Tuesday, June 21, 2005

The ugly, techy truth

Well, finally I'm updating from Heidelberg. It's been annoying because I can't seem to get my ftp program to upload any photos from my handheld. So no cool photos yet. The connection I used last time from Star Coffee is being problematic currently, but I hope to resolve those issues (although I'm not sure right now how I'll do that).

So far I've mostly been hiking in the hills around H-berg (which to my pleasant surprise has MILES of backwoods trails within easy reach of the city). And of course, drinking beer. The current Hefeweizen champ is Heidelberg's own hefe from Heidelberg Braurei, which is light, subtle, refreshing and citrusy. MMMMMMMMmmmm! Just the thing after a long wander in the woods.

The interesting news is that I've been roped in to singing in an a capella group for the theater group in which Lisa is participating. We're singing a Billy Joel Song, "And So It Goes," which has been arranged for/by the King Singers. Currently, I've even been assigned the solo! I've really had to scrape the rust of my sight-reading skills as well as my actual tenor voice...singing punk music is forgiving from an accuracy perspective as long as you have the right attitude. But this is back to choir singing, and BOY! I sound like a hinge! Nor does punk music make demands on whether you sing an 8th note or a dotted 16th. I find myself thinking "Wait! I used to be able to do this. Really! Um, how many hectares in a cubit again?"

We've got another couple of weeks to improve, and I'll need all of that. Lisa says everyone in the theater group usually gets a DVD of the performance. So I hope to have a recording of the song. Let's just hope I don't have to apologize profusely to posterity. "Ouch! Sorry about that posterity! Didn't mean to make you cover your ears and howl like that!"

Also, tomorrow morning Lisa and I head to Amsterdam for her Linguistic Conference. We got a good travel book that will help me plan my itinerary for the times Lisa is listening to pedants wheeze painfully on about vowel shifts and such. I think I'd rather be taking the Heineken Brewery tour and visiting the Rembrandt museum. I'm sure that comes as a surprise to those who know me.

I'll be sure to post a complete rundown of the trip...I HOPE

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey! Vowel shifts can be quite exciting!
By the way, there are 144 square cubits in a hectare. --YLS, T.

Anonymous said...

A hinge ? What have you got against hinges ? They help us open our doors,buddy !

Nat'l Hinge Appreciation Society

Perhaps you could use "Hinge" as the name of a new solo project....

Anonymous said...

from Devon: Sounds like you're having a great time and I'm so happy for you. If you like, I'll try and find out where in the vicinity of Germany (don't you love that: like when you say you're from Illinois people ask if you know so-and-so [is that hyphenated?]) Harry and Peggy will be next month. Harry likes drinking beer (and making it, too) as much as you do. Very scary . . .

Andrew said...

Actuallz, I like the idea of a music project titled "Hinge."

It would be great to see Peggy and Harry here if the timing worked out. It's very easy to get to other places from Heidelberg, and Lisa and I are now in the process of determining what other places we want to visit while we're here. So it may be that a crossing of the paths could be engineered.