Music and Work

Just a little note here to post a little of what has gone on in my life recently. Last Sunday we took our boat out and had some fun on the lake with some friends. The week before we did the same thing with some other friends and ended up having to be towed in by the lake police after the boat refused to start again and the wind blew us to the shore.

After that frustrating experience which has been plaguing me for several years (the boat starting to stall out and run rough after about an hour), I installed an electric fuel pump replacing the mechanical one that we suspected might be overheating the fuel. This time we only experienced a few minutes of rough running and then it seemed to clear up. I still don't know for sure what is going on but this was a big improvement over previous escapades.

I have been painting and replacing some of the floors in a church member's house the past few weeks and took a few pictures to document what it looks like. The floors are so much nicer than the old ones and I took the liberty to paint the doors a little more interesting than they usually get painted.

Last week our quartet sang at our church as the very first time we have sung in public. Astonishingly the visiting pastor showed up wearing an identical outfit including the exact same pattern and color tie that we were all wearing. Tonight we sang in another much larger church and tomorrow morning we will sing again in both Sunday morning services where one of our quartet members attends. We are also scheduled to sing later this summer at a home-owners association meeting and also at a church picnic program.

So far we have only learned three songs during the last 2-3 months but are getting better at reading music and picking up new songs more quickly. We have a large resource of music from which to choose including quite a number that I used in my previous quartet about 20 years ago. We hope to learn enough songs soon so that we might be able to put on a whole program at some point.

Our church appointed me to be director of music along with director of audio-visual services this coming year so things are getting even busier. I am encouraged at some of the changes people are willing to do in our services and we are experimenting with things never done in this church before as far as I know.

I also took a picture of the new sound room that I recently built in the back of the church. It is such a help in getting the mess out of the main part of the church and getting everything centralized in one place for a person to operate without being in the way and so conspicuous as it was before. We are now set up to record directly to CD's which has also allowed us to provide copies immediately after the service to those who want them.

I am still planning to install a fold-up shelf for a laptop for projecting images in the front of the church which will be added just under the window.