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.

@georgeb That's not more uncommon than Chuck Daellenbach of Canadian Brass turning the tuba round 360° while playing the Tiger Rag... he's been doing that for almost forty years now...

@dale-proctor said in The Trumpets of Ancient Rome:

Very interesting! Those brought to mind this video of Egyptian trumpets being played. Authentic, slightly haunting sound - nothing like those old Hollywood movies.

You always have to bear in mind that the sound of the Egyptian instrument is the sound of an actual ancient piece, whereas all the others are more or less exact modern copies (as far as I know, these reproductions took no notice of the exact metallurgy of the originals, but just followed the shape).

@administrator That's the second stage!

I once sat next to Wynton Marsalis.

At breakfast.

Official word for a man playing the viola on a busy street?
Traffic violation!

Coolerdave - whom some of you may remember from TM days - has found the light and is now where he belongs: in this community of trumpet lovers.
Welcome, Dave!

I did not know James Morrison had so many twin brothers...
https://www.facebook.com/trumpetlovers/videos/1021644968634328

@bigdub Most people at some point in their lives have been in Consistent, and many senior citizens are now residing in Continent.

@j-jericho More like a botfly - you know, the things they pull out of cats' noses on Youtube...

Those of you who were with me on TM may remember one continual troublemaker and self-accqlaimed trumpet pope with the username Kurt Thompson - in TM abbreviated to KT as no one wanted to use that name because of his many, many misdemeanours... in his own estimation, he is the only real trumpet player in the world and people like Arturo or Doc are just impostors...
He's now abroad again with a spate of unpalatable videos, unter the new nickname Curt Tomson...