HAPPY NEW YEAR!
honk! whistle! tweet! 3-2-1...may it be filled with peace and good-sense. my very best to you, where-ever you may be. savor every moment.
the forum
looks different...I've had to change my forum software for security reasons, so if you clicked there, and thought you were somewhere else, you aren't! well, you are, but, you know... everyone who had registered should still be there, and all the thrreads and posts got converted, so you'll just have to poke around and figure out where everything is. I still have a lot of visual formatting work to do, but this will get us by for a while. I still have the church forums to convert, and I started the day by doing the forums at the Vermont Choral Collective, a new site I hope to unveil this week.
anyway, have a happy new year! we're off to drop the kids at the Grandparents' and then go out to dinner. be safe!
where is
Bush?...all I can say is that HE should go to SE Asia, and he should pledge 20,000 (or more) troops from Iraq. it would be a good way to start to bring them home. keep on him, Pat Leahy.
donate
via Amazon/Red Cross...I've put up the little Amazon/Red Cross box to make it easier for you to donate to tsunami relief. 100% of funds go to the relief cause. thanks to TDavid at the Pivot forums.
tsunami
resources...I've been spending a lot of the day looking for concise resources about the disaster in South East Asia, and thought I would share a few with you. they include information about the disaster itself, and also links to aid organizations so that you can help.
- CNN list of aid organizations including the Red Cross, that has a very easy online form to make a donation.
- BBC News Asia Quake Disaster in depth coverage of all aspects of the disaster
- Reuters AlertNet excellent information, with lots of maps, etc.
- digital imagery amazing hi-res satellite photos of before and after of some the affected areas. if you use a tabbed browser, open them in separate tabs, to really see the differences. it was these pictures that really gave me a feeling for the scale of these waves, and the amount of ocean that moved.
more tsunami news
unbelieveable...here's another link to a site full of up-to-date info about South East Asia: (again, via bOingbOing)
if that link does not work for some reason, try it again. I got a strange bible site the first time.
I am just shocked by the reports. so saddened. what loss.
tsunami
places for information, and to help...I can't really comprehend the magnitude of this tragedy, but I have found a couple of sites that offer an intelligent look at it, on a global scale. (via bOingbOing)
not much that I can do, but they are all in my thoughts.
incredibly sad.
looks like
it's working...well, so far, so good. please let me know if there are changes that you see, or things that don't work anymore. the page seems wider, and is giving me a horizontal scroll bar, which I hate, but I'm working on that...
thanks!
upgrading
so if it disappears...I heard from my web host that it was probably a Pivot bug that allowed me to be hacked, so they suggested that I upgrade to the latest Pivot install. so, if something begins to look weird, or you can't see anything at all, that's why. hopefully, everything will go smoothly, and you won't even notice... hehe. we'll see.
happy holidays!
Happy Holidays
and ho ho ho...the packages are opened, and we're about to head for Barre to Marnie's folks for brunch and more presents... Santa brought a 12-in-1 game table, with pool, foosball, "air" hockey, ping pong, etc.; the boys have been having a great time. (me, too!)
ok, time to go. have a wonderful day, and happy holidays!!
a couple of things
to watch...first from a friend at the AWAD forums:
track Santa!and from bOingbOing, a way to see all sorts of things in space:
Heaven's AboveI haven't registered yet, but you can get information on how to track the International Space Station, and other satellites, as well as all sorts of spacial phenomena. cool.
Christmas Eve service in a few hours, and then just waiting for Santa to arrive... the boys are excited. have a wonderful holiday. may it find you happy and healthy, and full of peace. savor every moment.
more fun
silently hacked...well, I discovered this evening, while perusing my site statistics, that I had been hacked again. this time, it wasn't someone manipulating my homepage, they were just using my server space to do I don't know what. I noticed a couple of strange file names in my statistics, and that got me digging through my file list, and sure enough, there was a whole folder of something. I quickly deleted as much of it as I could, but there are still a couple of invisible files that so far, are eluding my attempts to delete. I have informed my host, so we'll see what will come of it all. damn hacker jerks. it's really almost enough for me to say the hell with it. just bag the whole thing, and go back to reading books and writing music.
I spent most of the day working on the Counterpoint site, putting up a new Guestbook feature. it took a long time for me to tweak it, to get it to look the way I wanted it, especially since I really don't know what I'm doing... but, I managed to bash it into shape. nothing elegant about my methods, good thing they don't show on the outside... you can check it out at www.counterpointchorus.com and drop us a line. I looked at the Counterpoint statistics, too, and the good news there is that we are steadily increasing our visibility on-line. our hits were up significantly in November and December from the rest of the year. cool.
I also spent a bit of time outside in the wind and rain, chipping away at the ice and snow on the deck. it was quite warm today, and I managed to get it all cleared off. now to see if we can keep it that way...
ok, time for bed. enjoy your Christmas Eve!
a new page
and vacation....I found out today that my webhost is offering a free picture gallery set-up, so I installed it, and here it is:
photos.rogergrow.com/eventually, I'll get all my pictures put in there (hey! I'm on vacation! just maybe...). I think I'll also be able to have others register, and put up pictures in their own galleries, so Carol, and Kathy, stay tuned... actually, I think you can register now, but I'm not sure what that allows you to do at this point. let me know how everything works, and if it doesn't.
anyway, it's vacation, and I think I've already gained about five pounds. I didn't even eat lunch today, after all the snacks and treats that kids brought in. one girl even came around with her Dad, who was carrying a huge tray of apple struedel. yum! that was lunch! and brownies, and cookies, and donuts, and chocolate covered peanuts, and...
ok, I'm going to relax and surf a bit, and enjoy the rest of the evening. (not that blogging to you isn't enjoyable...) I hope that you have a great day tomorrow, and I'll be back!
nearly there
half a day...what a busy month. but I'm almost to vacation... one more half day at school tomorrow, and then I'm off until the 3rd of January. yeehaa! no gigs, nothing, until then. a pretty rare vacation. I'm definitely looking forward to it. hope you get some time off, too.
things have been going very well, with the Counterpoint concerts getting great audiences, and lots of accolades. we're very pleased with the whole season. we'll begin in January to start working on the Israeli program that we'll record this Spring. I have three arrangements in this one, so I'm excited about it. I might try to tackle a fourth, we'll see how vacation goes...
I've been doing a bit of surfing, but mostly just trying to stay on top of the couple of forums that I regularly frequent. I've been getting home pretty late from concerts, etc., so there hasn't been much time to explore. once vacation starts, I expect to blog a bit more frequently. we'll see.
it looks like we'll spend some of Christmas Day with Marnie's folks and sister in Barre, but mostly it will be a day at home. it's always good to see people, but I'll enjoy not having to be "on" all day, and not much extra travel. that will be nice.
ok, Kathy said there was more Elegant Universe on tonight, so while Marnie and Chellis watch the CSI they taped, I'll go watch some cosmology in the kitchen. and have a few Christmas cookies...
have a great day, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.
well
hmm...after all this stimulating discussion about writing, I can't seem to get started... too self-conscious, perhaps? nah. just been too busy to really make much sense of anything. a very busy weekend of singing and traveling, which all went very well; some sloppy weather, that could have made things a bit too interesting, but didn't; and just the general hub-bub if the season.
the singing was quite wonderful, though apparently, perhaps better for us on stage than to those in the audience. balance between soloists, and orchestra, and the chorus, was not ideal, at least in some places in all three halls. I guess I feel that someone has to take care of that, and make it their responsibility. shouldn't be mine, as a soloist, or even Bob's maybe, since he has enough to do already. but, I heard too many comments about not being able to hear us (the soloists). so that was a bit frustrating. especially since I feel that I (we) sang very well. I was worried on Sunday afternoon, since I had had a tiring choir rehearsal and church that morning, and then a drive with good conversation, that I just couldn't stay out of, but I ended up feeling that it was my best performance. funny how those things work.
I try to avoid the head games that come with worrying about singing, but of course, that's pretty impossible. I did some things that I don't normally do before a performance, and also most of my usual routines. the hot water/honey was, I think the key this time. as long as I don't make it a ritual I'll be ok. heh. I had an interesting conversation before the concert with a fellow singer; he was wondering why he can "sight-whistle" music better than he can sight-sing. we decided that perhaps he has mental processes that get in the way of sight-singing that don't come into play when he's whistling. hang-ups about perceptions of his sight-singing ability, and just all the things that go into good vocal production aren't a factor when you're whistling. not worrying about all those things would free up some brain power... well, it was an idea anyway, and got me thinking about my own mental process before (and during) a concert. I actually spend a lot of time during a concert, while singing, thinking about things that have nothing to do with what I'm doing, or I'm analysing what I've just sung. for example, during Shout for Joy on Friday night, I sang "what month was my besus born in" rather than "Jesus", because I wasn't really looking at the score, and a split-second before the line, I second guessed myself that the text was something about "baby", which as soon as I sang the b, I knew was wrong. throughout most of the rest of that section, I wasn't really thinking about what I was singing, but rather thinking about the mistake I had just made. at least with the front bit of my brain. I didn't make any more errors, so I was obviously paying attention to what I was supposed to be singing, but... I was also singing very well, I think. so, I guess, for some reason, thinking about several things isn't necessarily a bad thing. maybe letting the natural or habitual things take over, and keeping the mind out of it is a good thing. I do know that I try to think about what an amazing experience I'm having, standing in front of a wonderful orchestra, singing great music, with a legendary conductor, in a fine concert hall, savoring every moment. pretty damn cool.
so, what's this all about? hmm. mental processes. hang-ups. getting in our own way. multi-tasking. living in the moment. I'm not really sure. I'm not even sure if it all holds together now, I took time off from writing to put E & L to bed, and put some wood on the fire, etc. oh well, you get what you pay for...
I hope that you have a terrific week. I'm looking at one more weekend of concerts, and then a few more days of school, and then a vacation, with very little planned. nice.
how do you work?
some interesting stories...I've been doing a lot of surfing tonight, once we got the tree decorated, and I ran across this site (sorry I can't provide a source, who knows how I got here...)
How We Work
I loved this quote from the section on Apelles:
Apelles returned the next day, and the subtlety of the line he drew then made Protogenes despair.that will make more sense if you know the whole of the story, but you'll have to find that for yourself. my sense is that Protogenes' despair was more of a feeling of immense joy, at seeing such beauty. I just know very well, the feeling of perceiving the depth of beauty and perfection that can be seen in the world around us, and when people do something with such wondrous sublimity. anyway, root around on that page, and see what you might find.
I've been thinking a bit about the types of things I can and can't write about here. my jobs are in areas that I would write about; religion, and education, so it makes it difficult to say things I might say, or to discuss things that happen there(even in an oblique way). that tends to put a crimp on delving into those issues. web-code and computer applications aren't necessarily the kinds of topics that would be too interesting to the five people that read me on a regular basis, and besides that, I really don't know much about them anyway (web code and computer apps-not the five people...), compared to the folks I've been reading around the web. so, that pretty much leaves me, me. whee.
this sounds more maudlin than I mean it to, I enjoy telling you all about what's happening, but there are certainly times that I'd like to get down and dirty about something that I just can't. I end up finding out who's reading the blog, and that something I said wasn't appropriate to be out there in the wide-world. ah well. enough about that. for now. I think I'll think about it all a bit more. and write something that's not about anything... heh.
VSO concerts this weekend. dress rehearsal with the orch tomorrow night. should be fun, though our first night is at the Barre Opera House, which is not my favorite place to sing. oops, can I say that? it sounds great out in the audience, but it's not a very supportive hall for a singer. I'm a bit worried about trying to out-sing the orch, which I won't have to do, but it will feel like I do. the Flynn in Burlington(Saturday night) is better, but much bigger, so it has it's own pitfalls. I'm not sure that I've ever sung with an orchestra at the Paramount in Rutland, so that will be new. I'll let you know how it all goes. I will try to enjoy it all to it's fullest, and savor every moment. not bad advice, I guess.
have a great tomorrow.
I'm back
didja miss me?well, this has been a bit of an adventure, but thanks to Dean at GoDaddy.com, I'm back up! basically, what had happened was that my domain name was on hold, because I had bought it two years ago, on Nov 25, 2002, and had only paid for two years. so after the two years was up, they "parked" it. they couldn't contact me, because the email I used then is one that I don't have anymore, and I had never updated it. but I called them, and the guy was so helpful and nice (thanks, Dean!), and only took about 20 minutes. so, I was able to get it squared away much more easily than I had feared. and it's already back up! I paid for three years this time...
Marnie helped big-time, by finding me a two-year-old credit card slip, so I could confirm who I was. thanks, Marn!
I really was quite frustrated all day long, and yesterday, too, because of this. I felt pretty helpless, not knowing. and what I had figured out earlier today, looked as if it would be several days before I would be up and running again. whew.
and all that was on top of a generally lousy day; I had pulled a muscle in my arm moving equipment this weekend (more about the weekend in a minute), I got a sty, I broke my keyboard power supply at school (for about the fourth time...), and it was a Monday. blech.
anyway, the weekend was quite wonderful; great concerts, very good crowds, and we sang well. especially Saturday night, in St. Johnsbury, which was good, because VPR/NPR was there to record for next year's A Vermont Christmas with Counterpoint! this will make three years in a row, and it really is becoming a tradition. pretty cool. I think it's on nearly 100 stations around the country. we're pretty pleased. make sure you check your public radio listings.
this weekend are the VSO concerts, in Barre, Burlington, and Rutland. they'll be good, too, and should be pretty fun. I like doing these solo gigs. heh. the weekend following, more Counterpoint concerts, these with the VSO Brass. should also be fun! but it all makes for a very fast month. I'm looking forward to the holiday break...
ok, I hope things having been going well for you, though my sister had to get stitches in her finger today. that'll teach her to stay away from the chocolate chips...