Snowy day
December 3rd, 2006
Our first real snowfall this winter!
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FOOD
November 30th, 2006
I haven’t done a whole lot in the past month. However, I have eaten some food. More than once, even!
First was a big chicken that Sari and I roasted with some veggies:
Then she (Sari, not the chicken) ran off to Japan and had many adventures, some of which also involved food. (Raw whale meat, anyone?)
Upon her return, inspired by yummy Japanese food, we had a feast or two:
(follow the link to see what all the stuff actually is)
And finally, now that it’s getting a bit colder out (no significant snowfall yet though…), I’ve started making bread again!
I managed to get a nice texture with lots of holes in it, which is nice. I’ve been trying to do that for ages, but it didn’t usually work. Not sure why it did this time though! Maybe because I put in more olive oil than usual? Or did most of the second rise in the oven while it baked? (with interesting side effects).
Recordings
November 6th, 2006
Last week I recorded a few tracks to use as a demo for Jeunesses Musicales.
I’d like to start recording more often, and posting more tunes here. Now that I have some slightly better equipment for recording, and don’t have to deal with the minidisc, it might actually happen. Can anyone recommend some good cheap microphones though? The one I have isn’t really up to the task. It’s a little minidisc stereo microphone, Sony ECM-MS908C (basically an older version of this one). It actually works surprisingly well for being a tiny little simple microphone, but the level it puts out is way too low. For some reason, I didn’t have that problem so much when I used it with my minidisc, but it might just have a higher recording level than just about everything else I’ve tried.
I’ve had Oktava mics recommended to me. They’re apparently very cheap for what you get, though it’s still expensive. With all the cables, stands shipping and all the rest, I think I’d be looking at no less than $600 to get a pair of them, and possibly quite a bit more. This isn’t a ridiculous amount, and for microphones, it’s not much at all, really, but for something that I’m not really serious about, it’s a little much!
New pictures
October 27th, 2006
For the latest concert with the Seasons Baroque Ensemble, Sari and I decided to rent a car and drive there and back. It was fun to have a road trip together, and to not have to worry about schedules or anything like that. It was exhausting though… and somewhat more expensive than the bus (since we were there for a whole week).
The concert was also exhausting. Katherine and Graham only got back to town two days before the show, so we put together a very challenging programme, including F. Couperin’s L’apothéose de Lully on very short notice. The end result was very good though – many people commented that it was our best yet. We certainly had a good turnout, too. The Cathedral is a very nice place to play.
Roadtrip
October 16th, 2006
A drive to Keswick Ridge for a concert with Seasons, and a few pies.
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New toy!
October 6th, 2006
I’m writing this from my living room with no cables attached to the computer! I finally went out and got (well, sat in and ordered) a wireless router, after months of waffling on it. It’s nice to have. After spending far too much time wrestling with a defective ethernet cable (which was also the only one long enough to reach over to the bed comfortably), I decided enough was enough, and $20 really isn’t that much money anyway.
A pox on the computer industry…
September 30th, 2006
I complain about the computer industry all the time. Today is no exception. I just helped Philip fix his internet connection after random websites stopped working the other day. Apparently he spent at least an hour on the phone with Sympatico technical support, and the technician there gave up, basically just saying that windows was messed up.
Turns out Sympatico’s DNS servers are just junk, and switching to other servers fixed the problem right away. But why couldn’t the person working at Sympatico figure that out? Even worse, some web searches show that this problem has been occurring intermittently for years now. It’s appalling how tolerant we are of incompetence in this field…
New domain!
September 30th, 2006
I ust finally got around to registering redowl.ca! So you should now be able to reach this site at https://jono.redowl.ca instead of using the longer dyndns.org address.
I can also receive mail at jono@redowl.ca, though I’m still using jonathan.addleman@mail.mcgill.ca as my main address. Having my main e-mail on a not-all-that-stable ADSL line kinda scares me.
Any of the other e-mail addresses hosted here should work with the new domain too.
If it’s not working for you just yet, give it another day or so – I just registered it last night, and sometimes it takes a while to propagate through the net.
Back in Montreal for a time
September 29th, 2006
The concert in Fredericton went very well! I didn’t get it recorded, unfortunately, but there will definitely be more. Gallery 78 is a very nice place for a harpsichord recital – just big enough to hold some people and sound good while still being cozy and intimate. We have a concert coming up with the Seasons Baroque Ensemble in a couple of weeks. If you’re in Fredericton, it will be October 15 at the Cathedral – I’ll get some more details up here in the next little while.
While in New Brunswick, I went roaming in the woods, of course. The weather was fantastic most of the week, and with the trees starting to change colours, it was really perfect.
