Unrelated stuff

Neil Armstrong. I love how his family's official message ended:
"For those who may ask what they can do to honor Neil, we have a simple request. Honor his example of service, accomplishment and modesty, and the next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink.”

His NASA obituary is here

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After my coffee meeting last night, I took one more step in the moving out direction - I have a stacking plastic set of drawers in the bedroom, 8 drawers full of Stuff™. I had not opened 4 of them in a year. Going through them I dumped everything. And then about half of what was in one other drawer. So I have 4 left, one has some Thai cotton print material I've used as curtains, and my US Coast & Geodetic Survey Service flag (it's a full-sized flag which used to fly over a warehouse on Lake Union where I worked for a summer, when the flag was replaced by a NOAA one). And a small US stars flag. The other drawer is full of suspenders and belts, most of which I could probably dump but may donate to a costume shop.

All that went to the dumpster chute, as well as all the household garbage (including the shredder bag).

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Crappy phone-cam photos from Anything Goes move-in (set building) are on FB here

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It's after 10, but I have plenty 'o' time to get dressed and out the door. I have four 50-slide boxes to bring to Costco to have scanned and placed on a DVD. Then by 12:30 I want to be at Shoup Park in Los Altos for my last-of-the-season Ye Olde Towne Band concert. The band has one more on the last Sunday of next month, but I have an Anything Goes matinee that day. 

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At 6:30 at the theater we have a sit-and-sing with the orchestra for Anything Goes. I am hoping the music director is more of an orchestra conductor than a choral director, because if not, this will be more of an adventure than necessary.

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Last night I found a cat tree online which is not quite the same as what I was looking for, but it has enough of the right elements to be a WIN. It's not pre-assembled, but that should not be a problem. Hauling the old one to the dumpster when the new one arrives will be.

Happy Birthday, Trainboy!

kevin_standlee has been on a train all day, which I think is fitting for his birthday. I hope it was a happy one, and have a fun and safe trip!

Busy Day, not much to say about it, though

Slept till 9, played on computer till 10:30, watched some football, decided Sunday was not a good day to drop anything off at Costco's photo department when I can go there at lunchtime from work.

Drove to Shoup Park, was a little earlier than I wanted to be, but not much. My favorite parking space was way open. 12:15 for a 1:30 downbeat. By 1:00 the parking gets impossible.

Excellent turnout, very appreciative audience. We played a lot of good stuff - Hoagy Carmichael, Frank Sinatra & Fred Astaire, medleys from Grease, Phantom of the Opera & Fiddler, 4 or 5 Sousa marches, a non-Sousa march, and the piece which lured me into this band in the first place, The Sousa Scramble. The latter being two pages of music, never more then 8 bars of the same march, sometimes only 4, ending with the original, very stirring Sousa Stars & Stripes finale (our usual S&S arrangement does not have the counterpoint Baritone Horn part). Oldest & newest Baritone players were absent, but Hue-bin was there, so I tried out my Anything Goes Chinese line on her, and she told me what was wrong with it - I had 3/4 of it in Mandarin and 1/4 in Cantonese. Turns out my original choice is all-Mandarin, and she liked it a lot better.

Home with a stop at Fry's to get a better car charger for the phone, and also picked up an ear bud headset and some AA batteries. Huge line today, but it moved quickly.

Spent some time fast forwarding through the 49er-Denver game, and while I am still not impressed with the alleged QB, at least they put up lots of points, and won the game.

At about 6 it was time to drive to the theater, no traffic so I was there in 15 minutes, way early for the 6:30 sit-n-sing. Unpleasantly surprise that the set is not complete - considering how far along they were when I left on Saturday and all day today to work, there should have been a lot more progress. As in it should have been done except for some trim.

They have a "spacing" rehearsal scheduled for tomorrow, which will be a total waste of time if the set is not finished. I doubt it will be. From what is built it is clear that my two trips to the balcony will have to be made much earlier than we have blocked.

We ran through all the big numbers with the orchestra. It is a tiny group, only one trumpet/cornet, one trombone, three people switching between sax and clarinet, the director on keyboard, two percussionists (lyre, wood blocks, etc.), one traditional drummer, and a string bass. It really needs twice the brass.

They sounded pretty good, but I'm not sure the trumpet player will hold up for the whole show.

We were crowded on stage with them, it was impossible for the leading singers without mikes. The conductor is making no effort to quiet down the orchestra, which was just plain not polite, though IRL all the leads will have mikes. But IRL the orchestra will be at the top of the balcony, and that will carry way more than they realize.

Home, Made franks & frozen veggies. Domino likes bits of franks, but she loves the corn kernels even more. Very strange cat.

Speaking of which, here is the old cat tree I'm replacing:


Plans for tomorrow:
Work (team meeting at 10)
Costco
AG rehearsal (?)