Heavy, man.

 Last night I got the Connstellation cornet out and put the screw for the 1st valve trigger back on, and installed new water key corks too. 

It's got a fair amount of wear but the valve compression is really good. Amazing. Maybe it's the quality of metal, and the care of whoever played it "In big bands and in Vegas". 

I messed around with a few tunes, the first bit of "Cantaloupe Island" and some Radiohead stuff. But it's a heavy bugger, weighing in at, with the mouthpiece in, just a tiny bit less than 3 lbs. 

This morning I checked the Yamaha trumpet - 2-1/2 lbs with mouthpiece in. More critically, while the Connstellation is a "short" cornet in terms of standard American types, the distance from mouthpiece to valve block, that my left hand has to support, is the same. 

I tried some tunes on the Yamaha and it doesn't sound as good. The Conn is a heavy little beastie, but given the choice I'd keep it and sell the Yamaha. And in fact I might. In fact there's a lot of things I want to sell and should get on it. 

In other news I'm very disappointed in a blogger I used to follow, Ran Prieur. His latest is how he had a great time in Ireland, one of the most anti-Semitic countries outside of the Middle East. If there's a pogrom while he's there, will he join in and throw a few firebombs himself? Probably. 

Even Thailand isn't safe these days and there's a travel advisory against Israelis going there. For all the talk on r/AmerExit r/expats and so on, almost none of the places they talk about moving to are safe or advisable for Jews to go to. There's ONE country...