vacation 2012: part 1

Yeah.

So I said that I'd try to write something every day while I was on vacation.  I lied.

Ruins of the British soldiers barracks at Crown Point, NY

It is now Friday evening, and Cy, "T", Dad, Diane and I have just returned to the Cornwall house from dinner in Middlebury - Dad's treat!  Most in the group got some variant of Thai food.  I opted for a sushi plate, which was quite good.  We're all back at the house now (it's about 9:00).  Cy and "T" are busying themselves with last-minute packing details (the three of us are leaving for Magnetawan in the morning), Diane and I are both playing on our computers and Dad is doing his best to take pictures of the incredible sky using an old point-and-shoot camera - I haven't the heart to tell him that it's never going to work.

The new Champlain Bridge

The GBB's concert last night went fairly well.  The crowd seemed to be larger than last year's was, and it was extremely receptive of the band, which sounded pretty good - and I should know, because I  was late getting back to the stage and watched the first selection of the concert's second half (West Side Story) from the picnic grounds.  All of the folks in the band who I talked to had a great trip and - judging by several of their posts on Facebook - we wouldn't be averse to making a third trip to Middlebury.  This won't happen next year, of course (we're booked for the international trombone federation in Columbus), but maybe in 2014.

Champlain Lighthouse

I spent most of yesterday tooling around Shoreham in the morning - driving on a bunch of dirt roads near Lake Champlain, eating a late breakfast at the Halfway House, visiting Mom's tree by the historical society....just reacquainting myself with the old hometown.  Around noon, I went to Middlebury and walked around the cemetery - took a number of pictures, but nothing really caught my eye.  At one o'clock, I hooked up with Cy and the two of us moved percussion equipment from the fine arts building to the stage (a trip of about 200 yards).  The rest of the day was sort of hectic - sound check at 4:00, back to Cornwall for a quick shower, back to the stage for the performance.  After the gig, Cy and I and one of the percussionists moved all the percussion equipment back to the fine arts center and then he and I went to the Two Brothers Tavern in town for a bit of supper.  I ended up getting back to the house at around midnight last night and crashed.  Totally exhausted.

On Wednesday, the day after I arrived in Cornwall, I slept until nearly 9:00, went for a quick 2-mile walk on Clark Road, and then drove to Crown Point, NY.  Spent several hours there walking around the ruins of the two forts on the site (one British, one French).  I never knew that there was an actual historic site there, so it was fun.  Both of the forts were pre-revolution.  The French one - Fort St. Frederic - was built in the 1730s and was never taken (the French destroyed in in 1759 when faced with an overwhelming British force during the French & Indian (aka 7 Years) War.  Almost immediately, the British began construction of a much larger fortification - which was never finished and was taken by American forces in 1775.  Both sets of ruins have been declared National Historic Sites and have not been reconstructed.

Seagull as seen from the top of the Champlain Bridge

Also at the site is the newly-completed (2011) Champlain Bridge, which is really what I drove over there to see.

Wednesday evening I was back at Cy's place where we hosted a small gathering of GBB members who were in town along with many of their hosts.  I'd been expecting only 5 or 6 people, so it was great to have closer to 10 (maybe 18-20, hosts included).  We hung around, eating chips, drinking good local beer and socializing until perhaps 9:30, when a good number of the band - myself included - went to the Two Brothers  Tavern (they must love us there), ostensibly to play trivia.  As it turned out, we were far too late for the trivia contest, so I ended up playing darts with Matt (the previously-mentioned percussionist) for about two hours before coming back to Cornwall.

House on the Vermont side of the Champlain Bridge

As I stated earlier, tomorrow is a travel day and I probably won't have much to say.  If I get to Ahmic early enough, however, there may be some pictures.

More pictures from the last three days, by the way, are here.  I'll continue to add to that album as the vacation continues.

TWD

let's hit the road

It seems like it's been about 20 years since I've typed the following words, but in actuality, it's been only 2: After just one more day of work, I'm setting off for Canada.

To be sure, I'll actually be setting my GPS for Middlebury, VT, at about 4:00 AM Tuesday; but, after spending about three days there, it's off to glorious Magnetawan - the home-away-from-home that I was unable to get to last year, and which I've sorely missed for the last 700+ days.  It will be a different town than I remember, largely because the Downtown General Store, the anchor of Magnetawan, Ontario's business district for as long as anyone can remember, was completely destroyed by fire last summer in what appears to be a case of arson.  Due to the difficulties in zoning, registrations, and other political things, the store is not going to be rebuilt; and life on Ahmic Lake may never be the same for the hundreds (perhaps thousands) of summer residents.  Be that as it may, the charm of Ahmic lies in the beauty of the area, the relationships among the lake dwellers and the regular townsfolk, and the relatively carefree days of summer in the lakes region of Ontario.  No matter how many times I visit (but for the skip last year, this would have been my 20th summer on the lake), I am always awed by how fantastic I feel after my first dip in the lake, and I'm always worried that I'm going to do something foolish like call my boss and tell him that I'm never coming back.

We make a cute couple, eh?

I will, of course, be coming back to Duluth again this year; but not before making a stop in Waukegan, as I mentioned in my last entry.  My plan at this point is to leave Canada on the (early) morning of July 12th and travel to Illinois Beach State Park for a few days of camping, rehearsing with the Chicago Brass Band, watching Amy play in a few gigs, and hopefully getting to spend some time with her when she's not gigging.  Her schedule sounds like it will be fairly busy for the three days that I'm in Illinois - busy enough so that I briefly considered not making the trip.  "Briefly," however, is the key word.

Amy, by the way, did indeed make it down to Atlanta last Friday night.  On Saturday, we spent some time at a local AT&T store - she needed a new phone and some gizmos to go with it, and I get a pretty hefty discount on the gizmos - and then I introduced her to the magic of the south's most established eatery (Waffle House) before dragging her with me to a performance by the GBB at the annual International Euphonium Institute.  It wasn't the band's best showing, but I didn't embarrass myself, which was nice.

We'd planned to spend last night watching movies, but both of us were pretty wiped out by midnight and we ended up falling asleep halfway through the first one we started watching (My Cousin Vinnie).

Today found us at the Georgia Aquarium, where we wandered around looking at fish and taking pictures for several hours before I rather unwillingly took her to the airport for her return flight to Illinois.  I received a message from her as I began writing this that she's landed in Milwaukee and will be home in another hour.  Good news there.  I still don't trust planes, though I know I'll be on a few of them as this year winds down.

I know I've already gotten slack about updating this blog again, but I'll do my best to at least get a few paragraphs in each day during the vacation - at least as long as I've got internet access.  Unlike my days at home, there should be plenty to write about while I'm away.

For starters, I can fill y'all in on my trip to Gettysburg (last week).  I probably should do that now, but I'm getting ready for a trip, you see.  I'm sort of busy.

TWD

back to the grind

So it's been a couple of weeks since my sojourn to Chicago and life in Atlanta hasn't changed much since then. I still go to work every day and wish that I could have almost any other job in the world.  I still walk a few miles in the mornings and take longer treks on the weekends.  I still have rehearsals on Tuesdays, still listen to my friend Robin play his guitar and sing on Wednesdays, still feed the feral cats most mornings, still have lots of jobs that need to be done around the house.

I guess about the only thing that has changed in the last two weeks is that I've been a happier guy.  And yeah - that's pretty much a direct consequence of my Chicago trip.  Amy and I have had several long talks in the last two weeks and, though we don't know exactly how things are going to work, we're both pretty sure that they are going to work.  That makes me happy.  And that's all I'm going to say about that for now.

Work really has been a complete drag since I switched to DLSO.  It's bad enough that I really don't understand what it is that we're trying to accomplish.  What makes it worse is that the other Atlanta guy - the one who I was actually sort of looking forward to working with - doesn't seem to have the capacity to shut up. Today, for example, he decided to spend twenty minutes reciting to me all of the company acronyms that he could think of - knowing that the over-abundance of acronyms in my job is one of the things that really pisses me off.  He's a nice enough guy, but sheesh!  STOP TALKING ALREADY.

With that notable exception, today wasn't all that bad.  I got volunteered to write the procedures for some failover testing that we'll be doing tomorrow and it was the most useful I've felt in a month.  Nothing huge - just filling in some server names and determining in what order they should be shut off or turned on - but I was doing something tangible and it felt good.  I keep telling myself that if I can just hang in there until the actual technical trials start, I'll be okay.  Time will tell.

It is currently pouring down rain for about the third of fourth time today.  I don't mind, as it's keeping the temperature down and it always sounds nice to me; but every time we get big storms I have to wonder what's happening to my roof - and I have to wonder how fast my grass is going to grow.  I just mowed the lawns last Saturday, and it'd be nice not to have to do it again really soon, particularly as my next two weekends are booked and I'll be going to Canada for three weeks after that.

Booked weekends?  Yes!  This coming Friday, I'll be heading for Gettysburg, PA, immediately after work.  Amy will be playing there with the Athena Brass Band on Saturday afternoon, and that seemed like a good enough excuse to make the trip.  I also intend to kidnap her on Sunday and bring her back to Atlanta until Monday night.

The following weekend, the Georgia Brass Band will be playing at the International Euphonium Institute's grand finale on Saturday night - and plans are in the works for a certain red-headed friend of mine to fly to Atlanta on Friday to take in the Saturday show and learn a bit more about my adopted city on Sunday.

After tucking her back into a plane on that Sunday, I'll have one more day of work to snore through before putting my happy ass in the Audi and heading to Vermont, where - on June 28th - the GBB will play a benefit concert for the Sheldon Museum, and from there I'll make my way up to Magnetawan to spend 10 days or so at glorious Ahmic Lake before picking my way southwestward between two rather larger lakes in order to spend another two or three days in Waukegan.  Then it'll be, yet again, back to the grind.

I think I'll still be pretty happy, though.

TWD