Ever since he came back from the Oregon Bach Festival, Greg has been working as quickly as he can to keep up with all of the different projects he's had in play. The nice conductor who wants to record his Water suite with an orchestra got back in touch and encouraged Greg to get the orchestration done as soon as he can. Since then, Greg has been juggling composition time between orchestrating Water and working on the Sax Quartet. He might be too busy orchestrating to go back to grad school this semester, but if he does go, he'd like to get the Quartet performed and recorded.
Greg also heard from the Argentine choral conductor (whom he also met at the festival), asking him to send the scores for some of his choral works. He sent off a few, including the song April, and a CD. I have occasionally nagged Greg abut producing more SATB choral works so we might be able to sing them. Maybe this interest from Argentina will provide the impetus he needs to write more choral music.
Same Rock, Different Mountain
It seems as though it's been years since the last time I just sat down and wrote something for this blog. Thanks to my work deadlines, I've had to spend 12- and 13-hour days trying to make it through to the end. Yesterday was Deadline Day, and there's a reason the buzzword lovers call it a "drop-dead date." If I'd had to work these hours for much longer, I probably would just fall out of my office chair one day.
I knew I was working too late yesterday when I received a cheery email from my translation manager in Japan. He had just shown up to start his Tuesday morning work, and there I was still trying to finish Monday!
No matter. It's done, and I'm taking a "comp day." The next huge push won't happen until next February, and hopefully I can arrange with my boss for some competent help next time around.
Taking Our Act on the Road
Tomorrow is Seamus's graduation from obedience class! He's still terrible at long sit-stays and down-stays, but that's what continuing training is all about. He'll get to wear a little paper mortarboard and munch on his graduation-gift biscuit, and hopefully Greg will get some suitably silly photos for his Web page. All of my Beardies (except Cadence and Briscoe) have been POC graduates. The club is sponsoring a rally-o seminar in October, and we've signed up for it.
This evening, our obedience class gets to take part in the club's annual obedience demo in York as part of the York Days celebration. Sue, our instructor, invited us to take part. It should be fun, and it will give us a chance to proof our exercises outside of the usual locations where we practice (the classroom, the yard, the side of the road).
Singing Around the Campfire, and Other Shaggy Dog Stories
While I was buried up to my scalp in work last week and convinced I'd never get to have another vacation ever again, I let one of my Beardie buddies from Iowa talk me into going to the Bearded Collie National Specialty show this year in Omaha during the last week of September. Okay, don't laugh. Omaha might not be the excitement capital of the known universe, but a whole bunch of my friends are showing up there with their Beardies. Quite a few of them have acquired new puppies since the last time we saw one another, so it will be nice to meet the new kids and get caught up. Thanks to work, I haven't been able to get to a Specialty since 2001, and that one doesn't count. I was show secretary that year. It was a fine job -- I even liked it -- but I was so busy with paperwork that I didn't get much chance to socialize.
The whole show revolves around the pioneer theme, so we really will have a campfire sing-along after one of the get-togethers. It sounds corny as hell, but I know this crowd. I'm relying on one of my clever songwriter friends to show up with her guitar and a pile of her songbooks, to lead us in some of her songs and song parodies. Some of those are so funny people can't even sing along from laughing too hard.
I'm going! After keeping this work schedule, I could use some belly laughs.
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