Articles written by Joe DeShon

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About me - Joe DeShon

I'm a former music teacher who discovered that music is best as my avocation, not my vocation. So now I work in the marketing department for a very large telecommunications company. The only thing keeping me from writing all the time is finding enough people

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Hobbies & Games > Antiques & Collecting (Other) Why I collect postcards: 1 of 6

Guys collect things. There's just something about seeing a bunch of disorganized stuff out there that demands that some order be enforced. It's human nature. It's what makes us different. It's what makes the "chaos theory" apply to geology, but not to the human soul. Several years ago, I collected baseball cards. What a perf...
Business > Business Issues Effects of outsourcing the workforce to low-cost countries: 1 of 4

If I had been in the labor force fifty years ago, I couldn't do the job that I do now - mainly because my job didn't exist fifty years ago. Heck, it didn't exist ten years ago. I work in a very high-tech industry. Most of the people that I work with have jobs that didn't exist even five years ago. And it's true the other way...
Entertainment > Music Education Effective musical practice techniques: 1 of 4

Practicing music doesn't come naturally for most - it certainly didn't for me. It's too easy to confuse "playing through" a song with actually "practicing" it. That was my problem. If I sat at the piano and played songs for an hour, I could easily claim that I had "practiced" for an hour. In fact, I was just reinforcing the ...
Hobbies & Games > Hobbies & Games (Other) Tips for starting a baseball card collection: 1 of 4

There's a difference between having a baseball card "collection" and just having a "bunch" of baseball cards. You need to actually put some thought and some effort into a collection. But that shouldn't be a deterrent. Go ahead and have fun with it, too. When you first begin, you probably don't really know how to organize you...
Politics, News & Issues > US Elections US elections 2008: Why Obama is correct in saying that our children should learn Spanish: 1 of 3

Barack Obama recently sent the conservative blogosphere into a tizzy by suggesting that our children should learn how to speak Spanish. It was touted as another nail in the coffin of our Anglo/Christian heritage that so many Americans hold dearly. Actually, I'm going to give him a little bit of a break. I think our children ...
Personal Finance > Retirement Views on the AARP: 1 of 3

This year, I celebrated one of those dreaded birthdays with a "zero" in it. Turning over a new decade is kinda like walking down a hallway in an office building and then rounding a corner. Everything is familiar, but suddenly different at the same time. What do I get for my half-century of life on this planet? I am deluged w...
Creative Writing > Essays Essays: Parenting: 16 of 39

My Upside-down Son When my son was a toddler, he thought the world revolved around him, which is SOP for kids of that age. So when he wasn't getting enough attention, he would do whatever it took to draw attention to himself. This caused some problems when I needed to stay late after church to talk to anybody. With my son in...
Entertainment > Music Genres, Trends & Scenes Sad songs that will make you cry: 16 of 34

Some of the greatest love lyrics that make me cry are in the song "Can you read my mind?" by Leslie Bricusse and John Williams. It was from the original Superman movie with Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder. This song is amazing because it can be studied on so many levels. Superman and Lois Lane are falling in love with ea...
Sciences > Astronomy US spy satellite heading toward earth: Did the Navy "hit vehicle" stop it?: 3 of 6

What goes up must come down. When the thing going up is a man-made satellite, it usually comes down in a blaze of glory, burning up in the Earth's atmosphere miles above the surface while traveling at Mach 25. But if it's a US spy satellite, things get a little trickier. And that's exactly the case of USA 193, the spy satell...
Entertainment > Music Education Tips for titling instrumental music: 1 of 2

In the old days, it was good enough to name instrumental music by the type, key signature, and serial number. Is it the fifth symphony in C-minor? Then I guess the name would be "Symphony #5 in C-minor". Gee, that was easy. Somewhere along the line, opus numbers came into being. But they were often added posthumously. Compos...