May 1st already.  How’d that happen?
Last week was Easter and I had a gig with Betsy, John, and some college kid who I didn’t know, in a little Episcopal church in the teeming city of Americus, GA.  It was a decidedly strange affair – beginning with the instrumentation.  Originally, this was to be either a brass quartet or quintet, but one of the trumpeters bailed on us about a week before the gig, so John flew in from Texas to replace the missing trumpet – with a trombone.  So we ended up with the kid on 1st trumpet, John playing the 2nd trumpet part on a trombone, Betsy playing the 1st bone part on a euphonium, and me playing the 2nd bone part on a tuba.

My hand was not attractive after I polished my tuba for an Easter gig

Oddly enough, it didn’t sound all that bad.  We were quite attentive and well-behaved during the service, by the way, because we were scolded by the priest, after a rehearsal on Saturday night, that we’d better behave and pay attention during the Sunday services.  I’m fairly certain that that’s never happened to me before, and I can only assume that it was prompted by some previous group of instrumentalists at the church; but John summed it up well enough: “How about you treat us like professionals, you jerk?”
He didn’t actually say that to the priest, but I think we were all thinking some variation of it, and John verbalized it in the parking lot after the scolding.
During my drive to the rehearsal on Saturday, I started chewing a piece of gum and one of my crowns fell out.  Lovely.  I spent the next two days trying not to play with the gaping hole in my toothline with my tongue (I was not successful and ended up with a sore tongue).  Got that under control eventually, and had the crown glued back in (and got everything else cleaned) on Thursday. 
While eating a hotdog yesterday, I managed to make the crown fall off again…
In the news this week: Obama has proven, for about the third time, that he is an American citizen.  Birther wingnuts finally forced him to show the “long form” birth certificate (to go along with the certificate of live birth, birth announcements in Hawaiian papers, the fact that his mother is American, the fact that he was vetted by the DNC, etc.).  Of course, the validity of the birth certificate was immediately called in to question by people who don’t know the first thing about PDF files, and several of my former Facebook friends decided that the whole birther conspiracy must be real. 
I say “former” Facebook friends because that type of idiocy is just too much for me.  I can deal with rapid conservativism, but when you just go batshit crazy, you are no longer a friend of mine.  All told, I think I “unfriended” about 7 people.
The fuse to the front cigarette lighter in my car is now blowing on a regular basis.  I went out yesterday and got an extension so that I can power things from the rear outlet for now, but I also spent a great deal of time researching just how to get the center console/arm rest out of my car so that I can try to figure out what’s causing the problem.  I may try to do that today.  Also need to mow the lawn, though – and I need to get some gasoline for the mower.
Have two very large projects on my plate at work – neither of which interest me.
Earlier this week, we had some incredible storms in the southeast.  Tuscaloosa and Birmingham were both hit pretty hard by tornadoes, and I was pretty worried – watching radar – that my house wasn’t going to exist for much longer.  Actually, I wasn’t worried about that – I was sort of looking forward to having State Farm build me a new one.  I was worried about saving my cats and my car and my horns and an antique clock and various other things. 
Fortunately, the storms literally split in half just before getting to my area.  Some went to the north and some swung around to the south.  Other than some gusty winds and a few drops of rain, my neighbourhood was untouched.
Cooked a couple of burgers on the grill last night.  First time I’ve fired it up this year.  It was such a lovely evening that I felt compelled to be outside as much as possible.  Today looks to be a repeat of yesterday…maybe I’ll grill some corn or something.
TWD

I think I’ve said before that there are about 6 weeks in the average year that I really like living where I live. Three in the fall and three in the spring.  We’re right in the middle of the spring cycle, and – except for the pollen – I’m loving it.

Massive storms hit all around me last night (and across much of the southeast US), but other than having to deal with some decent wind – which I’m not going to complain about – and torrential rains, my house had an easy time.  I was a bit worried that the rain would continue throughout today, as I’d planned to do some yard work, but it was bright and sunny when I woke up; and strong breezes all day have dried up most of the wet stuff.

That being the case, I took advantage of the sun, wind, and 68-degree temps to attack a bunch of holly trees that have become incredibly overgrown in the last two years.  It’s amazing to look out of my kitchen window and actually see my back yard!

My original plan was to chip all of the holly trees into mulch and spread it in a part of my back yard, and I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to start my chipper, since I didn’t use it at all last year.  I was quite pleased, therefore, when it started up on the first pull and worked like a champ.

Until I stopped it after an hour to empty the bag.  When I tried to restart it….nothing doing.  So I finished off the holly project by carting what hadn’t been chipped off and throwing it into a pile near my shed.  Then I thoroughly cleaned and reorganized the shed itself, as it was obvious that a family of mice had made it home over the winter.   I’m happy to report that there are no longer any signs of the little vermin in my shed, and it is once again the crusty man-cave that it used to be – complete with radio.

All told, I spent about 6 hours on those two yard projects, and I’ve got plenty left to do.  I’m hoping that tomorrow will be another nice day – we’re expecting a cold front tonight, and temps may be in the thirties tomorrow morning!

TWD

I got home at around midnight last night after spending two days watching brass soloists, brass ensembles, and brass bands.  I already touched on the solo & ensemble stuff.  The band competitions on Saturday did not disappoint.  I missed the two lowest sections (three total bands) because I got tapped to help the dude who takes pictures of the bands before they go on stage, but I did manage to catch most of the bands in the 1st Section (that’s the section that my own band normally competes in) and all of the entrants to the Championship Section (the big boys).

NABBA President-Elect Stephen Allen throws himself into conducting the Princeton Brass Band to a tie for the 1st Section Championship.

I was completely blown away by the first two bands that I saw in the 1st Section.  Central Ohio (our nemesis) played very well, and I thought that Princeton was equally amazing – in fact, I put status updates on my facebook account to that effect after hearing each of them.  The other bands that I saw in the 1st Section were okay, but there was a clear gap between Central Ohio/Princeton and everyone else.

As it turned out, COBB and PBB ended up tied for first, and COBB was declared the winner on a tie-break rule (their score on the required piece was highest).  I’m not sure how Georgia would have fared had we competed this year.  I can’t imagine us sounding as polished as those two bands, particularly given the lack of esprit de corps that has plagued us since last year.  Maybe we’ll have our personnel issues ironed out by next year.

In the Championship Section, the reigning studs of the North American Brass Band scene, Fountain City Brass Band, gave their typical wall-of-sound performance, and I was fairly certain that they would win, although I was also awed by the performance put in by the Atlantic Brass Band.  After listening to Atlantic, I remarked to one of the stage hands, “That band is from another planet!”  I had them as a solid #2 after my sentimental favorite, Chicago, turned in a pretty flat attempt.   I think that, had a poll been taken of the audience, 99% of the people there would have called it Fountain City, Atlantic, Chicago.

Everyone in the building was therefore somewhat stunned when FCBB was announced as the runner-up, and the crowd went completely crazy when Atlantic was crowned champion.  Fountain City is an amazing band, deserving of any accolades that you can throw at them; but I don’t think I’m telling any tales when I say that an awful lot of people have gotten tired of them winning every year.

This was actually the second let-down for FCBB this year, as they lost to a band out of Florida at the U.S. Open Championships.  Are they slipping or are other bands stepping up their games?  I guess we’ll find out next year – maybe sooner, as FCBB is slated to compete in (I think) The Netherlands later this year.

As I said up front, though, the bands did not disappoint.  For those of you who’ve never heard top-flight brass bands playing at their peak, let me just say that it’s an indescribable sound.   When that kind of power, in control, hits you….I don’t know how many chills I got listening to the Championship Section bands.

Back to work tomorrow, unfortunately, and not much to look forward to before the Deep South Brass Band Festival happens in early May.

TWD

Today was the first day of the 2011 brass band championships, and consisted of the solo and ensemble competitions.  They ran from about 10:30 this morning until 5:00 this afternoon, and I spent the vast majority of that time walking a circle between three ballrooms and photographing people playing brass.

Exciting?  No.

Good playing?  For the most part.

Feet hurt?  Oh.  My.  God.

Tomorrow is the band championships and I’ll be doing more of the same.  We haven’t figured out yet if I’ll be able to shoot the bands from backstage or if I’ll have to find a spot in the balcony and shoot from there.  At this point, I don’t much care.  I can probably get better (or at least more interesting) shots from backstage, but if I can grab a box seat for myself and just sit in it all day, that sounds pretty nice, too.

I put a few pictures from today on Facebook and will post a link to a SmugMug album when I’ve gone through all of the keepers from the weekend.

TWD

Got up at zero-dark-thirty for the second day in a row (had to take Betsy to the airport yesterday morning), and left the house between 6:00 and 6:30 this morning, headed for Grand Rapids for the brass thingy.

Got to my hotel at around 7:30 this evening.

Am currently sitting in my underwear at the desk in the room, trying to decide whether to go find some food or merely lie in bed.

Heard several of the announcements for the contest on NPR on my way up (I was streaming Grand Rapids’ public radio station through my iPhone), and they sounded really good.  Yay, me.

Very tired.  Also very hungry.

Dammit.

TWD

I went up to Furman yesterday to shake off some of the photographic cobwebs and shoot the annual spring scrimmage.  It was an obnoxiously beautiful day in South Carolina, which made me wish that I’d gotten out of bed a couple of hours earlier than I did so that I could have spent more time out in the sun.  After 7 straight days of cold and rainy days, it was a great way to start the weekend.

I like this shot.

The shooting went about as I thought it would.  My sports reactions are rusty after 4 months off, but I managed to get a few decent shots.  Also walked around the campus for a couple of hours after the scrimmage, and it was just about impossible to take a bad shot.  Every flower on the planet was in full bloom and the university grounds are pretty gorgeous anyway.

I finished a few easy projects at work last week and will be starting a fairly major one on Monday – for the second time.  I originally began this particular project in November, but when I sent some questions about it to the client, he blew me off.  So I tabled the thing.  Now the client is ready to give it another shot, so – for all intents and purposes, I’m starting over.  I don’t remember a thing about it or what I’ve already done with it.

I won’t get much of a start on it, however, because I’m leaving for Michigan on Wednesday for the brass band championships.  I spent a good portion of last week trying to get the word out about the contest to as many people in the Grand Rapids area as possible, which ended up being amazingly annoying when I suggested that we buy some radio spots on the local NPR station.  While everyone on the board agreed that this was a good idea (well, every one of them who weighed in with an opinion), none of the executive committee wanted to actually pull the trigger and kept pushing it back to me.  I finally got the president to say, “You’ve done all the groundwork, so go ahead and do it.”

So I did.  Unfortunately, the bill (for $350) will be coming to me.  I dearly hope that the executive committee is more decisive about paying ME than they were about paying the radio station.

Today, I’m just processing some of the photos from yesterday and chilling out.  I’ll do some grocery shopping later and perhaps practice my tuba for a bit.  Might even get crazy and mow the lawn – but mostly, I’m just planning to lie in bed and do nothing.

TWD

Nathan made my day with this shot. I think it might be the best I’ve ever taken.

Last week was fairly eventful, what with my nephew Nathan starring in a college production of “The Music Man” on Saturday night and my father getting hitched Sunday afternoon.  I’ll include a few pictures of the latter event with this entry.

Actually, I’ll start things off just by talking about the pictures, which were right up there as one of the highlights of the week.  I only took about 70 on Sunday, but when I started going through them Sunday night, I was amazed.  41 of the shots went up on Facebook with just about no editing.  Of those that I didn’t post, most were good shots – they just didn’t add anything to the gallery.

Slap a cross and some flowers on an antique sewing machine table and bam!  Instant wedding chapel

41 out of 70.   Consider this: when I shoot a football game, I’ll take between 700 and 800 pictures.  If I’m lucky, 50 of them will be usable.  41 out of 70 is unheard of for me.  Made me pretty happy, and you can see/print all 41 of the final shots at this link.

I test out my wireless shutter release while Greg and Kara do photos the old-fashioned way

As for the wedding itself, it went off pretty much without a hitch (no pun intended).  Dad and Diane appeared to be pretty happy with their respective mate selections, and I had a nice time getting to know my step-brothers, step-sisters, step-neices and nephews, etc.  Also got to see all of my siblings, and Jenny and her father made the trek to SC for the festivities as well.

I believe Dad and his bride will be moving back to her place in Cleveland today.  Why anyone would want to leave Greenville for Cleveland is a mystery to me, but that’s the plan.  Maybe Dad just wants to see the world or something.  I wish them both the best.

Tried out my new Garmin GPS unit on the way up (yeah – I broke down and bought one.  I’ve got a couple of long trips coming up in the next few months, and football season this year will also have a few hefty treks).  Overall, it’s an acceptable unit.  Not as good as the Tom-Tom that I had until last year, but it’ll get me where I’m going.  I read an article today saying that GPS units are dinosaurs and using a smart phone is just as good an option.   No.  It’s not.  A dedicated GPS device will always be better than a smartphone that has GPS in it.  Trust me on this.

Doing that whole “With This Ring” thing

The amazing Bob – he of the band’s board of directors – has claimed another victim.  Betsy quit the board in spectacular fashion yesterday by sending them a resignation letter that pulled no punches, left absolutely no doubt about *why* she was quitting (that’d be BOB, ladies and gentlemen), and ended with the question, “How many more good people have to quit before you’ll take some action [against Bob]?”  I loved every word of it – and I believe Betsy will be much happier now that she’s washed her hands of the problem, as both Rich and I did earlier this year.  Eventually, I think the board *will* get the message – I just hope the band still exists at that point.

Diane checks out the wedding cake. I really like this picture.

In other board business – the North American brass band kind, I mean – crises are looming as we prepare for our 30th championships, in Grand Rapids, MI, in a couple of weeks.  The biggest problem is that the board from a few years ago vastly overestimated their bargaining power and agreed to block 850 rooms in the hotel which is hosting the event.  In exchange for the room guarantee, they got free meeting and performance space.  Good deal, right?  Sure – if they could actually get people to rent the rooms for the contest.  Unfortunately, the hotel is one of the most expensive in the city, the city is way off the beaten path for most Amercian brass bands, and no Canadian bands decided to make the 6-hour trip from Toronto to Grand Rapids.  End result?  Only 13 bands will be competing, only 400 rooms have been sold, and the organization is on the hook for close to $50,000 (at last check, our entire treasury was about half of that).  Last I heard, the board’s executive committee made a deal to let the same hotel host the contest again in 2014 in order to avoid lawsuits.  If that’s the case, I predict a general outcry from member bands when that decision is announced, and I predict that the 2014 championships will be even less well-attended than the 2011 version.

It also came up in recent board discussions that there has been generally no publicity about the championships in Grand Rapids or the surrounding area.  Good planning, huh?  Not surprising, considering that our president has been AWOL for most of the last year (he will be removed from that office at our meeting on April 7) and no one else feels empowered to do anything on their own.  When I joined that board, I didn’t know I was jumping in to the wheel house of a sinking ship.

Work this week has been good.  My project manager has been feeding me jobs that she hasn’t had time for, and I’ve been steadily knocking them out of the park.  I don’t feel like I’m working particularly fast, but she warmed the cockles of my heart the other day when she said something like, “I like giving these to you because you get them done so quickly.”  So I’ve got that going for me.

The happy couple, faces covered in cake frosting, makes out in front of their children.

Almost forgot to mention that I got a fairly decent bonus at the beginning of the month and made that stupid American Express balance go away.  I’m hoping to be able to nuke one of my Visa cards with my tax refund in a few weeks, and then it’s just a matter of time before the other debts go the way of the passenger pigeon.  Once I’m down to just having a mortgage payment and utilities, I can start socking away some serious green.  I’m actually excited about this, folks.

Felt tired for most of today, so I’m going to finish this up now and get some sleep.  Congratulations again, Dad and Diane!

TWD

I had planned to update this blog tonight – something which is long overdue, considering that I managed to update it just about every day in January and a good many in February – but I got home from work, practiced my tuba (something else that was long overdue), started watching some Netflix, and generally lost track of time.

I’ve got rehearsal tomorrow night, so don’t expect much in the way of an update then, either.  Maybe Wednesday.

By way of catching you all up, I played with the band at the closing ceremonies of the Southeast Regional Tuba & Euphonium Convention in Chattanooga on Saturday – I’ll try to get some pictures up (maybe even a video) when I next update this.  The main story from that event was – who else? – Bob.  He decided near the end of the dress rehearsal that the band was taking too much time rehearsing….so he walked out, and took one of his minions with him.

You heard that right.  He left 10 minutes before we were done rehearsing because, according to him, “it didn’t look very professional” for us to be having a dress rehearsal so close to the start of the closing ceremonies.  Apparently, it looks more professional to the few people who had straggled into the auditorium to see 50% of the band’s tuba section walk out of rehearsal.

Betsy Jones and I floated a petition around to see about having him officially censured by the board or made to apologize to the band or something.  Maybe nothing will happen, but I’m bound and determined to have the board at least discuss the incident so that it will be written up in the minutes.

Walking out of a dress rehearsal?  Are you kidding me?

The concert itself seemed to go okay, though we had a near-disaster during the first number – Candide (had it lasted 5 more seconds, I fear that we would have had to stop in the middle of the piece).  Interestingly, that was the piece that Bob decided not to rehearse with us….

I also spent some time at the confederate cemetery while I was in Chatty, and will hopefully get some of those pictures up here, too.

And now, friends and neighbors, I’m going to shut off my light and try to get some sleep.

TWD

“A-ha moments.”

We’ve all had them, right?  You’re trying to figure out the answer to some problem, usually a difficult one, and the answer will suddenly come to you in a flash of insight.  I’ve had my share of those types of “difficult” solutions, usually in the context of trying to figure out a particularly brain-draining piece of code.  Many times the answers came to me in dreams; which I’ve learned, from talking with other programmers, is a fairly common occurrence.  There’s even a website out there named Dream In Code that I visit fairly regularly when looking for answers to problems that I’m having.

I also have very different, incredibly stupid, “a-ha moments.”  What I mean is that I am prone to suddenly realize things that should be completely obvious to a person who has paid any attention to life.  These are the moments in my life that make me want to come up with a new word, somewhat like “bittersweet,” but not quite.  It would be a word that expresses incredible relief and excitement while at the same time evoking the spirit of “Dammit!  Why didn’t anybody tell me this?”

The most amazing moment of this type that I’ve experienced is probably one that I’ve told to a lot of you who are privy to this blog.  It occurred at the end of my junior year in high school.  It was when I learned what a valedictorian is.  It was when I learned, for the first time, that that “permanent record” that everyone was always talking about was an actual thing.  Prior to that moment, when my friend Mark suggested that he and I go to the school’s career counselor and find out what our class ranking was, I had absolutely no idea that I was actually being ranked against my classmates.  I was familiar with the concept of Grade Point Average, but I’d never dreamed that it was a cumulative thing and that people actually kept track of it.
Prior to that moment, I carried about a C- average in high school.  After I learned about it, I pretty much blew the minds of everyone who’d ever known me by blasting through my senior year with about a 4.5 GPA – the highest of any senior in the class.  All because of an “a-ha moment” that I probably never should have had.

I majored in sociology because of another fantastically stupid oversight on my part.  I’d wanted to major in anthropology – preferably physical anthropology (the cool kind where you get to dig up skeletons and stuff), so I took every anthropology class there was.  When it came time to declare my major, I matter-of-factly told my faculty advisor (who was also the guy teaching most of my anthropology courses) that I wanted my B.A. in anthropology.

He then matter-of-factly told ME that Furman didn’t have an anthropology major and that all of those classes that I’d taken fell under the sociology umbrella.

So I got a B.A. in sociology.

Well, today I had another mind-blowingly stupid “a-ha moment,” based mainly on a conversation that I overheard between Betsy Jones and one of her euphonium students last Friday.  I’m not sure exactly what they were talking about, but at some point she mentioned that she didn’t like to teach “don’t puff out your cheeks” when you play, but preferred to teach “keep the corners of your mouth firm” (the end result being that your cheeks can’t really puff out).

In retrospect, I guess I must’ve known – on some level – that maintaining firm corners on my embouchure is important; but until this afternoon, when I was once again struggling with that insipid flutter-tone, I’d never thought about it or concentrated on it or really felt it.

And in 40 years of playing brass, nobody’s ever actually said to me, “Keep the corners firm.”

So while struggling today and getting more and more frustrated with my inability to consistently play a D without flutter, that remnant of a conversation between Betsy and her student inexplicably swooped through my head, and I concentrated on the corners of my mouth.

And, voila!  The flutter went away.

It went away on the D.  It went away in the high range, the mid range, the low range.  It went away regardless of whether I was slurring or tonguing.   It went away at fortissimo and it went away at pianissimo.

It.  Just.  Freaking.  Went.  Away.

I noticed that when I stopped concentrating on the corners and started concentrating on the notes, it came back.  And when I stopped concentrating on the notes and started concentrating on the corners it went away again.

I realized that my face looked exactly like the faces of other people who I’ve watched playing their horns, and I realized that my face had never looked like that when I was playing before.

And I noticed that, after about 20 minutes of really focusing on maintaining firm corners, the muscles around my jaw were aching.  But I still wasn’t fluttering.

When I was growing up, I pretty much taught myself how to play, and I did it in a way that worked for me.  I guess when I was younger, I had enough natural ….. what?  Talent?  Flexibility?  Luck? …. to play pretty well without knowing the fundamentals.  Over the last 10 years, I’ve figured out that that isn’t working for me anymore.

In a nutshell, I’ve got to learn a new way of playing…..but now I know what I’ve been doing wrong.

I’m hoping this is like my senior year in high school all over again.  Time will tell.

Thank you, Betsy.

TWD