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While our cleaning person cleaned the house, I spent the day in the basement sorting and filing music. I had about 40 new items to file and filled about 2.5 large bins full of our choir music. There’s still a bit more to do so, while we’re watching TV and DVD’s and sipping sparkling wine, I’ll finish off this sorting business on this New Year’s Eve.

I ran my usual route ~10km today and didn’t feel any untoward effects from having given blood yesterday. BTW, yesterday’s numbers were BP: 130/76 and BPM: 71. Maybe yesterday’s day off and being perched on a folding chair for most of today gave me extra energy. The question is: will I make it to midnight?

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I’m about 500 ml short of blood today. Maybe that’s why I’m tired or maybe it’s the late hour of the day. As always, there’s a few more diseases on the have-you-ever-had list including Chagas’ disease, babesiosis and leishmaniasis. And SARS was an extra checkbox this time, too. The nurse asked me 19 AIDS/HIV/risky sex questions, which I answered in the negative.

We had my younger son and his girlfriend over for supper. I had promised a barbecue earlier this week but my son went to his cousin’s this morning and didn’t get back until 4:30 p.m. We had assumed the supper engagement had been forgotten. So, we picked up Swiss Chalet instead of our intention to have the other half of that baked beans recipe.

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From The FunnyMailer.

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Using the left over ham bone from the ham my cousin served at her party on Boxing Day, my wife made a great batch of “made from scratch” baked beans. She called in my in-laws and we had a feast tonight. Now I find myself tilting every so often, but, hey, there’s no else around to bother at the moment. And, apparently, beans are good for the heart, and, as for the flatulence, it doesn’t bother me. You just avoid those types of food before you go out among a crowd of people such as singing in a choir concert, for example.

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I have added the GeoURL button so that you can find out who’s near me. See the site for further details.

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Best Gift

My older son gave me a snow shovel with a diagonally attached handle and a snow plow shape. I should be more effective for cleaning the two car driveway and that mound of snow the snowplow leaves behind. It’s the twisting, lifting and shovelling which is hard on your back and your heart. When plowing you are just using your body weight to push the snow aside. Now, if it does snow anytime soon, I’ll let you know how it works out.

Human Nature

About an hour after I annouced the new company web site I had one guy come over saying, I notice Bob’s area of expertise wasn’t mentionned in our departmental write-up. Another person sent an email that didn’t I know that the our company has the biggest “xyz” lab around. Hello people! The woman writing the content for our site has been asking around for at least the last six months for things to write about for our web site. Now that the site’s been improved, they finally realize that their department’s input is missing.

Christmas Eve Solo

I sang O Holy Night “a cappela” this year. The, ah, “organist” had never seen this arrangement and initially started off in the wrong clef — sounded awful. Then, there’s not enough room on the organ console to play with two hands in the bass clef so we moved to the piano. She still could hardly play it. So I sang without accompaniment to the 20 or so persons who came to the 10 p.m. Christmas Eve communion service. My only real mistake was starting a third too low. Instead of the key of B I effectively sang it in G, a bit low for my voice, but only my wife would have aware of the problem.

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'Twas two days after Christmas,
and all through the house,
Every creature was hurtin',
even the mouse.
The toys were all broken,
their batteries dead;
Santa passed out,
with some ice on his head.
Wrapping and ribbons
just covered the floor,
While upstairs the family,
continued to snore.
And I in my T-shirt,
new Reeboks, and jeans,
Went into the kitchen
and started to clean.
When out on the lawn
there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the sink
to see what was the matter.
Away to the window,
I flew like a flash,
Tore open the curtains,
and threw up the sash.
When what to my wondering
eyes should appear
But a little white truck,
with an oversized mirror.
The driver was smiling,
so lively and grand,
The patch on his jacket
said "CANADA POSTman."
With a handful of bills,
he grinned like a fox,
Then quickly he stuffed
them into our mailbox.
Bill after bill,
after bill they still came,
Whistling and shouting,
he called them by name.
"Now Zeller's, now Wal-Mart,
now Old Navy and Sears,
Here's Visa, MasterCard,
Home Sense and Pier's."
"To the tip of your limit,
every store, every mall,
Now charge away, charge away,
charge away all."
He whooped and he whistled
as he finished his work;
he filled up the box,
and turned with a jerk.
He sprang to his truck,
and he drove down the road,
Driving much faster now,
with just half a load.
Then I heard him exclaim,
with great holiday cheer,
"Enjoy what you got...
You'll be paying all year!"

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Almost everybody showed up at my in-law’s Christmas dinner last night: about 22 I think, spanning four generations. The food was great once again. This year my mother-in-law was more than ably assisted by my wife and her sisters. Yes, one of “the kids” could host it as we do at Easter, mid-summer or Thanksgiving but it just wouldn’t be the same at Christmas-time. It’s a good thing that I have received more running clothes: all those extra sweets and full meal calories need to be worked off over the next week or so while I’m on holidays.

This afternoon and evening it’s off to my cousin’s for another family party. She lives about 15 minutes away — no 401 traffic jams to suffer through. Though I do like a white Christmas, I have enjoyed (and been thankful for) the great driving conditions in the past couple of days. Tomorrow the forecast is for 8°C.

Today’s image features a turkey, naturally. I have had several servings this week, already. Though it’s hard to see in this thumbnail image the carving knife is backwards!

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Earlier this week, say Sunday, I thought today would be a quiet one. We’ve now been invited out to my aunt and uncle’s in Port Hope for supper. Then the four of us will sing at my uncle’s church for the family Christmas Eve service. I proposed “Away in a Manger,” with music by Victor Mio, a member of the Bell’Arte Singers. It’s kind of short notice and my wife and I haven’t performed this piece with the choir since Christmas, 1999. I also suggested “In the Bleak Midwinter” or “All Poor Ones and Humble.” At the later Christmas Eve communion service my aunt has asked me to sing “O Holy Night.” I’m happy to oblige: I’ve sang this at almost every Christmas time for the past, oh, going on 30 years. In fact, I bought my own copy just a couple of years ago though I don’t remember singing it last Christmas and there’s no marks in the music.

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To the tune of Winter Wonderland…

All my movements have cancelled,
Sum of forces is equal,
I’m fully inert, and doing no work,
Here in static equilibrium.

Every push meets another,
Every pull has a counter.
The state I allude is true lassitude,
Here in static equilibrium.

All my forces balance out exactly,
You can even put me to the test.
Push me out in any old direction,
And you’ll find I’ll no longer be at rest.

Can’t you see that I’m happy?
Sitting here, calm and mellow.
Don’t want to go home, so leave me alone.
Here in static equilibrium.

From Clean Laffs email.

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When I was young we used to go “skinny dipping,” now I just “chunky dunk.”

Unknown

As seen in Clean Laffs email.

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The church was full; perhaps, 500 persons. I think the choir did a great job. The maestro likes to play with the tempi from time to time which seemed to throw the orchestra more than the choir. Personally, I only ran into a couple of timing difficulties just because I know Handel’s Messiah and Vivaldi’s Gloria so well. For example, the maestro changed the tempo while our part wasn’t singing so I missed an entrance because I was going from memory rather than watching him and the score.

What I also found interesting during the dress rehearsal, was how professionally he treated the choir — just like instrumentalists. Unlike instrumentalists, who just press the same valve or bow the string in the same place, the voice is dynamic thing. He expected us to come in on pitch after a minute or two of discussing a problem. In our choir I think there may be a couple of members who have perfect pitch: and one of them is away this season! We did fine, mostly because the majority of us have sung the works before. Perhaps I should say we all have good “memorized” pitch.

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I started this project to “renovate” the company web site way back at the beginning of the summer. The initial understanding and refactoring of the scripting took about a month. But through one thing and another it took quite awhile for the content to be written and management to review and approve the changes so I could upload the stuff. Eventually it all happened this week. I will be just too busy this weekend to do the changes so I stayed late at work tonight. Uploading the scripting and testing took about 3/4 of an hour, while roughly another two hours was spent uploading new menus, sections and content pages. Perhaps I’m fortunate that most of the staff have started their holidays by now. The complaints, if any, won’t be rolling in until 2004. We’ll also see what the search engines and web site statistics have to say about the new design.

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What can I say, I’m a guy and I left it late but there’s still a week to go until Christmas. Of course, last week I had 3 rehearsals and two concerts. Anyway, I bought “something nice” for my wife and, if she doesn’t like it, then, with the receipt, it’s kind of like a gift certificate for that store. I’m glad I wasn’t dragging along some kids, or shopping with my sisters, and my cousins, and my aunts.

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In the article Head injuries in nursery rhymes: evidence of a dangerous subtext in children’s literature there’s a poem:

A Medically Sound Nursery Rhyme

Little Johnny rode his bike,
No helmet on his head.
He took a fall and split his skull,
His mother feared him dead.

She rushed him to the ER,
Where they checked his neuro signs.
They noted a blown pupil
And inserted IV lines.

They called the neurosurgeon,
Who came in and drilled a burr.
Now Johnny’s fine; he rides his bike,
But he’s helmeted, for sure.

It’s good to know that doctors can be even more nerdy than engineers!

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In the it’s-obvious-to-me department, this article refers to a study at McMaster U. Men make irrational decisions when presented with “pretty women” choices. Women don’t make the same choices about handsome men. Or was it males who were conducting the study and their definition of handsome men isn’t the same as a female. Whatever. I know I have made a few kooky moves in my life because of pretty women but fortunately they are just funny incidents which would be too embarassing to relate. There’s no lost money or a wrecked marriage.

Besides, writing this little article gives me a chance to put a picture of a pretty woman beside it. The CBC used a not very pretty picture of Julia Roberts.

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Well not really the first snow, but the first substantial snow fall of 10 - 15 cm. Slowed my run by about 8 min. today. I like the cushioning on the hard pavement but it does take a bit more energy to propel yourself at each step. I hope the sidewalk plows have cleared along the Burhamthorpe Road bridge over the Credit River; otherwise, I’ll be walking on the road in the morning. And sending an e-mail to City Hall.

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I thought the OCS performed well on Friday night and last night. The director, Bev Stainton, does an amazing job with the “raw” talent, mostly un-auditioned singers who make up the choir. Through hard work, voice placement, humourous cajoling and, very occasionally, some stern admonishments he gets a good, blended sound out of everyone. Three of us from the The Bell’Arte Singers, comprising two section leaders and the concert accompanist, do our part. I never realized that part of being a Section Leader is a lot of concentration, especially during a concert. Unlike an auditioned, semi-professional choir, you can’t rely on the people next to you for some of the entrances and pitches: that’s your full-time job for those couple of hours. For these two concerts, I also did a couple of solos with the choir — keeps the mind challenged and the voice timbre limber. Well done OCS. I hope they made their 15% more audience goal.

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While I’m having a post-concert beer, crackers and cashews I thought I’d jot down some notes.

• I stayed home to take a half day off and a half day of work. Turns out the work took more than half a day. At least I slept in and rested my voice for those solos I did tonight. An E above middle C at 8:30 p.m. sounds much better after waking up after 8:00 a.m. than waking up with the alarm at 6:20 a.m. as I normally do.
• There’s a new link on our corporate web page because they want the mobile workers and salesmen to read their email on the web rather than having to lug a laptop and use expensive hotel internet hook-ups and VPN connections. I put that link and the web page it points to on the web site today. Slowly, but surely, they are inching ahead to approve my new design for the site.
• Our borrowed copies of the Missa Solemnis by Franz Liszt came from Hungary last week. I’ll hand them to BAS members at the two rehearsals with the Scarborough Phil' this week.

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From T H E . M O U T H P I E C E Tuesday, December 9, 2003. Hmmm, it looks like I’m older than dirt.

Count all the ones that you remember - not the ones you were told about!

Ratings at the bottom.

1. Blackjack chewing gum
2. Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water
3. Candy cigarettes
4. Soda pop machines that dispensed bottles
5. Coffee shops with tableside jukeboxes
6. Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers
7. Party Telepnone Lines
8. Newsreels before the movie
9. P.F. Flyers
10. Butch wax
11. Telephone numbers with a word prefix (Olive 4 - 6933)
12. Peashooters
13. Howdy Doody
14. 45 RPM records
15. S&H Green Stamps [I remember Loblaws in Canada had these.]
16. Hi-fi’s
17. Metal ice trays with lever
18. Mimeograph paper
19. Blue flashbulb
20. Packards and Hudsons
21. Roller skate keys
22. Cork popguns
23. Drive-ins
24. Studebakers
25. Wash tub wringers

And you are…

• 0-5 = young
• 6-10 = getting older
• 11-15 = Don’t tell your age, Darling…
• 16-25 = older than dirt!

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It is always gratifying to see a large crowd in the audience — especially at Christmas when that only but augment the warm sound of audience carols. This year everyone was accompanied by the Hannaford Street Silver Band and our organist/accompanist, Ted, at the console (more on that latter). My Mom attended despite having had two hours sleep after her bus trip back from New York City due to that snow storm on the eastern seabord. The candlelight was pretty though maybe it was drafts or, shall we say, sub-standard candles that generated more wax drips than they burned.

Robert Fisher read some excerpts from the Dickens' A Christmas Carol giving us a much abreviated version. I’m sure most of know the story by now. My recent memory is of the Muppet version with old Scrooge being played by Michael Caine: our kids watched that video a lot the year they got that.

The choir sang great I modestly submit. ) There were some note and timing problems but as they occured (I think!) during loud brass or organ bits I don’t believe anyone except another music director or skilled chorister (who has done the repertoire recently) would have noticed. The organ gave Ted problems with a stuck note (cipher) during the dress rehearsal. It happened again during performance, this time a 16' note. In fact it was so low in pitch that I thought, at first, that it was 60 cycle hum feedback from the sound system. Ted finally had to “reboot” by shutting off the organ completely. After restarting we were fortunate that it didn’t happen again. According to Ted this is a “not so good” 50’s post-war model. They built lots of them but quality wasn’t all that great and it is mucho expensive to fix as the problem could be in the keys, the action, the pipe valving, etc.

Merry Christmas on behalf of the Bell’Arte Singers!

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A Scotsman, a sheep, and a dog were survivors of a terrible shipwreck. They found themselves stranded on a desert island. After being there for awhile, they got into the habit of going to the beach every evening to watch the sun set.

One particular evening, the sky was a fiery red with beautiful cirrus clouds, the breeze was warm and gentle; a perfect night for romance.

And, as they sat there, the sheep started looking better and better to the Scotsman.

Soon, he leaned over to the sheep and put his arm around it. But the dog got jealous, growling fiercely until the Scotsman took his arm from around the sheep. They continued to enjoy the sunset together, but there was no more cuddling.

A few weeks passed by and, lo and behold, there was another shipwreck. The only survivor was a beautiful young woman, the most beautiful woman the Scotsman had ever seen. She was in a pretty bad way when they rescued her, and they slowly nursed her back to health.

When the young maiden was well enough, they introduced her to their evening beach ritual. It was another beautiful evening: red sky, cirrus clouds, a warm and gentle breeze; perfect for a night of romance.

Pretty soon, the Scotsman started to get “those feelings” again. He fought them as long as he could, but he finally gave in and leaned over to the young woman, cautiously, and whispered in her ear…

“Would you mind taking the dog for a walk?”

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In celebration of my wife turning one year better yesterday, I took her, my older son and his lovely partner out to Milestone’s. We had great meals and my wife got a complimentary slice of cheesecake and no annoying birthday antics from the staff.

Today is my last “free” evening until Sunday.The one after that is next Wednesday and after that it’s the following Sunday. All the other evenings are taken up with choir rehearsals and three concerts. Blog entries may be less frequent for a while.

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The so-called “Domain Registry of Canada” sent a “Domain Name Expiration Notice” to me. They don’t manage my domain — they just troll the whois databases and send these fake notices. Being a private individual (read “cheap”) I don’t want to pay for a stamp on the envelope. They don’t even have the guts to have a street address: just a P.O. box. What a great scam for a web server and a colour laser printer! Their web site (I won’t dignify their operation by even linking to it.) compares their prices with the two most expensive registrars they can find. Sure, and my Buick is cheaper than a Mercedes or a BMW. For the price they are charging I’d expect free hosting thrown in and not just DNS and email forwarding. The whois info on this company is interesting: a numbered company with no public contact info. What are they trying to hide?

Domain droc.ca
Organization 1446513 Ontario Limited o/a Domain Registry of Canada
Registrar Canadian Registry Services (1489099 Ontario Inc.)
Renewal Date 2004/08/08
Date approved 2003/08/28
Last changed 2003/08/28
Description Domain name registration has now been de-regulated. This means that you now have the
choice of who you wish to renew or purchase your domain name with, resulting in great savings for
the consumer. You can save up to $90.00 by renewing with the Domain Registry of Canada. Your
current registrar has been charging you the prices listed above for your domain name services. Visit our
site to review how much you’ll save by renewing your name with the Domain Registry of Canada,
Canada’s fastest growing Domain Registrar.
Registrar Number 322079
Registrant Number 323545
Domain Number 323545
DNS1
dns1.name-services.com
DNS2
dns2.name-services.com
DNS3
dns3.name-services.com
DNS4
dns4.name-services.com

Perhaps I’ll shred the notice and send them the confetti.

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