Rewinding again to catch you up, and like I said we been busy. Thanksgiving day we woke up and realized for the first time since Labor Day we have a stretch of four or five hours where no one had something they needed to do or anyplace they needed to be. We had TG dinner out on Long Island with family. A very nice day. Next day we declared Slack Friday, in which we all laid around the house and played videogames and that sort of thing, and diligently avoided the mall. Jeannie turned me on to Candy Crush. Finally something useful I can do on my Android thingie.
Last few weeks have been busy at work. Year-end reviews. Planning. Strategic planning, technical planning, roadmaps, many meetings. It looks like the whole middle-tier project is a go. More on that as it unfolds. We’ll be taking the ring to Mordor in a fellowship of nine companions. Hope we don’t run into any spiders.
We only have three weeks between TG and Xmas this year, compressing the whole works. Getting the tree up and all the decorations, doing the cards, shopping for gifts. We’re up to twelve nieces and nephews this year, as well as two wonderful kids, and a wife and siblings and in-laws and everyone else. I guess that’s a blessing if there ever was one. The good news is we figured out good gift ideas for almost everyone by now and have most of them bought.
We’ve gotten snow three times now in the last week, mixed with a bit of sleet and freezing rain. We have a good 6″ on the ground now, maybe more but not yet a foot. Also our front yard is full of giant logs. The tree people finally came to chop down our elm tree, but they only did half the job. They cleared away the minor branches, left all the big limbs on the ground and the trunk is still standing. It’s amazing how tall that tree is. Still over 100 feet without the crown. I wonder if I can sell the wood for lumber.
They’ve been canceling and rescheduling the kid’s event left and right cuz they’re all very skittish about the weather. Up in Buffalo they get three feet of snow and they just carry on, but not down here. Last night Lizzy had her Christmas show, rescheduled from Saturday, with her group Young at Arts. They’re very good and do fairly highbrow stuff like Benjamin Britten and Aaron Copeland, and some pop stuff too. Lizzy is in the a capella group, whose performance of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah was to me the highlight of the show. They had the whole hall spellbound. Michelle was in the Xmas pageant at ICS tonite, which was carols and the nativity story, very warm and festive. Saw lots of friends from school I haven’t seen a while.
Three more days until vacation. One more big demo deadline. We’ve all been extremely busy and can use a break. The big thing I’ve had to let slide is my ongoing recoding project. Over the weekend I finally finished tracking Is It Safe?, adding some backing vocals. I have three songs pretty much ready for mixing: Is It Safe?, Now and Forever, and Black Swan. In addition I have three older songs that I want to tweak/remix: Rocket to the Moon, Sea of Tranquility, and Karn Evil 9, 2nd Impression. This will give me an album side, with the ELP tune as a bonus track. My goal is to have this done by the new year and start in on a batch of new tunes in January.
