Night Off

Took it easy, heated up some rice and home made green curry beef for dinner, watched some mindless TV, petted the cats till they yelled to be let outside.

Made labels for all my BayCon art and stuck them on the back of the photos as instructed. I still do not have permission from two people to plaster their faces on the wall - if you know either of them, please have the nice person contact me. I don't mind being told "no", but "yes" would be nicer. :-)
RustyCon 2008 Masquerade in Seatac, WA

SiliCon 2007, San Jose, CA

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Looked at what I have left from my bonus, and figured if it was 2x what was left on my car loan, I'd pay off the car. It was, and I did. That was the last interest-bearing loan I have out, now I can work on the 0% ones a little at a time.

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Facebook is sometimes just plain weird. People I didn't think knew me have invited me to be friends, and as it turns out they either heard about me at a con or theater event, and in a couple of cases we turned out to be secret admirers of each other (not romantically, darn it). At the other end of the spectrum, recently I got an invite from someone who I hate so much I cannot stand to be in the same room with. Said person left the area, which is why you haven't seen my face on CSI:Axe Murderer Unit. We have a large number of mutual friends, so I'm chalking it up to accidentally clicking on the wrong face. Thank goodness for the "ignore" button.   

And I also have gotten a couple of hits on LinkedIn from people I never want to see again as long as I live. One is the former HR person for a company I quit - this person was my #2 reason for leaving on half a day's notice. I seem to remember #1 invited me - a year or so ago, before they canned his ass. I've blocked it out. But generally LinkedIn has been good for staying connected with people I have worked with and wouldn't mind working with again.

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About BayCon, as it stands now I will be there Friday morning to set up my photos in the art show, and some of Saturday late morning/afternoon. Sunday we have a matinée, and have to strike the set after, so I'll probably just go home and crash. Monday I'll be there most of the day, at least till the art auction is over, which will probably be 2:30-3-ish. 

New Vistas

I promised myself I'd inflict Vista on myself again when Tivo transfer supported it, and there was an SP1. Both have occurred, so I have a copy en route from amazon.com.

Boring

Rehearsal tonight was the obligatory "sit and sing" sometimes referred in theater circles by it's German name, Sitzprobe, which always makes me think of Eric Cartman's alien anal probe.

Since I don't sing till 2/3 of the way through the show, and only sing one song and two short chorus bits, it was real boring. And painful at the start. The trumpets were so bad I had to go outside and down the block to prevent spontaneous nuclear self-detonation. The orchestra had not warmed up or tuned up before the rehearsal. After they were warmed up, the trumpets were better, but they never got good. The French horns, all three of them, are to die for. Trombones were good, but they were both playing bass trombones, which is weird. Two oboes and a bassoon were excellent, I couldn't hear the clarinet or piccolo even when I was standing right next to them. Guitar also needed more volume, and more practice. I know this guy, he's really good, it'll be fine by next week. The music is very difficult and guitar has way too much of the burden in Man of La Mancha's  community theater arrangement. Our vocal director/costumer/Sancho played tympani, which I thought was not a good idea, since he doesn't have all his songs down pat yet and we needed his voice more than we needed tympani. There was no drum set, which I need desperately for my solo. I almost asked them to skip my number. Should have, it sucked.

Miraculous fill-in conductor - our regular conductor had a family tragedy, and needed to fly to New Jersey - a tragedy in itself. The replacement person showed how music is a universal language - she's fluent. The only difficulties she had were from the Tams Whitmark score's mistakes and poorly (and sometimes misplaced) actors' cues.

Off till Sunday evening's dress rehearsal.

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Obligatory critic's note: I started playing trumpet in 3rd grade, moved to Baritone Horn in high school and added French Horn in college. I play all the brass instruments which have valves, plus bugle.