that members participating in independent groups are high performers. They’re the ones in all-state band, honor band, etc. There’s a compromise to be made on both sides and communication is the key.
Making it last
I was speechless when I was recognized by peers as going above and beyond to make the season work.
I was super greatful, but my favorite “trophy” for the season was this:
I’m forever grateful for these 20 musicians that dedicated themselves to an idea. We had no basis to know what the group could or couldn’t do – we all just had to believe. I’m hopeful that next season might be a little easier 🤞The groundwork that was laid will hopefully be a good foundation. If we turned some heads and got people to say “that looks like fun” then I think we’re on the right track.
I wanted to buy a USB audio interface to use at home when working on the backing track for MBI Winds. Our winds group uses a multi-speaker setup (currently 3 channels) that I wanted to be able to easily replicate at home without pulling out 2x 100-pound speakers and a 32 channel mixer 😅
So many choices!
I started by looking at interfaces on Amazon, starting with the hugely popular Scarlett and the Behringer 4-channel units. I asked around at work because lots of folks like to use USB audio interfaces for podcast mics, or simply to get rid of headphone noise induced by their computer’s main board. After asking my list went from 2 to 6 units.
I started combing over the instruction manuals and found an issue. Most of the 4-channel USB audio interfaces simply passed the channels 3-4 along at line level without an option to adjust volume. This included the Scarlett and Behringer models I was looking at.
Homework or help?
I had my work cut out for me, but rather than digging in, I reached out for help. Cristian Good is our sales rep for the drum corps, and he really knows his stuff. This was a personal purchase, but I reached out to him anyway. At around 4pm on a Friday I sent him a message asking about units that could also adjust the volume on channels 3 & 4. I figured he’d get back to me on Monday as the homework seemed daunting. Nope, he got back to me within an hour recommending the Solid State Logic SSL2+
This one goes to eleven!!11
There it is, right on the front – the “Phones B” output can be changed to send channels 3 & 4 and be adjusted with that knob.
Channel 3 & 4 outputs
The SSL2+ has a few options for channels 3 & 4 – there are RCA jacks on the back, but these (like the other brands) pass the signal on at line-level. But press the “3 & 4” button and it will switch the Phones B output to channels 3 & 4. You can see the Phones A & B outputs and their corresponding knobs below:
So I have a couple options on how to hook things up at home. I can use the balanced outputs (to the right of the RCA jacks above) for the main left and right channels (1 & 2). Hook it up to a pair of studio monitors and use the big blue knob for the main level.
Or I can use the unbalanced Phones A jack for main left and right channels (1 & 2) and use the Phones A knob for main level.
Channels 3 & 4 will have to use Phones B which is also unbalanced, but that’s not really a big deal to me. I’m not running long cables and the line-level RCA outputs aren’t balanced either.
Speakers
My next move will be to get some speakers to complete my mini home audio studio. Cristian has already recommended to me this JBL 8″ model, so that’s likely my next purchase 😎
It’s now officially cheaper to subscribe to renewable energy through Northern States Power, a.k.a. Xcel Energy–Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota. It’s not by much – only $2 on a recent $200 bill, but it puts to bed the argument that renewables aren’t cheaper. Let’s take a closer look.
We have two electric vehicles and aren’t (yet) subscribed to a EV charging plan. This is mostly because Xcel wants you to buy or rent their hardware and I wanted a particular type of charger. So we use more electricity than our neighbors, which according to Xcel use around 600kWh/month. We’re also subscribed 100% to renewables (solar and wind).
The way the Renewable Connect program works is you pay a higher rate for your electricity, but they refund you the fuel cost charge – which is for trains and trucks moving coal to the power plant. They print everything on your bill and credit them off so you can see what you’re saving. Below you can see a $54.75 fuel cost charge added and removed via a credit.
Then the cost of the renewables are added, $52.37 for this month, which is $2.38 less than the fuel cost. They even list it at the bottom so you know how much you’re saving.
We don’t have any rooftop solar (yet), so hopefully our usage will go down in the future. It’s all based in kWh, so these saving will still scale to whatever your electric bill is, so why not sign up today?
