a southern gal in the north

Hie you here Fast for Photos from RHEINGOLD

Sounds & Fury: Will Wonders Never Cease: 2006 Bayreuth Das Rheingold.

The first of four programmes tracing the life and achievement of the founder of the Philharmonia Orchestra, whose centenary occurs next June. He was a concert impresario and a highly successful producer with over 3500 classical recordings to his credit.

Includes songs from Legge’s innovative Hugo Wolf Society, Jascha Heifetz playing Sibelius, and scenes from the famous pre-war Berlin recording of The Magic Flute, conducted by Beecham.

Presented by Humphrey Burton.

BBC – Radio 3 – Walter Legge – The Young Turk.

I LOVE Clematis and all vines of any shape or color.  (well, except IVY when it takes over).

I bought a bunch of Clematis (well five) at a local nursery when I bought my foundation plants earlier this summer (it seems like years ago).  I have had mixed results.

FOUR of them had Major transplant shock and died all the way back (one) or almost all the way (three). No Five has been sturdy and great all along. 

Almost two months later they are all coming back in different stages – the one that died all the way back is featured here.  Its a Ramona Clematis.    It was gorgeous at the nursery and I paid extra to get a 4 ft specimen.

Well, here is what it looked like a week after buying.

Not a very happy plant.  Here it is planted.

It then proceeded to die COMPLETELY back to the soil.  With One Lone Little Leaf left.  I just kept watering it… I covered it in mulch and …..

here it is today!

of course we are having the wackiest weather ever this summer – lots and lots of rain and the hot days in between.

Hopefully there will be buds and blooms before the fall comes!

This was one of those weeks where you wish hadn’t happend and that it was next month or anytime but now.

Last week my laptop hard drive crashed and along with it my current outlook file – luckily I had purchased an external hard drive in March for my ever growing mp3 files (operas and BBC radio shows mainly) and digital photos (love to take em).

So I was ok and had even reconciled to losing the last three months of emails (yikes! ) and all my recently! updated addresses… sigh.  But I had that hard drive!

So after an expensive trip to the local CompUSA store – and several days of installing all those programs you use everyday – and now ALL the cds, manuals et al are in ONE BOX – I was up and running.

And then Friday another disaster….  I was hooking up my Lyra Wireless Transmitter and had to reboot and all of a sudden the G drive (where the External Drive is) could NOT be seen.

QUEL HORREUR!!!!!   (and many other words to that effect).

After trying every USB port and after much research online, resetting all of them and plugging and unplugging all other USB devices, I determined it was not the USB ports.  Thank goodness on one hand but not on the other cause that meant it was the drive. 

However, it was powering up.  Then I remembered that the power cable was not sitting properly in the jack (never did since the day I received it).  In fact it was very loose.  So I think its the power supply – maybe it shorted. 

So I called LACIE support – I tell you those guys must get a ton of desperate calls each day – I was NOT a happy camper and rather upset at the thought of losing 150G of data.  I didn’t need to hear the guy saying – you know that you really should back up to cds.    NOT the thing to tell a desperate person on the other end of the phone on a Friday afternoon.

So they are sending me a new powersupply and cords and new USB cable.

In the meantime, I am offering every prayer I know  and hope the gods of the computerworld will smile down and let this drive come back to life.

I did research abit and discovered that the MAJORITY of issues like this – where this drive is not recognized by the computer but is powering on – come to the power supply and usually a replacement works.

Other than that the Tech Support guys (I called back later to PLEAD that they send it so I get it at least by TUES and not the end of next week) said that i could probably put the drive in another unit and it would work.   There were no sounds (like the dreaded clicking) coming from it – thats what the laptop was doing – you REALLY don’t want that noise ever and if you do…. backup furiously and fast!).

Ok.  so in the meantime… I will be backing up whatever is on the C drive today to cds. 

and crossing fingers, toes, whatever!

The Hardware Aisle

Old House My House

The Shelter Life

Secret Sources

I wrote just a few days ago about some organizing software that I had purchased… after installing it and trying it,  i realized its not really what i wanted.  I have a HUGE list of my inventory in an excel spreadsheet and really didn't want to re-input ALL that information.  (I like to be efficient but avoid double-work if I can at all possible).

so I searched again and found Needletrax  It looked to be just the thing.  So I ordered it …. and then, of course, while searching for something else on my external hard drive – found a directory with the files - and remembered that I HAD bought a copy awhile ago but the CD is nowhere to be found!

The lovely creator of the product, Mary, has graciously offered to send me a replacement cd for a lower price ! Such Great Customer Service!  (Naturally  – just what I would expect from another Southerner!)

VOILA!  its just what I want!    It allows IMPORTING! and EXPORTING!  yeah – for when I get a new palm to replace my old dead one, then I can carry an updated list with me!  A truly well done product!

I will have to tweak that excel file but NO PROBLEM  – no hours and hours of redoing what I have done before!  And since the weather is predicted to be in the 90’s for the next WEEK, I will be busy indoors!

Disdaining showpieces, he went on to cut his debut disc with Beethoven’s unyielding Diabelli Variations. At the current Proms he has eschewed a blockbuster concerto slot and will appear in the thick of the orchestra as accompanying pianist, barely primus inter pares, in Karel Szymanowski’s seldom-heard fourth symphony.

‘This is not a concerto,’ he declares definitively, to avoid possible misapprehension. ‘To me a proper piano concerto, there is only one composer: Mozart. Beethoven did not write concertos – those are symphonies: God knows what the piano does there. Chopin wrote big piano works with a small orchestra to accompany, not even necessary.’

Anderszewski runs gleefully through the rest of the repertoire, dismissing one beloved concerto after another as generically inadequate until he comes to the Szymanowski symphony which he describes as ‘a 20th century degenerated concerto grosso’, a baroque invention industrially deconstructed. Szymanowski wrote the piano role in fairly simple fingerings for himself to play and Anderszewski is the first world-circuit soloist to take it up since the composer’s best friend, Arthur Rubinstein.

The Piano Man.