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."

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."

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.

@davidpaul It's just an instrument that really asks to be played yet isn't... due to the fact that it's only one cornet in a biggish herd (two Besson Internationals, one Besson Imperial, one Courtois, one Buescher Aristocrat...), if you want it, I can easily reclaim it from Votrubas, and we can do the deal... asking € 450 including international insured shipping. Votruba freshly serviced the horn, so it's ready to go. Or you can go directly to Votruba's website, and do the deal with them https://www.votruba-musik.at/musikinstrumente/gebrauchte-instrumente/trompeten-fluegelhoerner

@newell-post Buescher did make some oddly-wrapped cornets in the 1920s and 30s, sometimes under their student brand "Elkhart by Buescher"... like this one that I am currently selling through Votruba's shop in Vienna...
This one dates back to 1927.

(The police teddy bear is due to the fact that Votruba's are the sole supplier of instruments to the Vienna Police Orchestras).

Instrument is now sold.

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

There is a guy out there who reworks stupid party sounds into music of gone eras... compare the original

@curlydoc I'll hunt out the newspaper...

@j-jericho There were three separate incidents. One, the Bach Strad C, was borrowed by a friend who needed it for a musical performance in Munich's Gärtnerplatztheater - his own C was a Ganter rotary, and you can't bring rotaries for Oklahoma. He had the Strad in the canteen, went to where clarinet player get their best notes from, and when he returned, the case wasn't there. Theatre insurance paid up and thus financed the Strad rotary which with most of the other instrument was stolen in one haul when our house in Ireland was burgled and stripped of almost all the contents. The miscreants even broke open the oil tank and stole our heating oil!
And the Votruba Profi was loaded into a van with all the other band instruments for a gig on a mountain top in Croatia, but the van never arrived there. Seems the original driver of the local van and a few cronies of his had pre-planned the coup. At any rate, we arrived at that mountain resort by cable car und were unable to play because we did not have a single instrument...

@adc Giving away instruments to deserving talents is a good idea. I recently donated a Besson Stratford trumpet, a King Tempo cornet and a Conn Director to a school orchestra in Bulgaria, together with a heap of mouthpieces. Since then, I am swamped with videos of the kids practising enthusiastically; and the orchestra is now much in demand by the civic authorities to give athmosphere to official functions...

Heavens, that's three instruments I forgot to list!!

As I am enjoying a leisure moment, I have begun a list of every instrument I ever owned... not in chronological order. And I've decided that you out there, my trumpet friends, should be allowed to share this info.
Please do not see this as boasting, but as plain information.
I am including the fate of each instrument whenever it has decided to move on.

Bb trumpets:
Comet ***
UMI King Silver Flair Dizzy Bell (sold)
Jupiter STR-1010, with one straight and one Dizzy Bell, and an adapted Schilke BERYLLIUM bell (sold)
Jupiter 840 (sold)
Dowids Jazzline (sold)
Stomvi Elite Bb (sold)
Ganter G5 (exchanged for G7)
Ganter G7 custom (sold)
Olds Ambassador (given to a friend as present)
Olds Special (returned to original seller as he after the deal could not bear to part with it)
Olds Studio (for sale at Votruba's in Vienna)
Olds Recording
Courtois Balanced
Buescher Aristocrat 265
Conn International (Amati stencil)
Selmer K-Modified (stolen in burglary in Ireland)
UMI Benge #7 (for sale at Votruba's in Vienna)
Buescher #9
Buescher #11 with quick change to A (stolen in burglary in Ireland)

Pocket Bb trumpets:
Jupiter, small bell (sold)
Stomvi Forte (sold)
Arnold & Sons (Jupiter clone)

C trumpets:
Bach Strad 239, with additional slides in Bb and Ab (stolen in Munich)
Bach Strad rotary C (stolen in burglary in Ireland)
Stomvi Elite (sold)
Couesnon Bb/C (for sale at Votruba's in Vienna)
Gaudet C

D trumpets:
DEG Signature (re-sold within two weeks)
Ganter G3 (sold)
Stomvi Elite (sold)
Courtois

Eb trumpets:
Stomvi (sold)

F trumpet:
Bach Strad (sold)

G picc:
Scherzer (sold)
1966 Selmer

Bb/A picc:
1967 Selmer (sold)
1979 Selmer (sold)
Besson Kanstul 920 (sold, very much regretted)
Stomvi Elite (sold)
Votruba Professional (stolen in Vienna, found and destroyed by police on suspicion of being a bomb)
ACB Doubler

Bb cornets:
Weltklang, with custom made Ab slides (sold)
Ganter Custom (sold)
Besson Imperial (in need of restoration)
Stomvi Elite (sold)
Ganter rotary cornet (returned to H. Ganter for private collection)
Besson International (2x)
Buescher Aristocrat 264
Jupiter student cornet (sold)
Elkhart by Buescher (for sale at Votruba's in Vienna)
Blessing Artist (present to my Scottish godchild)
Unnamed 1880s HP cornet, with personal engraving

Eb cornets:
Besson Imperial (in need of restoration)
B&H Sovereign Round Stamp bell-tuned Soprano (2x, one stolen in burglary in Ireland, the other sold)
Ganter Custom

Flugelhorns:
Ganter G15 (sold)
Votruba Profi (sold)
Courtois 154R
Thomann "Black Jazz" (sold within a week)
Clemens August Glier Kuhlohorn (almost sold...)

I think that's it... enjoy.

@_mark_ You can always ask me for help with specific problems. I'll try and help, or find someone who can help.