av8rmike

So, what's been going on the past month? Lots of the same uninteresting stuff, like trying to organize stuff around the house and get things unpacked. The PHP/MySQL project for work for which I've been up to my eyeballs finally seems to be clearing, so I may actually have time to start doing things like updating and Support again. It's been really interesting, and I've learned a lot about server-side programming, but probably not enough to help out significantly with DW/LJ because I still find Perl pretty impenetrable, and I didn't have to consider a lot of scalability problems for the work site.

For Thanksgiving Jamie and I flew back to see her family in Wisconsin. I found it amusing that the question nearly everyone asked was, "How was the security?" or "Did you get [frisked]?". What people who have been following the stories only loosely may not have understood is that not everyone is required to get scanned. At BWI and Milwaukee, for instance, I only went through the same metal detectors I always go through. The millimeter-wave scanners were there, and some people were going through them, but I couldn't see a pattern to it, nor was I asked to step through. So, you do still have a choice, and it's not exhibitionism vs. groping vs. arrest.

Anyway. Off to a full week of rehearsals for 3 separate concerts!

I know, that's the worst, most clichéd headline I could come up with, but that's why I'm not in the newspaper business.

Baltimore Opera Company to close

Three months after seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and canceling the remainder of the 2008-2009 season, the board of trustees of the Baltimore Opera Company voted yesterday to pursue Chapter 7 liquidation instead and dissolve the 58-year-old organization. The company's assets, including a warehouse, scenery, costumes and technical equipment, will be sold, and the proceeds will be distributed among creditors.

Supplementally, Tim Smith's blog entry on the subject. Looks like I was largely correct that not only had they blown all their money last fall on Aida, but they hadn't even built up an endowment and were basically living week-to-week.


Still want to move here, Jamie?

Mayor wants to drop 'Ravens' from his name

Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, at least for this week, wants to be known as Luke Steelerstahl.

"On behalf of the Steelers Nation, I've decided to remove the word 'Ravens' from my name just like the Steelers will remove them from the AFC Championship," he said, referring to Sunday's playoff game against the Baltimore Ravens.

The mayor this morning began, but did not complete, a Verified Petition for a Name Change. [...]

Mr. Ravenstahl said the idea for the name change was not his own. Callers to the Star 100.7 morning show "called in and thought it would be a good idea to change from Ravenstahl, given we are playing the hated Baltimore Ravens this weekend, to Steelerstahl," he said. "As soon as I heard it, I thought it was a great idea."

He said he and his wife, Erin, and 2-month-old son, Cooper, "didn't really talk about it, but I'm sure they wouldn't mind doing it, either."

At least their mayor isn't under indictment for corruption.

..in case you didn't see news or lj_maintenance:
No LiveJournal from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM EST (8-12 PST) because of the server move. No posts, no friends lists, no messages, nothing. Get back to work!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25145431/

He was only 58 years old. He had a massive heart attack while working on the voice-overs for "Meet The Press". Unbelievable.

Nobody had the political presence and gravitas he had in Washington. Not George S, not Olbermann, O'Reilly, or Blitzer. While it was a little silly, his ever-present whiteboards during the elections and primaries are practically iconic. I really wonder what NBC will do with "Meet The Press" now, and if I can watch it as faithfully.

I also think I need to call my dad.

Go Bills.

Since chasethestars wants some actual content and not just notes ;), and since I fall into her second category of friends (the actively informed ones), I feel compelled to weigh in on the current situation.

I first saw the story here in no_lj_ads about Anton Nossik, the "Chief Blogger" of SUP (our Russian overlords) being interviewed for a Russian Internet site. The original is in Russian, but there are translations here and here. In it, he's dismissive of the concerns of these striking users, labels them "idiots" and the tactics "blackmail", and confirms the removal of new Basic accounts was done because they were not profitable.

Linked to in the_lj_herald is a statement in Nossik's own journal, in which he claims he was misrepresented as the head of SUP. He denies making the claims attributed to him, calls himself a "Social Media Evangelist", and basically tries to absolve himself of any responsibility of speaking for SUP. He also refuses to list what his actual capacities are in someplace appropriate and visible, such as his userinfo page; instead, he tells people to seek out that information on the Internet in general, then criticized it as being out of date.

Here's the thing that gets me, though (as if that weren't enough). Anyone who has been in a sufficiently large organization should know that there is supposed to be one avenue of communication. It might be a dumb example, but in my fraternity days, we were always told never to claim to speak for the house. If a reporter wanted some kind of opinion, always say "no comment" and refer them to the chapter president. That prevents one guy from making the entire organization from looking bad. Nossik can't have it both ways; he can't grant interviews to reporters, trash the users and the site's founder, then claim he's not empowered to speak for the organization and say "it's just my opinion". As one of Russia's "most visible bloggers", a SUP employee, and a longtime LJ user, he has to know that reporters are going to ask his opinions and that they will be representing the company. Either he is the company spokesperson, or he shouldn't grant the interviews.

I really need to get back into the habit of posting more often. Time was when I tried to post an entry almost every day, even if I was just talking about what I was practicing. Sometimes I go and read older entries, and it's nice to look back at what was going on at any particular time, especially since so much has been the same for the last several years.

I also need to pay more attention to who's friending me. Welcome afuna, camomiletea, and chasethestars, my fellow Styles Support junkies. ;)

Two big concerts over the weekend: The world premier of Jared Denhard's American Voices for narration and orchestra with the GVO, and the Brahms/Ives concert with Columbia. The latter got a nice preview in the Baltimore Sun, although I doubt there was similar coverage for the other.

Anyway, the GVO's audiences are slowly increasing with each show, which isn't too shabby for a group only 5 years old. The concert went about as well as could be expected with the amount of over-rehearsing we did. Jared's piece was pretty well received, but it always helps to bring the house down at the end with Tchaikovsky's "Polonaise" from Eugene Onegin and Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld Overture.

Saturday's concert was just awesome. A Charles Ives symphony can be a bit of a tough listen, but this one was one of the more approachable, and the audience seemed to be into it. It was definitely a good decision to play it before the Brahms concerto. Speaking of which, Brian Ganz was just incredible. I was sitting just feet away from him, and the energy he puts into his performances is palpable. I also have to compliment our audience for being more cultured; after each movement, where there would usually be a little bit of applause, no one moved. That definitely added to the atmosphere.

Next up: two weeks of practicing for The Nutcracker. It's my fourth time through, so I'm going to try to get even more parts down.

Study: One in Four Americans Doesn't Read

Apparently, this article is today's source of ire and disdain. While I can't say I read no books last year, the actual number couldn't have been more than one or two. I just don't see where people get that kind of time. I hear about or see lots of books and think, "that seems like it'd be interesting," but never so much that I'll rush home to start reading it. Of course, my time management has never been all that great, either. Maybe it's true that the Internet makes you stupid. I hope I haven't made gingy or bristlesage too crabby or amazed.

It was my first time in Atlantic City yesterday, and half of it burned down. I'm going to have to renew my Flickr subscription, because I'm way behind on the photo uploading.

So, you'd think I'd talk more about aviation-related things than music-related. I meant to post this yesterday but never got around to it, from the Washington Post:

Inaugural Flights Draw Airline "Geeks"
If you can't read the article (the site may require registration or something), it's all about people who spend their hard-earned money and frequent flyer miles to be on that first flight when an airline starts a new route. Such as, Washington Dulles to Beijing, in the case of the person interviewed. I used to be into some admittedly geeky aviation stuff, but wanting to fly for three days to China and back (a 14-hour, 6,920-mile route) wasn't one of them.

Also, here's an article, also from the Post, about the double-decker Airbus A380 making a stop at Dulles. Now that would have been cool to see. Too bad it looks like it's going to be the company's Spruce Goose, because they have to sell over 400 of them to break even on the design costs, and airlines are dropping orders left and right.