Good Weekend Recap
May 5, 2008This was a good weekend, albeit a busy one.
First off, I had my big concert this weekend.
It was the 10th Anniversary of the band in which I play. We even commissioned a piece for the occasion and gave the “world premiere” of it! This was also the piece where I had a solo. (Small solo- but still!) Truth be told, I had numerous little solos throughout the concert.
Yes- INTENTIONAL solos, you catty bitches.
For those band geeks who are curious, the lineup for the concert was as follows:
- American Fanfare
- Children’s March (by Grainger)
- Arutunian Trumpet Concerto
- Down a Country Lane (Copland)
- Spring Divertimento
- Gavorkna Fanfare
- Mozart Flute Concerto
- Milestone (the commissioned piece)
- Toccata Marziale (Vaughn Williams)
- Circus Bee
Oh, and remember the Asian dude who was going to steal my thunder and play in the concert and “help” me on first chair? Yeah, well he didn’t feel “comfortable” with his preparation level, so he bowed out of the concert.
Yeah! You got SERVED, bitch!
According to the feedback that I received, the concert went VERY well. Evidently it was the best concert of the year. Kyle was there, along with his friend Scott. Jim was there with his nephew Matthew. Cable Access was there recording it. And my MOTHER came up for the occasion.
Of course having mom here meant several things:
(a) I had to ‘defag’ the place before she arrived
(b) I didn’t get to whore online
(c) I didn’t get to work out
(d) I ate like crap
(e) I slept on the couch
Having mom in town also meant entertaining her- making sure that we had “activities” to do rather than just sit on the couch watching Lifetime. On Saturday we explored the unique shops on Grand avenue. And on Sunday, I took her to Ikea.
She’d never been.
GASP! I know! Never been in an Ikea!
Once there, she fell in love with the place and found a table and several other items that she wanted. And I found this chair. In the As-Is section, no less!
I call it my “Wonder Woman” chair. Because it reminds me of her invisible jet. I use it for my desk chair because the style totally compliments my Mac.
I was going to pay full price for the chair– but they didn’t have any in stock. When I found ONE of them in the As-Is section (marked down 25 dollars), I took it as a sign and scooped it up.
***RECORD SCRATCH SEGUE***
I also fixed my bike this weekend!
After mom left on Sunday afternoon, it was all of 10 minutes before I was getting dressed to go on a bikeride. I needed to burn off some serious pizza and beer calories.
Unfortunately I’ve still been having occasional derailleur trouble with my folding bike. I have been forced to make several cable adjustments during my previous rides because the gearing tended to skip some. I would fix the issue mostly, but would still have intermittant issues, especially with 3rd gear for some reason. And I never quite solved the issue which royally pissed me off.
Well- before my ride today I flipped my bike upside down and tried to cycle through the gears to verify that all was working well. It wasn’t. As I got up to 7th and 8th gears I noticed that nothing happened with the derailleur when I changed between the two.
Which caused me to start poking around back by the derailleur hub. That was when I found this:
Yes- the yellow arrow and the red/yellow lines are the “derailleur adjustment setting” marks that were described oh so poorly in the instruction packet. And naturally the alignment was NOT close when I started.
Those bikeshop fuckwads didn’t know how to set the goddamn thing. It took ME to figure it out– and I’m GAY!
(Here, I am using the term ‘gay’ in a stereotypical context which assumes that I am mechanically incompetent and more inclined to call repairmen to watch them bend over rather than attempting repairs myself. Which of course I am.)
On the bright side, all of my bike’s gears are working now, and my ride was quite enjoyable. Here are some pictures from my bikeride:
This is the view from the top of the Mounds Park trail. As you can see, spring is JUST starting to sprung up here.
I have never seen sculling on the Mississippi before. The current must be a real bitch.
sweet pics. i dig.. yea’ i’ve often wondered about crewing on the mississippi too.. that current must kill them
I like that chair–although, being fresh out of college, it’s somewhat a bittersweet model for me.
Pretty pictures! I’m glad your bike is better now.
cb — if cable access recorded it, you need to rip your solo bit and put it on YouTube for all of us to witness your mad trombone skillz. If not, I suggest redoing it for the camera and posting it here as your next video. I wanna see your technique…and I’m sure the other boys do as well. Step up.
I second durban bud–we’d love to hear you play. Congrats on figuring out the bike issue! Doesn’t that feel great, especially when the doofi at the shop couldn’t fix it?
How soon will we be seeing an upchair shot of your rosebud?
Dude- i totally didn’t even think about that! However, the only thing you would see is my butt pressed against it like a ham.
Although I now may be able to do a “cleveland steamer” shot…
alexander – did you have to give him that idea? he will do something perverse no doubt.
um, that’s not a derailleur… it’s an in-hub gearchange. a derailleur forces the chain to shift between a set of cogs. This is Sturmey-Archer if I remember rightly, a grand old British company driven in to BK in the 80s and sold to some conglomerate in Taiwan or something… anyway, the cable adjustment looks to be about the same as the old 3-speed models we sold in my parents’ bike shop when I was a larva.
oh and no pressed ham pics pls!
me likey the chair.
very minimalist. very “surfaces, sweetie.”
Please pull up a chair and make sure you aren’t drinking anything before you read the following:
I’ve never been to Ikea, either.
I did go to Pottery Barn for the first (and only) time a couple of years ago, though, if that count for anything…
I love the ‘Wonder Chair’. HARD!
Why do you feel the need to de-fag your house prior to Mommie Dearest’s visit?
Mark