Update for everyone: I'll probably be out of hospital some time next week.

This question is one that hits me very directly as it is connected to my permanent condition as an Autistic... We in the Autistic Spectrum tend very much to overemphasize our shortcomings and belittle our capabilities - it's just one of the expressions of how our brain is functioning. I don't say that only we experience this; but most of us are more prone to thinking we are not good enough than Neurotypicals. I'm looking at my own example: I finished my Leaving certificate with best marks, being third in a class of 129; I completed undergraduate university in record time with an MA in history as third of a class of 355. I then completed my PhD in record time - less than a year - coming second in a class of 88. And yet I always sought after becoming better still because being second was already a cause for depression - I was simply unable to put my achievements in relation to what others managed to do. Even when I reached the absolute pinnacle of my chosen profession and was awarded a Professorship in Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, I was not content. I could not strive for more, but there was that nagging thought I was not good enough... it ended with a divorce and deep depression; several years of therapy which did not help me at all because the therapists did not recognize the root of the problem, i.e. my Autism (and please forget everything about Rain Man and similar movies: There are such people about, but they are at most one % of the Spectrum). Only when one clever psychiatrist, at the goading of my wife, took the trouble of testing me for Autism did I suddenly receive the master key to everything that had ever happened in my life, and to my own mind. Since then, I have found the key to compromise and happiness; and now, I am not driven any more to try and reach unattainable goals, but am content to be what I am, and - in music - to be a good player within my own comfort zone. I still try to do as well as I can; but I now accept my own limitations while still trying to improve. And I am happy that way.

Hope you could make some sense out of this.

Well, after mourning TM and my hard-earned status as fortissimo user, I'm here.

@BigDub In a local paper: "The inventor of Autocorrect just pissed away. He was an anthole. Restaurant in pieces."

@bigdub Sir Thomas Beecham is best remembered for this incident... He loved to mingle with the audience in Covent Garden during the interval. One day a guy rushed into him and without apology, asked him where the loo was. Sir Thomas told him to follow a certain passage, adding, "The first door is labelled "Ladies". Don't go in there. The second door is labelled "Gentlemen". Go in there nevertheless."

Two trumpet players in Rome, in the only caffè possible!
barliman2001, left, and ssmith1226, right.

Suddenly, after a longish wait, I found "Global Moderator" beside my name... well, quite a few people here know about me from TM, but for all those who don't or who did not really care at the time, here's all about me. I don't have a fancy website - more or less because I'm busy updating my wife's website. But here's everything of interest about me:
I'm a 53-year-old Bavarian (well, German national, but I prefer my local tribe) living in Austria, near Vienna. Married to an opera singer (www.reginaschoerg.com). By trade, I am a historian.
My musical past consisted of children's choir, then the local church choir and finally, after studying voice with several renowned teachers, soloist with the Passau Cathedral Choir and the Dublin Guinness Choir. From age four, I played piano - did not really like it, but was good at it.
Until I accidentally put my hand through a glass door and cut a nerve. Fortunately, the same year I had won my first trumpet in a raffle... went on to Kinneil Band in Scotland (current British National Champions!), then back to Germany. Seven years in Ireland, playing with a number of brass bands and the Greystones Symphony, eventually conducting this orchestra. Since then, Principal Trumpet of the one and only Vienna Klezmer Orchestra (www.klezmerorchester.at) and webmaster for Munich-based Markus Fluhr Big Band (www.bbmf.de).
So far, I have performed on trumpet in twelve different countries and a total of 97 orchestras or bands (usually as a sub). I have been known to pack the car at a moment's notice and drive several days just for one interesting gig...
My finest moment in history? When I walked into a Vienna coffee house and they had a clarinet converted into a table lamp!

Feel free to contact me - I'm sure to answer.

Three important points:

1. I would be extremely honoured if Rowuk were to consent to share the Holy Office of Moderatorship.

2. I acknowledge that administrators are human beings with all human failings. But perhaps the administrator could be persuaded to open a second account as "admin - private" to voice those topics he/she/it can't address in an official capacity. Then we could soundly abuse him without abusing the office...

3. The main reason for the disappearance of TM was that no one knew who the admin was, where the community was based and how to access the server and such small technical details. I am not aware that the situation as to TB is in any way different. If we don't want to have the same thing happen to TB, we need to make sure someone else apart from the admin knows how to manage things in case the admin has toothache or the runs or is incapacitated by the three main reasons why trumpet players disappear: Drink, Dungeon or Death.

@Dr-GO
Old chestnut... Two guys are carrying a grand piano up a skyscraper - the lift was too small. Finally, on the 29th floor, one guy says to the other, "I've got good and bad news for you." - "What's the good?" - "We're on the correct floor." - "And the bad?" - "We're in the wrong house."

Our dear friend Gordon once sent me a gift package with several cornets in it: A Buescher Aristocrat that to this day is my main axe in jazz, an Elkhart by Buescher that's middle of the road but unusual for its pig's tail wrap, and a King Tempo that was absolutely airtight. I tried everything - washing through, snake, spitballs... nothing worked. Finally, in desperation, I gave it to Votruba's. And they put their endoscope inside and as a result unsoldered the bell. What did they find? An ancient wad of chewing gum that someone had rammed down the bell.

If the Blackburn is your dream horn, by all means get it. But be prepared - your dream horn may become a nightmare.
I'll just tell a few tales from my experience.
Many years back, a corno da caccia was my dream horn. And then, during a historians' conference in Leipzig, I stumbled upon Friedbert Syhre's workshop, and he had one just finished and ready for sale. Silver plated, with gold accents. I talked to my bank manager on the phone for about three hours, and bought it five minutes before the shop closed for the weekend, for something like $ 3,500. I had found my dream horn!
And then I slowly realized I would not be able to use it much. I was not good enough at that time to play the original music written for the corno da caccia, and there were literally no chances at all to use it in orchestra. I played it once or twice in local church orchestras, doubling for French horn. But for more than nine years, it lived a very quiet, secluded life in its case.
Until someone really needed one to replace one stolen during a rehearsal, and I sold it on for less than $ 1,000, just to have it played.

Then, for many years, a Scherzer G picc was my dream horn. I saved all I could for about five years to be able to get a new one, finally bought one; nice horn, loved the sound... found an orchestra that wanted me as a soloist for the Torelli concert and as an orchestral principal trumpet for the Haendelujah (me with the Scherzer) , and I practised like mad, only to overdo things and lapse into pneumonia two weeks before the planned concert... had to take time off to recuperate, by which time the concert had been played by a sub. I used it for some more time, sparingly, until one day, after a playing break of about two weeks, I took it out of its case and the valves were frozen and I could not do anything with them, had to get them repaired and had that reoccur several times. And when Maurice André's will left me a Selmer high-G and I found that easier to play, it went its way to a new owner.
Two or three years after getting the Scherzer, I had acquired a Besson Kanstul 920 picc. Wonderful instrument, and they tell me I sounded really good on it. No problems - except that I had set my mind on a Stomvi. So I sold the Besson in part-exchange. The Stomvi was nice, no doubt about it; but somehow, it was not the instrument for me. I needed much more lip pressure than with the BessonK, put too much hand pressure on the valve cluster and thus got the valves to stick... ! Pic shows me with the BessonK.
I can tell stories like this about many of my dream horns. All of the horns I play now are horns that happened upon me somehow, without me really planning to get them, like my Courtois 154R flugel which I acquired at a trade fair when the Courtois people had a few instruments left over which they did not want to take back with them; so my advice is, don't search for a specific horn, but look around for anything that drifts your way; try, try and try again, and at some time, your dream horn will find you.

@trumpetb Can't do anything about the software, I'm afraid...

@rowuk As usual, you are correct.

@jolter So far, one member got banned for abusive comments, and one or two left of their own for other shores.

@trumpetb Welcome! enjoy yourself!

I once met HM, many, many years ago (around 1990), at the official opening of an exhibition about the Domesday Book in the Public Record Office (now National Archives) in London... I was there for the exhibition which enabled me to view many documents that I needed for my PhD thesis in one place instead of spread out all over the country... so I had planned to be there on Day One and stay as long as needed. I was in the exhibition hall when suddenly a group of obvious security officials appeared, a red carpet was unrolled and a tape was slung across the entrance - mind you, there were about fifteen visitors already inside because the exhibition had opened at 9 am and by this time, it was 11 - then the Keeper of the Records arrived, in full robes and panoply, a couple of other officials lined up, and then HM arrived, in a pigeon-blue costume with matching hat. Someone dropped on one knee to present HM with a cushion with the scissors on it, and she cut the tape and declared the exhibition opened, and proceeded down the hall to see the exhibits, most importantly the first volume of the Domesday Book dating back to 1068... and had to pass me. She addressed me with " So why are you so keen on the exhibition that he could not wait for me to open it?" and I stammered something about not knowing that there would be an official opening. "Why shouldn't there be?" was her reply, " Anyway, success to your research." and was gone.

@rowuk I haven't done it since the comments began.

The Ambassador being the Beginners' Model at Olds, I don't expect they made anything but Bb instruments in that line. But the instruments being what they are - reliable, almost indestructible and yet cheap to get, many, many people have tried their hands at changing them into whatever pitch was required. I once even saw an Ab conversion - for a benighted guy who had started playing concert pitch in one of those German Lutheran trombone choirs, and did not want to learn transposing for whenever he was playing in a "normal" band...

@jolter You would be astonished to see what things Americans (and British!) can get up to... friends of mine in Wales have banded together as "The Heidelberger Boys", playing German oompah music (not Volksmusik!!) at all kids of venues - they eeven played a mid-July "Octoberfest" at a British Regimental Reunion!
https://www.facebook.com/thebavarianband/videos/407999127615120