The Agrinautica

Today I am thankful for...

• Thomann and Sweetwater. Minor grumps at Thomann for having a US site that looks tempting until you find out that shipping and tariffs are added at checkout. Major grumps at my old standby, Musician's Friend, whose site is totally broken when seen from Europe. Major grumps at ME for not having installed a VPN yet.
• Online filk circles. NO thanks to the weird audio problems I was having tonight during Eurofilk. But I got one song (The Stuff that Dreams are Made Of) out. (I wrote it for my father, who died 26 years ago. And Father's Day is this Sunday.)

Not feeling terribly thankful today. Sorry.

... so I still haven't done a full con report -- it's been almost a week -- so in the interim I'll just refer you to last week's "Done Since 2025-05-25" (posted on Monday) and "Thankful Thursday" posts. The only parts of the trip it doesn't cover very well are the songs we sang ( "Millennium's Dawn" deserves full S4S treatment), the hotel (the breakfast and dinner buffets, included in the room price), were noteworthy), and the travel.

Right. The travel. Tips:

• Don't leave anything in (travel guitar)Plink's case -- it could delay inspection (and did, at Hamburg).
• On arrival, stay in the plane until somebody tells you that your wheelchair is ready. Hamburg again.
• If you don't look disabled (like m, for example), take a cane and hobble out of the plane with it. This is especially true for Schiphol -- the Dutch tend to be ablist.

Yesterday N, m, and I had a good band practice/conference, including more tweaking on "Millennium's Dawn", scripting for several songs that still had only two-person arrangements, and harmony arrangements because we finally have someone in the band who can reliably sing harmony. We're also going to want a keyboard. Or two, since m is leaving tomorrow for Seattle.

Health-wise, I don't think I'm doing all that well, so it's a good thing I have an appointment with a cardiologist soon, as well as with an oncologist.

If you're interested in word origins, check out the Online Etymology Dictionary, which includes some fascinating articles as well as the dictionary entries.

( Notes & links, as usual )

This weekend, Thursday through Sunday, m and I were at D.F.D.F. | Das Frühlingsfest der Filksmusik in Hanstedt, Germany -- one of the two German filk cons. We got in a couple of good rehersals, Sunday and Wednesday. We'd signed up for a two-song set in the Main Concert, which is basically a couple of hours of two-fers interspersed with voice auction items. This is f'n brilliant, because the auction items overlap the tech setup for the next concert set, allowing the whole affair to proceed seamlessly.

Our "set" was Millennium's Dawn and Ship of Stone. We'd done quite a bit of hacking and slashing to bring "Millennium's Dawn" up to date (removing the verse that starts "There ought to be talking computers...", taking out the first chorus, and making some minor wording tweaks.) We absolutely nailed both songs.

The open filking mostly started after my bedtime, We did get to perform Gentle Arms of Eden and The Bears (middle-sized and middle-aged). m stayed up later, and their singing was also well-received. We'll be back.

There may be a proper con report in a few days.

The flight back was not fun, with hassles in both Hamburg and Schiphol. And Sunday afternoon and evening were kind of a blur due to ( a health issue )

I note in passing that the song pages for Kaleidofolk are in pretty sorry shape right now and badly in need of troubleshooting. Later this week. I also need to put up a page for our new album (in progress), Winds of Time.

( Notes & links, as usual )