Paul 's blog - Blog - My blog - Yahoo! Pulse

Paul 's blog - Blog - My blog - Yahoo! Pulse

STILL TESTING!

Yoono

Just added Yoono to my Firefox.


TESTING

And so it goes

Saw the doctor today. Geeze, I'm in a fix and talking about it only made things feel worse. Fortunately I felt better before the appointment, especially after watching a video of Jon Parrish from the Orchestra Committee give a speech to the Rotary Club about the HSO. After so many months of bad vibes and despair, it was really great to hear an upbeat version of what could be.

My assignment from the doctor is to get the 2007 taxes done. That's hanging everything up. My hard drive crashed on New Year's Day, 2008 and I lost all my records, none of the back-ups would open so I've got to recreate it from receipts and the longer that I put it the worse it is for me.

So what am I doing? Trolling the internet and blogging. Great. Gotta go!

Monday, new week

Still feeling depressed and bleak. Scared- not a good place to be. Got an appointment with my shrink for tomorrow, so I moved my dental appointment up a week that conflicted.

Been working on updating the (financial) books- what a mess I've left for myself. I've got to be more productive and work harder, but it's so easy to sit around and hang on the internets or blog...

This blog is to help me get through this crisis and develop working skills that will bring in extra income, so I won't spend more whining time.

I read a lot (on the internets!) about other people's struggle. Local comedian and prolific FB'er Andy Bumatai has been pretty public about his struggles recently- aging parents, need to bring in steady money (so he's selling Deep Sea Kona water!)- he asked people what they tell
themselves to motivate. His phrase is 'keep moving'

Well, now I wasted time looking for it on his FB page and couldn't find it- so maybe I imagined it or it was someone else... ANYWAY, the point is - keep moving!

Sitting around feeling depressed and scared is a bad place to be.

Dark days

Today has been a dark one for me. I woke up knowing somehow that the day would be a bad one, and sure enough, the toilet mysteriously overflowed first thing in the morning. It's really starting to hit, the financial trouble we're in. Two months behind on the mortgage, thousands of dollars in unpaid back taxes, both Federal and State excise taxes. They're catching up with us and I'm not ready for them yet.

It all started in 2007 when the HSO stopped paying us on time. I was the committee chair then and my life has never been the same since. I spent all my time trying to 'save the symphony' and got tossed to the wolves in the process. Then on New Year's Day, 2008, a horrible hard drive crash and somehow my financial records are all gone, even the back-ups can't be recovered so 2007 taxes need to be done from receipts- I got half way through it, gave up and still have not filed for 2007. I owe big time for 2008 and 2009.

And now the HSO is bankrupt, and things have never looked as bleak for the future prospects. I feel like I've lost hope. Many of my colleagues have left and gone on to other jobs in other fields. I don't feel qualified for anything else and am paralyzed with anxiety of how to proceed.

I've been avoiding and denying for too long. Even when I was in practice mode for the four auditions I took I could have been more proactive. I've let myself laze around and have missed opportunities that I could possibly have created for myself.

I should have been keeping the books more up-to-date and now have to pay the price. There's a box full of receipts and statements - and two more boxes as well, under my desk. The garage is full of junk that we bought for the kids, all outgrown and some of it never used in the first place. There's 14 cages that Meghan was going to clean and sell back in June, never did- leaving it for us to do. I just feel so overwhelmed.

The front page of today's paper highlighted how weak Hawaii's foreclosure laws are and as I read it the reality that we may well lose this house really sunk in. Better get moving, get lean and mean as Dr. Okumoto has been advising for months. We're in deep doo doo.

This blog is to be about my process of surviving this crisis. Wish us luck.

Another busy week

Hard to believe it's been another week since I posted. Spent the week working on the Beatles 'I am the Walrus' arrangement, three rehearsals and the concert Sunday night. Concert went well, lots of people there and well received. The arrangement worked well too, so I'm glad about that.

Gotta get more music print-ready before I can really start to promote the website, etc.

Lots of stuff in the media about the HSO, very strange and stressful to see your job's demise discussed on the front page... For some reason, this period has turned into a pressure point. I thought that would be waiting until the bankruptcy court in October, so maybe it's good that there's some action now. It seems that much of the orchestra world is falling apart at the moment, I do envy those in situations that keep them playing. That's the worst part of this whole thing- not being able to do what you love to do.....

In many ways, this situation is like the people in the gulf. The problem is big and out of our control, not of our making but totally devastating. At least they seem to have the gusher capped for the moment. When will our gusher start up again?

In so many ways our situation reminds me

Busy weekend

Hmmm- my plan to post daily hasn't happened yet- had a very busy weekend despite being unemployed.

Immediate tangent: I can't BELIEVE what the Republicans are saying about unemployment. To insinuate that if you're collecting unemployment you're lazy and unmotivated is just plain heartless.

Back to my weekend: The biggest deal was my arrangement of I am the Walrus for bassoon quartet. I'd been intending to make this arrangement for years but never got 'around tuit' as the saying goes.... We're having a bassoon quartet concert next Sunday and we've got a number of other Beatles tunes, so this seemed like the moment to jump, so I basically spent all of Friday, Sat and most of Sun working on the arrangement.

This blog is about my developing income-generating projects other than my formerly primary job with the symphony, one of those plans is to gather all my arrangements and compositions, print many copies of them, organize them and (hopefully) sell them. I've got a website going - arundonaxmusic.com. A lot of my Facebook friends have expressed interest in the Beatles arrangement already.

Other weekend activities included watching the final World Cup game and the Tour de France.
There was an orchestra party- the first one in a very long time- on Friday night. I taught two students.

Monday morning was the second bsn quartet rehearsal, and the debut of the Walrus arrangement. Much to my relief, it worked very well. May it sell tons of copies!!

Back to Bassoon

Bassoon Quartet rehearsal this morning. I'm so out of the routine of getting up and out of the door it was a bit of a pain to be on time- and then of course, lots of road work. Curses. Quartet should be fun, we're doing lots of pops kind of stuff- a Beatles medley, Mancini, Opera tunes, etc.

I've always intended to make a bassoon quartet arrangement of 'I am the Walrus', so this seems to be a good reason. So I've got three days to make the arrangement- a tall order but I should be able to crank it out.

Corresponding with Trevor Cramer of Trevco about carrying my titles. I've got a lot of stuff all ready to go, years of inertia all ready to harness.

So I've got a lot of balls in the air- this blog is to help keep all this straight as I transmoogrify from a full time employee to a harried free-lancer.

Here are some of the balls:

Personal- 2007 taxes, catch up in notating expenses on computer

Professional:

Arundonax Music- make arrangements, correspondence, Hickling project (a copy job)

Bassoons Hawaii- work on syllabus, method book

Grin-n-Barett Cards- keep identifying possible sales outlets here and on mainland. Get more angel and Xmas cards printed. collate sets.

I'm sure there's more but it's late and I'm off for today.

Why Transmoogrifcation?

Simple- Transmogrification was taken already @ blogger.com

I've always liked the word from the Calvin and Hobbes strip and thought it would be fitting here.

But nooooo- others got to it (and similar words) first- and then abandoned them. What's with that?

I think Transmoogrification suits me better anyway.

Hello world!

've decided to start a new blog to chronicle my latest journey in life. I've been a musician in a symphony orchestra for 33 years until it went bankrupt last fall. It's now July and it seems clear to me that I need to find new sources of income. What I'm looking for is something that I can continue to do even if the symphony does manage to show some signs of life.

This will entail change and major change, which is not so easy when one is a fifty something and the years available for the future are getting fewer and fewer.