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

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."

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."

Just to clear up things before any misunderstandings crop up.

In the thread about graduate schools Dr. Mark became unnecessarily and personally abusive to Kehaulani. He was asked to apologize and avoid abusive language (in a Private Message), was then warned publicly and became directly abusive to me and refused to adhere to the Rule of Respect. He left one last very abusive message and left.

The Good Lord told Man, "I am going to create women for you, beautiful, obedient, and submissive. And you will find them in all four corners of the world."
And then he made the world round, and laughed.

Selling my stepson's Benge 7 which he hasn't played for six years (I have, but it just isn't my horn). See https://www.facebook.com/commerce/listing/533895751132122/?media_id=0&ref=share_attachment

Not quite blasphemous, but definitely out of the ordinary...

I've had my fill of Cs... I started off with a Bach C/Bb combo which was out of tune as a Bb and even more out of tune as a C. It only started working when I added an A and even an Ab slide... Fortunately, a friend of mine borrowed it for a theatre job and managed to get it stolen. The insurance paid up ande that pqaid for a Bach rotary C. Nice horn, but not universally useable and rather a hard blow. I had a couple of Besson Mehas afterwards - the Bbs are good, on the verge of fantastic, but the Cs are quirky and extremely mouthpiece sensitive. I then went for a Couesnon C/Bb combo: Easy for the C, with a nice sound, but almost a peashooter on Bb. Anything below the stave is sharp. Another C rotary crossed my path when a friend asked me to advise him as to a rotary C with all the trimmings, NOT a Lechner (he had a colleague who always flaunted his gold-plated Lechner), with a budget of $ 6,000. I had Votruba of Vienna build him a gold-plated, three Vienna keys rotary C, with four different leadpipes - the works - and supervised the build for him. It turned out "the best C I ever played, and it easily outplays the Lechner", at a final price tag of $ 5,400 including shipping. resulting in the other guy selling his Lechner and ordering another Votruba... Another friend of mine has an Inderbinen Alpha C - costly, but not for me. and recently I came upon a Gaudet C. Thiw was the "second choice" brand of Antoine Courtois, horns that had some kind of optical glitch like missed bits of lacquering or an unaligned water key - things like that. The valve block is correctly stamped "Courtois". And that has been m go-to C for the last five years. Nice, mellow tone, yet caqn strip paint if you want to do so; perfectly in tune; and an easy, precise blow. One of the few horns that will only come on the market if you shoot me first - But I've always been a fast draw...

When I was still playing the piano - my mother's instrument of choice, and before I luckily cut one of the nerves in my right hand and was unable to continue - this marking was explained to me as portato, meaning "staccato, but not quite so short", separate notes, but not hacked into the keyboard quite so hard as in staccato proper.

Specialised opticians who themselves are musicians: allegro optical in the UK www.allegrooptical.co.uk The Chief Boss is a conductor and trombonist with a history in the Royal Trumpets, the Real Boss (his wife) is a brass band cornetist and pianist, and only recently got the UK Optician of the Year award, and all their employees are musicians. I got specialized music glasses from them which are seven-fold multifocals - great not only for music, but for everything else.

A Mom goes into a toy shop to pick a doll for her daughter. Sees two identical looking Barbies, one at $ 15 and one at $ 299. She asks the salesperson, "Why?" - "well, Ma'am, the cheap one is "single Barbie" and the other is "divorced Barbie"." - "Ah-hem?" - ""Divorced Barbie" comes with Ken's house, Ken's automobile and Ken's boat."

@georgeb Specially for you:

Not trumpet, but French horn, but still unbelievable...

https://www.facebook.com/FelixKlieser/videos/515111756293870

Another clip from the same movie...

@georgeb It's a whole movie with that cast... I think the most expensive thing must have been the exemption fees (at that time, there were still fines in place if white and coloured musicians appeared in the same scene).