I'm sure that you're all just on pins and needles wondering about how my trip to Waukegan went, and so I'll begin this little tome by stating that I have been dead tired for the last couple of days at work. I got very little sleep on Monday night and not much more last night. Work has been, to put it mildly, less than stimulating these last two days. A number of phone calls, lots of reading, occasionally looking at a spreadsheet...the usual.
On the bright side, however, I now have an actual co-worker working in my office with me! The last time this happened was in (I believe) the summer of 2008, which is when I made a lateral move away from the television company into the metrics group. You may recall that all of my colleagues and my boss were located in Texas for that gig. When I made the jump to Digital Life at the beginning of this month, all of my new colleagues were in Texas. As of yesterday, however, Atlanta has two people in Digital Life, and I finally have a guy in the office with whom I can commiserate (and, hopefully, get some better work done). For the last couple of days, I've been spending a lot of time helping him get software set up and find documentation on things that we're supposed to know, but we've spent some time chatting and learning backgrounds and talents, etc. and I think we might make a pretty good Atlanta team.
You don't want to hear about all that, though, right? You want all the spicy details of this romantic liaison in Waukegan.
Keep dreaming, people. This isn't a tell-all.
It's a tell-some, though, so here's a quick run-down of the weekend. I left Atlanta at around 3:30AM last Saturday and made the drive to my hotel in Waukegan, arriving a little after 3:00 in the afternoon (central time). Amy was working until 6:00, so I had time to take a shower, do a little NABBA business, and worry about what I was going to wear for a planned dinner date. After spending an hour getting more and more nervous and toying with the idea of feigning a computer emergency and returning to Atlanta, I walked outside to await the arrival of my reason for making the trip.
Spent some time thinking of clever opening lines and so I was perfectly prepared to greet Amy with, "Hi! Tom Day! Damned glad to meetcha!"
I was prepared to say that, but I don't think I actually managed to get it out. I think it was more like, "Hi," followed by a hug.
Pleasantries done, we went to eat some pizza at The Quonset Hut pizza place. It was good pizza. And the menu was no-nonsense: "Pizza. Your choice of sausage, pepperoni, and/or cheese." Okay, there might have been a few other toppings to choose from, but not many. I believe we also had a couple of beers.
Romantic dinner. Check. After the pizza, we went to the Illinois Beach State Park, parked the car, and walked to the edge of Lake Michigan, where - because it was freaking freezing - we nodded at the water and went back to the car. Long romantic walk on the beach. Check. Following that, we went to a coffee shop and talked until it closed. Stimulating conversation. Check.
On Sunday, Amy played a church gig in the morning and we spent most of the rest of the day in downtown Chicago, where we did touristy things like going to the restaurant at the top of the John Hancock Center, visiting the Chicago water tower (survived the Chicago fire) and hanging out at a coffee shop. More stimulation conversation.
Monday found us in Elmhurst, IL, where Amy played in a quintet for a Memorial Day parade and I shot a bunch of pictures.
If you'd like to view pictures of the weekend and the parade, they're here in my SmugMug account.
And that's that.
TWD
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Thursday, May 24, 2012
a day in columbus, a weekend in waukegan
The GBB played our concert for the International Trumpeters Guild at Columbus State University this afternoon, so I took the day off from work to do it.
In a normal life, that would've meant that the individual taking the day off could sleep for an extra hour or two. In my life, that doesn't happen unless I go out of town. The cats seem to think that 6:00 is when the day starts, and I really don't get a say in the matter. So I rolled out of bed, gave the kitties their breakfasts, and walked about 3.2 miles.
I should mention that my new morning route is a bit over 3 miles now - I added the extra mile after last weekend, when I explored a new road and figured that I could make the 3-mile hike work in the mornings now that I'm so close to the office.
After the walk, I went to the old office (yes, I showered first) to pick up a print-out from the plotter there, then got my hair cut and drove the 2 hours down to Columbus to have lunch with Joe (music director) before our 2:30 call time.
You'd think that, when you order a slice of pizza from a pizza restaurant, you'd get it in less than an hour. You'd think that. So did a good number of the band. Apparently, that's not the way things work in Columbus. What was supposed to be a leisurely lunch followed by an equally-leisure stroll to the venue with plenty of time to spare turned out to be a lot of waiting, followed by wolfing down food, followed by running to the venue.
Once there, while waiting for the rehearsal hall to open, I talked to Cy and learned that Dad and Diane will be on hand for the GBB concert in Middlebury next month. Excellent!
The ITG concert itself went very well. It's hard not to have a great time when you're playing to an extremely enthusiastic packed house. Several standing O's and good vibes all around. Then another 2-hour trip back to Duluth, and the day is pretty much over.
I mention the two 2-hour trips because I'll be making a couple of 13-hour trips in the next four days. Early on Saturday morning, I'll be hitting the road for Waukegan, Illinois. Why would I do this? Why not? Doesn't Waukegan sound like the perfect getaway for a Memorial Day weekend?
Actually, I'm going up there to spend a couple of days getting to know more about this trumpet-playing woman who was mentioned a few days ago in this blog. The two of us came to the conclusion that, after having sent a few hundred texts and emails to each over the last two months, and after having spent a sizable percentage of the last couple of weeks on the phone, maybe actually hanging out together would be a good idea. So I'll be driving up there on Saturday morning (arriving Saturday afternoon) and coming back Monday morning (arriving home Monday night). In between those two anchors, the only plan at this point is to catch a church service at which she's playing on Sunday. The rest of the time, we'll just see what happens. I've never spent any time in Chicago, so tourism is likely. There is, supposedly, some really good pizza up there - and I'm guessing it doesn't take an hour to get it - so food is also likely. 6-hour conversations are also quite likely.
Interesting side-note here. Google Chrome does not like the word "Waukegan," and keeps recommending that I replace it with "Milwaukee."
On this day in history, something probably happened. I don't feel like looking it up, though.
TWD
In a normal life, that would've meant that the individual taking the day off could sleep for an extra hour or two. In my life, that doesn't happen unless I go out of town. The cats seem to think that 6:00 is when the day starts, and I really don't get a say in the matter. So I rolled out of bed, gave the kitties their breakfasts, and walked about 3.2 miles.
I should mention that my new morning route is a bit over 3 miles now - I added the extra mile after last weekend, when I explored a new road and figured that I could make the 3-mile hike work in the mornings now that I'm so close to the office.
After the walk, I went to the old office (yes, I showered first) to pick up a print-out from the plotter there, then got my hair cut and drove the 2 hours down to Columbus to have lunch with Joe (music director) before our 2:30 call time.
You'd think that, when you order a slice of pizza from a pizza restaurant, you'd get it in less than an hour. You'd think that. So did a good number of the band. Apparently, that's not the way things work in Columbus. What was supposed to be a leisurely lunch followed by an equally-leisure stroll to the venue with plenty of time to spare turned out to be a lot of waiting, followed by wolfing down food, followed by running to the venue.
Once there, while waiting for the rehearsal hall to open, I talked to Cy and learned that Dad and Diane will be on hand for the GBB concert in Middlebury next month. Excellent!
The ITG concert itself went very well. It's hard not to have a great time when you're playing to an extremely enthusiastic packed house. Several standing O's and good vibes all around. Then another 2-hour trip back to Duluth, and the day is pretty much over.
I mention the two 2-hour trips because I'll be making a couple of 13-hour trips in the next four days. Early on Saturday morning, I'll be hitting the road for Waukegan, Illinois. Why would I do this? Why not? Doesn't Waukegan sound like the perfect getaway for a Memorial Day weekend?
Actually, I'm going up there to spend a couple of days getting to know more about this trumpet-playing woman who was mentioned a few days ago in this blog. The two of us came to the conclusion that, after having sent a few hundred texts and emails to each over the last two months, and after having spent a sizable percentage of the last couple of weeks on the phone, maybe actually hanging out together would be a good idea. So I'll be driving up there on Saturday morning (arriving Saturday afternoon) and coming back Monday morning (arriving home Monday night). In between those two anchors, the only plan at this point is to catch a church service at which she's playing on Sunday. The rest of the time, we'll just see what happens. I've never spent any time in Chicago, so tourism is likely. There is, supposedly, some really good pizza up there - and I'm guessing it doesn't take an hour to get it - so food is also likely. 6-hour conversations are also quite likely.
Interesting side-note here. Google Chrome does not like the word "Waukegan," and keeps recommending that I replace it with "Milwaukee."
On this day in history, something probably happened. I don't feel like looking it up, though.
TWD
Monday, May 21, 2012
the walkin' dude meets bacon s'mores
Sometime last year, I started walking. Theoretically, it was for exercise and fresh air and blah blah blah; but - in reality - it was just because I found a cool app for my phone that would track me with GPS and draw little maps of where I walked and let me do flyovers of my path via Google Earth. Sure, I figured I could use the exercise, too. However, I grew bored with the maps and I was so completely out of shape that my calves screamed at me every time I walked more than about half a mile; so I basically gave it up.
Then, right around the time I got my bonus this year (March), I spotted some stuff made by the Withings Corporation that looked really cool - namely, a wi-fi scale that also tracks body mass and a blood pressure gauge that connects to my phone and stores the information over time. I also saw a cool little wi-fi pedometer that doubles as a sleep monitor. So, as is my wont to do, I splurged on toys with a hunk of my bonus (after paying a bunch of bills) and bought all three of the ones that I just mentioned.
See, I really like statistics, and I like for them to be usable and applicable to my life, but I hate having to collect them. Small data sets suck. If you're (for example) trying to graph your weight over time, you have to keep track of what it is every time you take it and then live with the fact that, at least for a few months, you're not really going to see any trending. You're just going to see a bunch of data points.
That bores the snot out of me.
With the Withings Scale and Blood-Pressure thingy, though, I don't have to keep track. I just step on the scale (or take my BP), and the information is magically transported to an account that I set up online. The pedometer does the same thing with steps taken and elevation changes and how many times I wake up during the night. On my little online profile, it asks what my motivation is for exercising. My answer is, truthfully, "I like playing with stats."
So, naturally, I decided to start walking a lot more. After all, I'd still get the cool mappy things plus I'd have more steps and more data points. Also, since we would assume that regular exercise will result in weight loss, a lower fat content, and a more stable blood pressure, walking would allow me to have more interesting trend lines with the Withings products.
An interesting side-note has occurred, though: my calves don't hurt any more. I went out last weekend and walked 8 miles on Saturday and 5 on Sunday, and my only real complaint was that the music list on my iphone - which I'd chosen based on the tempo of the songs being around 131 beats per minute, was too damned slow.
So I've upgraded my set list with tunes of around 137 BPM now. I'm walking faster and farther and getting lots of good data to graph (elevation, time spent, average speed, total distance, etc.) and I'm also getting to know my way around neighborhoods that - though I've lived in them for 13 years - I never knew.
The weight, btw, is going down. I think I've lost about 9 pounds since the middle of April. Jury's still out on the blood pressure, but I'm going to give the walking thing at least 6 more months before I break down and go to a doctor. That's just the way I roll.
If you're curious, I'm closing in on 100 miles. Not bad for a guy who was basically sedentary until two months ago.
I got an email from a friend today linking to a recipe for whiskey and caramel s'mores with bacon. You might think that that sounds disgusting. I think normal s'mores sound disgusting (hell - normal s'mores are disgusting and you've known it since you turned about 7 years old), but with the bacon, whiskey and caramel....I think it sounds pretty awesome.
On this day in history, Charles Lindbergh landed in Paris. That was in 1927, I believe. Exactly 5 years later, Amelia Earhart completed her own trans-Atlantic flight.
Friggin' plagiarist.
TWD
Then, right around the time I got my bonus this year (March), I spotted some stuff made by the Withings Corporation that looked really cool - namely, a wi-fi scale that also tracks body mass and a blood pressure gauge that connects to my phone and stores the information over time. I also saw a cool little wi-fi pedometer that doubles as a sleep monitor. So, as is my wont to do, I splurged on toys with a hunk of my bonus (after paying a bunch of bills) and bought all three of the ones that I just mentioned.
See, I really like statistics, and I like for them to be usable and applicable to my life, but I hate having to collect them. Small data sets suck. If you're (for example) trying to graph your weight over time, you have to keep track of what it is every time you take it and then live with the fact that, at least for a few months, you're not really going to see any trending. You're just going to see a bunch of data points.
That bores the snot out of me.
With the Withings Scale and Blood-Pressure thingy, though, I don't have to keep track. I just step on the scale (or take my BP), and the information is magically transported to an account that I set up online. The pedometer does the same thing with steps taken and elevation changes and how many times I wake up during the night. On my little online profile, it asks what my motivation is for exercising. My answer is, truthfully, "I like playing with stats."
So, naturally, I decided to start walking a lot more. After all, I'd still get the cool mappy things plus I'd have more steps and more data points. Also, since we would assume that regular exercise will result in weight loss, a lower fat content, and a more stable blood pressure, walking would allow me to have more interesting trend lines with the Withings products.
An interesting side-note has occurred, though: my calves don't hurt any more. I went out last weekend and walked 8 miles on Saturday and 5 on Sunday, and my only real complaint was that the music list on my iphone - which I'd chosen based on the tempo of the songs being around 131 beats per minute, was too damned slow.
So I've upgraded my set list with tunes of around 137 BPM now. I'm walking faster and farther and getting lots of good data to graph (elevation, time spent, average speed, total distance, etc.) and I'm also getting to know my way around neighborhoods that - though I've lived in them for 13 years - I never knew.
The weight, btw, is going down. I think I've lost about 9 pounds since the middle of April. Jury's still out on the blood pressure, but I'm going to give the walking thing at least 6 more months before I break down and go to a doctor. That's just the way I roll.
If you're curious, I'm closing in on 100 miles. Not bad for a guy who was basically sedentary until two months ago.
I got an email from a friend today linking to a recipe for whiskey and caramel s'mores with bacon. You might think that that sounds disgusting. I think normal s'mores sound disgusting (hell - normal s'mores are disgusting and you've known it since you turned about 7 years old), but with the bacon, whiskey and caramel....I think it sounds pretty awesome.
On this day in history, Charles Lindbergh landed in Paris. That was in 1927, I believe. Exactly 5 years later, Amelia Earhart completed her own trans-Atlantic flight.
Friggin' plagiarist.
TWD
Friday, May 18, 2012
let's get this party re-started
he rest of my team (based in Dallas) is getting a bit silly this afternoon in our chatroom, so now seems like a good time to update this long-abandoned blog and catch everyone up on what's been going on in my life in the last 5 months. I apologize profusely if you've been checking in regularly to either this little bit of fluff or to the other blog (which has also gone fallow since January). So I'll let a "Leading With Distinction"(1) video play through my headphones while I attempt to write with distraction.
I guess the biggest change in my life since I last sat down to type here deals with what I do for a living. You may all recall that I've been writing metrics reports for the last 4 or 5 years. That career came to an abrupt end on May 1st, when I accepted a position as a senior network support dude in the newly-created Digital Life Service Operations group (DLSO). So what do I actually do now? Your guess is nearly as good as mine.
Theoretically, the people in my group are tasked with supporting a series of systems that will be the background of my company's new Digital Life (DL) product. Very little is known about DL at this point - even by those of us who are supposed to be supporting it. This is because it hasn't really been released in the United States. There are about 20 houses in the country right now that have been outfitted with the DL hardware and those houses are our "alpha" test of the system. Plans are in the works for a much larger technical trial in Atlanta and Dallas beginning sometime next month (and, with any luck, my own house will be included in that trial), but - as an example of how quickly things can move in this business - a lot of the systems that DLSO will be supporting haven't been invented yet. One hopes that they will be invented in time for the tech trials. So you might be wondering what it is that I've been doing for the last 17 days if my job is to support systems that haven't been written. That would be a fair thing to wonder. I've wondered it myself for most of the last 17 days.
Basically, I've been doing a lot of reading about high-level systems architecture and process flow. So - if I were allowed to say, and I most definitely am not allowed to say - I could tell you exactly how the overall system is going to work; but I couldn't tell you the first thing about the individual components within the system that will make it work. And those individual components - the ones that I don't know about - the ones that don't yet exist - are the things that my team and I are charged with supporting.
How did someone like me wind up in such a screwed-up situation? I mean, I'm a generally cautious guy, right? I don't just leap into things that I can't handle and hope, right?
Well....yeah. I do do stupid things like that all the time. That's how I ended up in Atlanta in the first place, remember? In this particular case, however, it wasn't about being either stupid and/or overly-cocky at all. The road to today started during a staff meeting with the metrics group about two months ago, during which a new acronym - AGR - was introduced. I'm not going to say exactly what AGR stands for because, frankly, I don't know if anybody at the company spends their days trolling the internet looking for blogs that say bad things about ATT. If there is such a person, I don't want to make his or her job easier by including specific search strings in my blog, ya know? So I won't tell you what AGR stands for, but I will tell you what it means. Loosely translated, it means, "There's a damned good chance that TWD's job is going to be sent to the Czech Republic by the end of 2012 because there's a guy in the Czech Republic who's willing to do TWD's job for a salary equal to approximately 30% of TWD's salary."
So I made a phone call to the DLSO group, learned a little bit about the new product, and was offered a job about two weeks later. It was really that simple. I didn't even formally apply for this job. I was merely curious about the DL product. When I was informed that my "interview" had beaten out 250 other applicants, and assured that AGR will not affect DLSO, I accepted the job. And there it is. For the last 17 days, I've been reading documentation - and writing some - for products that don't exist.
In other news, the 30th annual NABBA championships were held in Cincinnati, OH, during the last weekend of March, and the weekend seemed to go pretty well. The Atlantic Brass Band took top honors for the second straight year and it's nice to see a different band at the top of the pile. Prior to last year, the Fountain City Brass Band out of Kansas City had been on a 4- or 5-year tear. I'm not a fan of juggernauts.
In the First Section (the section in which my own band would normally compete), Central Ohio won for the 4th year in a row (5 out of the last 6 have gone to the COBB). I've started to give their director just the tiniest little bit of grief that she's not moving the band up to the Championship Section, but she seems determined to stay where she is. Hopefully, the Georgia Brass Band will re-enter the contest next year (after a two-year hiatus) and, also hopefully, the GBB will knock the COBB kings from their thrones.
I also met and have begun corresponding with a delightful cornet-playing lady from one of the top-level bands. We shall see where that leads, if anywhere, but it's nice in any case to have another friend with whom to talk about music and brass banding.
About a month ago, one of the feral kittens - from last year's basket o' feral kittens - had two feral kittens of her own (in the box that I built for them, no less). The cat, who I call Daphne, is a very sweet little girl and also very tiny. I honestly didn't think that she was physically capable of producing offspring, but had been trying to tame her enough to get her fixed anyway. So when I walked onto the deck last month and realized that she'd given birth to two normal-looking kits, it was a bit strange. She seemed happy and healthy enough, though, so I started reaching out to friends to see if any of them were interested in getting a brand-new, never-been-used kitten or two. None of them were interested; but, as it turned out, I was a bit premature in my attempts to find the babies homes. Both of them were dead by the middle of the afternoon. At first I thought they might have died just from being too small - until I noticed that one of them had had its head separated from its body. I'm guessing that these deaths were not of natural causes. Daphne, however, has remained as sweet as ever, and I still plan to have her fixed.
Death in my little feral family is not limited to kittens. Fleck, one of my favorite older cats, appears to be ready to pack it in. He may have done so already, in fact, as I haven't seen him since yesterday afternoon. His weight has dropped dramatically over the last month and he doesn't seem to be eating much. I suppose I could get him in a carrier and take him to be euthanized, but he honestly doesn't appear to be suffering. When I saw him yesterday, he made a few little happy meowing sounds at me and kneaded the air while I scratched his head and tried to decide what to do about him. In the end, I decided to go the route described by James Herriott in one of his veterinarian books - I'll let Fleck take a chance and see what he decides to do with it.
So as not to end on such a morbid note, I'll point out that the GBB will be playing at the International Trumpeters Guild (ITG) conference in Columbus next week. This is sort of a big deal for the band, as trumpet players (and other brass players) from around the world will be in attendance; and the GBB has a pretty primo slot on the schedule. In addition to a number of standard brass band pieces, we'll also be doing two works with soloists - two trumpeters from the Atlanta Symphony along with the trumpet instructor at the University of Georgia. All three are fantastic players and the band is also sounding very good as of late. It should be a good show.
I know I've said this countless times before, but I shall once again make it a point to try to keep this thing updated more frequently. If you've got ideas about what I can write about, please....bring 'em on!
The word of the day, by the way, is "pip." As in, "There are a bunch of little birds and they're pipping at me."
TWD
1. Leading With Distinction is a program started within ATT a couple of years ago. Basically, it's a series of assemblies, each headed up by some sort of senior officer, theoretically designed to ensure that everybody at the company gets all hyped up about watching senior officers lead assemblies. Each assembly is recorded and can be viewed later via a browser. Participating in the assemblies, either live or recorded, is required. As such, I would estimate that 98% of all employees do the same thing: start a recording and then do something else until it's over. Just like those assemblies you had to sit through in high school.
Theoretically, the people in my group are tasked with supporting a series of systems that will be the background of my company's new Digital Life (DL) product. Very little is known about DL at this point - even by those of us who are supposed to be supporting it. This is because it hasn't really been released in the United States. There are about 20 houses in the country right now that have been outfitted with the DL hardware and those houses are our "alpha" test of the system. Plans are in the works for a much larger technical trial in Atlanta and Dallas beginning sometime next month (and, with any luck, my own house will be included in that trial), but - as an example of how quickly things can move in this business - a lot of the systems that DLSO will be supporting haven't been invented yet. One hopes that they will be invented in time for the tech trials. So you might be wondering what it is that I've been doing for the last 17 days if my job is to support systems that haven't been written. That would be a fair thing to wonder. I've wondered it myself for most of the last 17 days.
Basically, I've been doing a lot of reading about high-level systems architecture and process flow. So - if I were allowed to say, and I most definitely am not allowed to say - I could tell you exactly how the overall system is going to work; but I couldn't tell you the first thing about the individual components within the system that will make it work. And those individual components - the ones that I don't know about - the ones that don't yet exist - are the things that my team and I are charged with supporting.
How did someone like me wind up in such a screwed-up situation? I mean, I'm a generally cautious guy, right? I don't just leap into things that I can't handle and hope, right?
Well....yeah. I do do stupid things like that all the time. That's how I ended up in Atlanta in the first place, remember? In this particular case, however, it wasn't about being either stupid and/or overly-cocky at all. The road to today started during a staff meeting with the metrics group about two months ago, during which a new acronym - AGR - was introduced. I'm not going to say exactly what AGR stands for because, frankly, I don't know if anybody at the company spends their days trolling the internet looking for blogs that say bad things about ATT. If there is such a person, I don't want to make his or her job easier by including specific search strings in my blog, ya know? So I won't tell you what AGR stands for, but I will tell you what it means. Loosely translated, it means, "There's a damned good chance that TWD's job is going to be sent to the Czech Republic by the end of 2012 because there's a guy in the Czech Republic who's willing to do TWD's job for a salary equal to approximately 30% of TWD's salary."
So I made a phone call to the DLSO group, learned a little bit about the new product, and was offered a job about two weeks later. It was really that simple. I didn't even formally apply for this job. I was merely curious about the DL product. When I was informed that my "interview" had beaten out 250 other applicants, and assured that AGR will not affect DLSO, I accepted the job. And there it is. For the last 17 days, I've been reading documentation - and writing some - for products that don't exist.
In other news, the 30th annual NABBA championships were held in Cincinnati, OH, during the last weekend of March, and the weekend seemed to go pretty well. The Atlantic Brass Band took top honors for the second straight year and it's nice to see a different band at the top of the pile. Prior to last year, the Fountain City Brass Band out of Kansas City had been on a 4- or 5-year tear. I'm not a fan of juggernauts.
In the First Section (the section in which my own band would normally compete), Central Ohio won for the 4th year in a row (5 out of the last 6 have gone to the COBB). I've started to give their director just the tiniest little bit of grief that she's not moving the band up to the Championship Section, but she seems determined to stay where she is. Hopefully, the Georgia Brass Band will re-enter the contest next year (after a two-year hiatus) and, also hopefully, the GBB will knock the COBB kings from their thrones.
I also met and have begun corresponding with a delightful cornet-playing lady from one of the top-level bands. We shall see where that leads, if anywhere, but it's nice in any case to have another friend with whom to talk about music and brass banding.
About a month ago, one of the feral kittens - from last year's basket o' feral kittens - had two feral kittens of her own (in the box that I built for them, no less). The cat, who I call Daphne, is a very sweet little girl and also very tiny. I honestly didn't think that she was physically capable of producing offspring, but had been trying to tame her enough to get her fixed anyway. So when I walked onto the deck last month and realized that she'd given birth to two normal-looking kits, it was a bit strange. She seemed happy and healthy enough, though, so I started reaching out to friends to see if any of them were interested in getting a brand-new, never-been-used kitten or two. None of them were interested; but, as it turned out, I was a bit premature in my attempts to find the babies homes. Both of them were dead by the middle of the afternoon. At first I thought they might have died just from being too small - until I noticed that one of them had had its head separated from its body. I'm guessing that these deaths were not of natural causes. Daphne, however, has remained as sweet as ever, and I still plan to have her fixed.
Death in my little feral family is not limited to kittens. Fleck, one of my favorite older cats, appears to be ready to pack it in. He may have done so already, in fact, as I haven't seen him since yesterday afternoon. His weight has dropped dramatically over the last month and he doesn't seem to be eating much. I suppose I could get him in a carrier and take him to be euthanized, but he honestly doesn't appear to be suffering. When I saw him yesterday, he made a few little happy meowing sounds at me and kneaded the air while I scratched his head and tried to decide what to do about him. In the end, I decided to go the route described by James Herriott in one of his veterinarian books - I'll let Fleck take a chance and see what he decides to do with it.
So as not to end on such a morbid note, I'll point out that the GBB will be playing at the International Trumpeters Guild (ITG) conference in Columbus next week. This is sort of a big deal for the band, as trumpet players (and other brass players) from around the world will be in attendance; and the GBB has a pretty primo slot on the schedule. In addition to a number of standard brass band pieces, we'll also be doing two works with soloists - two trumpeters from the Atlanta Symphony along with the trumpet instructor at the University of Georgia. All three are fantastic players and the band is also sounding very good as of late. It should be a good show.
I know I've said this countless times before, but I shall once again make it a point to try to keep this thing updated more frequently. If you've got ideas about what I can write about, please....bring 'em on!
The word of the day, by the way, is "pip." As in, "There are a bunch of little birds and they're pipping at me."
TWD
1. Leading With Distinction is a program started within ATT a couple of years ago. Basically, it's a series of assemblies, each headed up by some sort of senior officer, theoretically designed to ensure that everybody at the company gets all hyped up about watching senior officers lead assemblies. Each assembly is recorded and can be viewed later via a browser. Participating in the assemblies, either live or recorded, is required. As such, I would estimate that 98% of all employees do the same thing: start a recording and then do something else until it's over. Just like those assemblies you had to sit through in high school.
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