Ramblings of a rural(ish) geek

at least some of the time.

Woke up Sunday to 2"+ of fresh snow, and it continued to snow all day and in to Monday AM. By the time it was done, we had over 4" of snow on the ground. And then it got cold (12F Tuesday AM + 1" snow, 9F Thursday AM). Today will be much warmer (they're saying mid-50s), then we're back into "seasonal" temperatures.

The LCCB concert went pretty well. The quiet part worked out well. I played a little bit louder than I had been, and it seemed to balance well. The BC player got off by a couple of beats in Variations, so I had to choose whether I went with her or the upper winds.

other than that, a lot of same ol', same ol'. No yard work going on, except branch picking and birdbath leveling.

Digging through the boxes of stuff to be filed at work (catching up on *years* of clearing out files). They've got a guy in to design/spec a new office set up for us, so we're waiting on that. Getting new DC trained up and familiar with all the stuff she'll be doing.

now with added snow and cold (gosh, you'd think it was December or something). Yesterday there was a large hawk hanging out in the trees in the backyard. The only other birds out there were the sandhill cranes, who just don't care about hawks. Even the neighbors' chickens were staying in their pen.

I was late to FCB rehearsal on Monday -- traffic came to a halt on 96E, a quarter of a mile past an exit. The wreck was at the next exit, 2+ miles down the road. 30 minutes later, I get to the scene of the crash, and all that's left is a sedan about a foot narrower than it should be, a flatbed tow truck, two fire trucks, four police cars, and about 30 feet of missing guardrail. Roads were clear and dry, so I dunno....

LCCB rehearsal went pretty well (good thing, because the concert is Sunday!). There is one passage where I'm not gonna try for all the notes. I'll go for the afterbeats that the other two are missing, and say "good enuf". The biggest issue with the mambo bass line now seems to be the tempo that the director wants to take it at.

Have nearly wrapped up the November election. Tomorrow, I'll track down the last bits of information I need to submit the reimbursement request, and then I think I'll be done with that. whee!

Sunday starts the busy slog into the holidays. Two concerts, two rehearsals, two work meetings, one concert to usher, two days worth of baking because the day after the FCB concert we are off to NC to spend most of a week with Mum. And two different performances at church. One will be fine, one will not. Probably.

I got the NW garden cut back to just the things that have seeds or flowers still on them. I pulled the phlox (pulling it out in the fall gives the daffodils a chance to show off in the spring), cut back the coneflowers, and thinned the goldenrod. Because the phlox is so thick, and I never did get the daffodil leaves cleared in the spring, the soil out there was not rock-hard, so I was able to pull a lot of grass. It's sunny today, and I really should get out to the east garden and finish cutting back things there, but we actually got rain yesterday(!) and I don't want to walk in a wet garden. They tell us that it may rain some more this week, but dry on the weekend. When I have another concert, and a whole pile of Halloween decor to prep for it.

The Livingston halloween concert yesterday went pretty well. The french horns won the costume contest - they were "very French horns", and had wine bottles and baguettes and French flags and berets. We did our swan costumes, again. I suspect we'll be doing them until they stop making the swan hats. Some of us had 'baby swans' - the section leader wound up with two beanie baby swans, and gave one to me. I need to find a better way to wear it for next year -- I don't want to pin it to the hat, but the shoulder thing I came up with this year wasn't stable. Maybe a framework on the hat? We played music from a lot of Westerns, and I was wandering through the pet section at Meijer, and there was a cowboy outfit for a dog with a small black cowboy hat. I bought it for my swan....

I have been working on my FCB costume. Actually buying bits for it this year, because I just don't have time to build anything. To be fair, the bit I got this year is a wig, and those are hard to make.

BossClerk is really starting to look for a proper Deputy Clerk (one who lives in the township and can actually follow her as clerk), so I've been doing a lot of job tracking (it's 90% filing). The hard part of finding a Clerk is that it's really two jobs in one (Accounts Payable and Elections), no benefits, and for all that it's the highest paying job at the township hall, it's still not a lot of money.

three things version

garden - cleared the grass & chicory out of the overgrown bed where I want to put the hardy hibiscus that we missed in the spring; today I need to go out with a fork and get more of the roots out (and annoy the ant colony that's set up camp there). Watered the helianthus (perennial "sunflower") in the new bed. Today I need to go water the painted nettle that I'm going to move tomorrow, and water the space where it's going. We've had very little rain since early August, so things are very dry. Should also plan on moving the strawberries this weekend, but they also need to be watered before I move them

bands - two rehearsals this week. LCCB is in a different location for now (the space we usually use is under renovation), and it's very different. It's much smaller, the access is less good, and there is a building problem with the lighting, such that there's very little light in the room. During the school day, it's not such an issue, as there's windows around three sides of the room, but at night it's very dark. Apparently, people are complaining about the space. Bad Form, people, Bad Form. Yes, it's not what we usually have, but it's what we've got. *you* find somewhere for the band to rehearse. Farmington is in the usual place. BM, YA, and I made up a new layout last week. The bass clarinet player has been wondering if we could set up so that zie can hear the bsaxes better, so we tried something new. Worst case, Maestro hates it and has us change it back. unfortunately, it now means that I'm in the middle of the band which will make getting to my seat harder.

work - BC is discovering how much election work DC did. Ballots should be in next week, so I get to build a test deck/spreadsheet so that we can do the accuracy test before we send ballots out. And start stuffing envelopes. We did get the ballot mailing envelopes - ordered a *lot*, because they're not gonna change and they'll only get more expensive and we know there's at least two elections next year.

And the Bands are on a winning streak! If I'm keeping score correctly, each band has had one concert cancelled due to weather. It's been hot and rather icky for the last four concerts, but not raining nor "do not breathe outside", so they're a win!

I, however, have been flailing badly (by my standards, which means only a bit below average for the ensemble) at the Tuesday evening concerts. There are a number of factors for this, partly my 'real' job and partly leftover tired from Monday's FCB gigs which are always a lot of work (and driving. Cannot discount the extra tired one gets from driving home at twilight after doing physical work outside in 85F+ weather) and partly 'the last time I played this in concert I was playing an entirely different part'. It's almost as though I'm sight-reading the concert. I'm not *that* good at sight-reading.

First day of wearing my emergency-backup-Treasurer hat went fairly well. Four or five customers, one of whom knows the office staff well enough to know that I was 'out of position', as it were. (Treasurer had a community operations meeting to go to which overlaps with office hours, so she wasn't in the office until 11:30, and someone had to cover.) I took my laptop into her office, and did some of my work while I was there.

J is off to the Annual Picnic. I see lunchtime traffic on the Signal group.... Ji is only sulking a little bit. J was only home for a couple of weeks between excursions, and he kind of ignored Ji while he was here, so Ji has resigned himself to it. It is, however, still my fault that the weather's been "bad".

Sometime in the last couple of days, I cracked a toenail, and I didn't notice it until I wore my old Birks into town today. Ow! (I wore new Birks last night, and they're not as worn and don't push up on my toes as much.) Will have to be careful which shoes I wear to work tomorrow. sigh.

and two more appear; with even more lurking. Four boxes of papers to the shred bin, but I think that's mostly done, unless I find some extra copies of payroll lurking about (I found a couple yesterday when I was filing). BC went through the long-term storage, and pulled everything more than 8 years old, so now there's space in those drawers. BC is trying a new, eventually more efficient, method of preparing for the annual audit, but it's taking a bit of catch-up, and that's why my desk is buried under "originals to be filed", "copies to be filed", and "files to be copied then filed".

Construction on the new office space continues. The walls are done, the phone/network drops are done, carpet is down, floor registers are installed. Still need a thermostat and blinds and proper lights. And while the HVAC peeps have been working hard, they've still got a way to go. The rest of the runs and returns in the old space need to be installed, and they discovered a few more 'shortcuts' that need to be remediated. HVAC says that he should be able to move the furnace next week, so that's a big step toward completion. We've started discussing long-term storage plans for election infrastructure (voting booths, signage, privacy sleeves, mailing envelopes, etc) -- I think a couple of sturdy shop-grade shelving units will be fine. The stuff's not heavy, just bulky, and doesn't need "secure" storage. I think we should get a tiger cage for the ballots and election records (and bolt it to the exterior basement wall), but BC is dithering on that.

Neither band had rehearsal last week, so this week's rehearsals were fairly intense. I could wish that Livingston actually paid attention to dynamics without being reminded by the director. I'm getting a bit tired of Holst's First Suite, as both bands are playing it. The only saving grace is that Farmington is not really rehearsing it, more just doing play-throughs to get it "under our fingers" and get us familiar with the tempos he wants. Livingston wishes he could do that....

I did get the holiday lights out of the trees before it got cold, and discovered why one strand wasn't working -- the solar panel had fallen off the stake and was face down in the pine straw....

Ji is very annoyed with my inability to fix the weather. The wind we've been having makes it much less pleasant than it looks, and this annoys him. "what's this stuff! I didn't ask for cold breezes -- I want the sunny day I can see through the door!"

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.

(plus an indoor concert that, while an exercise in staging, is not subject to weather unless roads to the venue are flooded.)

Monday, the Farmington Band was outside at a Senior Housing complex. It was hot and sticky, but we were in the shade of a building. Somewhat unfortunately, the building blocked some of the (slight) breeze.

Tuesday, the Livingston Band was outside in downtown Howell. It wasn't quite as hot, nor as sticky. I, however, was showing the effects of three concerts in three days, and was off my game (I got the tricky bits, but the easy stuff I flailed at. Why is it so freaking hard to count in 2?!?). The audience outnumbered the band by a wide margin -- they were sitting in various shady places all around the amphitheater. We didn't play as well as we often do, but I bet that's because we haven't played since June....

Today has been an annoying day. I woke up with a headache, probably due to too much reading music outdoors without sunglasses and/or not enough water. Then, when I went out to deal with the birdfeeders, the Camry was making noises (fan noises, mostly) and there were lights on. I *KNOW* that everything was off last night when I closed the garage door, so I was perplexed. poke the Start button "No key detected" (fair enough, they're in the house), try again with the key. Nothing. The dash flickers a little bit. well, f#$K - the battery's dead. Turn the light control to "no DRL" from "Auto" and the right headlight and left running lights go off. get out of car, close door. "Smart Key failure" (erm, no. smart key _sensor_ failure, yes.)

Text J (who is, of course, 600+ miles away) "where's the battery charger?' First, we try the smart charger. Says the battery is at 6V. Well, there's your problem. Put the smart charger on the battery. 10 minutes later, it throws a "battery failure" alert. (Apparently the smart chargers sometimes don't work if the battery they're connected to is under about 9V.) Dig out Papa's old charger, the one that he built from a Heathkit kit in the early 70's. (hook that charger up. the engine fan that's been surging from 'only if you're listening for it' to 'why is that fan running' (WHY?) revs waaay up immediately after plugging the charger in. jump into front seat and poke Start button. Fan shuts off entirely. starter clicking noise also stops.) Get the battery charged to 10V so I can put the smart charger on it. Now it's up to about 12.5V, so I'm going to drive into town and back and see if it will start again. If not, I guess I call the dealer and say "WTF?" If it does, I go to the gas station on the corner, then run into A2 so that the battery is charged. Then cross my fingers that the same thing won't happen tonight.

UPDATE: drove into town (the long way) and back again, turned the car off in the driveway. Came in to the house, did a couple of things, went back out to see if it would start. Yay! it did. So off to the corner store for gas, and back again. Now I hope that it starts in the morning so I can go to work. (We often buy gas at the corner store because an abandoned gas station on the corner is worse than a gas station on the corner. And really, they're not that much of a problem. The lights are good downlights, so that the only time we really get any skyglow from them is when it's been raining and the parking lot is wet and reflective; they're not open really early or really late; and it's far enough from anywhere that the "kids" don't hang out in the parking lot all afternoon.)

Despite the heat advisory on Tuesday night, the Livingston concert in Fowlerville went on. Tuesday evening was cooler and drier than it's been the rest of the week, and there was a nice breeze. The trees in the park there are getting big enough that there was enough shade for the audience - the band is under a pavilion, which is nice for purposes of heat mitigation, but not-so-nice for purposes of playing for an audience. The sound goes up into the pavilion roof and bounces around, and not all of it gets out to the audience. OTOH, they keep inviting us back. :)

DC and I got the first set of ballots into the mail today, after altogether too much faffing around figuring out how to get the state voter database to do what we wanted it to do. The method that they suggest is intended for large jurisdictions with 5K voters per precinct and multiple full-time clerks; not little townships with under 2.5K voters and three less-than-half-time clerks. Once we got it figured out, I don't think it's any slower than the "old" way, but getting to that point was way more confusing than it should have been. Didn't help any that my label printer had somehow gotten only mostly unplugged, so it looked connected but actually wasn't. And it was both ends of that cable....

J has been busy with a friend's car and working on some much needed repairs at the parsonage (things that probably should have been done 15 years ago and *still* aren't done). It seems as though they've also recruited him to be a non-hostile IT person.

I guess that if I have to pick a week to be at work every day, the week that it's too hot to work outside is a good one. I don't feel as guilty. :) And, honestly, even the weeds don't like it when it's this hot. :) We do get more birds when it's hot -- they don't want to wast time flying around looking for food, they just come here where they know there's food *and* water.

A whole lotta same ol' same ol'.

The Bureau of Elections held a virtual seminar on Election Security. It was pretty much useless, but it was better than an inperson training, because I was able to get envelopes prepped for mailing ballots later in the month. It was either stuff I already knew; vague and hand-wavium (X is a possible threat, consult your IT/local law enforcement/insurance agent); or policies/procedures that need to be set by the township board.

I got into the garden a little bit, but the best days for yardwork were early in the week when I don't have enough spoons to do yardwork on top of the other things.

I picked a few strawberries! Quite early, but we didn't get a freeze or frost in the last part of May, and it was warm. I need to go out there today and see if there are any more. It's only the first bearing year for this planting, and there's only a dozen plants, so I don't expect much. But I can get more at the Farmer's Market this week.

The Livingston band had a gig on Saturday afternoon. In South Lyon. I went surface streets, because there's a lot of construction between here and there. There were 35 people in the band (out of the 60+ at rehearsal on Tuesday), and I was the bass line. (The only tuba player was there because his daughter said "Dad, we need a tuba player today", and he was sight reading most of the concert.) It went reasonably well, and people seemed to enjoy it. (and the band got paid, which is always good.)

My filing system for Livingston music needed to be upgraded (it's outgrowing the current arrangement), and it turns out that it's significantly cheaper and quicker to order from the Staples storefront on Amazon than it is to order from Staples directly, even if I pick it up in-store.

I skipped the Farmington band picnic on Sunday, because when I checked the traffic maps, they were telling me it'd be 75-90 minutes one way. erm, no. (especially since I have to go to Farmington twice this week anyway.)