Monday, March 27, 2017, 06:00 PM
I had a hearing test this morning at Costco. I was impressed with how complete it was. The bottom line is that my hearing is quite good surprisingly. I learned a few things as well such as the fact that we can bypass the ear canal and hear through bone conduction. She placed a transducer against my skull and I could hear the tones! I also was treated to an onscreen view of my inner ear. My hearing is above the normal line. She nicely drew the various levels of hearing impairment on my chart. After lunch Libbie and I went to Walmart and got the CU recommended suntan lotion and also picked up paper towels, toilet paper and soup which was 1.36 per can. this is excellent compared to 2.19 per can in Kroger. I nicely got a seemingly accurate calculation of dewpoint by using the floating point temp and humidity instead of integer. It worked nicely and puts out dewpoints within a few tenths of the numbers reported by the console to Wunderground. I may have to get a second moteino or maybe an anarduino. One would feed Cuulus web software and the second would feed an ESP8266 to create MQTT packets for crawl space control. Dinner was spaghetti with cheese sprinkled over the top.
add comment add comment   |     |  
( 0 / 0 )

Busy
Sunday, March 26, 2017, 06:00 PM
After the morning programs I worked a little on the Davis reception program, trying to get the Dew Point calculations working. I next went outside and raked up the piles of pine straw that Libbie created when she raked the Mondo Grass and the driveway. I then tackled the electric fence which is in bad shape. It was probably taken down by an animal running through. I patched it up and also filled the hole developing under the charger which was under the big dogwood tree. I need to find more pole insulators since I'm out. Came back inside and practiced rhythms on the Clarinet. Later i found a good youtube video to improve rhythm that i need to try. I may be bringing this on my tablet somehow. Libbie made her excellent pizza for dinner. After dinner I worked on listing the newest Library DVD which is the lecture of Debbie McInnis and Ben Haning. I did this while Traviata played from the Met's Sunday program, Met on Record.
add comment add comment   |     |  
( 0 / 0 )

45th Anniversary
Saturday, March 25, 2017, 06:00 PM
I gave Lib our traditional anniversary 8x10 photo before going out to my 9 AM Clarinet lesson with Justin. I'm still having big time issues with hitting the note exactly on the metronome mark. One of the issues is the metronome is not loud enough. The Clarinet drowns out the sound from the smartphone. Justin recommended finding a louder one. Vicki called at 10, we talked quite a while about her looking for a new home and also about music. Ryan plays Clarinet and Rob plays guitar.
I fired up the smoker at 11 AM and put the ribs in along with Hickory chips that I kept refilling for the first 3 hours.
I got the Moteino correctly receiving iSS transmissions and also reading the onboard sensors I got the pressure to be correct by correcting for altitude. Now i need to get it all into a packet for response by the weather program Cumulus. The original purpose was to create MQTT packets of the dew point for the crawl space ventilation controller now I can see this as a feed for Cumulus.
I pulled the ribs at 6:30 then we had them for dinner along with Broccoli and Rodney Strong Cabernet. After dinner we drove to Brewsters at 8 PM and had a chocolate Raspberry truffle in a waffle cone. I found that all of Brewsters ice cream is made in the store. This is hard to believe.
add comment add comment   |     |  
( 0 / 0 )

Friday dance
Friday, March 24, 2017, 06:00 PM
The Moteino came this afternoon. It was supposed to come yesterday. I fired it up and was able to get some transmissions from the Davis ISS but could not fully pursue it do to dinner and then dance.
For dinner we had a salad with cucumber, tuna and red pepper. I dressed it with Creamy Italian. We went to the studio at 8 for the Friday night party. We did quite a bit of dancing and got to do our Tango routines a few times. I'm getting the hang of it. After dancing we went down Tryon Rd to Walnut St where there is a brewery named "Craft". I ordered an Oak Amber craft beer and we split a chicken Quesadilla. I liked the Quesadilla but the beer tasted a little weak.
add comment add comment   |     |  
( 0 / 0 )

Wine Bar
Thursday, March 23, 2017, 06:00 PM
Nancy was here in the morning so I didn't get to practice until afternoon. That wa sit for today since later we had to go to downtown Apex for CBC at wine and vine. i'm not sure how a wine bar is supposed to make it here but there seemed to be a lot of young pretty women sitting at tables in the front of the venue. Melanie did a nice job of leading group lessons during the evening. I had a glass of wine and a beer. The wine is pricey at $13 per glass. We split a cheese Panini for dinner which came with chips. The Panini had goat cheese, american cheese and Pepperoncini between 2 slices of bread. During the afternoon I made a trip to Costco and picked up a bottle of wine and bag of coffee. The prime purpose of the trip was to get a hearing appointment. I'm signed up for 2:30 on Monday afternoon.
add comment add comment   |     |  
( 0 / 0 )

dance, music and playbars
Wednesday, March 22, 2017, 06:00 PM
I did some more reading about the Davis ISS and also took a walk in the back along the fence line. There are numerous trees that need cleaning up in the back. In addition, the pond maintenance crews trimmed all their trees and threw the cuttings over the fence onto our property. I threw it back. We continued our tango lessons with Robert. We practiced the right side fan some more and got some tips then did a run move to cover ground. It was a great lesson as usual. i came home for a short while then went out again at 5:25 for my 6 PM music Clarinet lesson. We spent the lesson on rhythm. Apparently i was missing metronome beats either starting early or coming in late, especially towards the end of a line of music. We also tried the bottom scale which involves all 10 fingers on keys. This clearly needs practice. i paid for 3 lessons. The lesson for today, next Sat at 9 and then Wed at 3:30 which is a mistake because we have dance lessons at 3:30. We picked up broccoli in Kroger on our way home from dance. Dinner was chicken, broccoli, rice and Curry sauce accompanied by the leftover Trader Joe Shiraz. The Playbar arrived while i was at my Clarinet lesson. It was bigger and heavier than I thought. I have to rethink the mounting since I originally was thinking of hanging it off the TV mount. I feel this would be too much weight so i'll probably bolt it to the wood board. I unpacked it after dinner and went through the setup. I'm very impressed with Sonos and how they thought of everything in the design including programming it to work with my existing remote.
add comment add comment   |     |  
( 0 / 0 )

groceries
Tuesday, March 21, 2017, 06:00 PM
Getting back into the swing of things again. I took a trip to do the groceries at Kroger. Picked up some fixings for dinner tonight. I studied intercepting Davis ISS transmissions for use in the crawl space venting system. I need to get some old clothes on and crawl under the house to inspect the moisture issues to see if regrading the front porch worked. Dinner tonight was a salad with tuna, cucumber, raisins and Creamy italian dressing. Tracking is showing my Sonos Playbar will be here tomorrow. The Weber grease pan came from the Honey Roaster today. The old one rusted out and was probably destroyed by an animal. The new one was an exact fit although a little pricey at $25. It's good to see that Weber parts are readily available. I have rebuilt various parts of that grill many times over the past 15 or more years.
add comment add comment   |     |  
( 0 / 0 )

sonos
Monday, March 20, 2017, 06:00 PM
The Sonos soundbar I ordered last night was shipped from Nashville this evening. I thought long and hard about spending so much on a TV surround system but in the end I thought it was for the better since we don't really use the existing sound system. FedEx delivered Libbie's passport from RushMyPassport.com. We mailed her passport on xx/yy. I continued to practice Clarinet - twice today. Justin texted that he has a cancellation for Wed at 6 PM so I took it. Dinner was spaghetti with cheese. We had Sonos playing a 1958 Trovatore from the Met on 3 of the speakers - Family Room, Master bedroom and Office all streaming from Sirius. Sirius streaming may be a keeper. It's on a 30 day free trial, I'll have to call in early April when we get back from Costa Rica to cancel the trial and add streaming to my existing subscription.
add comment add comment   |     |  
( 0 / 0 )

repairs
Sunday, March 19, 2017, 06:00 PM
IT's a quiet day and not much activity. I did a lot of reading, then did a trip to Lowes to get a bird house and a ballast. Replaced the ballast in one shelf of the plant towers and also installed a new birdhouse in the turnaround to replace the one that fell apart due to weather. The new one was cheaper but made of cedar and also 1/2 inch smaller in all dimensions. Hopefully it will work. The peat cup will not fit inside. Libbie made her pizza which was excellent. It's been a long time since we had her pizza. It came out well.
add comment add comment   |     |  
( 0 / 0 )

Music Lesson
Saturday, March 18, 2017, 06:00 PM
Went out in the rain at 8:40 and drove to my Clarinet lesson on Chatham Street in Cary. The lesson was the first and was scheduled at 9 AM. I barely got there at 9. I'll try to leave at 8:30 next time. This time I actually had an instructor with a Clarinet!!!!! He was able to pick out some problems with my playing, specifically my tonguing technique. I am not starting the note with tonguing but am cutting it off with tonguing. He said I am humming the notes out which is incorrect. I'll need to focus on this. He had a little tuner that determined that I was using the wrong barrel with the mouthpiece. I switched barrels and lowered the pitch a little but still not a 440 C. I like his little electronic tuner. He gave me some pointers on reed placement and also mouth position on the mouthpiece as well. I need to practice this.
On the way home the rain let up a tiny bit. I stopped at Brueggers and picked up bagels then stopped at Kroger for cream cheese.
Before lunch Libbie and I went back to Kroger and picked up shrimp and snow peas for dinner.
I enjoyed listening to William Tell from the Met while reading Literotica on my computer. I had to go back to Kroger after the opera and pick up cocktail sauce. We had Shrimp, snow peas in soy sauce with bell peppers, and basmati rice. Accompanying this was the leftover Cupcake Cabernet and then a few glasses from two buck chuck Shiraz. After dinner I did some more reading and saving stories to Google Sheets.
add comment add comment   |     |  
( 0 / 0 )

Friday Dance Return
Friday, March 17, 2017, 06:00 PM
I did some picture management this morning and also studied hardware for Home Automation some more. I can't get the Sonos app to read the Traviata file share. Not sure what's wrong there. It says error 900 when I click on it. This error is a server stack size error which involves editing the Win 7 registry on Traviata and then doing a reboot.
I did some reading on Literotica which seems to be higher quality than ASSTR and also older adults than the mostly teen types on ASSTR. I only got in one practice today in the morning on the Clarinet. I have a 9 AM appointment with Justin tomorrow in Cary at Leechford Studio on Chatham St.
We had a dinner of salad greens, cucumber, and egg which was topped with the leftover pork stir fry. We left for dance before 8 and got there around 8 PM which was surprising. I was so cold i was shivering. I need to do something to warm up. The studio attendance was surprisingly light tonight. I'm not sure why. Met a woman there, Laurie, who started dancing in October. I danced a Rumba with her. We tried our new Tango routine but failed pretty badly. After dance we went out with the Cains and Harry to BJs Brewery in Crossroads. Libbie and I split a flatbread appetizer covered with bacon, tomato, cheese and avocado. I had a Jeremiah Red with it which was a craft beer with 7.5% alcohol. Yikes! Pretty high but delicious.
add comment add comment   |     |  
( 0 / 0 )

B2R Clarinet
Thursday, March 16, 2017, 06:00 PM
Nancy came over this morning after I finished my first Clarinet practice of the day. She brought the Amazon bird books which I had delivered to her house because we weren't sure if we would be home. She said Coleman regularly finds Clarinets in the flea market and got one for Lisa and her brother Tom. Who knew all these people played Clarinet? I watched some YouTube videos about google voice control using Tasker and ended up buying Tasker for 2.99 in the Play store. I had a second practice after lunch and worked on my Mrs Robinson story some more before class.
I'm not very impressed with B2R. The instructor was late, had a sax instead of Clarinet and wasn't very familiar with the Clarinet. He forgot it had holes instead of keys, was clueless about reeds and wasn't very helpful about tonguing, key fingering and Clarinet reeds. To make matters worse the policy of B2R is monthly recurring payments on the first of each month. They had the gall to assess me $20 for materials for my first lesson. There were no materials received by me. The story when I talked to them Tuesday was supposed to be $28 per half hour lesson. This somehow tuned into $90 for this month and $140 for next. Bullshit! I sent emails to a music teacher in Cary and one in Raleigh.
Dinner was great. Libbie made pork chops, snow peas and bell pepper stir fry which we had with Cupcake Cabernet I sampled and then bought in Kroger.
The Sirius streaming over Sonos kept shutting off. I found in the logs that it was intentional because more than one device was streaming. I grouped the two Sonos devices in party mode and this seemed to help.
add comment add comment   |     |  
( 0 / 0 )

cars and dance
Wednesday, March 15, 2017, 06:00 PM
This was still a day of getting it together after our trip yesterday. We unpacked the rest of the suitcases while Libbie got a load of laundry going. It's pretty cold outside. I chose to have my oil changed and tires rotated instead of doing it myself. I made a 10:30 appointment at Hendricks and drop the car off. When i picked it up they had another $850 worth of service they said it needed. Other than the battery some day, none of it seemed necessary.
We left for our 2:45 dance lesson and learned a few new steps in Tango. I also bought 10 more lessons since Robert said we only had 4 left. Their policy is to warn us when we get below 5 lessons. Our Tango step was called a right fan. It had two possible endings. We could just do it once forward or we could do a second which turned us around in which case we have to do a second and then a basic to rotate us back the correct direction. Dinner tonight was a salad with egg and cucumbers. I got a 30 day trial Sirius streaming Subscription instead of changing my Ala Carte Plan to all music with streaming which raises the price from 10.50 to 18.50. At the end of 30 days I'll make the switch. I put the Play 3 speaker in the Family Room with Sirius streaming and then a Play-1 in our bedroom. With this configuration we listened to Romeo and Juliet live from the Met. While this was going on i worked on my Mrs Robinson story. I practiced Clarinet today for the first time on Downing place. I have a lesson tomorrow at 2:30. I'll see how I like the instructor or whether I should dump Back 2 Rock overboard.
add comment add comment   |     |  
( 0 / 0 )

Drive home
Tuesday, March 14, 2017, 06:00 PM
Up early in the hotel this morning. We had breakfast at 6:30 AM. They were out of eggs and sausage but I got the attendant to replenish. The same person is also covering the front desk. It was not a great breakfast and to make it worse, the coffee tasted like instant. We got going around 7:30 and stopped at Walterboro for gas and coffee. Libbie got a biscuit that was the worst ever at a McDonald's. The bacon wasn't even cooked and the biscuit was mushy. The coffee was OK. Next stop was the Pilot at exit 170 in Florence to top off the tank. The sun came out and the sky turned blue on the trip. We got home at 12:20. After unloading the car and having soup for lunch I got to work on my passport but as I got going, Andrea called and talked quite a while. I finally got all my stuff together, called rushmypassport.com and got my shipping label and authorization letter. I took all this to Fedex in Cary and mailed it. On the way back I stopped in Kroger and got the Tuesday groceries. While there I stopped into Bach2Rock. They tried to shove me off on a guy who was not a Clarinet player. I'm unhappy with this. I'll see what happens when I get the Clarinet guy who it turns out plays Sax, not Clarinet.
During the day Robert texted us to see how we're doing. Libbie called him back and set up a lesson for Wednesday at 2:45 PM.
Tonight dinner was spaghetti with cheese topping.
Late tonight I received an eMail from B2R setting up an account in my name and an appointment/lesson with Alan on Thursday at 2:30 PM. The first lesson is free.
add comment add comment   |     |  
( 0 / 0 )


Monday, March 13, 2017, 06:00 PM
We packed up the apartment this morning. Libbie scrubbed and cleaned everything. I made many trips to the car carrying the suitcases and boxes of household stuff including the speakers, the kitchen stuff, showes, camera, computer, Oranges, bike batteries, tubs of electronic parts and other stuff. I had to make a run to Costco to get gas. It was 2.08 per gallon, member price. We loaded the bikes as our last items then left the condo at 11:30 AM. Traffic was surprisingly heavy up I-75 and also on 301. We chose to go around Jacksonville by taking 301 all the way to Callahan. This wasn't too bad since the road was mostly 4 lane and 65 MPH except for one or two small towns. We may do this agaim. I-95 was better with off and on rain. We had to get gas in Baldwin then arrived in Port Wentworth, GA exit 109 for our Comfort inn reservation. After checking in with steady rain, we went over to the Sweet Tea Grill where we had the crabcakes sandwich which came with house chips and house sauce. Everything was delicious. I had a Sam Adams Seasonal to go with dinner. This was a great meal. Our room was nice but we had the highway side of the hotel which was noisey. Overnight I used the Thule cable lock to lock the bikes to the rack and also used the regular cable lock to lock the two bikes together.
add comment add comment   |     |  
( 0 / 0 )

Port Charlotte
Sunday, March 12, 2017, 06:00 PM
Libbie worked on getting our stuff together for our trip tomorrow. I put together a temp/humidity sensor to sense indoor temperatures next to the AC vent. This is the one that sends MQTT temperature and humidity to Adafruit. We left at 3:30 for Ted and Lorraine's and had a very pleasant drive down Honore and then I-75. We had veggies and nuts on the porch next to the pool and chatted then went to an italian restaurant that I really liked, Donatos. The restaurant interior was Little Italy with fire escapes, subway tiles, a subway turnstile and Italian business store fronts. For dinner I had eggplant Parmesan with Rigatoni in a pasta sauce accompanied by a Yuengling. It was a pretty nice time. Surprisingly Tommy is in bad shape health wise. He lives near Ted and Lorraine in Port Charlotte. Ted was going to drive to Tommy's house to roll his garbage can to the street because Tommy can't walk. We had a small incident on our way home. I was in the left turn lane and did not know the lane ended before the corner. There was a barrier there that I braked hard and swerved left, avoiding a certain problem. We got home safely at 9:30 PM which was good.
add comment add comment   |     |  
( 0 / 0 )

Traviata and Clarinet lessons
Saturday, March 11, 2017, 06:00 PM
Practiced with my Clarinet this morning then we had to leave at 11:30 for downtown. We went up Beneva, West on Fruitville to the back of the parking garage for the Hollywood 20. The performance of Traviata was outstanding. I loved every minute of this opera with many recognizable hit tunes. We got out of the parking garage and onto Main Street by 4 PM then back to Beneva and home. Ian came at 6:30 for my last Clarinet lesson with him. We covered some more keys on the Clarinet plus some 1/8 notes which are used in the William Tell Overture which we both played as my last song. We offered dinner to Ian at the Clubhouse which he accepted. I had a Cabernet and the plank Salmon which came with Hollandaise sauce and veggies. It was lick your plate excellent. Ian has been a good start for my Clarinet non-career.
add comment add comment   |     |  
( 0 / 0 )

opera
Friday, March 10, 2017, 06:00 PM
This morning I did my Clarinet practice then we did a little straightening up before leaving at 11 for downtown. We found parking on Pineapple just before Main Street. When we reached the Opera house they were already going in so we joined the line going into the rehearsal room which was up one flight of stairs. The room is quite large. We sat next to a couple from Syracuse. He was a college professor before having a heart attack which put him in a coma. They instantly retired 2 1/2 years ago. They recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. The concert was wonderful and included the trio from Hoffman, Nessun Dorma, Soave Fanciulla from Boheme and many other notable pieces capped off by the entire group of 25 apprentice artists singing the party scene from Die Fledermaus. It was totally enjoyable. We decided to take a walk down Main Street and ended up having a very nice lunch at two Senoritas. I had the Taco Salad with a Margarita which was very good. It had shredded chicken and topped with Chili Con Carne. The meals came with chips and Salsa. We luckily had a seat inside along the rail where we could people watch as well as see what was driving by. After lunch we walked to a new bookstore and then walked through a gallery next door.
I did some more Clarinet practice then we had wine, cheese and crackers which served as our dinner. Only an Orange was my food after that.
add comment add comment   |     |  
( 0 / 0 )

art
Thursday, March 9, 2017, 06:00 PM
Took a trip up Tamiami after my morning Clarinet practice to mail Libbie's passport renewal package at Fedex. We had a prepaid overnight label. We have to drive home next week to get mine so i could renew as well. We stopped at the Swim Mart store on the corner of Stickney Point and Clark on the way back. Libbie really liked the store. The New Or1ean's watercolor art from Lee Tucker came today as well as a package of a polo shirt and a dress shirt from LL Bean. We can now shut the mail off here for our trip back.
Libbie made the mushroom pastry puffs. The Filo dough had some problems because it was very dry. We had to go next door to Mark to borrow some flour. They also stuck to the aluminum foil. Parchment paper would have been better. That's what we used last time but I brought it home and didn't return it.
The party was pretty nice. Maggy next door made chicken wings that had spices but were not hot. I like the crab dip and the bean dip as well as the shrimp someone brought. Annita had some delicious Chocolate Chip Cookies. The party food served as our dinner tonight.
add comment add comment   |     |  
( 0 / 0 )

passport scramble
Wednesday, March 8, 2017, 06:00 PM
It started as a normal day but then we got a call from Uncruise about our passport expiration. It turns out that a May expiration for our March 30 trip was not legal, it has to be at least 6 months in the future. Libbie has her passport here but mine is in MC. I considered driving back tonight and returning tomorrow. We ended up deciding to expedite Libbie's and then super expedite mine next week when we get back. It costs an extra $200 with shipping to expedite Libbie's. Mine will be an extra $250 plus the passport fee. We backed up out takeoff to Monday instead of next Thursday. It was a hassle filling out the papers and getting passport photos made. I took pics and printed them at Walmart but we ended up going to the store and getting mine retaken. After looking at Libbie's we went back a second time and her's taken again as well. Since it was late in the day we had dinner at 7:15 over at Pub night. I had the salad, some garlic bread and coconut shrimp which came with a yummy citrus dip as well as fries and slaw. It was the end of a very stressful day. Ian came over at 1 PM for my Clarinet lesson. It was a fantastic lesson. We did some double notes, he raised my music stand higher and had me sit on the edge of the chair. He played along with me which made a huge difference. he also told me to set the metronome to 80 instead of the 60 or 90 I had been using. Tomorrow we will go to FedEx on Tamiami and mail Libbie;s stuff with the prepaid overnight Fedex label.
add comment add comment   |     |  
( 0 / 0 )

dew point
Tuesday, March 7, 2017, 06:00 PM
I saw a Youtube video about how important dewpoint was in making a decision about crawl space ventilation. I took out the huzzah and hooked up the DHT sensor. It didn't work at first, I found i needed to pick up 3.3 V off the Huzzah instead of the Vbat line which actually is a place to supply power to the Huzzah device. I used Lady Ada's example code to get basic functionality then found a dew point function that I added to the program. I found an online dewpoint calculator and compared my Huzzah readings to the online program and also weather underground. Everything looks good. I will use two of these to send crawl space dew points and outdoor dew points via MQTT to a fan controller that will exchange the crawl space and outdoor air. The timing of the fan controller is still to be determined. I need an algorithm that combines when to ventilate in conjunction with a timer to limit the run time to something reasonable per hour. I spoke with Lorraine again and we agreed to meet Sunday afternoon around 4:30. I asked if Tom would join us, She said she would call but he's been pretty depressed and basically lives in his cave in Riverwood. She said he has deteriorated significantly since Anne died 3 years ago.
This afternoon we did a run to Nokomis Groves and picked up a 1/4 bushel of Honeybelles and a jug of grapefruit juice. We also had an orange soft serve while we were there. For dinner in the spirit of eating light we had our cheese and crackers with a single glass of wine and then had an open face salad with celery, cucumbers, egg and lettuce. It was great.
I continued my Clarinet practice and feel I am getting a little better with embouchure and tonguing the reed. We listened to Traviata live from the Met this evening after dinner and Clarinet practice.
add comment add comment   |     |  
( 0 / 0 )

bike ride
Monday, March 6, 2017, 06:00 PM
This was still a windy but a warm day. I practiced some measures of notes on the Clarinet and feel I am getting better but have a concern that the notes are staccato sounding. Each note possibly only is being played as a half note with a half note pause between each. We did a grocery run to Walmart on Honore and picked up the ingredients for the mushrooom puffs for the pool party Thursday. We also had to buy a cookie sheet because last time we had to borrow a cookie sheet from Sally. We next did a bike ride down the Legacy trail and then down Bay to the other side of Tamiami where I wanted to take a look at a house that was listed as a fixer upper. It was an eyesore from the street and needs lots of TLC. It would be a real challenge to restoe this one to health. Just after wine and cheese at Sunset I did another Clarinet practice. Dinner was spaghetti with sauce and cheese and a glass of Cabernet. It was excellent. After dinner I called Lorraine. Ted wasn't home but we chatted for a long time over kids and Jimmy's death and also Ann's death. Their family has not had an easy time of it with the deaths, etc. She said Tommy is now living in Riverwood nearby in a Villa. Wow, Aunt jean would be shocked.
add comment add comment   |     |  
( 0 / 0 )

easy day
Sunday, March 5, 2017, 06:00 PM
Windy! There are some pretty strong gusts blowing outside today but it's warm in the mid 70s. I practiced today using a metronome app that i really like. It has made a difference in my playing. We reviewed some materials from Uncruise and decided I needed a hat with neck protection. I'll wait till I get home to shop at REI for the hat. There are some bird books that would be useful on the cruise so we tried the local Barnes and Noble then Books a Million on the way back. While at Books a Million we visited Publix for another brick of Swiss Cheese. When we got back I set up the Clarinet to practice again but got a call from the Craigslist guy I emailed about a music stand he had for sale. I went over there and picked up the stand. It's perfect for what I need. For dinner I ordered a Dominos online mushroom pizza. They still have the large 3 topping pizza for 7.99. It's very tasty but the crust is soggy. After the pizza I tried a few measures in the music book on the new music stand before putting the rig away for the night.
add comment add comment   |     |  
( 0 / 0 )

Lesson 1
Saturday, March 4, 2017, 06:00 PM
Libbie did Yoga and I practiced the Clarinet. She said I was in luck because neighbors on both sides were out. Once again I watched many YouTube videos on how to play Clarinet. Ian is coming tonight at 6:30 so before he came we had our cheese and crackers at sunset without wine and then very nice Tuna sandwiches with mayo and celery. The lesson was great! I was mostly doing stuff right with the reed but not with the notes. He wants me to seal off the air on the end of the reed after each note which is something I had not been doing.
add comment add comment   |     |  
( 0 / 0 )

Opera
Friday, March 3, 2017, 06:00 PM
Watched more YouTube videos and played with the Clarinet some more. Today is an incremental improvement over yesterday. Maintaining breath for a while is a problem. We left around 11 for the noon concert at the opera house. The apprentices were great. We enjoyed some not familiar pieces consisting of Handel's Armida, Pearl Fisher's Love Duet, Gounod's Romeo and Juliet, Puccini's La Rondine, and of course a sextet from Rossini's Barber of Seville which was incredibly beautiful and lots of fun. Rossini music is always fun and an easy lesson. We went out to the front of the opera house and spoke with the apprentices. I sought out Natasha, a pretty blonde and spoke to her about her treble cleft tattoo on her foot. She's a modern day Soprano.
After the Opera we drove to Selby and found it was pretty full due to some programs going on and a Chagall Art show. The gardens were dressed up with special plantings reflecting the style of Chagall and the colors of Provence. The tropical house had a few French doorways and windows integrated with special exhibits of plants in the style of Chagall. We had a lunch from a French inspired food truck and had chicken sausage on a baguette. It was delicious. I had an iced tea with mint for a beverage. We went into the Chagall exhibit after lunch and were wowed by the three paintings in the Payne house. Admission was only 25 at a time. There were narrated guides in the front and the back of the Payne. Afterwards we walked to the Selby house and checked out the flower pots on the roof and the other plantings to reflect France. Once we left Selby we went to the Whimsy Museum for a few smiles. unfortunately they no longer allow photography with anything other than a cell phone. We enjoyed it anyway. Went home and had the left over Prime Rib on a bun with cooked onions and a bottle of Mondavi Cabernet we picked up in Winn Dixie next to Ace hardware on the way home. The Winn Dixie wasn't too bad although they didn't have a lot of business.
add comment add comment   |     |  
( 0 / 0 )


Back Next


powered by pppBLOG v 0.3.11