cellio | last few days

Sorry; no big weighty thoughts tonight. It's been a randomly-busy week, as opposed to a contemplative one.

Tonight at a board meeting we were looking at some revenue/expense forecasts. I wonder how many people in the room actually read footnotes. (I do, always.) I silently noted, in particular, the entry labelled "SWAG" (actually "swag", but I decided not to correct him :-) ). I contemplated it, decided the number sounded reasonable to me, and concluded that anyone who might have been able to offer a better number had already been involved in the process, so I did not ask him to clarify the "S".

I'm beginning to rethink personal investment strategy. I've always maxed the IRA/401(k), because you just do. The result is that most of my long-term money is in a retirement account that I can't touch, rather than mutual funds that I can. And I'm not convinced that the income tax rate at retirement beats the taxes I would pay now. Hmm. (This thought brought to you, in part, by the annual review of funds with the financial planner on Wednesday.)

Choir practice on Monday was small but functional. For the last few weeks I've been the only one on my part; fortunately, I can handle that. Unfortunately, though, the fact that we have to go to Toronto for Pesach on the Saturday before (not the Sunday before as I had been planning) means that we won't have part coverage for an SCA event we were going to sing at. Mind, the world doesn't end if we don't sing there, but it's still unfortunate.

The latest CD from the Austin Lounge Lizards, from 2003, has a song with the refrain something like "why can't we blow up Saddam?". Some topics are just riskier than others for the songwriter. I hope they got some mileage out of it. :-) (I had forgotten just how much I enjoy having a working source of music in my car.)

It's looking like the D&D group is going to cut over to version 3.5, with some adjustments made to avoid penalizing players too much on things that got drastically changed for the worse. Saturday night we're having a rules discussion before the game.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It will never get done...

Was wondering if you can recommend someone in the NYC area who might be willing to play the hammered dulcimer for the ceremony...or possibly allow you to use theirs (since you'd have the added advantage of knowing Jewish music).

Shabbat Shalom!

Devo

Poking around has commenced. More later. Shabbat shalom!

I've been poking around the Jewish-music community, because the (general) hammer-dulcimer community has a very low concentration of people who know Jewish music. So far I've turned up one lead for you: Paul Morrisset, of the Klezmatics, is a tsimbl player (it's very similar to a hammer dulcimer; I think it's an eastern-European variant) who, according to the person who referred me to him, also does solo work. The Klezmatics are very good; I haven't heard him by himself. http://www.klezmatics.com .

I'll keep digging, but wanted to pass this one on.

thanks!

last few days

Because if I wait for Zach to ask...

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Re: Because if I wait for Zach to ask...

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