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.

@kehaulani That's why I take pictures!!

Welsh brass band Coronation Brass are going to Bitburg/Germany again, for the annual European Folklore Festival there. Second weekend in July, four days of fun, music and lots of free beer! We are still shy of one or two cornets... Ivan Hunter's definitely coming, ssmith1226 can vouch for it being a really fun thing... so come on and apply! Either by replying here, or by writing to coronationbrass@hotmail.com. And here's some pictures of previous festivals!

Trombones have their uses in pretending you are something you are not...

Tito Puente comes to mind.

@administrator Do you mean the New Year's concert, in the Musikverein? Pretty damn hard, and expensive. Probably three or four years on the waiting list before you get tickets. But you can pretty easily get hold of tickets for the dress rehearsal a few days earlier.

OK, I get the message... I'll solve.

• Top row, left to right:
  Gene Watts (Trombone, Canadian Brass 1990s)
  David Ohanian (French Horn, CB)
  Ron Romm
  Pour Elmar, Avec toute mon amitié, Guy Touvron

• Second row:
  Amicalement, Maurice André
  Fred Mills
  With best wishes, Sergej Nakariakov (signed his name in Cyrillic)
  Jens Lindemann
  Dusko Gojkovich
  Chuck Daellenbach (Tuba, CB)

Wynton Marsalis signed another case of mine because we happened to meet unplanned (in fact, in a full hotel breakfast room, he had to ask to sit at my table, ending up in a three-hour warm-up session in his room and a free ticket for that evening's concert. I had not even known he would be there (Leipzig) and was there for a historians' conference and getting myself a Friedbert Syhre Corno da Caccia - which was a fun instrument to play, but I never came to use it in a gig, so I sold it).

@j-jericho Sorry, you only got one word right - Amicalement. But who wrote it, is the big thing...

@ssmith1226 You got four...
Guy Touvron, Jens Lindemann, Ron Romm and Dusko Gojkovic. Six to go.

So far, no one has identified the autographs on my case... come on, exert yourself!

Already in TM, and here as well, I've from time to time talked about the trumpet case that I've been lugging around to every trumpet concert of note that I attended - usually with some kind of rare, original or weird instrument inside. I've had it backstage quite often, and usually was able to induce the star of the evening to sign that case. Quite a few people were clamoring for pics.
Now, the wait is over. Here it is.

So far, ten renowned brass musicians have signed. Whoever gets them all right will be entitled to a pot of coffee with cake in a Vienna coffee house.