Concerts, work, and the house

I played in my first couple of concerts last week. Three of the 7 pieces had tuba parts.

Finlandia - Sibelius
Overture for Romeo and Juliet - Tchaikovsky
Name unknown - Gabrielli brass chorale

The second concert was better than the first. Overall, we played pretty well. The kids and Amy probably had never seen me play in a real concert. Paul, Katherine, and Dylan came too. It was a fun time.

Work is going well for me. I've complained a lot about it in the past so I'm just lending an update. It seems to go better when I care less about it. I have other interests in life and that seems to provide me with some needed balance.

The work on our house is finally done. We have some clean-up and painting to do. It looks great. At some point, we will put up some before and after shots.

I hear that Nicole and Derek are living at 39 Plantation. That's kind of weird but cool. I hope that Worcester can handle them. ;-)

Graduation and Tuba lessons

Congratulation Kid-Rolla on graduating. You are all edjumacated now. Officially, the way we count in our house, you are smarter than me. Why? Because you went to more school. I'm the smartest in our house because I went to my school.

I took my first tuba lesson in 20 years. That's right, you heard me. I said twenty years. It went okay. Also, I played my first concert in only slightly less time. And I didn't suck. In fact, I played pretty well. The orchestra sounded good for a bunch of amateurs. On all but one piece, I think we played our best.

It is the first music lesson I've ever had from someone younger than me. That too was a little weird. I am back to a lot of basic stuff. But that's what I want. I want to go back to the basics and build up a little. Later, I can think a little more about artistry and skillz.

040106

kid-rolla graduates in 8 days.

i'm just sayin is all.

Genealogy

Welcome to Cha-linka. You can't really spell her name without a couple clicks in the middle that are very hard to spell in English.

We have friends out here in the KC who are Canadian and very into genealogy. Turns out, if you they have a French last name in the New World, there is a good chance they are a cousin in some way. A relatively small number of French people immigrated to the New World.

I've had a passing interest in geneaology, but it has been stoked a bit. Two things I've learned recently. Grandma's line is much easier to trace. And the Sullivan line to Ireland is fairly direct to Killarney. Yes, it sounds like a made up place but it isn't.

As for all those people who talk smack about their ancestors and the Mayflower or Daughters and Sons of the Revolution, you have to go back 12 generations (late 1600s - early 1700s) from what I can see to trace back the Old World. I haven't figured out how to integrate some of this information into anything useful but a cursory glance confirms the suspicion that many of the ancestors did come from Normandy, Brittany and the Loire valley. I'll post the info at some point.