I stayed up all night, listed 15 things, and made plans. I'd *walk* my packages to FedEx, then take the bike on the light rail to the bike shop. This depended on everything being open, so I made up little cards with the place names, normal hours, then a place to write in "abnormal" hours, and their phone numbers. As each place was due to be open, I called and in all cases they were. Neat.
I left here at about 9:30 in the morning having packed a number of other large items to go by FedEx. I felt the bike + trailer was a bit more "natural" to push than towing the trailer alone, which requires twisting around in an odd way, plus I could carry more with the bike.
It went OK. It was very clear, beautiful blue sky, and cold. I saw a turkey vulture sunning itself to get warmed up for the day. I dropped the things off at FedEx, picked up a couple packages of fresh basil I may or may not use behind H Mart, and went by the Taiwanese place but it was closed. Two very disappointed Taiwanese ladies were hanging around out front and we all decided they were Just Plain Closed today.
I actually found packing stuff, a couple big pieces of foam and I filled a bag with bubble wrap etc at the laptop repair place.
I got back in here, and put the trailer away, and put the bike inside to work on it, the delicate task of removing the saddlebags, which normally slide right off of the rack, but I use a bolt to make them theft-resistant at least. I'd tried fiddling around with the messed up dereilleur some more and had broken off gear teeth end up in my hand so this was definitely above my skill level.
Done messing around with the bike, I gave myself a much-needed haircut and a bath, ditto. The bath was neat because I got to verify that the artificial "burlap" used in those large bags of onions, makes a great scrubber. Each bag yields two of them, and they can be discarded when done.
I got into clean clothes and after having some nuts and coffee, started out again. This time no trailer, no saddlebags, and I only had to walk up to the light rail. And the trains weren't very busy today. I got on a "blue line" train so I got off at Convention Center and got on a "green line" train and got off at Diridon Station. Then it was just a matter of walking the bike over to the bike shop.
The guy there said Yep, this is gonna need some work. New dereilleur and quite possibly a new chain and probably some sprockets. It will probably cost me a hundred, or a hundred and a half. And they'll have the bike until Thursday anyway. The shop actually seems more cheerful since it changed from La Dolce Velo to Upshift, and I asked the guy if he liked the new management and he said he does. This is good to hear.
Now I walked across the street and hopped on a bus to my bank, put my pay check in, only off by 30c or so, then got on a bus headed back the way I'd come, but I stayed on up to Mountain View and got off at the music store.
I'd been eyeing a listing they had on their web page, of their consignments. They'd had a Yamaha 200AD trumpet on there for a while, and for $200, then it was raised to $250. A while back I'd been selling a trumpet (with no success) to a guy and his son, and the son had a Yamaha 200AD and I'd handled it and thought it was a pretty neat horn.
So, a 200AD for $250 might be a good deal if it's not a dinged and dented and "loved" horn like the last student horn I'd bought there. So I was there to look at it. The lady who owns the place wasn't there and I was waited on by a very nice and helpful Chinese gal. She checked the consignment white board and said there's no Yamaha 200AD on consignment "But let me check, we should have some".
She brought out a 2320, said Sorry it's a different horn, in a nice case and case and horn very close to new. She said they'd bought out a music store and this was one of their rentals. This was a classic case of a parent renting a horn for their kid, and the kid barely taking it out of the case. But this gem was not $250. It was $400. Still stores are asking double that or more for a 2320 in decent condition at all....
So now I have a trumpet again. I also got a K&L stand, a Blessing 3C mouthpiece and a mouthpiece brush. It totaled $510, or in other terms, about 2-1/2 good busking weekends.
I have been doing a lot of thinking about music lately. I have had a tendency to get all wound up in doing rote exercises and this seems to result in a little progress and a lot of "stiffness" and frustration. I've come around to thinking that Yes, there are exercises that are useful. But almost all of one's practice should be things that are enjoyable.
The shakuhachi club got me around to this. Except for the warm-up, we've all been doing songs. This has made me loosen up and do a lot more good old noodling around.
I also rediscovered Adam Rapa a couple of nights ago. I'd watched a bunch of videos by him years ago but he's got a lot of new ones out and I think he's gotten better at explaining how he does things. This is a guy who's been playing since he was 10 or so, been in marching bands and was basically raised as a trumpet player, but his thing, other than making very high-end trumpets, is figuring out exactly how to make high notes easy and sharing what he knows. He does a lot of neat little exercises that I really want to try and you can't try 'em without a trumpet.
So I didn't stop for groceries or anything because I had this trumpet case to carry, and just took the bus from where the music store is, to Diridon Station then on the light rail to the station closest to here and walked in. It was cold out there - according to my computer it's 41F out there right now.
I got in at about 8:30. I'd done a ton of walking, plus had some pretty fun conversations with various people so that was good too.
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