Poltergeist?

About 1:10 this morning, our bedroom light came on, all by itself. It's a light attached to a ceiling fan. It has done this before, starting about 2-3 weeks ago. Then it will not do it for several days or a week, and then, it decides to wake us up. Hmmmm.....

Egads!

Today's mail brought a nice letter from Italy saying that we have a Notice of Payment Before the Notification because our rental vehicle "Circulated in Limited Traffic Area Without Authorization." We can easily take care of the 106 euro fine with a credit card online. After scouring the web, I found that this is quite common, especially in Florence (where we did drive on the date specified), but now I am a little concerned that more Notice of Payments will arrive in the mailbox since these things can continue to arrive for up to a year after you leave Italy. It's hard enough to drive in Italy (Florence especially) without getting lost, without driving into Limited Traffic Areas without even realizing it. I would think that a circle with a line through it would be a more universal symbol.

Another Year of Orchestra Begins

Tonight I carried my viola over to Garrison Theater for our first rehearsal of the year. We are playing Sibelius' Finlandia, Hindemith's Mathis der Maler, and Haydn's Harmoniemesse for our October concert. I especially like the Hindemith, and it has some juicy stuff for viola.

Art Exhibit

Yesterday Hal and I took a look at the Montgomery Art Center at Pomona College. Right now they have an exhibit called The New Normal. The art in this exhibit only made sense to me after reading the information about it, and then I found it quite interesting. This traveling exhibit is free and here until October 18.

Buyer Beware!

So, thanks to the lady at the Village Postmark (with backup support from Hal), I have successfully averted being taken in by a scam! Suffice it to say that I will NOT be buying a Macbook Pro from England anytime soon. Read about craigslist scams here.

The right tool for the job

I am in the process of finding a used, but fairly new Mac laptop. My trusty Mac desktop is going strong after 4 years, but I would really like to have a laptop to take to school. I am already creating powerpoints for my upper grade classes. I would love to be able to show short videos as well as visuals in order to reach and interest these kids.

I found several on craigslist, but usually they were too old, too expensive, or already sold. I did find one that I just might get, but the owner is now in the UK. She said she couldn't sell it there, for various reasons (most Brits don't want the American version), so we're working on a third party company to see if I like it, after she ships it to me.

Stay tuned, and hope that I can also get a computer projector for school!

Magical Thinking

I hadn't read any Neil Gaiman for awhile, so I checked out Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions from the library. I generally prefer novels over short stories, but I did like a number of these strange tales. Stardust is still my favorite Gaiman, at this point.

Happy Birthday!

Today my first-born turns 24! Happy Birthday to you, Liesl!

Gamelan!

Yesterday I went to the first rehearsal of the year for the Harvey Mudd College Gamelan, along with 7 students and two profs. In 1997 I played in the Pomona College Gamelan for a semester, but this one is different in that we read music instead of learning by rote. I thought that might be easier, but it actually isn't, at least at first. I have to learn which notes are which on the various instruments instead of just calling them by a number name. I started out on an instrument reading bass clef and then tried one out in treble.

This is a picture from my first gamelan concert in 97. I'm on the left in the middle row.

Video on Youtube

Thanks to our media guy, Bob, I have a copy of our church music from Sunday, Aug. 23. We put up the postlude - Precious Lord, Take My Hand - on youtube for perusal.