Life of Wiley

I’ve decided to ditch playing out of Wynton Marsalis’ Carnaval book as I think it’s holding me back. I mean that in the sense that I’m just hacking away at the music during my practise sessions without making any improvements, except maybe with finger dexterity.

I keep doing this, but I’m going back to basics and just practising out of Clarke’s Technical studies and the Arban and it seems to already be paying dividends. I haven’t got much range, I’m comfortable and can play melodies up to G on top of the stave, but for solo work and solo cornet in band I really need to be able to play up to a high C (two ledger lines up) and occassionally a bit more. Certainly for solo work I would need up to E/F above high C. On Monday during my warmup where I play semitone ascending intervals from second line G I managed to get up to a nice clear, loudish high D; I’d not done that since I changed my embouchure. Trouble is I can’t consistently do it yet and do it when playing melodies. So when it came to running through Buster Strikes Back I only managed to get two of the four high Cs, and in subsequent practise sessions I got nowhere near it. Anyway, if I stick to a methodical approach it’ll come one day.

We had a good rehearsal on Tuesday night. Fantastic attendance, I was a bit late and had trouble finding a spot to park, which is a nice problem to have. We spent most of the rehearsal on Partita for the Areas. We perhaps didn’t play it as well as we can do, but Martyn spent a lot of time on ensemble playing which will help with producing a balanced performance. Just need to tame those trombones:-)

No rehearsal with the St. Albans brass group last night as there was a church service going on so we all met up at the pub and had a drink and chin wag. I had to return a trumpet I’d borrowed with a view to buying but I think I’m going to buy a new Conn International, which seems very good value for money and my former tutor reckons they are the best student model trumpet he’s played for years and he’d perform professionally on one. I think Lou’s going to get me one for my birthday, can’t wait!

Had a really boring night last night; went to the cinema intending to go and see School of Rock but couldn’t be bothered to queue, so came home, popped up to the local shops and got a take-away curry and few bottles of beer and watched 8-Mile again, then spent some time making some cosmetic changes to the band’s website which took me to 2.15am!

The curry was pretty good; Lou and I had been meaning to try this place out for a while, since it went under new management. Didn’t much care for the way they did their Samosas, but the Karahi Chicken was pretty good. If you live in the Watford area, it’s the Prince of Bengal on Langley Way and is more of a true restaurant now but still does take-aways. It must be fairly good as the restaurant was busy.

So, to make up for the boring night last night I thought retail therapy was in order. First of all I had to go and buy a holiday. This had huge potential for disaster since Louise is away, but I think I’ve come up trumps. We’re off to the Algarve for a week in a pink (yes pink!) villa. Looks pretty cool actually and it’s not far from the beach and the airport is less than an hour away (these things are important considerations if you’ve got young children and by the time we go away we’ll have a new 5 month old!) It also came with car hire so we’re not limited to one place.

The rest of the shopping was a new and enlightening experience for me, as I spent the morning trawling charity shops looking for books and CDs. I came away with 3 books, a Bill Bryson travelogue, a book called Trumpet which is about a jazz trumpeter (always a good one to get for a trumpet player:) and the classic The Thirty-Nine Steps. I also got 2 CDs, a children’s story CD of Cinderella for Euan and then the steal of the day, The Darkness’s Permission to Land for £3.25! I watched their performance on the Brits (yes I know, the show was appalling) and thought they were hilarious, I’ve no doubt in my mind that they are taking the mickey out of the 70s/80s glam rock scene; brilliant stuff!

Good rehearsal tonight, only let down was the trombone section but then one had been in a car accident and the other had a paying job! The excuses some people will come up with not to turn up:)

Curiously we didn’t spend any time on Partita (hence the title of this entry), the contest piece for the area contest in the 5 weeks time. Tonight we spent rehearsing things for the CD, Breezing Down Broadway, Basin Street Blues, Barnard Castle and Swedish Folk Song which is an arrangement of the hymn tune whose name escapes me at the moment but has words that go “O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder…Then sings me soul, my Saviour God to me”.

A lot of the band went down the pub afterwards too, which was good as it shows the band is growing socially as well as musically. This can only be of benefit in the long run when we can learn from each other and appreciate each others strengths and weaknesses and learn to work as a team. I think Martyn is aware of this now, as it seems he’s listened through the CD from Milton Keynes, and has had us not only trying to work together as sections but also working to balance against other sections of the band. I think this will be particularly important when we get our trombone section back as they are definitely the strongest part of the band at the moment and it’s difficult for the rest of the band to match up to them, so I think, as Martyn said tonight, there are some compromises to be made.

Just in case you were wondering, this is what I got Louise for Valentine’s Day:

and Joanne Harris’ latest book, Holy Fools.

I remembered on the way home whilst using my mobile phone car kit that I hadn’t updated the blog to say that it had been done! I arrived at work at 8.40am on Monday to find the engineer waiting for me (I wasn’t expecting him until the afternoon).

So I’ve used it for the first time tonight and it’s not bad, but I think the speaker is in the wrong place (it’s in the passenger footwell). If I’d had a more expensive kit it could have all been linked through the car stereo speakers but I guess my company wouldn’t stump up the extra. I couldn’t hear the person I was speaking to very clearly but he was also in his car using a bluetooth setup and my car is a convertible and I was driving up the motorway at the time. But it did recognise the voice commands which surprised me.

I’ll have to see how easy it will be to move the speaker either to the drivers footwell or by the windscreen post above the dashboard.

Haven’t posted for awhile (excepting the Peter Kay post below).

I had an excellent weekend (Valentine’s Day) as Louise had bought me Pirates of the Carribean on DVD. This is just a fantastic film. We watched it twice over the weekend with Euan. And now, instead of coming home from work and playing knights, we’re playing pirates! Euan’s Jack Sparrow and I have to be Will Turner and we run about the house fighting the skeletons.

I’ve got hooked on the music too. So much so I posted a question on the brass band forum The Mouthpiece to see if there was a brass band arrangement of the main theme. This has now developed into a poll about reasons for watching the film, e.g. women leering at Johnny Depp or Orlando Bloom, or blokes leering at Keira Knightly. Personally I watch it for Johnny Depp’s hilarious performance; he must have been drunk throughout the shooting of that film to have slurred all his lines!

As you can see I’ve now set up the webcam to display a picture on the blog site, must remember to tell Louise!

Louise and Euan have gone up to her mum’s for a few days as it’s half-term so I’ve got to fend for myself for the next few days. So I’ll be having fish fingers for tea tonight and watching The Matrix: Reloaded which my brother bought for me for Christmas and I haven’t got round to watching. I also need to watch all the additional extras on the Special Edition Fellowship of the Rings DVD that I’ve borrowed off my mum before she returns from France on Sunday and I expect I’ll watch the bonus features of Pirates too.

Looking forward to the band’s social do on Saturday night too. We’re going to a Greek restaurant in Watford where there’ll be food, drink, plate smashing, belly dancing and a disco. Should be a great night.

This little lot had me stifling gut wrenching laughter at work so much that I was in tears; from Peter Kay:

[thanks to the folks of tMP for supplying them]

1) Triangular sandwiches taste better than square ones.

2) At the end of every party there is always a girl crying.

3) One of the most awkward things that can happen in a pub is when your pint-
to-toilet cycle gets synchronised with a complete stranger.

4) You’re never quite sure whether to eat green crisps.

5) Everyone who grew up in the 80′s has entered the digits 55378008 in to a calculator.

6) Reading when your drunk is horrible.

7) Sharpening a pencil with a knife makes you feel really manly.

8.) You’re never quite sure whether its against the law or not to have a fire in your back garden.

9) Nobody ever dares make a cup-a-soup in a bowl.

10) You never know where to look when eating a banana.

11) Its impossible to describe the smell of a wet cat.

12) Prodding a fire with a stick makes you feel manly.

13) Rummaging in a overgrown garden will always turn up a bouncy ball.

14) You will always feel a bit scared when stroking a horse.

15) Everyone always remembers the day a dog ran into your school.

16) The most embarrassing thing you can do as a schoolchild is call your teacher mum or dad.

17) The smaller the monkey the more it looks like it would kill you at the first
given opportunity.

18.) Some days you see a lot of people on crutches.

19) Every bloke has at some stage while taking a pee flushed half way through and then raced against the flush.

20) Old women with mobile phones look wrong!

21) Its impossible to look cool whilst picking up a Frisbee.

22) Driving through a tunnel makes you feel excited.

23) You never ever run out of salt.

24) Old ladies can eat more than you think.

25) You can’t respect a man who carries a dog.

26) There’s no panic like the panic you momentarily feel when you’ve got
your hand or head stuck in something.

27) No one knows the origins of their metal coat hangers.

28.) Despite constant warning, you have never met anybody who has had their arm broken by a swan.

29) The most painful household incident is wearing socks and stepping on an upturned plug.

30) People who don’t drive slam car doors too hard.

31) You’ve turned into your dad the day you put aside a thin piece of wood specifically to stir paint with.

32) Everyone had an uncle who tried to steal their nose.

33) Bricks are horrible to carry.

34) In every plate of chips there is one bad chip.

35) Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad

The Genius of Peter Kay…

1) I saw a woman wearing a sweatshirt with ‘Guess’ on it. I said, ‘Thyroid
problem?

2) When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bike. Then I
realized that The Lord doesn’t work that way, so I stole one and asked
him to forgive me.

3) My mom was a ventriloquist and she always was throwing her voice.
For ten years I thought the dog was telling me to kill my father.

4) I’ve often wanted to drown my troubles, but I can’t get my wife to
go swimming.

5) I was doing some decorating, so I got out my step-ladder. I don’t
get on with my real ladder.

6) I went to a restaurant that serves ‘breakfast at any time’. So I
ordered French Toast during the Renaissance.

7) Well I was bullied at school, called all kinds of different names.
But one day I turned to my bullies and said – ‘Sticks and stonesmay break
my bones but names will never hurt me’, and it worked! From there on it
was sticks and stones all the way.

8. My Dad used to say ‘always fight fire with fire’, which is probably
why he got thrown out of the fire brigade.

9) Sex is like a game of bridge: If you don’t have a good partner,you’d
better have a good hand.

10) I saw six men kicking and punching the mother-in-law. My neighbor
said ‘Are you going to help?’ I said ‘No, Six should be enough.’

11) If we aren’t supposed to eat animals, then why are they made out of
meat?

12) I think animal testing is a terrible idea; they get all nervous and
give the wrong answers.

13) You know that look women get when they want s*x? Me neither.

14) When working a till in a shop and asking a woman for £3.42, and her replying “Do you want the 42?”… “Well yeah, otherwise it’d be 3 quid!!”

15) “I rang up for takeaway before I came out…
…do you deliver? No! Sorry Sir, we only do chicken and lamb”

16) William Shakespeare walks into a pub, and the Landlord says, “get out your bard!”

Peter Kay’s questions…

1. Why does your gynecologist leave the room when you get undressed?

2. If a person owns a piece of land do they own it all the way down to the
core of the earth?

3. Why can’t women put on mascara with their mouth closed?

4. Is it possible to brush your teeth without wiggling your *rse?

5. Why is it called Alcoholics Anonymous when the first thing you do is
stand up and say, ‘My name is Bob, and I am an alcoholic’?

7. Why is there a light in the fridge and not in the freezer?

8. Why does mineral water that ‘has trickled through mountains for
centuries’ have a ‘use by’ date?

9. Why do toasters always have a setting that burns the toast to a
horrible crisp no one would eat?

10. Is French kissing in France just called kissing?

11. Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, ‘I think I’ll
squeeze these dangly things here and drink whatever comes out’?

12. What do people in China call their good plates?

13. Why do people point to their wrist when asking for the time, but
don’t point to their crotch when they ask where the bathroom is?

14. What do you call male ballerinas?

15. Why is a person that handles your money called a ‘Broker’?

16. If quizzes are quizzical, what are tests?

17. If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from
vegetables, then what is baby oil made from?

18. Why is it that when someone tells you that there are over a
billion stars in the universe, you believe them, but if they tell you there
is wet paint somewhere, you have to touch it to make sure?

19. Do illiterate people get the full effect of Alphabet Soup?

20. Did you ever notice that when you blow in a dog’s face, he gets
mad at you but when you take him on a car ride, he sticks his head out of
the window?

It looked like we weren’t going to get too many people turn up to the rehearsal last Tuesday, but in the end we maintained our excellent turn out to rehearsals. All the sections were full and we even had a couple of visitors, who even joined us in the pub afterwards. So if you’re reading this and thinking about coming along to Watford Band to see what all the fuss is about; get yourself along, you’ll be most welcome, you’ll have a good time both in the rehearsal and in the bar afterwards.

I think it’s testament to the enthusiasm and ability of Martyn our MD that we’ve got players queuing up to attend rehearsals despite our disappointment at the contest last weekend. After all banding is just a hobby (right Martyn?) and we’re there because we enjoy what we do regardless of whether we win a trophy or not. Sure it’s nice to win and I’m sure that will come as gain experience and confidence, but it’s not the be all and end all. For me I’d much rather be entertaining the public.

Looks like the rehearsals will be concentrating on the music for the CD and the area contest. I think this is good as we won’t get too bored with Partita as it keeps it interesting as we decide on a CD programme and practise those.

Martyn had also put out the beginnings of a summer programme and I noticed Buster Strikes Back was in there; gulp! Better get practising it again!

On another note, we had our first City Brass group rehearsal on Wednesday night. This is a 10 piece brass ensemble I play in based in St. Albans. We don’t have many gigs usually just 2 or 3 per year, but we’re all mates from various bands and it’s just another excuse to go out and play and then go to the pub afterwards! I got the opportunity to play on a trumpet that someone is selling. It’s a Yamaha 1320 model, which is their student line. Unfortunately all the slides were stuck so I couldn’t tune it and there’s no third valve slide ring to keep the low D and C# in tune:( I think I’ll look to get the next model up which has these or the Conn International as it was recommended by our first trumpet player (and also my former tutor), Ken Bache; can’t find a UK distributor for these though.

I’m really cross now. I had an appointment to have a car kit for my mobile phone fitted to my car on December 9th, 2003. No-one showed up, not even a phone call to say they weren’t coming. To speak to them you were on hold for up to an hour and when I did eventually get through (by this time it was after the New Year) I was told the appointment had been put on hold. Well it wasn’t put on hold by me, but apparently the person who’d dealt with it had left the company.

The next date they could offer me an appointment was February 13th! I.e. today. So this morning I arrived at work early, booked a convenient parking space, and phoned to make sure they were coming and to find out what time. Guess what? 11am and I get a call back saying the engineer’s off sick and there’s no-one else that can do the install!

Now, if someone can’t do it because they’re off sick then that’s fair enough but given I’d already been put back by 2 months you’d have thought that they’d get someone to cover it. Plus, if I hadn’t phoned them this morning would I have got a call to let me know? I doubt it. Fortunately this time I’d kept my calendar free for today, but the first time I’d had to move an important customer meeting, only to be let down.

They have booked me in again for next Monday afternoon, but I’ve no confidence that this will happen, and I’ve lodged a complaint anyway. I can’t believe that they are understaffed as they’ll have known the new laws on the use of mobile phones in cars has been coming for a long time.

Come on Vodafone get your act together!

Yesterday I finally switched the webserver, smtp server and imap/pop3 server over to the linux box I’ve been building. It was a relatively pain free exercise. All the websites are running on apache 2.0.48 with mysql 4.0.17 and php 4.3.4. Moving the latest mysql data across was trivial. The only hiccups were to do with URL rewrites to change .html to .php for the band and church websites and changing the paths to the required header file.

On top of that I also built the latest version of the Courier IMAP server. Squirrelmail just continued to work and I needed to add a relay directive to the Exim config so I can send e-mail via the new server from work.

I can now run MRTG properly (I never figured out how to do it for the XP box) so I can monitor traffic. I also upgraded AWStats too which was okay but I’ve lost some stats for January and February, but it’s not that important.

There should be no reason why this should ever need to be turned off when people come to stay so there’ll be an improved level of service. No more outages when I have to apply the latest Microsoft patch.