Lees On The Loose

When you don’t have enough money to buy your own Russian KA-50 Attack helicopter, your only other option is to get the highest fidelity simulation you can and try it out on your own PC. Follow along as I show you what I do when I have too much time on my hands (looks great in full-screen mode)!

I created this video many years ago to chronicle a year (or two) in the life of the Buzuvis family. While the equipment and technology back then was vastly inferior to what we have today, I am so glad we have this as a keepsake.

Dedicated to Betty, Marie, and Martha…three who appear in the video but are no longer with us.

Here is a photo montage I created using pictures from Christmas 2012 at the Buzuvis family gathering.

If I were to look back on 2012 with my mortal eyes, I would say it was one of the toughest years Donna and I have ever had to slog through. However, when I view it through the eyes of eternity, I end up asking myself: “Would we be as close as we are as husband and wife if we had not had to fight our way through all of this together? Would I have realized what an absolute warrior the woman I married has inside of her if I had not seen her strength in dealing with all we had to face this year?”

While I never would have asked for the year that we had, now that I look back on it using my eternal eyes, I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

2012 *was* a good year…because we look past mortality and see it for what it truly was…a year “in school” for our eternal progression. And the more time that passes, the less we remember the hardships, and the more we remember the unity, closeness and strength we developed.

Here’s hoping that 2013 is even better…for us and for you. Happy New Year!

Okay, so I have been blabbing in the last few posts about the Guardsmen Drum & Bugle Corps that I marched with during the spring and summer of 1979. So what about them?

Well, back then, it was a group of percussionists, color guard, and bugle players who would perform and compete around the country in Drum Corps International (DCI) competitions. The “grand daddy” competition was the World Championships, which in 1979 were held in Alabama. Only the top 12 corps in a massive preliminary competition get to compete in the nationally televised finals.

In 1979, The Guardsmen placed 10th overall in the preliminary competition, giving us a chance to compete in the “nite show” championships. We improved our position in the final competition, finishing 7th overall, with our dynamite horn line placing 3rd in horns.

While I have recently obtained a DVD from DCI of the top 12 corps that competed in the finals, someone was nice enough to post on youtube a video of our performance. Because of the technical limitations of posting long videos to youtube, they broke up the video into two parts, and I am going to link to those videos below (should you feel inclined to see what it was I did for an entire summer in 1979).

If you watch the end of the second part, you’ll see some of the post-performance commentary by the on-air talent. In 1979, Maynard Ferguson was one of the televised announcers and he thoroughly enjoyed our performance…especially our horn line.

Sadly, the Guardsmen “folded” several years later, but their memory lives on in alumni like myself. Fortunately, one of the corps members from “way back when” has put up a website for Guardsmen alumni.

Here is Part 1 of 2:

And here is Part 2 of 2: