A new "Ten Year Plan"

Back in 1992 I was playing a round of golf with "The Groose" and Andrewww. I asked them where they wanted to be in ten years time. I can't remember what they said, but I knew that I wanted to be back in Townsville with a stable life with plenty of family support and perhaps an interest in the family business. When me & K decided to have kids, we had a secret pact to space our children about three years apart and to have a maximum of two boys. Once Z was born, our ten year plan was complete, and ever since, I have been struggling to have a vision of where I want to be in ten years time. The truth is, any ambitions I had as an individual are no longer relevant eg. - to become a great tennis/trumpet player. Ambitions I had vicariously for my children have come up against the barrier of their own free will being at odds with what I believe they *should* wish to strive for. I seem to have lost the steering wheel to my life and I'm just relying on accelerator, break, gears and momentum for any control at all. Any ideas?

Concierto De Aranjuez (orange juice (sic))

From the movie "Brassed Off" .Townsville Brass actually played this at our last contest, and we have a young female Flugel Horn player and an older baldy conductor like this clip. We are playing it again at a concert on the strand "Brass on the Grass" Sunday 11th November.

Finally back over 20 degrees celcius

Since Wednesday here in Townsville, the temperature has dipped below 20' C and on thursday we had our lowest EVER maximum of 13.9' C. Today the maximum was back up to 20' C. I blame all those internal migrants from Melbourne bringing their depressing cold rainy weather. On the other hand, I could blame global warming for triggering a severe antarctic blast that permeated all the way to the tropics, as temperatures differentials suck away the cold air.

Queensland Brass Band Championships 2007

Townsville Brass made pretty much a clean sweep of the B grade events winning the Hymn, Test Piece, Stage March and light music concert divisions as well as the aggregate trophy. We came a close second in the own choice and in the middle of the pack in the street march.

Some reflections: The Townsville bands broke new ground a few years ago by wearing polo shirt uniforms for some events, rather than full suits with jackets. This year for instance we wore them for the street march and the concert. Our D grade band, called Brolga Brass wore them for all their events. I just believe that the suits that just about all other bands were wearing made them look stuffy and overly formal, as well as being completely inappropriate for warm weather.

Playing good music is incredibly therapeutic. Winning competitons even more so.

Bundaberg, Easter

I am going Down to Bundaberg for easter for the Qld Brass band Championships. Is anybody reading this going to be in Bundaberg at that time? Townsville is going to win the B-Grade championships, I am sure. There'll be a good march past as well.

Dream time for water trading enthusiast

First they wanted to build pipes to Brisbane, now they are resurrecting the NQ to Darling-Murray system diversion scheme. The latter scheme kind of Bypasses Brisbane a bit but on paper seems to be slightly cheaper. There is also talk of a network of pipes between Queensland's dams. All of this is enough to make the mouth of a water-trading enthusiast.. well... WATER. It is hard to trade water allocations between places that don't have a cheap transference of actual water (ie. a pipe) between them. After years that recycled water has been free, it now is seen as valuable, and therefore worth spending money on. With a water allocation trading structure, infrastructure ideas suddenly find a way to fund themselves. Why would North Queenslanders be happy for their excess water to go to greedy southern areas? For the money of course!

Fine line

Hells bells! We sure go from Brownsville to Drownsville pretty quick! The rain will be P(ers)iss(t)ing down for a while to come now. Should have re-routed those rivers to point South.