Other than smashing my right hand with a car door yesterday, I'm feeling very proud right now. We did a full choir recording session yesterday (promo material for getting us hired for gigs, especially weddings), and our conductor picked two of us from each section to stay and record for the octet group, including me from the sopranos! I'm honoured. And hoping I can get a copy :)

And I'm just sitting here doing some web work for Amnesty, and realizing in awe how cool it is to be this close to launch and while sitting on a page, switch it to Arabic, change the window size to 800x600, increase the font in the browser... and have it not break anything. How many freaking sites can do that, eh??

We're going to Chicago on Wednesday until Monday to hang out with the boys for Thanksgiving. Hurrah for a direct flight out of the Oakland airport. Gonna hit some museums, eat some good food, and generally just have fun hanging out for a few days... and get a bit of a breather from coding.

Did I mention we're starting a new business too? I think we need professional help. I mean... we rock. I'm so glad I've found someone so much like me yet complementary.

Ever tagged/renamed whole bunches of MP3s? Know how much that sucks? Well, tagging choir practice MP3s is like the worst ever. Why, you ask?

1) They're a mix CD, burned off of various CDs, thus not in any CDDB
2) They're obscure songs
3) It's always like 28 little 2 minute songs
4) They're full of special characters
5) They have subtle differences between versions and weird naming schemes

I defy you to come up with a more annoying set of music to tag.

That is all.

PS. I'm only in the 1st and 5th ones, and they're short samples, but have a listen!

Oh man I almost want to cry our choir sounds so good. I just got a copy of some of the recordings for the first time... incredible. Not all perfect of course, but there are a huge number of these songs that sound completely professional. I'm so honoured to be a part of it. Gotta rip tracks and get them up on the choir's website, and of course post here :)

Whew, I've been so busy that I haven't even posted about this... but our Summer on the Baltic Sea concert is this weekend in San Francisco and Berkeley! 

I even have a small solo this time  :)  We are doing most of the material that's on this CD actually (and more), if you want a preview.  Singing in Latvian, two dialects of Estonian, Spanish (by a Finnish composer), and Swedish.  Oh and some nonsense language by Jennefelt.  The Swedish yodelling is amazing.  And... loud.  It's an incredibly diverse set of music.  Folk, modern, dark, upbeat, quirky.  I think non-classical/choral people would really enjoy this concert in particular.

Tickets are $12/$15 (students & seniors/regular) in advance on the site.

I should have recordings from the previous concert soon too!

We are really, really good.  I love this choir so much.  Last night's rehearsal was incredibly intense and physically demanding.  Two more rehearsals to go this week...

I got a solo for our upcoming choir concert :) It's a short one, in one of the Swedish pieces (Verlaine-stämning), but it's very pretty and floaty!

At least I stand out with the hair  ;) 

Audio to come whenever they get the recordings and I find out what exactly I can post!  It went quite well... I had been missing this part of my life so much.   

Between concert notes before I run out the door...

- I can actually hit a high B reliably again and I'm really holding my own in this choir
- pantyhose sucks but when you're wearing a thin skirt that'd show garters or panty lines it's the best option
- is there such a thing as choir elbow? my right arm is killing me from holding music :\
- things go bad when you get all hyper-focused and stop listening to your fellow choristers
- guys singing french drinking songs rock
- saying "gee, i should really take off my only black dress shirt before I brush my teeth" is guaranteed to invite a spray of toothpaste on said shirt
- i hope we sing in an echo-y cathedral sometime... these little venues are nice but rather flat
- am i the only one who has ever put antiperspirant on her hands to stop them from getting sweaty?
- having a husband who comes to all your concerts and insists on modding your binder with a hand strap rocks

My first concert with the Sacred & Profane Chamber Chorus is on March 3rd in Berkeley, and March 4th in Walnut Creek!  Consider this your early warning  :)

Tickets are available online for our "Springtime in Paris" concert, featuring mostly French music by choral masters from the Renaissance to the 20th century.  We're a small group, and one of the top choirs in the Bay Area.

The rehearsal retreat all day yesterday went wonderfully.  Stuff is really coming together.

I'm even starting to like that damn bird song. 

Music rocks, even though I could barely talk after last night's rehearsal. I probably shouldn't have sung so hard over that cold.

PS. She said this is the best soprano section they've had, right after we worked on the piece I'd practiced the hardest! *pats self*

This year is looking so much brighter than most of 2006.

I'm feeling happier, calmer, and more able to deal with the ups and downs. I was really starting to panic at my sensitivity to so many situations. Usually I'm, well, excitable, but able to handle things. It was at the point where setbacks were constantly freaking me out. So much change. Starting to feel some momentum again. Boy have I ever learned the value of momentum.

Landed fFree passes to the MacWorld Expo (priority code: DIGG [thanks stevie!]).  On that note, OMFGIPHONEWANTWANTWANT!  Wish the bugger was 3G though.

I just landed a Drupal contract, with another one in the works, which should be both a lot of fun and some much-needed income. I got into the choir, as mentioned before. We had our first rehearsal last night, and of course worked on the pieces that I practiced precisely the least :P So I didn't exactly blow anyone away with my preparation, but I did my best. It's a phenomenally talented group. I hope I can pull some of you Northern Californians out of the woodwork to catch a concert or two :D

Beautiful songs, mainly French (thank god for being Canadian), some insanely complex/fast pieces. Have a listen to #17 here. Meagan I think you'd like that one.. it's all about dryads and other delightful creatures :) But holy hell I don't know how to sing French that fast.

It's starting to really feel like home, getting involved with things locally, meeting people, etc. Actually it feels like we have a real bedroom now too. We put up the curtain track and finished the "closet" area. Pics to follow.

I also unfortunately found out that my new billing service (Verotel), while wonderful, does not operate in quite the way I thought it did, so I'm having to re-think the way I was going to run the new site. Oy. But I'm working on it. Will likely be going back to more of a membership model than the planned downloads a la carte. It's a constant reminder why so few people do what I'm doing... I must be nuts.

Word of the day: loup-garou. It means werewolf in French :)