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Wait, no option for practicing in bed, filthy dirty, per usual?

MikeS wrote: ↑Wed Jul 10, 2024 3:31 pm Wait, no option for practicing in bed, filthy dirty, per usual?

That friend of mine - who I told you practiced several hours every night on his sousaphone at home - was laying flat on his back in his bed practicing one night - believe it or not - during high school days, sat up with it and tore himself another hernia. He already had one so he ended up with two after that.

I just voted (10 P.M.) I just finished three repairs from a shoehorned-in-today school.

The winner (even though not as many actual votes - just as four years ago) is B.

Knowing that your tubas are all painstakingly selected and in a state of mechanical perfection--and make you sound as if you practiced, even if you didn't--I voted for B.

I just emailed Mt. Juliet about some more Jupiter parts for one of these schools, and am messing around here with coffee and facebook nonsense to see if I get a quick answer.

Someone else is buying some JP marching baritones (already here), didn't do their homework, so I'm sending that school system the stuff they need to create a purchase order. (Band directors: It ain't nice to tell a store that a purchase has been approved and to order thousands-o'-bucks-o'-stuff when it actually has NOT been approved, and you only suspect (based on past budgets) that the money will be there after July 1.)

OK...
heading out to resume whoopin' up on more university sousaphones. It would be really good too get through ALL the sousaphones this week (??).
Once they're done - AND the trombones are all done - I'm down to (what I refer to as) the "box instruments" (marching baritones/mellophones/trumpets which all fit into "box-sized" cases).

Life is simpler with no morning eating.
The chickens are laying eggs like crazy (hundreds of eggs - "the perfect food").
We're already semi-overwhelmed, but ten more chickens are nearly large enough to release into the "general population" and soon they'll be laying as well...and there are so MANY eggs, that Mrs. bloke just stuck a dozen MORE eggs in the incubator.
Mrs. bloke is boiling a dozen every three days or so. She's being extra nice, peeling them for me, and putting them (not deviled) in the round deviled egg tray.
When I begin eating each day (around noon), I might just grab three of those (and more coffee) and call that "breakfast". I might eat two or three more of them around 3 P.M., and then eat a dinner (which might actually include a couple of green vegetables with some sort of "real" meat) at 6 P.M. or so...and then done eating for the day.

My trousers belt is in several inches from several weeks ago...but it needs to go in a few more inches. I should be back into my "small" tails suit (44L...I'm not really a "small" person, regardless) in time for the masterworks concerts, this upcoming season. (Pops are simply "all black", and - when the Memphis SO calls me - those are just "black suit/long tie".)

Other than concert wear, rehearsal-wear (same as visiting-schools "street"-clothes), and work clothes, I really don't have any "clothing needs". My concert dress black dress shoes (Florsheim Imperial black wingtips) were bought new when I was in college (ie. 50 years old). Yes, I have a pair of smooth-black dress/"military" shoes, but I don't often wear them. ..."tuxedo"...?? (got a nice one, but outah-style...no one asks for tuxes anymore, and no plans to remarry, so...).
My work clothes tend to be (winter) stained sweat shirts or (summer) stained T-shirts (with holes in them - from bracing stuff up against myself while soldering), loose-fitting jeans (intentionally a size or two too large), and I wear those for several days (no real perspiration - just "shop filth" - odors of shop oil/grease/paints/lacquers/etc. and buffing compounds) wash them on weekends (separate load - using a cleanser stronger than typical laundry detergent, such as "PurplePower" or "SuperClean") and put them right back on...I'll wear the same jeans and shirt over-and-over-and-over until they fall apart, and then go grab ANOTHER jeans-and-shirt from the thrift store. I also have a pair of "shop shoes" which stay ugly/stained, only wear them in the shop, and toss them when they fall apart. They are typically very low-priced. The pair I'm wearing now were bought new on eBay (sneakers) for $11 including postage. Formerly, I was buying $11 sneakers from Walmart, but (as we all know) hyperinflation happened.

bloke "my prior-to-heading-out-to-the-shop stream-of-consciousness morning post for today"

Well, we have rehearsal tonight so I guess I'm practicing (in a way).

I tooted around on the big tuba for a few minutes and the compact Holton for a few minutes yesterday. That's been about it. I'm supposed to play at a church next month on the 11th. Maybe I should start picking it up and getting back into it. I think the summer blessing is that there are very few gigs, because I just don't know if I could keep up with both the tuba playing and all this wall to wall repair work. Today has been one of those I don't feel particularly well yet I'm working days. Mrs bloke is taking up the slack, and has some pork out on the smoker.

Coffee and aspirin seem to be a pretty good combination each day.

I know I'll get backfill from all these schools, because as soon as they start dragging this stuff outside they're going to start tearing it right back up, but I'm sort of looking forward to this interesting pile of bass trombone repairs that I seem to have collected here from random sources. I repaired a couple of bass trombones for a couple of schools, but these are privately owned, and it just doesn't seem as though bass trombonists mess their instruments up very often.

Monday, I have a conference with a manufacturer asking them to take on a repair which I keep encountering over and over on a particular model of instrument, and I'm tired of it, because it's a manufacturing flaw, and those are always the most difficult to solve and waste the most time.