The entry that I wrote yesterday (posted earlier today) was quite unsatisfying for me, so I think I’ll blast out another one now. I still have more pictures to post anyway.
I guess I’ll file this one under “miscellaneous,” as I have no idea
what I’m going to say, what type of order I’ll try to impose on that which isn’t said, or how long I’ll sit here typing while having nothing to say.
Good thing nobody’s reading, eh?
There’s a news story on right now about a physician here in Atlanta and the sign he’s posted on his office door: “If you voted for Obama, seek urological care elsewhere.” What a tool. I hope half of his patients take a leak on his waiting room floor.
Sorry. Got a bit sidetracked there.
I went to bed early last night, still trying to fight off this sinus thing in the best way that I know how: sleeping through it. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending up your outlook), retiring early means rising early; and I was awake and bored at about 5:30 this morning. 
Bored enough, in fact, that I started playing around with a little AutoTune app that I’ve got on my phone. For those of you who aren’t totally hip, cool, musical, gangsta-type people, AutoTune is a program that was developed to take musical input and “tune” it to the right pitch. It does this by digitizing the incoming analog signal (ie, a voice) and attempting to put each bit of it on a perfect pitch. This results in some really weird-sounding cyborg stuff, and rappers (and Cher) think it’s the coolest thing ever.
So I autotuned my cats. They were talking to me and I recorded them. It was fun. Things were good.
Then I played it back, and Boo, who is as short-tempered as she is short-haired, completely freaked out and attacked Bo, who is the archetypical scaredy-cat. The two of them had a rousing row, which progressed from my bed to the upstairs landing to downstairs to behind the washer to the living room. Eventually, Bo hid under my legs and Boo went off to sulk somewhere. This was two hours ago, but Bo is still hiding under my legs and the two of them are hissing at each other like demons whenever Boo makes an appearance in the room.
My rehearsal this morning kicks off in about two hours and I’m about 30 minutes away from the venue. I’m just sayin’.
After the rehearsal, I need to go over to Jenny’s place to finalize my tax returns and all that good stuff. I’m not sure exactly what she needs for me to do, but I’m not going to complain. Who else here can say that their ex-wife does their taxes for free every year?
Rereading that question begs another: What kind of an idiot gets his ex-wife to do his taxes?
The rest of the day seems to be free and I really don’t know what to do with it. The garden idea is still out there, but I think it’s supposed to rain in Duluth today. Macon’s forecast is clear and sunny (hot, actually), so there’s a possibility that I’ll drive down there and hang out at a cemetery or look at the cherry blossoms downtown. 
I signed on to buy a third of a boat last night. Really. Two of the other tubists in the GBB found a boat being sold for $750. Apparently, it floats. And floaty boats make for the best tuba fishing trips. I believe that’s an old Roman expression.
The tuba that I tried to buy a few weeks ago is now in Valdosta, I believe, being play-tested by one of Betsy’s students. As expected, the owner went back to the middleman after the eBay auction ended and told him that he’d take my $4500 offer. The middleman told him that I’d lowered my offer because of the eBay thing. So now we’ll see if the kid in Valdosta wants to offer more. If not, I think I’ll offer $4000. If he doesn’t want it, I’m leaning towards buying a new M&M brand horn, which is basically a Chinese knock-off of some other horn and the reviews are sketchy. Some folks really like it, others hate it. But the price (around $2500) is right. Since I’m really just a hobbyist, I don’t see a big problem with playing a horn that’s not top-of-the-line. I’d just like to have a full-sized tuba along with my 3/4.
Saw an ad on Craig’s List today for a Besson Eb that looks interesting. I’m not sure, but I think it’s the same horn that I’m playing in the GBB. Not convinced that I need an Eb, but it’d be nice to own my own instead of using the band’s.
While camping last weekend, I finished a couple of books. Ghosts of Georgia is a complete yawner, full of poorly-written stories about alleged ghosts around the state. Confederates in the Attic, however, a tome that Chris gave me for Christmas, is a delightful (if somewhat depressing) tale of a journalist’s journey to various civil war sites and the people that he encountered in his travels.
Get over it, rebs. You lost.
I was at home Thursday night, just about to go to bed, when the power went out. A normal person would have gone to sleep at that point. I, however, couldn’t. It was very hot and I couldn’t turn on a fan, so I went outside to sit on the deck for a while. The raccoon that lives in my back yard apparently thought that this was a fascinating turn of events and scared the crap out of me about three times by just appearing next to me for no reason. I winged a baseball at him (missed) and he retreated to a large pine tree to watch me from there.
Not relishing the thought of him jumping on my head, I went back inside, lit the lantern that I hadn’t yet put away from my camping trip, and read for a while (Gone With the Wind – can you believe I’ve never read it?) before eventually crashing.
Something smells dead in my garage. Just thought I’d throw that out there.
Okay. I’ve now babbled on for a few hundred words without really saying anything, and I feel much better about myself. I think I’ll find some random pictures to scatter throughout this mess, publish it, and go get ready for my rehearsal.
Y’all have a nice weekend, ya hear?
TWD