howeird: (Default)
Most of my timepieces are on the internet or atomic clock radio signal, so I only had to change the time on the microwave, and two clocks which have a DST switch. And the car clock, though the GPS shows the right time.

And now I remember the waterproof clock radio in the shower need to be set, too.

Got to Consonance just before noon, which I thought was Tim Griffin's concert but it was Margaret & Kristoph's CD release party, which I found  out while vacuuming up delicious coffee cake in the con suite. I went down to the party room, wove my way to the CD display, but a couple of boorish, inconsiderate people slammed into me to get where I was, so I left. The place was beyond its capacity, anyway, and I can get the CD any time.

Tim's concert was supposed to be for kids, but most of the kids were camped out in the back rows, on their smartphones, completely oblivious. Bela's tribe was up front and appeared to have levels of interest commensurate with their ages. Tim didn't do the songs of his I would have expected for a kid's concert, but since the audience was mostly adults, maybe that was for the best.

2x10s were mostly non-descript, except the Gold ones. I didn;t know Barry had such a beautiful bass-baritone voice, he is usually drowned out by taking a back seat to his wife, who did not sing this time. Lynn was amazing just by being on her feet, and moreso by dancing a little. It has been an unusually tough year for her all around, and especially for her ankles. Bill surprised me by somehow convincing Kristoph to accompany him on a parody of one of K's songs which starts and ends with a finder-twisting lightning-fast guitar lick. Bill has a habit of choosing his own keys when he sings, and changing them early and often, often in mid-word, which makes him a better candidate for a capella.

The Surprise Concert was Mike Whittaker with Rika. Offstage, Mike is a high energy, witty and charming person. Onstage too, until he starts to sing, and then he switches to "ose" mode. Rika seems to almost always be in ose mode, so it was a match. Lucky for me I had a rehearsal to get to, but first needed to spend quality time with some glucose and study my lines. So I left after three songs.

My Hgl was shouting warning messages at me, so I parked in front of Specialties' a couple of blocks from the house, had a mocha and a sticky bun, and got back down to human as I looked at my Act 1 lines, and then Act 2.

Home, the SM had posted a new PDF of the script, this time with all the typos fixed and the new lines inserted. I bought a subscription to Acrobat Pro so I could make some other changes, and highlight my lines. That took till 6:40 to print out, I needed to leave (I thought) so I didn't 3-hole punch them and went with my older script. There was a production meeting under way, and we didn't get going till almost 7:30. :-(

Lots of my time wasted. We had been expecting to do a run-through of At 1, but instead the director micro-adjusted all the scenes I wasn't in and blew off re-choreographing my big number.

He did that after Act 1 was done, while the cast was in the back room learning the final number. 

Home, should have had a snack, shot up and gone to bed, but I had stopped at Safeway on the way meaning to buy ice cream, bananas, limes and lactose-free milk. Decided it was time for the revenge of the beef-disguised-as-lamb from last night and bought a $23 leg of lamb and all kinds of things to toss into a crock pot with it. A huge bundle of fresh mint topped the list. I also stocked up on frozen dinners, which was on my list, and ended up spending $115.

So at home I took stuff out of the three bags, arranged them by where they get stored (idiot checker bagged frozen stuff in all 3 bags when it all would have fit easily into one, nothing was in any kind of order). Put stuff away except for the lamb fixings. Chopped up celery, onion, carrots, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Anyhow it's in the crock pot on slow cook.

Plans for tomorrow:
Take the stuff out of the dryer and run a load of whites
Work
Rehearsals, surprise photo shoot at 6:30. I need to bring costume stuff.
howeird: (Danvers Sings)
Tuesday Weld was an early crush, and her last name means "world" in German, hence the subject line. 

It was not a crushing day, however, sort of. Our Jill-of-all-annoyances emailed me and a handful of others that it has been 2 years since we took the ESD training course and accompanying test, and we would lose our lab privileges if we didn't complete this by some date in mid-October.

This was a good news/bad news message. The good news is I have worked there for more than 2 years now - good news because the last time I worked there I was laid off on my 2-year anniversary. The bad news is all our complaints have gone for naught that this course does not apply to us, and is a total waste of our time. I was hoping the new company would drop the requirement, which is left over from when we were part of Motorola.

An explanation for the non-engineer )

I used to be a hardware repair tech, in the 80s, so I know all about ESD, but like all corporate classes, the test questions are based on the class material, not on what is important to know about the subject. One question wanted to know what polarity of electric charge rayon clothing has. That's immaterial (pun intended) to the subject. Just the fact that synthetic clothes carry a charge is the important thing. Four of the 20 questions were like that. Another 6 were about specific ESD prevention equipment I have never seen used in an actual lab. I got 100% on the test because I took lots of notes on things which struck me as useless.

The rest of the morning was make-work.

Lunchtime I dropped the gift box for baby sister at the PO, and went to Popeye's for lunch. I like the non-Cajun food. I had planned on going to KFC around the corner and down the block, but when I got there it was the grand opening of La Taqueria. And the diner across from it is Consuela's Cantina. Gag me.

Back at work, after an hour Automation guy invited me to the break room to keep him company during his lunch (meetings and crunch schedules keep him from regular lunch hours some days). I had not had dessert, so I brought the bag of ลำไย I'd bought the other day - too many for me to finish by myself, and also a little dried out, not as delicious as usual. Automation Guy is from SE Asia, he too was addicted to this fruit. Soon we were joined by our Puerto Rican team mate, who had never seen a ลำไย, aka longan, and he found them addicting too. We killed more than an hour talking about World Fruit, tsunamis, hurricanes and earthquakes.

After work it was surgical shopping time at Target, where I bought only what was on my list:
Polident
Sodastream
Extra sodastream cartridge
Two extra sodastream 1-liter bottles

Then straight home, said hi to the cats, saw that I had just enough time to try out the Sodastream. It was easy to set up, I was almost able to do it without cracking the instruction guide. It made good seltzer in one of their proprietary bottles in about 20 seconds. The bottle caps are twist-on, airtight. I stuck that in the fridge for later, along with two more filled with water but not carbonated yet, because the guide said it's best to use chilled water.

Done just in time to go to Peninsulairs' voice lessons. Each session (this is #3) there were more people. I could see that for lesson 2, because there is a lot of review, but halfway through the course you would think they would stop taking new people. I'm only griping because the space is not big enough for the number we had tonight. And the newbie who parked himself next to me for warmups was an obnoxious, tone-deaf, ukulele-playing jerk.

Once again, 30 minutes of information packed into a 90-minute class. For the first time there were glaring bits of misinformation. The teacher obviously doesn't play a wind instrument other than his larynx. He kept claiming that the voice is unique in its range of sounds, that brass and woodwinds had fixed sounds which the player could not change. Utter hogwash. I can make a clarinet quack like a duck (one of this examples), and produce a horse whinny on a trumpet, or an elephant trumpeting using any lower brass instrument. This is a guy who has never heard the tone-bending stylings of a Klezmer orchestra.

He did some interesting things to get people to sing from the diaphragm, which were easy and effective. I would have been impressed if (a) that didn't come naturally to me and (b) he ever said the word "diaphragm".  In three weeks no one has said that word in class. Not even to joke about contraception.

When he ran out of material he asked volunteers to come up to center stage, and had them sing a note, then a half scale, and adjusted their posture to help the airflow. One guy was singing from his mouth, teacher pushed on his tummy and got his volume up about 5x louder. Unfortunately the guy was tone deaf, and his scales were not in any recognizable tuning. But that's fine, he's the person this class is meant for. 

Home, made a glass of fresh squeezed lime soda from the Sodastream bottle (a liter makes a little less than three glasses). And I charged up the other two now-chilled bottles. This thing is head and shoulders better than the 1-liter siphons I've been using. One cartridge charges 60 bottles (siphon cartridges charge 1 liter), and it has lots of other pluses I won't bore myself typing.

Had that with a TV dinner, fed the cats Fancy Feast and then had my ice cream dessert, and watched mindless TV. Turned off the tube (which isn't a tube anymore, is it?) and took care of some Quicken things, FB and this posting.

Got a message from one of [livejournal.com profile] susandennis' lurkers, [livejournal.com profile] katbyte, which reminded me that during the last flood of Russian spammers I locked out non-friends from commenting and had forgotten to change it. Now any registered user can comment, but non-friends' posts are screened.

Two community theaters in the area are doing Les Miz. The performance rights holder is supposed to not allow this, but somehow Stage 1 in Newark and South Bay Musical Theater in Saratoga are both opening this Saturday. I have friends in both. Hyper-marketing by South Bay sold out the show 3 weeks ago, so I'm going to Stage 1 a week from Saturday. I try not to go to opening nights, the casts & crews usually need a week to get used to an audience.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Hearing test at Miracle Ear in the Cupertino Sears store. Mostly just to find out about their technology. I played some tones on the PC today, and was only able to hear up to 8400Hz. Last test was 10k. :-(
1-on-1
howeird: (OMGWTFBBQ)
First full day of Conflikt, I was up and dressed just in time for the 11 am lunch. IMHO if it's before noon it isn't lunch. And this wasn't much of one. Salad buffet, pasta salad, sandwiches, soup. I plucked a tuna salad croissant from the pile, poured my own clam chowder because the server deserted her post to help a filker who was carrying food for three or more people.

Found a place at a table with 3 others, I think they seated 8 and eventually we had 5. I wanted to sit with some friends, but there was a baby there. We are talking baby too young to talk, but not too young to squeal. Maybe a year old. Maybe. The clam chowder was delicious until I came to a piece of shell and some rubber bits. The tuna salad tried valiantly to escape its prison, but somehow I kept it off my shirt.

There were many babies and children too young to be in a concert venue. They made a lot of noise, ran around, and their parents should be ashamed of themselves. Much applause to [livejournal.com profile] hsifyppah, who stayed home with her baby last year, and braved the con without him this year. And a slap on the wrist to concom for not making any arrangements to keep the children out of the concert hall.

There also seem to be more transvestites here than usual, I think I've seen 4. Three of them very tall for men, let alone women. Just an observation, not  a value judgment.

Once again the sound check process made everything late.

First concert today was Toronto's Heather Dale, who had Ben Deschamps mostly on guitar, and had gotten the incredibly talented cellist Betsy Tinney to join her. Heather is amazing, she has so much fun singing and playing music. Recorder, tin whistle, keyboard, lovely voice. I laughed a lot, especially when her pied piper conspiracy song ended with half the audience following her around the room. She made me cry twice, the most with a song about a French orphan girl who accepts a dowry from the King to go to Quebec and marry. The song is told fro the standpoint of a sailor on the ship carrying her to the New World, and of course ends with him proposing to her.

Some time after I went back to her table and bought the CD it was on, and I asked her if she knew the Jeanette MacDonald/Nelson Eddy musical Naughty Marietta, which has a French orphan girl with dowry going to New Orleans. She hadn't, so I told her a bit about the show. I expect she'll find a copy to watch. She is even more charming in person.

Next up were Interfilk guests Bob & Sue Esty, both on harps. Not my kind of music, I bailed after the 2nd tune.

Back in time for the Interfilk auction, where a "somewhat borked" music recorder which I thought I might snag for $50 went for > $200 as many of the musicians offered to record a piece on it if the bid was $xxx. By itself, worth maybe $100, with those recordings, priceless.

After my dark chocolate salmon sold for $45, it was time to head for the light rail. Got off at International District station, walked a couple of blocks toward the restaurant when I heard my name being called. It took me a while to triangulate it, and [livejournal.com profile] susandennis was there to lead us to Ho Ho Seafood. Got a seat right away, the waitress gave us a grand tour of the menu, but I was decided as soon as she said New Year special - lobster is the same price as fish. So we got lobster in black bean sauce with ginger, and Susan added a beef dish.

We chatted like old friends, which we are, kind of. Susan found me in an LJ search about 5 years ago and "friended" me, so I jokingly think of her as my stalker, since at the time all my LJ friends were people I had met. I friended her back and we have read each other's journals since then.

The food was delicious, the service excellent, and we had a great time. I took a photo of us (2 really) with the camera GPS's remote shutter release, I'll upload those when I get home to a real internet connection. Watch this space.

I totally forgot I'd brought one of my calendars to give her. Oh well.

She walked me back to the light rail tunnel, it was about 15 minutes before a train arrived. Back to the con just in time to hear the last three numbers by the GoHs Jeff & Maya Bohnhoff. They were spectacular as always, standing O, encore.

Waited around for open filk, but babies. OMGWTF?

So here I am in the bar, finishing off a quart bottle of sparkling water. There's no wi-fi and no Verizon signal at all in the convention center, huge-assed FAIL.

Also, in order to get from the hotel to the con, you have to walk outside under a covered walkway - covered but totally outdoors, so windy and wet and freezing-  up some stairs, up an elevator and to the end of the hall. No free wi-fi in the hotel rooms, just in the lobby & bar.

Bottom line - I won't be back next year.


Plans for tomorrow:
Lots of music to listen to
Lunch with [livejournal.com profile] lemmozine
Meet my sister & her husband for dinner at 13 coins
howeird: (Default)
Work was a challenge today - most of the tests I knew how to do had been grabbed by the other new guy, but I found a couple of tests which required using a piece of equipment which I'd been trying to avoid. Turns out its login was still my old one, and they improved the user interface so well that it was no problem at all - after I discovered it took a couple of minutes to respond to a command. One of those is running overnight right now.

Ducked out for an 11:30 am appointment to see an apartment only to discover the person who set it up was out for the next 3 days, and had not left any notes for her co-worker. Older building way up by Kaiser hospital. Bedrooms are small, livingroom is big, mini-stack washer & dryer, but mostly the hall from the door to the livingroom does not look like it will accommodate the piano. The price was fairly low. Weird thing is it's gated, but they keep the gates open during the day.

Back to work & more fun challenges.

In other news, one of the perks of the new job is a Caltrain/VTA pass. Free travel any time for any reason. Don't know if Google will continue it next year.

Left a little early to pay a return visit to the apartments at 101 & Lawrence, which cost more but are newer, larger, and always gated. She showed me two of the three units which will be available in October, I'm thinking the third one may be better. #1 is small and more expensive because it has a pool view. Had one of those once and screaming children cured me of wanting one again. #2 looked nice because it has a front gate which opens to the path, but the more I think about it, that's the patio, and the cats would get out. #3 is way in a corner, but this means it is closer to parking & further from the kiddy stuff. hidden for sexist TMI )

The other place I saw 2 weeks ago is too small, and the place I used to live is too expensive.

So I printed out a deposit check and credit application check, and at lunchtime tomorrow will take a look at #3 and choose one.

Since I was on Lakeside anyway, I drove around the curve and had dinner at Sizzler, passing the long-abandoned Peppermill on the way. The building and signage is still there, it must be 10 years by now since they closed. I think they would do well if they re-opened.

Home, yet another bogus bill from Palo Alto Medical Center, and also something online from El Camino Hospital wanting another $375 for a bill I paid in full in June. They did not as much as hint why they thought I owed them anything. Sent a message to customer service  saying I paid in full, correct your records. Sent back the PAMF bill with a NOTE for the 10th time about which insurance company they need to bill, and telling them to try to get it right this time.

Ordered a couple of Unwoman CDs.

Found a moving company which BBB gives a perfect score to, asked for an estimate, got back a form email saying phone them. Which I will do tomorrow. Started picking possible photos for my 2012 calendar. Need to go to Booksellers and buy a few.

Signed up for a photo shoot Saturday (someone dropped out, I was on the waiting list).

The woman I met at the concert Sunday mis-spelled my email address, it was caught by the domain I set up a few weeks ago for that purpose. I emailed her as if I had not received her message (the auto-reply says it's a dead letter box, no one reads the mail there). Two strikes - one for not just cutting and pasting the correct address her friend sent, and one for not knowing how to spell "weird". She's from England, she should know how to spell English.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Apartment business
Work
howeird: (Default)
Not writer's block, just kinda in hermit mode. Dropped out of the NorCal Peace Corps alumni group, have stopped going to BASFA meetings, withdrew from the Silicon 2009 art show. Pulled out of all the photo meetup groups which do group model shoots.

Been watching America's Got Talent on Tivo. The first 10 minutes of each show is crap & commercials, so FF gets used a lot. I have come to cherish Piers' comments. He mostly thinks like me, though he's way too soft-hearted when it comes to the Everyman entrants. The show is not called "America's Got People Who Sing Flat" or "America's Got Derelicts Who Clean Up Okay". And I want to shoot the producers who have torpedoed some real talent by over-producing their numbers, putting them in horrid costumes, and making them do numbers which don't suit them. My Way as a trio? OMGWTFBBQ. Backup singers for a child trio? High School Musical production numbers for solo dancers? And worst of all, IMHO, making the reincarnation of Paul Robeson sing tacky contemporary with backup singers and sexy women violinists. The only person they have done justice to is one Barbara Padilla, who sings opera so beautifully I have cried during each and every one of her performances. They have costumed her perfectly, and let her sing in her own genre. Her voice still needs a wee bit of work, but she would have fit right into one of Pavarotti's master classes.cut for length )
Been reading Mainspring a lot. I am finding it very slow reading. Part of the problem is the name of the main character. Hethor. That name makes my eye stop. It makes my brain freeze up too. You know that theory Mel Brooks has about "some words are funny, some aren't"? Hethor is just one of those words which does not look like a name for a character in a book set in British New England. And since he tells the story in the third person, it's on the page early and often. Did anyone else have this experience, or is it just me? Other than that, I'm torn, because it's certainly a very creative setting and story, but I keep running into phrases which stop my eye, or just make me wish he'd called it something else. Anyone know if Jay owns an astrolabe? That would explain a lot. I'm almost done, I may or may not write a full review. Yosemite's reading list will include Sherri S. Tepper.

Looking forward to Thursday's band rehearsal. It's what got me started on the implant thing - it can hurt a lot to play Baritone or trumpet without real teeth. One of the other older bari players suggested it to me.

Profile

howeird: (Default)
howard stateman

September 2022

S M T W T F S
    123
45678910
111213141516 17
18192021222324
252627282930 

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jan. 3rd, 2026 03:59 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios