Pre-Filkcontinental UT practice

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Please note that artwork on the first Urban Tapestry cover was done by Ruth Ohi, and by Beckett Gladney on the second two.

You can find other handwritten Blatherings entries here.

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tiberius rising, sequentia congrats!

Part of my trip prep has been to scan all the irreplaceable flute sheet music as a back-up just in case (horror of horrors) something Bad happens to my luggage. I've been meaning to do this for a while, and finally got motivated when I recently thought I misplaced one of my more complicated flute parts (for "All The Pretty Little Ponies"). The thought of having to recreate that part was the kick in the head I needed. I have way too many flute parts to memorize at this point; Urban Tapestry has been together for over 12 years!

Anyway, the scan above is of the flute part I wrote out for Urban Tapestry's version of Tiberius Rising, a song written and recorded by Ookla The Mok. Rand liked a musical phrase in my bridge flute part enough that he used a musical bit in his own guitar instrumental, which made me happy. (Later clarification: When I wrote out my flute part for Tiberius Rising, the main musical motif was written by Ookla. The only bit that Rand borrowed (much to my delight) was a very short musical phrase in the bridge, and he did so with permission. Apologies for any misunderstanding. :-))

We covered the song on our Myths and Urban Legends CD. Here's a soundclip from our version on that CD, for those interested. And here's a soundclip from Ookla's version, from their first CD, "Less Than Art." You can find a full list of Ookla soundclips here.

Thanks for everyone's advice using re: adaptor plugs in Europe! Looks like I have the right plug, though it also looks as if Allison and Jodi can't use their hairdryers in Germany. Fortunately, Ju Honisch was kind enough to offer the loan of a hairdryer for the duration of the convention. Allison, Jodi and I are getting together tonight for another pre-Filkcontinental practice.

Congrats to our friend Jen Evans, whose company Sequentia Communications was listed in Profit magazine's Hot 50 list: the fifty fastest-growing companies in Canada. Sequentia ranked #28. Woohoo, Jen and Sequentia!

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Germany trip prep, packing tips

Spider in our garden one recent morning.

So I leave a week from tomorrow with Allison and Jodi for Filkcontinental in Germany. I am SO hyped. We've been having two practices a week lately in preparation, and I've been madly studying German again.

The convention is held annually at Die Burg Freusburg, a 950 year old castle on a hilltop in the Siegtal valley, north of the town of Freusberg, near the village of Kirchen. Closest major city is Siegen. We're going to visit with Julianne Honisch in Frankfurt before the convention, and with Katy Droëge in Hamburg afterward.

Allison found a a great online guided tour of the castle, for those interested. There's an area map at the bottom of the main page. Also see the comments section in this LJ entry of Allison's for more photos as well as con reports from previous years.

Starting to figure out what I should pack. I'm trying to minimize my luggage as much as possible; my tendinitis is much improved these days, and it would be bad if I wrecked my arms lugging stuff through the whole airport process. Katy has generously volunteered to let me use her tambourine throughout the convention, for example (that thing takes up an awkward amount of space in my luggage, I find). Also reviewing various online packing tips:

Travelsense packing tips
Backpackademia: How to pack for Europe
Travellerspoint packing tips
How to reduce security delays through how you pack
Travel-library.com packing tips

Any other packing tips out there?

Thanks to my friend Harald for finding out where Flickr had listed that sunrise photo that suddenly got so popular.

So much to do before our trip, so little time. Must get back to work. Meanwhile, here are some pics, all of which were taken when we visited Jeff's mom on the weekend:


My mom-in-law baked these for dessert. Yummm. From L to right: chocolate cookies, butter tarts (without pecans), butter tarts with pecans, big butter tart (I think), orange marmalade tarts.


One of my mom-in-law's cats. Fairly hefty, don't you think?


This was carved by Jeff's grandfather (who founded Ridpath Furniture in Toronto).

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pencil sketches

The music in the picture above is from my song notes for "The Friendship Song". You can hear a soundclip here, from Sushi and High Tea (live recordings from our concerts in the UK and in California, 2000-2002).

Typo in above Blathering: the practice was LAST night. I wrote/drew the Blathering just after midnight because I couldn't sleep. :-)

You can find other handwritten Blatherings entries here.

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marmot dreams

You can find other handwritten Blatherings entries here.

To those on Flickr: one of older my cottage photos recently was viewed a ton of times, with 30 people adding it to their "Favorites" list. I posted a question asking how they found my photo and got the following reply: "I think I saw it in the Most Interesting page if that is what it is called.
and it was well picked for it too.:)"

Is anyone familiar with this page? Thanks in advance for any help.

Update:
Thanks to Martin GK, who posted in Blatherchat shortly after I posted the above: "Flickr and 'most interesting' - its a sum based on the the number of time the photo has been viewed, but giving more points for the number of people that call it a favourite or have commented on it. Don't know what the exact ratio is - you can see your own 'most interesting' photos on a link from your own photo page, so you should be able to work out the formula to some degree from that (comments rank higher than favourites, I can tell you from mine). www.flickr.com/explore/ has several 'most interesting' options - in particular, they do a 'most interesting in the last 24 hours' and a'"most interesting a year ago' - which this might have hit? They explain interestingness at www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/. "

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