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