Ramblings of a rural(ish) geek

with music everywhere!

Last Sunday (the 15th) was the FCB concert. It went better than it really had any right to. The harpist fit onto the stage, and was terrific. The Snowman went really well, as did the rest of the music we played. Tear-down was easy, as lots of people helped.

Then we came home and finished packing for an almost weeklong trip to NC, to see Mum. She is doing really well for 93. Physically a bit slower than last year, but still on her own two feet. Met some new people, got reacquainted with people we met last year. Went carolling on two nights -- they are very glad to have J and me singing.

The drive was not nearly as fraught as last year. For one, we started off much earlier in the day (easier to drive in the dark in known environs), and it wasn't snowing and dark as we went through the mountains. Fog is somewhat easier to deal with. The Ohio DOT had opened the "outer ring" bypass of Columbus, which also made the trip easier -- we were able to pretty much bypass the Columbus traffic, except for a very small re-route because a ramp isn't completed yet (it was replaced by a well-signed surface level left turn with a long light).

We drove back on Saturday, and Sunday AM we trundled off to sing at church in single-digit temperatures. (it was 70F in Greensboro on Wednesday, 40F on Friday. Just a bit of difference!)

Tomorrow, we go back to church to sing and ring chimes. Today, it's rain/sleet/freezing rain/ick at temperatures right around freezing. *I* don't have to go anywhere tonight. This pleases me. :)

It's the coldest it's been this winter, but I'm not entirely convinced that it should be termed the "bitter cold" that the weather app said. It was cold enough that I was glad of my hat when I did the outdoor chores. I deployed the heated birdbath early last week, when the other birdbath was frozen solid (and I had time to go digging through various garage bays to find the basin and the extension cord). They tell us that it will warm considerably over the next few days. This is good, because now J can get the pump out of the pond -- the rill is completely frozen over, and it has the lovely 'running water under ice' effect. But I think it will get cold enough (eventually) this winter that the pond will freeze solid, and that will not be good for the pump.

Another positive of the warmer weather is that I can put up the outdoor Xmas lights -- they're solar powered, so as soon as I put them out they'll start coming on, and I don't like having Xmas lights on before Advent. I also need to replace the lights on the house -- they were not really very good lights when I put them up six or seven years ago, and they're really worse for wear now.

I have got my desk at work sorted out, and most of the voter list reconciling done. Next week, I think we (read "I") get to start moving things out of the storage closet upstairs so they can start working on it in January. The GC for the office renovation will also be GC for the HVAC renovation, so he will be a busy man. The entire HVAC in the old building needs to be redone -- there are so many things wrong with it! (But they all come down to the manager in charge wanting the renovation to come in fast and under budget, regardless of what the contractor said. And it's not his problem anymore, so it worked! Never mind that the twp now has to spend more money that it really doesn't have to fix his mistakes....)

this time, with snow! Not much, to be fair, and it melted by mid-afternoon.

Tuesday was DC's last day. We had a gathering, with cake! For her last duty, she got to swear all of us in for the next four years. Now they get to start really looking for someone to take her place (I can't do it, because I don't live in that township), because BC will not be running for office again. In fact, if they can find someone to fill the position, she's likely to resign and let the new person have the position....

Thursday I went in and moved over to DC's desk, which is only about twice the size of the space I'd been using. I've got a couple other ideas for making the space work for me, but with a move to a larger space (and possibly an even larger desk) in the hopefully not too distant future, I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it.... I also did some of the work they actually pay me to do, not just mess around with computers.

The trunk of my car currently smells of white vinegar. foo. I'd bought a couple gallons of it at the grocer, and I *thought* I'd wedged them in a space such that they couldn't fall over, but I was wrong. They did fall over, and the lids didn't actually come off or open, but they did leak. I'll find out tomorrow if leaving the trunk open causes issues -- I think the car will turn off the trunk light if it's left open too long, but we'll just have to see....

did a lot of stairs/hauling boxes/sorting paperwork at work (but the election infrastructure is mostly put into the basement so that we don't have to move it again in a month!; all the documentation we'll need should our number come up in the random post election audits is assembled; the files from the May 2023 election are in long term storage in the basement, so that August 2024 files can go into that drawer and the November 2024 binders can go onto the shelf).

Then Friday morning we left for Chicago and WindyCon. The second year in the new hotel went much better than the first year did. There were still hotel issues, and there were some very annoying con issues -- no printed programs/program books at all - the first run of pocket programs was apparently so incorrect that they were binned, but AFAIK no replacements were ever printed. There was an online version, but fandom is greying and resistant to change, and many just want a program book to read, even if they'll bin it as soon as they get home. Info desk had printed a few copies of the pocket program on the hotel printer, but those were not for taking away. There were also the oldies who had expected actual *food* in the consuite.

The GT room was crushed on Saturday night -- we had toasts for two old friends, and many stories were told. MA and I poured out nearly 3 full-sized bottles of gin/whiskey and two bottles of fizzy apple juice before the toasts To Absent Friends.

The cats were annoyed with us when we got home. The people who come over to feed/water them are "not us", and the cats do not approve.

I need a day off. Maybe Wednesday?

(the way it usually does, one day at a time. I know.)

Farmington's Halloween concert was Sunday. It was much better performed than Livingston's, even though the music was harder. We did not have FCB rehearsal the day after the concert, because the HS was having stage rehearsal for their Tuesday evening concert, and it was just easier for everyone if 70 extra musicians just stayed away. I will be missing the rehearsal on Monday, 4 November, because I will be doing the final set up for the township hall for Tuesday's election, after a day of processing and tabulating Absent Voter ballots. whee?

I postponed the week's erranding to today from the usual Wednesday, because the weather then was great for working in the garden. So, of course, it's chilly and damp today and AA is overrun with Oregon fans in town for tomorrow's football game. sigh. OTOH, there was no line at the cider mill or the gas station. OTOOH, I forgot to stop at the feed store for birdseed. I will need to run into town tomorrow and get that. sigh, again.

I said I wasn't ever gonna log in to anything work related from home, but here I am.

(for my sins) I am chairing the AVCB in the township where I work (as the boss says "she works for me, she can't say no"). {I am not thrilled by this, really I'm not. I wanna be a minion. I'm a good minion. I don't wanna be in charge.}

I've been texting with the people on the board (everyone's got a cell phone, and in at least one case it's the most reliable/quickest way to contact them), and someone asked "how many ballots have we sent out/gotten back?" Erm. I have no idea, I've just been _doing_ it! So I logged in to the clerk-facing voter database and got those reports. We've sent out over 1100 ballots, and as of 3pm today had received over 600 of them back. We will be getting at least another 300 ballots back between now and Election Day. A good, well-trained AVCB team of 2 can process about 50 ballots an hour on the average. We only have personnel (and *space*) for two teams. So we're doing it over two days.

I had plans to do garden work over the weekend, and then the predicted "most areas will get half an inch of rain" turned into an all day rain with occasional stormy bits such that we got 2 inches of rain.

Monday and Tuesday were chilly (highs in the 40s!).

Monday's FCB rehearsal was stressful. The business manager (BM) had made a comment to PB (the NFHS band director) that made PB think that we weren't going to be rehearsing on Monday, so she had her band kids stage out of the bandroom for their Festival trip. Which is perfectly fair! But it really messed with my evening. *I* wasn't going to try and move their gear. The stage was set for a choir concert, and while I'll move risers and music shells, I will *NOT* move a concert grand piano without permission (at the very least) and preferably supervision. (BM and PB are in text communication at this point, trying to figure out a space to use.) We wound up in the choir room, which is considerable smaller than the bandroom. But everyone fit (as did most of the percussion). We had to take every moveable table out of the room, and scrounge chairs from various storage places in the music wing. And then we rehearsed -- down one BSax and two Tubas, with a concert in one more rehearsal. Then we had to put everything back where we found it. gaaah! (I don't get paid enough to do that regularly!)

Tuesday we processed incoming ballots. Well, DC did incoming ballots, I did outgoing ballots (applications come by mail, through the voter system, and voters can come in and get them), and BC did bills. I scampered out the door at 4:40 to make it to the PO before the mail left at 5. (DC was not yet done processing the 120 ballots that had come in since Friday. She apparently came in on Wednesday to finish them up.)

Then I went to LCCB rehearsal. (Thank Ghu I'm not playing bari in that band this time around. I didn't realise how tired I was until I got halfway to rehearsal.) But music is a thing I do, so I rehearsed well and made a few notes on my music. At this point in the session -- the concert is Sunday! -- rehearsals are mostly just run-throughs and picky bits. (there are still a couple of notes I missed, so I made notes to myself on the music.)

Wednesday I slept in. Then I sorted in the workroom and did some more in the laundry room. I re-thought the boot tray positioning, and the tray that I bought will work, just in a different place. (Upon further thought, I realised that my original plan for it was a bad idea anyway....) And I got the box of mealworms (for the birds) out of the hall and into the laundry room.

Today is errands and an evening at Hill Auditorium, and hopefully a cart or two of stuff out of the gardens. Between things that need to be cut back because they're dead and weeds that need to be pulled, there's a lot of work to be done out there. Maybe I'll do the groceries after the concert -- Meijer is still open then. But I do have a couple of local stops, so I do have to go out. Sigh.

Annabelle has been curling up in her "winter" spots recently (the box by the back door, the corner of the sofa, the sunbeam in the upstairs East window), so I know that cooler weather is coming.

This morning, there was frost on the ground in exposed areas, and the birdbath had a 1/4" layer of ice on it. The pond, being much larger and with a fountain running in it, did not have any ice.

whew. That was a week.

At work, we mailed over 1000 ballots this week. Monday AM, we finished the accuracy testing (three different ballot styles each had to be tested in two tabulators, each test takes about 45 minutes). Then we started the process of getting the ballots ready to mail. ack. fortunately (fsvo), somebody has to take the flats of ready to mail ballots to the PO, so the day usually ends about 4:30. I took the last flats into the PO yesterday (Thursday), then came home and sat down for longer than it takes to put on socks & shoes!

Monday, I had rehearsal in Farmington, for which I leave about 5:15. It's a long drive, so I always check with Google to see the best route. This week, there was a 60 minute backup on my usual route. Yeah, I'm going the other way.

Tuesday, I had rehearsal in Howell, for which I leave about 6. I actually had time to make dinner between work and rehearsal!

Wednesday, I had to be at the HS in town at 4:30. That was a weird staffing day, as Wednesday is not a usual office day, so we all had something scheduled that day, but all at different times. I left work at 4, came home and changed into my Band Mom shirt and 'layers suitable for standing around outside until after 9pm', and dashed off to town to work the Marching Band Exhibition. I had actually only signed up for the second shift, but I went early, assuming that there would be something for me to do, and there was. The people who were supposed to be doing that task for the first shift were too busy yammering about band trips and the tours that the specialty groups could go on to do the task they were signed up for.

SR claimed that the theme song for Michigan high school band was "it's a small world", as it seemed that every time she'd come across a new director/clinician, they knew somebody that she or I had worked with. Wednesday's iteration of that was one of the Western Michigan graduate assistants played with the Farmington band during his gap year between BS and grad school.

He came up to me with a slightly perplexed look on his face "do you play bari sax?",
"yes, in a couple of community bands."
"which ones?"
"Farmington mostly, but also Livingston"
"I played with Farmington for a season. I thought you looked familiar."
(I mean, who expects to see someone you met in Farmington at a high school football field in Chelsea? His confusion was not surprising.)

One of the band directors (who's been at every one of the shows) pointed out that most of the kids on the field for this event weren't even born in 2008 when we held the first one. sigh.

In other news (hurricane Helene), the telephones to the senior complex where my mother lives are down. She lives near Greensboro, NC, so this is not actually surprising. The house phone here rang with a call from her number, and when I answered it there was nothing there. So I tried calling her back, and got a fast busy. Yeah, that system is down. I'll probably hear from her sometime next week. Meanwhile, I'll try not to worry. They're in a stable part of town, well up a hill, so I don't expect her to flood out, but they'll undoubtedly lose power (the emergency generators will run out of fuel, and they'll have to prioritize the rehab wing) and have already lost phone. The only real source of danger from Helene for them is tornado or general disruption. They're not in a high tornado threat area, but that is subject to change.

that is all.

Tuesday was a day. I left for work a bit early, because there was a work-related Zoom at 10am, "went" to the meeting, did the things I usually do on Tuesday, then we went into the rabbit hole that is "the ballots have arrived". Open the big shipping boxes, make sure that the correct boxes of ballots are in them, then open the boxes of ballots to make sure that *their* labels are correct. Then "fight" with the test chart site and Acrobat to get the test charts printed out ("this worked before!" "yeah, four years/one computer upgrade/two software versions ago. it doesn't work that way now."). Then two hours to make a test deck.

and then it was late to be leaving for rehearsal, and I still had to go home and get my instrument/music, because I hadn't planned on being at work until 6pm. Get to rehearsal about 15 minutes later than I usually do, but still before rehearsal starts. Play rehearsal, do teardown after (they rotate sections to do teardown, and this week was our turn). Stop at MickeyD's for something to eat; they're woefully understaffed and slow; finally get food and head home. Get nearly home, and the last major corner before home is blocked with lots of bright lights and haze and firemen and firehoses. Sigh. Even if they're done dealing with whatever it was, it'll be another 30 minutes before the intersection is clear. Turn around in a convenient driveway and go all the way around North Lake, thus completing the trifecta of small towns (Pinckney, Hell, Unadilla). Still don't know what happened at the corner -- I may find out Sunday at church.

I got home over 12 hours after I left for work. The cats were annoyed.