Exposed!

See that lower balcony? That's mine (thank you Google Maps). Soon to be gone. It's been happening for the past few weeks, but I haven't heard anything 'official'. Until last week... Between the two apartment buildings within my complex, there's 18 different balconies. And every one of them is getting replaced. It's part of an upgrade project around here, as the entire siding around both buildings will be replaced as well. I ran into the guy who who's doing the work and asked him if all of them were going to be replaced, he broke the bad news.

Why is this so bad? You've seen various pics I've posted while out on my balcony. It's carpeted, sort of, with astro-turf-like stuff. It's got solid walls, so I can sit out there buck nekkid if I want and not worry about anyone seeing me. Well, no more. The balconies are all being replaced with a wrought iron thing, and some sort of composite decking. So now everyone who walks by can look up and see what's going on. I'd much rather have them spend the money on a screen door to the balcony. Or replacing the carpet inside. Or fixing the hole in the bathroom ceiling that they haven't repaired since the leaky bathroom incident from last year...

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One positive thing that will happen is that the upstairs neighbors will quit doing whatever the hell they're doing up on their balcony. I think they've got a mini-garden growing up there, and don't have a care in the world about where any extra water may go. Which is through their floor, through my ceiling, and soaking my deck to the point of unusability (is that a word?). I suppose that's the reason the balconies are all getting replaced...

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Four weeks until the big concert! Things seem to be going well, but I had no idea the number of off-beat phone calls I'd be getting! The big ones I'm fearing are going to be the political campaigns. Can't blame them. They'd be fools not to take advantage of someone else's crowd of 15K. Fortunately, the I.R.S. saves me. Because the college is a non-profit organization, the I.R.S. prohibits political activity, unless ALL political views/candidates are present. The penalty is revocation of the college's non-profit status. What that means for me is that I get to tell them "no" when they call. Even more fun will be telling the ones that don't call that they can't set up any tables or booths. I can't wait!

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After weeks of very pleasant temps in the mid-70s, this weekend saw the temps skyrocket. It was 98° today, and might break 100° tomorrow. I'm not a fan. Like most northerners, I don't have A/C. Won't buy it for a handful of days throughout the year. Though on a day like today, I question my sanity.

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With the hot weather, we've got some forest fires started. A couple within an hour from here, due south. Nothing like Colorado is experiencing right now, but I can't help that this might be Montana's year...

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For those who were wondering...OsTour this year is going to be heading west finally. Target city--Portland. From there, I'm not certain how I'll get back. Perhaps north to Seattle. Perhaps south to northern California. Maybe just the regular beeline back (such as it is). Also excited about the possibility of meeting up with someone coming here! Details if/when they get hammered out!

June

June used to be one of my favorite months. The beginning of summer. The end of school. Not too hot yet. Time to figure out how to spend the free time for the next 100 days or so. Now...? Not so much. BIL2 died in June. Dad's 79th birthday would have been today. Father's Day is, for all intents and purposes, a needless "holiday" now (certainly not ever going to be celebrated for ME!).

It's not that I have any ill will towards June. It's just not what it used to be. Instead of spending the weekend doing the family thing (Father's Day and Dad's bday have always been within days of each other), I'll probably be spending most of it in the symphony office (more on that below). I'll most likely get up and greet the sunrise on the first day of summer though. Some things will never change!

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There's a very attractive younger blond who works in the billing dept. at my doctor's clinic. I have to see her about once a month for diabetic stuff. Recently she got a tattoo on the outside of her left arm in a pretty script - "Imperfection is beauty". I told her it looked great, though if it had been misspelled...

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Bought my ticket for a concert in August, which will be just in time for my decompression from the big summer concert. It's also the impetus for a new OsTour! No details yet, but I'll be sure to share when things get shaped up!

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Speaking of the big summer concert...things are rolling along fairly smoothly so far. I've gotten most of the bridges burned in the past rebuilt. We've got a Grammy Award-winning guest artist joining us. All is good (but a lot of work!). The bumps in the road are the responsibility of others, such as getting the musicians, housing, pressuring donors, etc. My biggest obstacle right now is finding a vendor who wants to sell beer/wine at this thing. With an estimated crowd of 12-15,000, you'd think that someone would jump at the chance! And my biggest concern is something I have no control over -- the weather. So I'm trying not to think about that too much.

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The current Pandora station I'm listening to at work is "Western Swing". The really old twangy country stuff from the 40s, 50s and 60s. Yet another music genre that I've had no real appreciation for. Some of it doesn't sound much different than the jazz recordings of the day. I'm certain that in a recent prior life, I must have lived in Nashville. Damn, I do love that town!

Mel and Carl

I hope that when I'm their age, I have someone I can hug
with as much love as these two obviously have for each other...

I don't generally have any use for Tumblr (though there's one new site...),
but I've had this one on my list for awhile.

Why, Hello There!

I'm not even sure where to start... It's been almost three weeks since my last post. Then again, I'm sure you've noticed that. Don't really have a good reason for you. Yes, I've been busy like I haven't been in a long time. I'm finding myself in front of a computer doing symphony work for 10-12 hours/day, and frankly, spending another 60 minutes trying to come up with a post just doesn't appeal to me (because, you know me...I can't write just a sentence or two). I've neglected FB in much the same manner. And emails--well, I try to keep up with those. But I have been lurking, so I still feel like I'm sort of a part of things...

I'll continue on with bullets, 'cuz I loves me the bullets!

• Interestingly, the traffic TO my blog has been fairly steady and consistent. I guess people still want to see if I'm alive!
• Also somewhat interesting...the amount of spam comments has greatly increased. Where I used to maybe get 3 per day, I'm now getting almost 20 per day. Don't know if that is a result of my inactivity here or what...
• As mentioned for the past couple of months, I've been b-u-s-y! At the moment, it's working the production for the summer concert. In the past, I've just been involved in the regular concert production part of things. This year, I'm the top dog. And I LOVE it! I'm really in my element. I've even had the administration at the college mention that I've gotten more done by April 30th than any of my predecessors had done by JUNE 30th. After doing this for 13 years, I think they've finally figured out that I should have been in this position years ago. Now if I can just parlay that into a healthy pay increase...
• If you want to see what I'm up to, go check www.facebook.com/symphonyunderthestars. And be sure to 'like' it, too!
• Let's see...what else. Oh, while most of you were at the beach or otherwise enjoying your Memorial Day weekend, we had SNOW on Friday night. SNOW! That actually stayed on the ground! The rest of the weekend was spend under a Winter Weather Advisory. In my neck of the woods, that meant wind, rain and not a ray of sunshine. Still hasn't really gotten sunny yet, either. :-/
• Did you watch Hatfields & McCoys last week? Not quite as good as Lonesome Dove, as far as mini-series go, but it was still pretty damned good! I've got too many friends who are from the hillbilly vicinity to make generalizations, but it sort of answered some questions!
  
• Oh, my Griz are in the news. They've been there for most of this spring, but it just gets worse. For those who don't remember, the head football coach and the school's athletic director were unexpectedly fired a couple of months ago. Officially, there's still no word as to why such action was taken, but it's assumed that it has to do with the number of sexual assault accusations at members of the team, and some possible cover-up or other 'bending' of laws, whether it's reporting, or assisting the accused with legal counsel (which none of them could possibly afford). Now the University, the athletic dept., and even the police dept. of Missoula are under investigation. The Justice Dept., the Dept. of Education, and the NCAA all have investigations going on at the same time. Lots of speculation, but none of them are actually coming out to say who or what's being investigated. In the meantime, Missoula was given the nickname "Rape Capital of America". Now the entire city is under this cloud. Of course, there's problems that exist, but from what I've read by a variety of writers, it's not much different than what's found in other college towns of the same size (disclaimer: I'm not defending it...just curious as to why Missoula 'earned' this distinction). Anyhoo, GO GRIZ!

Not much more to write. Will try to do more soon! Let me know you stopped by!!!