Woo Hoo! Claire de Lune Sounds Decent!

Yay! I've been working on friggin' Claire de Lune for about six weeks, and it's finally starting to not sound like complete ass.

I've got an .mp3 of it, but I don't see a way to upload .mp3s to blogger. Bummer. I wouldn't have minded sharing this one. Even though I don't know how to use my recorder very well yet, and there's no piano accomp...accomp...accompaniest. **grin** You'd know what the hell I was talking about if you saw "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou" about 20 times. I can't make a video for shit. I did about ten of them and none of them would upload to youtube. I can't believe it. I guess I'll have to buy my own digital movie camera to make that happen. Or get my buddy who's in feeeelm school to come over and record me.

I'm starting to get my sound back though - yay! I'm so glad. I was worried there for a while. I've been practicing pretty heavily for the past 4 months, and wasn't noticing what I thought was a reasonable amount of improvement until very lately. Past couple of weeks. I've been getting good, encouraging comments from my teacher, and that's good. I LOVE playin' the flute. I enjoy looking at them on their stands too. I put in about 90 minutes this evening and that was on top of my 45 minute lesson, so I don't feel bad that I'm just looking at them and not playing them. I was telling Kristopher that I need to buy a third flute stand because I can't get all three of them out at once. I'm really hoping I can figure out how I'm going to play while I'm out after my foot surgery. The biggest hurdle has been cleared in that my instructor has agreed to come to the house for my August and September lessons. So at least I get to continue.

It occurred to me that I never put up any pictures of my adventures at the Seattle Flute Festival back in April. Just wasn't doing much blogging in that month - anyway, no time like the present.

The Seattle Flute Festival was held a the Town Hall in Seattle, and they couldn't have picked a better place. I love the Town Hall. I saw a historical actor protray Thomas Jefferson there once and the atmosphere really made the thing. But I digress. Might as well start off with a little Greg Patillo. He was the featured artist for the Festival. OMG! Look at the time....I'm gonna have to continue this tomorrow. But here's Greg anyway.


Greg's an amazing flutist and he does quite a bit more than just play stright, melodious flute. He's a beat-boxing flutist, and his stuff's all over youtube.

Anyway, we will continue this later. It's almost midnight and it's a worknight!

Man! What the Hell is Goin' On?

What's up with all the bad ju-ju bullshit lately? Let's see....I've had nothing but bullshit and hassles with my health, a bit of which I've chronicled here...my fuckin' car got keyed in the parking lot of the park-n-ride last week, my brother-in-law who had a very complicated shoulder surgery where they grafted cadaver bones in to help support what had deteriorated, pulled all of the grafts lose when he was trying to work on a piece of machinery at his work, well after he was cleared to go back, and now has to have another surgery to re-do what he has un-done. That would be completely horrible. My nephew burned his eyes by welding with a mask that had gone faulty in the middle of his job, and now my brother-in-law is going to have to undergo a series of rabies shots because he tried to help a feral kitten and the bumble fucks at the city, they live in Wenatchee, killed the kitten immediately, but mishandled the remains so they couldn't do the rabies test after all. So, shots for the brother in law. And I guess they are still the same as they were at the turn of the fuckin' century (not the most recent one) and so will be given to him in his stomach over the course of three injections. Oh! and a church-mate's husband had a heart attack last night. ENOUGH ALREADY! FOR FUCK'S SAKE! This niggling and eating and biting with bad shit happening needs to STOP.

Okay...there. I've said my piece. Beyond that, it is Friday...oh sacred, oh blessed, oh thou glorious and singularly holy FRIDAY. Needless to say, I am looking forward to the weekend. Not because I have anything planned, but because I will not be at work. Work hasn't been that bad this week, actually. I've gotten a lot done, and am planning to get a lot done today also. I've already downloaded one new software update, and am getting ready to do another. then I'm going to do some billable work. Then I'm going to see the surgeon for my make-up appointment, and hopefully get a surgery date set to get this foot taken care of. Enough is enough already.

Well, I wish everyone reading this a Happy Friday. And may only GOOD come your way.

Happy Wednesday

Well, I'm in a pretty good mood today. Gettin' lots of work done and feeling pretty good in general. Let's see...did I mention that I got to select my 15 year service gift last week? No? Well, Hell! I did! It's a very cool program our company has - they contract with the O.C. Tanner company that does nothing but keep up with companies employees, offer and ship out awards. It's very, very cool. I chose this ring here. I'm quite happy about it and it is due to be at my house, not coincidentally I'm sure, on my 15 year anniversary date which is August 1.


I'm also listening to a little White Ladder action - I love the songs on that disk. Babylon is one of my faves...you gotta be careful though, there are quite a few wrist-slitting tracks on there as well.

Well, I gotta get back to it...I just wanted to post up a picture of my 15-year prize. I think it's great that they do that. Not all employers do - but then there's a reason people tend to stick around here, and this is just one of many.

Have a great day everyone, and remember....if things get too hairy, you may have just picked the wrong day to stop stiffin' glue!

4-Day Weekend Winding Down....

My second Gemeinhardt flute ad came in today. It's black and white and I don't care for it as much as the color one I got a couple of weeks ago, but it's a nice addition to the wall. I have it hanging up with my Haynes ad tacked above it. Pretty cool with the statues of the composers and the candleabra...Well, candle "thing" anyway.

I took today off to go along with the 3-day weekend for the 4th of July. We had a really quiet one this year. We didn't spend any money on fireworks or go anywhere this weekend. We pretty much stayed in and wtached DVDs and Kristopher did his homework and I did my flute practicing. Life is good. I started to go in today, but wound up just bagging in and staying home. Who knows how many more opportunities I'll get to just say home and play my flutes. Which, that and cooking is pretty much all I've done today and I'm happy about that. I got up around 10, and after my shower and protein shake, came into the music/exercise room and played for over five hours. I honestly lost count. I'm going to call it five hours in my practice book, though I'm certain it's more like 7. Seems to be the only thing I'm interested in doing lately, so I guess I'm just gonna do it and not question it too much.

Friday morning I was surprised by a visit from Tim Allen and my little doll-baby Meara. They are so cute together. I really enjoyed their visit. We took Meara out to the backyard where she swung in the hammock. It was a blast. The picture here is one I took about a week ago over at their house. I didn't bring out the camera while they were here on Friday - but it's a fresh picture and you get the idea. I love her hair!
She is certainly the apple of Gammy's eye.
After Meara and Tim Allen headed out for Sally's where Meara was spending the rest of the day, Kristopher and I went to Macy's and bought the sofa and loveseat we had been looking at a couple of weeks ago when we bought the bed. Our very first new furniture together. It was really a no-brainer when you sat down on it. When I do wind up having the surgery on my foot, this stuff is going to be a great thing to have around for recovery time. It won't be delivered until the end of the month. When it is, you can bet your ass I'll get a picture of it up here.

Yesterday, we had salmon made out on the grill. Here's a picture of my little man watching over the fish planks.

Andrea did a little barbeque yesterday and had a couple of her friends over and invited me as well. She didn't decide to actually do it until pretty late in the day, so we had already done the salmon, but I went over for a visit later on anyway. It was great to see her and she seems pretty happy in her new living situation. The guy who is renting the room to her seems pretty nice, and, so far, no pervert-dom has risen to the surface.

Well, tomorrow is another day and one where I am going my happy ass to work. 4 days off has been good for me. Today was especially good to just be here and enjoy being quiet and on my own. Now I'm going into the living room to watch Transformers with the man. We went to see Transformers II over the weekend and were both disappointed. But Transformers I is da bomb!