Land of the Free in Trichotomy

Vacation at Ticonderoga

We are at Ticonderoga now for a vacation. La Professeure’s college roommate invited us to her father-in-law’s lakehouse on Lake George. It’s a nice little cottage, and there are places to hike around here, but when it rains, like now, there isn’t much to do indoors.

We drove up on Sunday and made s’mores on a firepit. We spent yesterday hiking to Black Point Beach in the morning, and then going to Bolton Landing for snack and dinner. It was a cute touristy area; I had duck at a restaurant/inn which clearly is used as a wedding venue, with an outdoor area accessing Lake George. And there were ducks on the lake, so I knew the dinner was fresh. After dinner we went to get the largest soft serve.

We have 3 more days here, and it is forecast to be raining the whole time, so I’ll see what we can find to do.

It is a great way to burn off the accumulated vacation days over the lockdown.

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Vaccine Mandated

I am relieved that De Blasio has announced the New York City vaccine mandate for indoor activities, so my amateur musician group will now require proof of vaccination for all our events. I hope this helps people feel safer to come to the events.

The social mixer is getting restarted again - we have a soprano who is very enthusiastic about taking over the social committee and running the social program, so I hope that will go well.

I am a bit skeptical about the orchestral program; they just got a new conductor last year and haven’t re-formed the orchestra yet. I talked to some violin player during the last concert who had been in the previous incarnation of the orchestra, and she hadn’t heard anything about forming the new orchestra. They have a concert in December, so there is less than four months to go from having no one in the orchestra to performing 7 pieces. I guess we’ll see how good the conductor is.

I’m glad to see the group is coming back slowly.

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‘Murrca!

I got asked to play the Star Spangled Banner for a virtual concert commemorating the 20th anniversary of 9/11, and I have till the end of the month to send my recording in. I can’t practice now (no piano in the lake house), but since it’s just a recording, I’m not too worried about it.

But as I dug it back up, I realized it would make a good entry for the Carnegie Hall concert next year, together with the Star Spangled Banner for. The audition is now open for sign up on the ENT bot and there are already 7 people signed up. The audition is next January, and we usually get about 40 entries, so we’ll see how many we’ll end up getting.

It feels like a long way away, but 4 months can pass by in a blink.

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