Today was the first “typical” Ahmic day that we’ve had since I arrived.  By that, I mean that we had absolutely stunning weather.  Blue skies, temperatures in the low 70’s, bright sun, a perfect breeze, etc.

This morning’s outlook was not quite that rosy.  When I rolled out of bed at around 7:30, it was overcast and quite cool – cool enough, in fact, that I don’t believe anyone here took a standard morning dip.  I looked out the window and went back to sleep for 30 minutes.

Got to the main cabin at about 8:15 – just in time for blueberry pancakes and scrapple.  “T” was responsible for the former, and his sister Kathy had left the latter.  Both were excellent.  After breakfast, I decided to head down to Huntsville to do some gift shopping.  Note that I said “down” to Huntsville, as it is south of Magnetawan.  That’s an important fact to remember, as I generally do not.

Huntsville is a town of about 19,000 people and is generally a pretty good place to spend a few hours window shopping or getting lunch or – if one needs something out of the ordinary for dinner – grocery shopping.  It was really boring today, however.  A lot of the shops that I’ve gotten used to visiting seem to have closed.   So I got on route 60 East and headed towards Algonquin Park, which is one of Canada’s largest parks and an all-around beautiful place.  I camped there for a week a few years ago.

I got as far as Dwight, which is a small town on the outskirts of the park, and stopped at a trading post for souvenirs.  Spent 30 or 40 minutes there and decided to head back to the lake because it had become apparent that I was missing a rather gorgeous sunny day on the dock.

Some people don’t believe in mental blocks.  I have one.  I’ve had it for as long as I’ve been coming to Canada, and I mentioned it earlier in this post.  I have somehow become firmly convinced that Huntsville is NORTH of Magnetawan.  That being the case, I came back (on 60 West) from Dwight to Huntsville and then got on Canada 11 SOUTH, thinking I was headed back to the camp.  After driving just about 40 miles, it dawned on me that I was going in the wrong direction.

One thing about Canada 11 – there are very few places to turn around.  So I drove ANOTHER 10 miles in the wrong direction before finally getting turned around and driving NORTH back to Ulvik. 

As I said, I almost always get turned around when I go to Huntsville, but it’s never taken me 100 miles out of my way before today.

Back at the camp, I found everyone sitting on the dock enjoying the weather.  I grabbed one of the kayaks and paddled around to the other side of Indian Point, where I visited Opal Island, a small nearly circular island that I’ve coveted since the first time I vacationed here.  It is owned by the Coolidges (incorrectly identified as the Kellys in an earlier post – Dexter and Carol), and I have yet to convince them to sell it to me.

After visiting Opal, I poked around on Indian Point itself, marveling at the construction of the cottages on the lake’s oldest camp, and then made my way back across the lake to Ulvik.  Spent an additional hour lying on a float attached to the dock (and somehow avoiding a sunburn), then took some pictures until dinner.

Said dinner was made up of Chop Suey and Blueberry Bread Pudding, both cooked by Dad and Cy, and both excellent.

After dinner, Don took off in the putt-putt to do some fishing, Dad and Cy started and new crossword puzzle (their third in two days), and “T”, Dianne and Julie settled in to work on a jigsaw puzzle.

Not being interested in doing any of that, I excused myself to my boathouse, where I’m currently typing this and getting ready to read a bit before retiring early.

It is beautiful and relaxing here, and each year I spend here makes me want to live here year round just a little bit more.

TWD

Today began inauspiciously but ended up being very pleasant.  I woke up, thinking that it was probably between 6:30 and 7:00, and discovered that it was 9:15, overcast, quite chilly, and vaguely depressing.  I later learned that I was not the only person who slept late – in fact, everyone else did as well.

Because of the chill, I forewent the morning plunge, opting instead to brush my teeth and hair, throw on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt (not sure what I was thinking there), and head up to the main cabin for a bagel, coffee, and email check.

After an hour or so, I went to watch “T”, Dad and Don attempt to finish their two-day flagpole-raising project.  While attempting to bold the pole-box to the dock, Dad managed to drop the ratchet into the relatively shallow water near the dock, and – because I was the only one in shorts – I attempted to ease myself into the water to pick it up with my foot.

You all see this coming, right?  Yeah.  I completely lost my balance and fell into the water.  In doing so, I managed to stir up all of the gunk on the bottom of the lake, making it impossible to see the ratchet.  After a couple of dives, I gave up and relegated myself to shivering on the dock with a towel wrapped around myself while the three elder statesmen continued their labors with a different ratchet.  As far as I know, the original is still on the bottom of the lake.  Maybe I’ll find it tomorrow.

After drying and changing into jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, I took a long walk around the area, visiting Camp Ojibwe on one side of of and “Greenwich on Ahmic” (the late Billy Rouse’s camp) on the other.  I also spent a lot of time with my tripod trying to get decent pictures.  Failed miserably on that front.

All was not lost, however, as the sun came out during my walk, the temperature went up by about 15 degrees, and the rest of the afternoon turned into a beautiful day.

Took a nap for about 90 minutes during the afternoon and then drove into town to get ingredients for dinner – I was the chef, Dad was my assistant.  We made jambalaya, roasted beets, corn on the cob and salad.  Quite tasty.

After dinner, the 7 of of completed the Oh Hell game that we’d started a couple of days ago.  Don ended up winning by a narrow margin over yours truly.  Julie, Cy, Dad, “T” and Dianne rounded out the field.

Going to bed fairly early tonight (it’s 10:05 and I’ve already had my evening dip).  Not sure how long I’ll sleep tomorrow, but if I sleep as well as I did last night, I might just opt to stay in bed all day.

Unless I can get a tennis game going.

TWD

The weather was pretty much all over the place today, but for the most part it was beautiful.  I woke up at around 8:00 this morning when Dianne, apparently attempting to ease herself into the lake, made a splash big enough to scare fish.  After listening to podcasts for an hour or so – giving her enough time to go running or do whatever it is that motivated people do in the morning when they’re on vacation, I made my way to the dock and jumped in the drink myself (sans trunks, of course).  The water was a delightful 72 degrees and I spent about 15 minutes taking a bath before getting dried and dressed and making my way up to the main cabin for coffee and conversation.

By about 11 this morning, it was looking for all the world like it was going to be a perfect Ahmic afternoon, so I grabbed a camera and drove to the one cemetery that I know about in town (actually, just outside of town – near the dump, ironically) to see if there was anything there of photographic interest.  After about 20 minutes of shooting, I found myself in the middle of a complete downpour and came back to the camp.

Tried to have a bit of a chat with Betsy via the internet, but apparently the storm – which by that time was approaching Biblical proportions – was messing with the camp’s DSL.  I kept losing my connection while trying to determine exactly when she was planning to meet me in Grand Rapids, MI, for the brass band board meeting next week.  We finally worked things out via text message – not exactly the best option, as I have a very limited number of said messages on my plan (while in Canada) before I start getting charged out the wazzoo for them.

Finally gave up on any online business and had a lunch of grilled cheese and meatloaf sandwiches, then went to the boathouse for quiet time – which consisted of a brief nap followed by about an hour of tuba practice.  I still sound good.  Gotta love it.

By about 3 in the afternoon, the rain had left and the sun came out, giving us the perfect day that the morning had teased.  While everyone else gathered on the dock for reading and sun, I took a walk down Thompson Road and Langford Lane, looking for pictures.  Didn’t see much of anything, although I took my obligatory shots of the roads.  Also walked to the Rouse camp, where I’m told that Edward Norton and his significant other have been staying for a couple of weeks – she (I can’t remember her name) actually came to Ulvik yesterday with her little pug dog, but I have yet to meet the movie star.

Got back to the main cabin an hour or so later and was reading email and generally doing nothing when Don and Julie Peddy showed up, bearing two dozen ears of sweet corn, tomatoes, wine, bagels and cookies.  Guess I’ll be serving sweet corn when it’s my turn to cook on Thursday.

Dinner tonight was prepared by “T” and I, and consisted of basically all of the leftover vegetables we could find, sauteed and served over spaghetti.  I also put together a garden salad and “T” made some garlic bread.  Good eats.

After dinner, we started a game of Oh, Hell!, which – after 16 of the required 20 rounds – Don is winning.  I’m in second, about 5 points behind him.  At this point, nobody else is close.  We’ll finish the game tomorrow, I’m sure.

It has clouded over again tonight, but the temperature is still in the high 60s or low 70s and the water temperature is still at about 72.  I know this because 1. I looked at the water thermometer and 2. I jumped in the lake shortly before I began typing this.  There is something amazingly freeing/sexy/cool/comfortable about swimming naked in nearly pitch-black conditions.   The breeze is also quite strong tonight, which is not common.  It generally dies down after dark.

Not sure what tomorrow will bring, but I have no problem with the weather so far.  Just give me that breeze off the lake and the cool temperatures and I’m happy.  I do hope I can find another cemetery, however.

TWD

And it can’t be gone fast enough, if you ask me.  It has been unbelievably hot in Georgia this year.  I think – don’t quote me on this – that today marks the 35th day in a row that the temperature has crossed the 90-degree threshold.  Prior to this streak, we had an 18-day stretch of 90+ days.  In case you’re wondering, Atlanta normally has 32 days a year of 90+ and to say I’ve been uncomfortably hot this year is an understatement.

At the moment, I’m sitting (NOT naked) at the Audi dealership, waiting for my car to come back from its 95K service, a front-end alignment, and various and sundry other things that will, once again, push my service bill above $300.  I love my car, but sheesh.  Except for warranty work, I never get out of this place with any money left.

The brass band is nearing the end of our CD project.  We had an extra 3-hour rehearsal last Saturday morning, we’ll have our last regular rehearsal tonight, and the actual recording sessions are scheduled for Thursday and Friday nights and all day Saturday.  I don’t remember exactly how many tunes we’re recording, but it’s somewhere around 20.  I love playing with the group, but I’m more than ready to take a few weeks off after Saturday’s session.

My vacation plans are finally starting to gel.  I’ll be leaving for Magnetawan probably on the afternoon of September 4th and plan to arrive at the camp sometime on the 5th.  After chilling for a week or so on the lake, I’ll head west in Canada and cross back into the US at Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario sometime around the 14th or 15th.  I still haven’t decided exactly how I’m going to waste one or two days before I’m due for the meeting in Grand Rapids, MI, on the 17th, but I’ll have a tent with me and I should be able to find someplace to set it up in northern Michigan.   After the meeting on the 18th, I’ll probably take two days to get back to Atlanta, and I’m scheduled to be back on work on the 21st. 

To say that I’m ready for vacation would be another understatement.  Normally, I’d have taken off during the first week of July, and waiting the extra two months this year has been mentally draining.

At work, I’ve been fighting with the CFGRID tag for the last two weeks.  I got a relatively benign request to keep a “timeline” of user-entered comments for trouble tickets and figured it’d be a quick fix.  Silly me.  I’ve tried to set it up about 12 different ways since receiving the request, and I keep getting killed by little things in ColdFusion that don’t work the way I expect/want them to work.  I did make some huge strides on the project yesterday, however, and am very much hoping to wrap things up today.  Just in time, because I’ve got a meeting about a new (huge) project on my calendar for tomorrow morning.

This past Sunday was “Feed the Players” day at Furman.  It’s a pretty cool idea, amazingly allowed by the NCAA.  Basically, fans can volunteer to host small groups of football players for one home-cooked meal before school starts.  It was a tradition at the school for quite a long time, but died out for about 10 years before being resurrected last year.  Last year and this, I imposed myself on a good friend and his wife by joining them and four players for the dinner.  It’s a fun time, allows me to get to know a few of the kids on a more personal level (which helps immeasurably in my photography during the season, believe it or not), and lets them get to know me so that Ihey won’t wonder who that weird guy with the camera is who shows up at all of their games.

Speaking of shots from the games, I think I’ll be using SmugMug this year to host and sell the photos.  Still playing around with it to make sure it will work as well as the system that I set up for myself a few years ago.  Hope so, as it will be A LOT easier to maintain things.

Also on Sunday, I discovered a huge cemetery in downtown Greenville that I never knew was there.  Spent a few hours wandering around it and taking pictures before dinner, and I’m definitely planning on going back up there some morning and exploring a bit more.

Oh!  I forgot to mention that I’m typing this on my new Dell Inspiron Mini, a netbook that I got last week.  Basically, I went looking for a new GPS unit for my car before I started driving all over the country in September.  After looking at a number of models and determining which ones would best meet my needs, I figured out that, for an extra $100, I could just pick up a netbook (a tiny laptop with a long-lasting battery) and install Streets and Trips on it.  So I did.  And it works great.  Good call for me!

Well, my car should be just about done by now, so I’ll wrap this up.  No pictures in this entry at the moment.  Maybe I’ll add some later.

TWD

After throwing together that short little update yesterday, I decided to do things.

Specifically, I decided to go to the Kennesaw Mountain battlefield, which is about 20 miles from my house, and see if there was anything there worth photographing.  It turned out to be more of an adventure (I use the term loosely) than I’d anticipated.

I was originally planning to go to the main visitors’ center and climb to the top of the mountain and look at things and yada yada yada; but – I don’t know why I do things like this to myself – I decided to try getting there by just driving west from the house until I recognized something. 

Needless to say, I got completely lost and spent about 2 hours just driving around and wondering where the hell I was.  Found a tiny little cemetery and stopped to take a few pictures.  It didn’t really yield anything impressive, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to find it again, but it was something to break up the monotony of being totally clueless about my whereabouts.

Shortly after that, I pulled into a strip mall’s parking lot and got out the iPhone, figuring that I’d go ahead and use the maps app to actually get to the battlefield.  Unfortunately, I’ve recently “upgraded” the software on my phone, and (thanks, Apple), performance has been so degraded that the mapping ability is pretty much crippled.  Normally, I’d have just used my TomTom (GPS) at that point.  That piece of equipment, however, died about a month ago. 

Which reminds me that I need to get a new one before I head to Canada at the end of August.

So I continued driving and finally found US 41, which led me to an outlying part of the battlefield – the Dead Angle – about 4 miles from the actual visitors’ center.

History lesson time.  On June 27th, 1864, during a campaign in which Sherman’s troops were slowly but surely moving from Chattanooga to Atlanta (after the fall of which, Sherman began his famous “March to the Sea”) a large number of Illinois troops attempted to move a similarly large number of troops in the Army of the Tennessee off of Cheatham Hill, which is part of the Kennesaw Mountain area.  The confederates had erected earthworks on the hill for a couple of days before the union army arrived; and, after charging up the hill and being decimated, the Illinois troops found themselves in the unenviable position of being unable to advance and similarly unable to retreat.  So they hunkered down at a little swell in the hill about 20 yards below the confederate lines, dug what trenches they could (using bowls, forks, spoons and anything else they could find), and basically hung out there, sending and receiving fire, until the rebels evacuated (still concerned with the defense of Atlanta) on July 2.  It is difficult to imagine what it must have been like to hide between two-foot-high earthworks – while being shot at – for a week.  Particularly in late June in Georgia.  The heat (and the smell of decomposing bodies) must’ve been unreal.

I can speak to the heat a bit, because – God knows why – I decided yesterday to walk the path from Cheatham Hill to the visitor center, which is a distance of about 4 hilly miles.  Not being incredibly smart at times, I honestly didn’t think about the fact that I’d have to walk those same 4 hilly miles BACK to my car….

So, after marching 8 miles in 97-degree heat and high humidity (I’m told that the heat index was 105), I was pretty much dead.

Being dead, I thought it appropriate to drive to the Marietta National Cemetery, where, appropriately enough, a great many of those Yankee troops who died during the Kennesaw Mountain campaign are buried.  I’ve been told that the citizens of Marietta sort of freaked out at the thought of having union soldiers buried in their cemetery and moved their own dead to another cemetery a few miles away.  At any rate, the Marietta National Cemetery is dedicated to the union troops who died there, which is sort of bizarre.

It’s a beautiful place, though, and the turf is amazing.  I wish I could make the grass in my own lawn grow like it does at the cemetery.

After wasting all morning and half of the afternoon with the above-told story, I did some grocery shopping and also picked up a cassette tape recorder that will allow me to convert all of my tapes to .mp3 files, which is totally cool.

I also discovered that I’ve got three kittens, the offspring of one of the numerous feral cats that have been living in my backyard since I bought the house 11 years ago, living on my deck.  They (the kittens) are all completely adorable, but quite skittish.  I left them some water and food last night, which they seemed to appreciate.

Yeah, I know.  I shouldn’t encourage it, right?  Well, they’re not hurting me and they’re hopefully controlling the rodent population in the yard.  I’ve got no problem with kitties in the backyard.

This morning I networked a couple of my computers (I’ve been rebuilding laptops and desktops like a maniac over the last month) and started copying photos and converted cassettes to my main storage drive.  Haven’t decided what I’ll do later, but I do need to clean those dirty dishes that I mentioned yesterday – and do some more grocery shopping for stuff that I forgot in my heat-induced delirium yesterday.

Or maybe I’ll go to a baseball game.

TWD

I realized this morning that I’ve once again let two weeks slip by without posting anything here.  That being the case, I’m posting something here, but it’s going to be short.  There just hasn’t been much going on. 

It’s been unbelievably hot in metro Atlanta for the last two weeks (thermometer in the car hit 101 yesterday afternoon while I was diving home), and sleeping has been fitful at best.  A couple of days ago, I bit the bullet and cranked the A/C down to 73 for one night.  It probably cost me $800 for one night of relatively comfortable sleeping, but it had to be done.

I forgot to mention in my last entry that I got the living room, foyer, stairway and upstairs landing painted a few weeks ago.  A guitar-player friend of mine paints on the side, so I hired him to come do what I can’t – namely, paint walls without getting paint all over the floors, ceilings, cats, my car, and the neighbor kids.  Don’t know that I’m all that thrilled with the colors (pebblestone mostly, with 2 darker accent walls); but I’m really not a visual person, so I don’t know.  I know that the walls don’t look as crappy as they did before being painted.

Chris (yup, she’s still around) is talking about moving again – either this year or next – which is traumatic but not unexpected.  I covered all the roller-coastery stuff when she was thinking about it last winter, so I’m not going to write it all down here again. 

I got a new battery for my robotic vaccuum cleaner yesterday, which was nice.  The old battery had stopped holding a charge about a month ago, and – though I borrowed Jenny’s vaccuum cleaner while she was on vacation – my carpets were getting grungy.  This morning, after letting the Roomba run around for several hours last night, everything’s shiny and clean again.

Except the dirty dishes, which I need to wash today.

Told y’all it was going to be short.  That’s it for now!

TWD

So it’s been several weeks since I added anything here, and I must apologize profusely for that.  In my defense, I spent several days over the last week attempting to make a video of myself in order to post it here and bore all of you in living color.  For various reasons, I gave up on that idea after several attempts.

Making the video was easy.  Editing it was a bit more time-consuming, but doable.  Getting it to upload turned out to be more trouble than it’s worth.

So what have I been doing since the Great American Brass Band Festival?  Really not a great deal of note.  The GBB played the closing concert for the 2010 International Euphonium Institute, which is an annual camp for young euphonium players held at Emory University.  I don’t remember exactly how many times our band has played the closing concert, but it’s been at least the last 4 or 5 years.  I have a feeling that we won’t be doing it next year.  There’s not a great deal of enthusiasm for the gig among the band members (why that is, I’m not sure), and I don’t think our regular director has actually done the gig with us yet, as it always seems to happen when he’s on vacation.

Sticking with the playing theme for a minute, I put together  brass quintet for three gigs over the July 4th weekend (David Klausman hired me to do this), and it was a blast.  We played one rehearsal on Thursday, a service Saturday night and two Sunday-morning services – all at the (very large) Perimeter Church in Duluth.  In each case, we played a bunch of Chicago-brass type stuff behind a praise band (which was fun as hell…wait…can I say that?) and were featured during the offertory, during which we played an arrangement of John Williams’ Summon the Heroes.   We also played Shenendoah and America the Beautiful as pre-prelude music.

Summon the Heroes was selected by the church after I sent them a list of patriotic-type music that I have in my library.  I didn’t actually bother to look at the charts when I sent them the list and therefore didn’t realize that … um …. this was not an easy arrangement.  Fortunately, the folks that I recruited to play with me are all very solid and, after a somewhat-shaky run-through during the rehearsal, we knuckled down and gave three pretty nice performances of the piece, which garnered praise from the regular band and from several parishioners – not to mention a pretty nice paycheck for all of us.

Wish I could just get 4 folks who are that good and who are also interested in putting together a regular quintet.  In spite of what my music-for-a-living friends try to tell me, I could indeed play that type of stuff every day.

The actual company holiday for the 4th was on the 5th (last Monday), so I went ahead and scheduled the whole week off, figuring somewhere in the dark recesses of my brain that I’d sit at home and catch up on work.   I didn’t do that.  I’ve done absolutely nothing that is work-related since last Friday.  I’m not looking forward to going back to work next week at all.

Instead of working, I’ve done a lot of sleeping in; I’ve gone to a couple of baseball games in Macon, where  a new 4-team rookie league is playing this summer; I’ve watched a lot of television (I’m working my way through 6 seasons of the series called Lost); I’ve played a bit with my cameras; and I’ve tried to keep my two cats from killing each other.

I also got a nice email from Dad, who informs me that he likes to sit naked in his basement and read.  Dad…I love you and all, but I didn’t need to know that, dude.

Jenny’s been cruising above the Arctic Circle for the last couple of weeks (no joke!), so I’ve been taking care of her cats every couple of days.  I went to her place this morning and hung out for about an hour, much to the delight of Bailey, who we got as a kitten shortly before we divorced.  He crawled all over me and purred and generally made me feel happy, which was nice.

I don’t know if I mentioned it earlier, but I did indeed put my name in the hat for the NA Brass Band Assoc. board of directors and was elected into it in the middle of June.  The first board meeting that I’ll be attending in an official capacity (I audited one in April) will be on September 17 & 18 in Grand Rapids, MI; and, since Cy and T will be in Ontario during the first week of September, I’ll be taking another vacation to cover both of those events.  I’ll hang in out Magnetawan for a week, then figure out how to kill a week, then do the meetings in Grand Rapids, then drive (quickly) back to Atlanta to resume work on the 20th.

The worst part about the meeting is that it conflicts with a football game that I’ve been looking forward to shooting for – literally – five years.  Furman will be at South Carolina on the 18th, which is the first time SC has agreed to the game since losing (badly) in 1983.  A number of people – both from NABBA and from my football website – have suggested that I blow off the board meeting and shoot the game, but I just don’t feel good about doing that.  If it wasn’t the first meeting, I’d certainly think about it, as I think I could probably make about $1,000 selling pictures from the Carolina game.

But hey.  I knew what I was getting into, so I’ll do what I’m supposed to do.

And what I’m supposed to do now is throw some pictures into this thing, publish it, and go waste the rest of the day.  Talk at y’all later.

TWD