I'll vote Likud

 Netanyahu's in town and the short snippets of what he said that were played on NPR - wow I like the guy even more. It dismays me that Netanyahu buddies up to Donnie Diapers because Donnie's a fucking idiot, but Netti's very smart and I'm sure it's all a ploy - his job is to buddy up to whoever is in charge in the US and the chaos another Dumpo term would cause isn't Israel's responsibility. 

As for "Gaza" I think Israel should level the place. Make it so unbearable to live in that the Arabs put their money where their mouths are and leave. The same goes for Judea and Samaria. In short, I think Meir Kahane was right. If a non-Japanese goes to Japan and acts up, they will be punished severely enough that they'll wish they were never born. This is the spirit Israel needs for its survival. 

When I move to Israel to retire, I'll vote Likud. 

I listed 25 things yesterday then took apart more stuff and came up with another 25 things for today. So I'll have my 50 things for the week and that's not counting the 10 I listed on Monday because those "belong" to last week. 

So I got my 25 things photo'd and was ahead of things so .... of course I went out and bought a cornet. I'd been emailing this guy on Craig's List about his Connstellation cornet with no replies, so I'd decided last night that I'd call him. So I called and got an answering machine, then he called me back. I said I'd have to ride my bike downtown then take the train. I wanted to meet up at Bean Scene "More tech companies have been started there than any other coffee shop!" but he was for some strange reason very shy about my playing it in front of the coffee shop so we agreed to meet at the train station. 

I rode downtown to my bank and took out $400 because the guy wanted $385. They were surprised to see me a day earlier than usual. And I left my ID card there so I'll have to get it back tomorrow. 

The trains were a bit wonky but I didn't have to wait long, and called him when the train passed Lawrence station. I got there ahead  of him and he showed up in a few minutes. 

He got it out, and checked all the slides, and a little screw fell off. I'd spotted it, luckily, it's pretty tiny, then he looked all over the horn to find out where it had come from - it came off the thumb trigger for the first valve. He was impressed that I'd seen it and found it because it's the kind of tiny thing that would be GONE normally. 

Then I tested it with his 5C mouthpiece, some scales then a bit of Danny Boy and some My Funny Valentine. Maybe it's the acoustics of where I was, where there's a sort of arching roof-ish thing overhead, but I got a big sound. He was very impressed with that. I'm not sure I was all that impressed with the horn. At least all the slides were not about to freeze up. He said I got a better sound out of it than he ever did. 

The story is the horn was his father's who "played in big bands and in Vegas and everything". It's obviously got some miles on it. I asked him if he'd take $200 and that was a hard no. I asked if he'd take $300 and we talked a bit more and he said OK. 

Losing and finding the screw is happenstance but I think if I'd tried plying it and sounded like shit he'd not have come down on the price. 

Now I got the bright idea to walk down to El Camino Real and take a 22 bus to West Valley Music because the deal did not include a mouthpiece and his was a 5C anyway. So I did the bus thing down there and they had maybe two cornet mouthpieces, both of them 7C's. So then I had to bus it back to Whole Foods and it was a 22 not a 522 (but funnily enough, we left a 522 in our dust) so it was a good long ride. At least there was air conditioning. 

I had a Trumer Pils for my ills and some chicken and talked about buses a bit with the guy who was there with his family at the next table. I asked where he was from (tall, accent, distinguished sort of nose, I figured Swiss) and he was from Bosnia. "But I'm local now", he said. 

I loaded the cornet in its somewhat decrepit old case into two nested Whole Foods back and it hung off the handle bar just fine. I found a book on the way back here, and got right to work on ... 

Listing those 25 things! And I did it with enough time to spare to clean the bathroom, pick up a few pieces of junk on the office floor, and as it got a bit past Ken's usual time, start packing a few things. Whereupon Ken showed up. 

He had a burger and fries for me, and I served up his usual 500ml bottle of diet Sprite and a big cup with lots of ice. 

Then we talked about things, and it turns out he needed an 8uF motor capacitor. He needs a fan motor too but the larger ones we had sold out. I said "Let me look in back" and I found ... a 7.5uF motor capacitor that I'd measured at 7.75uF. Perfect. I found its Ebay number and de-listed it and now Ken has his needed motor capacitor. 

I figure for tomorrow I'll get an early enough start to visit the post office with my packages and the bank, and then go over to Park Avenue Music to try to find a mouthpiece. I have a little cheat card made up with the Bach, Yamaha and Schilke model numbers. If they don't have one, I could ride over to Starving Musician where they have tons of mouthpieces and probably find something. 

If I go to Starving Musician I can look at the Yamaha cornet they have, which is probably in awful shape, immobile slides, etc. But maybe not. It would cost me over 2X what I just paid for the Conn. 

I got the Conn because a Connstellation is a pro level horn when it's in good shape. Interestingly, it has a huge bore, much larger than the Connstellation trumpet. That intrigues me. The "Wayne Bergeron" trumpet I had also has a larger than usual bore and some say it's tiring to play, but I liked it. I should have never that that one go. It had *one* spot of red rust, and on a part that I could buy a replacement of.