@tjveloce
We're near Vienna - altitude somewhere around 400 feet, less than five minutes walk from the Danube backwater, with a wooded peninsula as our favourite dogwalk... lots of wildlife, including beavers... and yet we can be in downtown Vienna within 30 minutes. The "estate" is so rural there is no street lighting, and all the public services are managed by the Residents' Club. We've been selected as one of the first locations in Austria to be self-reliant as to energy, with solar panels and wind turbines discreetly all over the place...
Posts made by barliman2001
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RE: Martin Committee Club
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RE: Martin Committee Club
@tjveloce
Our house is in an estate called "Jungle Village" near a backwater of the Danube. In fact, we are "beyond the pale" as the whole village is outside the flood protection dykes and liable to be under water whenever the Danube rises exceptionally high. So we put the ground floor on 8ft concrete stilts and raised a timberframe house on that platform. Main family room with open rafters - just like yours! - a wood-burning stove, and two prepared stilts for adding a 9ft by 27 ft balcony... which will be built in January. Our garden snuggles directly on the dyke, so no one can build into our view of the Vienna Woods, From the previous owners, we inherited lots of fruit trees - cherries, apples, pears, plums (two kinds) and quince, and a vine. No pictures yet, but there will be. If you want me to send you some, just send me an e-mail address via chat. -
RE: What Are You Doing New Years, New Years Eve
@flugelgirl said in What Are You Doing New Years, New Years Eve:
Subbing for a big band job, and then a blues band on New Year’s Day. Never had a New Year’s Day gig before - I guess there’s a first for everything!
Indeed - last year I had a Christmas Day funeral, a Jewish relative of mine who passed away on Christmas Eve.
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RE: Martin Committee Club
@tjveloce said in Martin Committee Club:
I agree....and there's just something about vintage horns, including the fact that they have so much character and mana from their previous lives. But I like lots of vintage things.
-tj
I know that feeling... we even designed our new house so that our vintage furniture would fit. The builders declared we were simply mad. "You build the house, and then you buy the furniture!" they said. But we drew plans, and re-drew the plans, and re-drew the re-drawn plans until every piece of furniture fitted as if it had always been there.
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RE: What Are You Doing New Years, New Years Eve
Playing a New Year's Eve Ball with Big Band Markus Fluhr www.bbmf.de, and then several weeks of assisting my wife with "Countess Mariza", done by the touring operetta company she has just wormed herself into to such an extent that the present owner wants to retire and hand over the company to her... then a concert with the Vienna Lakeside Music Academy Symphony Orchestra - music from animation movies - and then a few Carnival gigs.
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RE: NAMM-who’s going?
@tjveloce Too far away for me - would need a sailing boat to take me over, as at the moment it is unwise for me to fly.
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RE: Martin Committee Club
@tjcombo said in Martin Committee Club:
@LaTrompeta (sadly?) my only test blow of a Committee left me cold. I know that it's not a good idea to judge a horn by a short blow of one example, but my favourite horns all had something to like from the first tootle. Unfortunately the prices of even "renovator's delight" Committees now makes it unlikely that I'll get to live with one for long enough to try again.
I have no experience of Committees - but I second that view that a horn should say "I want you" at the first blow. I just had that experience with a Courtois Balanced (1956 vintage). It went straight to my heart. And more than once now I've had a pure Courtois gig bag - the Bb Balanced, the C and the flugel... The Balanced has good valves, but is in questionable shape as to optics - the previous owner obviously loved it and played it for many, many years. And as soon as all the New Year and ball season gigs are over, the Courtois will have a short holiday with Votruba's for a full refit including replating. It's only the second of my horns that deserves that.
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RE: A little humour
A reporter is doing an item about the longevity of inmates in a home. The first guy he meets looks like sixty, but exclaims, proudly, "Young man, last week I had my eighty-fifth birthday!" - "And how did you do it, sir?" - "No alcohol my whole life, no tobacco, and only had one little flirtation with a girl." Impressed, the reporter accosts another inmate who looks slightly older than the first: "And you, sir?" - "Don't waste your time with that riotous youngster! I'm ninety-nine. No alcohol, only vegan food, no tobacco, and no women at all. And just look at me!" - "Congratulations, sir," says the reporter and approaches a most decrepit-looking senior in the lounge. "And you, sir, did you use the same recipe as your neighbours ?" - "Me? No fear! I drank whatever there was to drink, I smoked heavily, and no girl was safe from me. And I had lovely steaks with chips, and won every eating contest on the calendar..." - "Oh really, sir? And may I ask your age?" - "Me? I'm twenty-nine and the ward nurse!"
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RE: SEASON'S GREETINGS
@ButchA said in SEASON'S GREETINGS:
I made my "toxic rum balls" if anyone wants one! LOL...
Edit:
<disclaimer>
I am not responsible for any DUI's or anything like that. Do not drive, do not operate machinery, after you have a few of these!!!
</disclaimer>That sounds like the Scotsmans Breakfast. It consists of one large steak, a Border Collie and a bottle of whiskey.
The Collie gets the steak.
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RE: Christmas Services
@Bertie said in Christmas Services:
Oh, I wanted a week free, but I got last minute gig for New year's eve lutheran church service in Munich (3 trumpets + 3 trombones). And now I have to practice . My son was born a week ago, so you know... not much sleep anyway
CONGRATULATIONS!
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RE: A little humour
Ok, change of topic. A guy is drinking in a bar with his friends and seems pretty miserable. "What's the matter, Jake?" one friend asks. "Normally, you're the life and soul of the party, and tonight you're like a mouse eaten by a snake..." - "It's my mother-in-law," he says. "She's changed her will and totally disinherited us, just because I looked at her." - "That's pretty nasty, for such a minor thing." - "Well, it happened as we were saying Grace at lunch, and I looked at her when we reached, 'and deliver us from Evil'..."
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RE: A little humour
At this point, maybe we should open a sub-thread "Parrot jokes"...
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RE: A little humour
An elderly lady wants to buy a parrot (never-ending story...). She is shown a parrot and asks of the bird, "Now, you pretty bird, can you talk?" - "Now, you old hag, can you fly?" is the parrot's reply.
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RE: A little humour
Parrots... A guy walks into a pet shop and wants to buy a parrot. A talking one. The salesman fetches one, saying, "This one is a great parrot for poetry." - "Why has he got those two strings on his feet?" - "It's like this: If you pull the left string, he quotes Shakespeare. And if you pull the right string, he recites Wordsworth." - "And what if I pull both strings together?" The parrot intervenes, "Then I fall off, you idiot!"
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RE: Christmas Services
Brilliant idea - in the US. In Europe, that piece unfortunately is played out due to being used as a TV fanfare, cropping up every time a show is broadcast over the all-European network.
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RE: Christmas Services
@Dr-GO said in Christmas Services:
Finished my Christmas Performance at the Lutheran Church just a few hours ago, the last service ending about 12:15 AM! Two Services were played. One at 7 pm, the other started at 10:30 pm.
The organ/trumpet combo was just perfect. The organist arranged I play each hymn with the lyrical line the first verse, sit out the second verse (choir only sings) the descant vocal line for the third verse, and the trumpet descant part (the piccolo lines) for the forth verse. That REALLY was a nice way to present the parts as ending with the descant piccolo line really made the ending ring out in the church.
That's Christmas Service as it should be.
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RE: A little humour
A Christmas thought:
What would a crib be without Jews, Arabs and Foreigners? -
Just an ox and an ass. -
RE: A little humour
"Please, sir," an old lady asks of the Cemetery Official, "where can I find grave 458, row 19?" - "Strewth! Sneaking away like that and not finding home again!"
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RE: A little humour
A couple were celebrating their Silver Wedding, and a friend asked them for their recipe for their married happiness.
"Oh, it's quite simple," the husband said. "Once a week, we have a romantic candlelight dinner, followed by a hot night in a luxury hotel."
"Sounds good, " the friend said. "And when do you find the time for that?" -
"Mine's every Thursday," the wife said, "and his every Sunday." -
RE: Christmas Services
@GeorgeB said in Christmas Services:
@barliman2001
Now that was one really interesting situation. Playing in the cold is definitely no fun. But I'm sure you did well, sir.As to playing in the cold - one Austrian oompah band a few years back bought several score of hand warmers (working with burning coal sticks inside) to zip tie to the valve blocks of instruments to avoid freezing (which is liable to happen at below zero temperatures). On one occasion, before a Christmas market gig, these hand warmers were lit and issued. Most of the guys directly zip tied them to the instruments and just carried the unwrapped instruments to the gig ( a few hundred yards down the road). One of the flugel players did not yet bother to fumble with the zip ties but just tossed the hand warmer into his gig bag. Half-way down to the gig, his bag was giving off smoke signals... the hand warmer had come undone and spilt the burningcoal inside, setting the lining on fire... when the guy investigated and opened up the bag, he was welcomed by a raging flame. The local fire brigade had a busy fifteen minutes putting the blazing bag out, and the insurance later refused to pay for the burnt-up flugel (an almost new gold-plated Votruba Professional worth around € 5,000) due to "culpable negligence".