This is certainly one way to find out what I’m up to.
Another might be to actually ask.
Archive for June, 2008By popular demand (well, at the request of my pal Georgios), I’ve added some more dynamic and exciting pictures from our recent gala outings to the Gallery page. I can’t vouch for the quality of the images as they were taken by someone outwith the immediate Gubbins circle, but I think they’re shiny enough to warrant a quick squint.
And it was just ACE!
A lathe, as you’ll be aware, is a bloody messy, noisy and smelly bit of hardware, and the one in question is also rather heavy. As I have relatively limited spare time, I can’t really take it out into the back garden when I need to use it and then put it all away again. It also really needs to be fixed to a bench or the centrifugal forces involved in turning large chunks of wood at high rpms is likely to make it shift around a bit. Ergo, I need a shed. Thing is, while we don’t plan moving from our current house, it would be nice to have something which was moveable just in case, but sadly moveable sheds seem not to exist. Anyway, in accepting that a shed is needed[0], I have taken my first step on the path of the Sheddi. [0] While my daughter may well tell me “you don’t NEED a shed, you WANT one. WANT is not the same as NEED”, I have to pull rank/age on this one and say that where sheds are concerned, WANT is exactly the same as NEED.
Thing is, playing music is kinda hard and playing a weighty brass instrument is even harder. Doing that while marching, in bright sunlight, without falling over or passing out, is really really hard. So – we’ve done Mid Calder gala day, Uphall Gala day and Broxburn gala day, followed by a concert, so it’s safe to say we’re completely puggled. In fact, it’s quite nice to be back to work today for a rest – I have a little routine of going out to the car at lunchtime to practice and it was really nice to just play some music that wasn’t a march or a concert piece The concert was, of course, ACE, because it’s always fantastic to hear the Senior Band in full flow. Had a nice lunch break today – went and sat at the harbour and read my book for an hour. Being without a car has had one positive side-effect – it’s got me carrying my book around with me instead of having it sit beside my bed. Anyhoo – it was high tide at lunchtime (people familiar with Musselburgh harbour will know this to be a good thing) so I was able to sit in a nice calm environment with the water lapping around and a few people dotting about on sailboats. In the words of Bill & Ted, it was most tranquil. Then I came back to work. We’ve only had this one for six months – we bought it after our previous car quietly died in the school car park. Well, our current one has just quietly died on the way to work. So, much hanging about waiting for the A.A. followed by a trip to a garage where the owner gleefully rubbed his hands together excitedly at the prospect of charging me an arm and a leg for bugger all. Grrr Update: Our perfectly good car is apparently only good for scrap. Because one component has failed. Unfortunately, it’s a component which (including fitting) would cost 50% more than the value of the car. Again. Did I mention this happened before? Only six months ago? I’m buying a gypsy bloody caravan and an old nag to pull it. Oats are cheap.
Being the cheapskate that I am, I’m using the Nike+ kit without actually spending 75 quid on a pair of trainers. I’m doing this by positioning the sensor strategically in my smelly sock. This is not ideal, as I’ve just discovered. My nike.com training program today called for a 2km walk. Dead easy, thought I, I walk a lot more than that every day. So, off I went and reached the first milestone (well, 0.5k stone) after a short time. I then proceeded to get on with the rest of it, reaching the half way point as expected. Then the sensor shifted in my shoe – not a problem. Ten minutes later I checked the display and was still at the half way point, or just after, and I had no average speed. Repositioned the sensor and all was well. So the long and short of it is, I either need to buy a pair of Nike+ trainers or one of the little legband thingies, because today I’ve walked probably 4 or 5k and it’s only counted 2. Bah. So, today was the Mid Calder gala day and our brass band were playing, so Mrs Choobs, child #2, child #3 and I were performing. One march with the procession followed by two thirty minute sets outside different pubs had us utterly puggled. It was a lovely day and a lot of fun, but we were pretty sticky by the end of it. So, one gala down, only two more (in June). Unfortunately, for the next two, our oldest boy will be joining us, armed with his trombone. Sticking a rubber-necking trombone wielding adolescent with no control over his own limbs at the front of a marching band is a recipe for disaster. Hilarity will, doubtless, ensue. |
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I really enjoyed my lunchtime practice today. Except it wasn’t really a practice, because instead of learning stuff or rehearsing marches or concert pieces, I was just playing some music that I felt like. So, I played “For those in peril on the sea” a couple of times, followed by a bit of “Home on the Range” and some other traditional tunes from the end of the ‘how to play the baritone horn’ book. 
is a shed. See, through a bizarre series of events, which I’m probably not going to go into here because it’s all a little improbable, I have a bench lathe. This is a Good Thing(tm) because I’ve wanted a lathe for a long time – since high school, pretty much. The trouble is, I have nowhere to put the thing that would be semi-permanent.
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