Punctuation Substitution

Hello Gentle Reader

A short note today to forward to you a fun little video:
http://www.zefrank.com/punc/

In my professional life I am tempted to use this substitution regularly.

Steve

Easter

Hello again, Gentle Reader,

It is now Easter Sunday, and we are looking forward to another day 'off'. By 'off' I mean "not part of our regular routine", as the last few days have definitely not been 'off'.

Suzy and I performed on Saturday as part of the Festival City Winds advanced band, with the feature piece being Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. A big bite for a community band, and it went reasonably well. A few minor moments that probably went un-noticed by the majority of the folks in attendance. The Pianist was marvelous, and the piano was thankfully in tune at the beginning of the performance... it was not voiced well for the dress rehearsal earlier in the day and someone obviously gave it a quick tune up, but by the end of the piece it seemed to be going out again. (anyone from Concordia College read my blog?? perhaps this is something to look into).

On Sunday AM I joined the FCW brass ensemble to play at church. This is nominally how the band helps defray the costs of the rehearsal space, so I am happy to do it. Even better, it was my first full show on the Euphonium where I had to read bass clef for everything. Admittedly the music was not overly hard, but it was a good challenge for me to have to actually read in bass clef rather than fake it.

The Girl and I went swimming this afternoon. I used to do this regularly with the boy but she has been missing out on that kind of fun with Dad, so it was high time to do it. She really got a kick out of it, so I am sure we will go again.

Back to the grind on Tuesday, so we will make the best of our one more day 'off'.

Does anyone actually read this ramble? It would be nice to know who the audience is and what they want to read. Feel free to click on the "comments" link directly below and let me know who you are...

Steve

Juno Award Wrapup

Hello Gentle Reader,

The Juno Awards are now in the books for another year, and I must admit that I had a pretty good time. The City of Saskatoon did a great job of hosting the event, and the stage show itself was pretty good. From what I saw from Halifax last year, this was -way- better. Overall decent scripting, great stage effects, and some very good acts. As usual it was way too loud, but that is why I own earplugs. Years of playing the trumpet in small rooms and listening to other people play various instruments at close quarters means that I am sensitive to volume.

Most of the weekend events were actually well controlled in terms of volume, which was nice. The whole show on Saturday night, and the Songwriter's circle this afternoon were both easy to listen to, loud enough and well balanced. The highlight of the songwriter's circle for me was Kellylee Evans. This woman can really sing and was a nice change from the singer/songwriter/country-folk style even if they were really good too.

The other interesting thing was that the number of real celebrity stars (read here: will attract screaming fans and require security) is actually quite small. Out of the hundreds of musicians that were in town, there were perhaps ten or fifteen that actually attracted the big attention, and the rest did their thing, performed (or not), but could generally wander around un-molested by the polite Canadian crowds. A prime example was that we had to wait for a while after the show on Sunday to catch a shuttle bus back into town (whoever decided to put the Arena way outside Saskatoon was crazy), and while we were waiting for the crowd to thin out I looked over and saw Juno-nominee (and multiple performer this weekend) Susan Aglukark talking on her cell phone, waiting in the foyer looking for her ride home.

The Calgary event is now only a year away and there is a significant amount of work to be done to prepare.

The downside here is that it is now late on Sunday night, and the only flight I could book out is at 6am. The Saskatoon airport is apparently not used to this kind of traffic and they are asking for passengers to arrive 2 hours ahead of time... that is not going to happen in my case but it will be early nonetheless. No update for a few days.

Steve