11 April, 2004 (The very first blog entry)

They say if you don't try something you won't know if it works for you. So here I am, wriing my first blog. Never considered it before, but then read an article in one of the U of Rochester magizines on the uses of blogs. Apparently one of the English writing classes advocated blogs as good for several things - not only self expression, but also as a good means to practice writing. Well, I write a lot, but primarily technical stuff, which is really boring at the best of times. And I am not as good as I could be at writing emails to my friends, so if all else fails, perhaps they can read this site from time to time (if it works and I keep it up) to see what is happening with me.

In keeping with good etiquette (yikes - no spell checker on this thing!), I am not really going to use names here, but here is a "pseudo-glossary" => G is my wife, Anya is my dog, Kv is my sailing partner, Ky his SO, NS, TV, TC and J are several good Russian student friends (Hi guys!). There are many other wonderful people that I will struggle with how to list as times goes on.

11 April, 2004 (later)

Eastern Phoebe in back yard - spring is coming! Next stop will be first warblers, which are usually Yellow-rumped warblers. Not the most spectacular, but first! On Friday started my first weekly spring "walk the trolly trail in the morning and watch the birds come back one by one". 18 species checked in - a start. Hard to belive that in several weeks we will be looking at upwards of 40 species there!

Finally getting some work done - seems each weekend takes a day or two to "get started", which is a pain when there are only 2 days. So today is going to be good, or so I promise myself.

G is not having a good weekend - her "ex father in law" died yesterday, and this caused an emergency trip to Albany. I didn't go with her, as I would have kept her from getting what she needs out of the trip, and it just was not the place for me. So instead I am sitting home eating the Russian chocolates she brought me yesterday afternoon - a few too many! But heck, it's Easter.

Music playing now - Poulenc's Gloria. I like it, but apparently the first time it was played (in church?) it caused a rather mixed review. Their loss, not mine!

Maybe next after some bills will be a short ice skating practice, followed by a short dog walk - Anya is looking rather bored!

11 April, 2004 (later yet)

Good day, active day, tired.. Skating was wonderful and reasonably productive practice wise. Other than myself there were 4 other people there-- a woman and her young son (first time on the ice), and two college students (a woman I had seen before and her presumed boyfriend). She is just so "no fair" - she started skating this last September, and already is better than I am by quite a bit. She apparently did come fully trained in ballet, but geez! Either way, it was great because there was lots of sunlight coming in the window, the rink was warm, and the music was not too loud. So I worked on backward crossovers (my nemesis), back power pulls and just having fun with edges. I initially expected to stay only an hour, but had such a mellow time I stayed an extra half hour.

Then I walked the dog's paws off. We went to Mendon park (quite hilly) - I initially intended to only walk for 45 mintues or so, but 2 hours later I returned, tired but happy. Really pretty out, nice sun, and a golden-crowned kinglet to add a bit of magic to the day. Plus - I can eat whatever I want for the rest of the day! Celebrated by having a small Abbots ice cream cone, then went to dinner.

Now home, hot tubbed and somewhat rested, and trying to figure out the rest of the day. I certainly need to practice euphonium and should do oboe also, although I still have enough of a head cold that I am not looking forward to the latter. Either way, so ends a long weekend - tomorrow normal life starts up again with a full Monday (work plus wind symphony rehearsal - back a bit before 11 pm... Makes me tired thinking about it!

12 April, 2004

Back at work. This week is largely going to be pre-proposal work for the MCS system. We are still kicking off, and I have been collecting the team list of issues and observations into a poor-man's database (Excel) for team tracking. Erika returned from Boston with Burdick chocolates - I agreed to by a half-pound (these are ridiculously expensive things). Haven't opened it yet, but she had some samples. I had several grams and they are really tasty. Maybe 5 g a day each will last G and me several weeks... Meeting now...

OK, back from rehearsal. All told it went quite well, and I think the upcoming concert is going to be a success. The other 2 euphoniums and I am going to also play three trios over 3 music periods - fun!

So what's next now that I've settled in a bit? After writing this I will probably spend some time working on making an oboe reed (G calls this "scritch scritch" - to the uninitiated it would look like a carve the things, although in reality you sort of scratch cane off bit by bit. In this business things are measured in .01 mm increments - a typical reed "adjustment" is less than that. (if curious, try http://www.wiu.edu/users/mfmbe/studio/reedmaking/reedstuff.html to get a clue). Then read a bit on hopefully get to sleep at a reasonable hour.

Guess that's going to be it for the night. "night all, and good morning for those those in St. Petersburg!