Lots O'Wood HNT

'Tis symphony week, once again. On the plus side, I'm not a musician for this one. On the down side, I'm not a musician for this one. The orchestra will use fewer winds and brass, which means fewer chairs, stands and risers. That's a good thing. So what's up with the whining?

The marimba. One of the oldest, yet modern instruments in the orchestra. Crude predecessors have been discovered that are thousands of years old, carved and chipped out of stone. But not considered an orchestral instrument until the early 1900s. We've got a soloist coming in all this week to play a concerto for marimba. I'm very much looking forward to the performance.

Five octaves long. Sixty-one impeccably-tuned bars of the finest rosewood on earth. Seventy-one custom designed aluminum resonators. All that comes apart into approximately 15 pieces. Most of which are clumsy, heavy, and awkward to transport. And transportation is why I'm whining. Mostly. It takes between 45 minutes to an hour to deliver and assemble/disassemble.

• Sunday - Road trip to Bozeman to pick up the instrument from MSU. Delivered to the back storeroom of the symphony offices.
• Monday - Assemble marimba in the back storeroom so that the soloist can practice on Tuesday.
• Tuesday - Disassemble marimba in the evening to move it to a private home for a small recital on Wednesday.
• Wednesday - Transport marimba to older mansion in town, complete with narrow hallways, stairs and many doors into a room really too small for both a performer, big marimba and a small audience. Later evening - Disassemble marimba and move back to office overnight.
• Thursday - Transport marimba to local high school for master classes. Later evening - Disassemble marimba and move back to office overnight.
• Friday - Transport marimba to concert venue for afternoon rehearsal.
• Saturday - Disassemble marimba after intermission to move to office after concert.
• Sunday - Pick up marimba and deliver back to Bozeman, and be back home in time for Super Bowl kick-off.

Oh, we'd better not forget that I still have to pick up equipment and set things up for the concert in there too! The good part about this--I had a reason to get nekkid at the office so I could show you my wood!

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People ask to be the Mystery Guest for a wide variety of reasons. Some want the 'exposure'. Others want to tie it in with their own HNT for the week. Some want to do it to celebrate.

That's what we have today! This young lady has been involved with HNT off and on from way back when (and she's hardly old enough to do that!). But today (Thursday) is her man's (he used to blog, too!) birthday, and what better gift than to let her owner pull on that bow and see what happens! Fortunately, she's letting us in on the gift, too! She's tying together all three forms of HNT for this week--as MG, at the OHNT, and on her own site. See if you can find her in all three spots!

In case you can't find them all, she'll be revealed Thursday afternoon!

In case you didn't find her, the birthday gift girl is Big Ed's infamous SubKit, TripleLLL, from Tastefully Obscene. Be sure to check out what she left for him over there!

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Be sure to stop by "...the Other HNT" and check out some of your fellow HNTers! Leave lots of comment lovin', too! NSFW, of course!

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BIG SPECIAL NEWS!!! - I was alerted to this by the always perky CoyPink. She hasn't been blogging a great deal recently (which means her milk bath pictures are still up--whew!!). But she has been online, and found something on Urban Dictionary. Most of us have used UD at one time or another. Well, now there's another reason to check it out! HNT has an entry in Urban Dictionary!! Go check it out right now! There's a little "thumbs up/thumbs down" thing in the upper right corner. I don't know exactly what it means or what it's for, but click on the "thumbs up". I think that is a good thing. If any of you know anything about changing information/citations ('naked' has nothing to do with HNT!), let me know how to do it. Congratulations to all of us--we're famous-like!