Out like a Lamb

I am including some more pictures of the big snow storm from last month. I am also including some new pictures of Spring (see the fish and swans are back in the parks!) and of our NEW COMPUTER!! We are online from home again will our new Dell laptop. It is really fast and does all sorts of neat things we are just now discovering. I can get the new pictures up online with the memory stick reader in the computer rather than wasting camera batteries while hooked up via a USB cable. This is a good thing.

Besides being incredibly fun, the computer is supposed to help us with our academic pursuits. I plan to take it to the library to do work on my dissertation. Katie may take it to school sometimes. We are keeping our old laptop around for when we both need a computer. This new one only weighs about 5 pounds though. It has wireless capabilities, too. We can tote it down to the museum or botanic garden and take advantage of the free wireless hotspots there. This is literally 100 times faster than dial-up. Yikes!

It's been a while since we last posted anything here. I have been very busy playing my horn this month. Maybe only 3-4 evenings off since the second week of March. It is good to be playing often again. I feel like a musician again. Studying for the huge exams at the end of January really took me out of the running for awhile, which coincided with a dropoff in work anyway (so it worked out for the best). I am hoping now to submit a dissertation proposal in May. We'll see if I can beat the deadline.

Katie is working a ton (she took my blood when I donated last week) sometimes 6 days a week. They have her doing all sorts of things at the hospital. Drawing blood being her chief occupation, but she is also working at times in the lab. Helping process and order tests for the various fluids that come there from different far-flung reaches of the hospital.

I hope you enjoy the new pictures, and rest assured that now that we have an at-home computer and connection, we'll be posting more often.

In like a Lion

March is here.

We had another little ice/snow/sleet storm that only left about a 1/2 inch encrustation of icy muck on the ground. Not enought to cancel the LIRR trains, like the last storm (of which more pictures are shortly forthcoming).

Katie and I have just been working and working the past few weeks. This week, however, I will take a break from my normal duties at Mannes College to help with their college auditions (read: everyone else is on a spring break while I am still working at Mannes). This is fun work though. We test the theory and ear training skills of incoming students, some applying for undergraduate programs, some for graduate. If you have ever watched the TV show American Idol, there is an element of the early stages of that show wrapped up in college auditions; some people truly do not belong in the audition process of a conservatory--they can barely read music and wouldn't know Edward Elgar from their elbow. It's also a chance for the teachers to get together and shoot the breeze in between auditioners. Plus, there is free food there!

Katie is still waiting to hear from SUNY Downstate. They just keep telling her to call back. So she does, and the cycle repeats. She is also working at the hospital more since a pregnant colleague of hers was put on bed rest.

Last night, we had leftover lasagna which was vert tasty and a really good red wine. Vitiano by Falesco winery. Imported by Winebow (see their website at www.winebow.com). Very, very yummy and only about $8. We watched a Bollywood movie from India called "Lagaan." It was a period drama about the early 1890s when the British were still in control. Lots of singing and dancing and a wicked game of cricket. I don't really understand the rules of cricket, but the movie overall was pretty fun to watch. Subtitles for the Hindi parts, but still, much of it was in English.

The next two weeks, I'll be super busy with gigs up in the Bronx (South Pacific), a music theory conference at Mannes I am helping with, and a friend's concert at Juilliard on which he is playing two piano concertos, one by Mozart and a new one of his own. I'll also be subbing for another Hofstra professor for about 6 classes. When it rains, it pours. Sometime in there, hopefully, we'll be buying a new laptop computer....till then!