Where is Rooster Ties?

[Jim Dye]

Has anyone heard from Rooster Ties? I hope everything is OK!

[Rooster_Ties]

Hi gang,

Been busier than you could ever imagine, working on the details for our neighborhood's first ever Historic Homes and Gardens Tour -- and actually, we're calling it an "Eclectic" Homes and Gardens Tour. B-)

(BTW, AfricaBrass did the poster for our tour (Thanks Jeff!!!!), and I'm THRILLED with the results.)

I'm on the governing board of our neighborhood association, and since the whole event was my idea -- I found myself in charge of it. ( ) The tour is only about 4 weeks from now, and I've been up to my neck in work for the event, for about the last week or so especially.

I've been sending out my BFT discs this week, as I've had the chance to -- and haven't had much time to read the board, or post any.

I should have things a bit better under control by early next week. Part of the push was for some key deadlines that we had to get to at the end of this week, plus I'm planning to be out of town this weekend - which added an extra crunch to the timeline.

My apologies for not checking in for several days (I see it's been more like a week), and I hope to have all my BFT discs done and in the mail by the middle of next week. Most of them are burned (80 discs total!! -- and my PC takes about 10 or 12 minutes per burn -- yikes!!!), and I just need to find time to package the rest of them up, and address all the envelopes, and get to the post office.

I'll check back in when I can, but I'll definitely be out of pocket this Fri-Sun, in St. Louis visiting my Dad.

Cheers!!!

Edited April 13, 2005 by Rooster_Ties

[rostasi]

Good to hear from you!

[jazzbo]

WHEW!

[Jim Dye]

I'm glad everything is OK!

[sidewinder]

:rsmile:

[Free For All]

Once again the question arises- where is Tom?

His last post was May 18th.

You'd think he'd be hanging around to monitor the BFT craziness.

[couw]

his profile says he has been lurking here today

[Man with the Golden Arm]

> <

[Bright Moments]

i'v been in touch with tom. he's fine and just has a lot going on right now.

not to worry.

[Rooster_Ties]

An update from Tom:

Hello everyone,

I'm really sorry I've been absent or under the radar for several weeks. I'm OK, but have just had a hell of lot going on in April and May with that Historic Homes Tour that I was in charge of. The event went well, with over 300 people on the tour (which was May 15th).

Then the following weekend the symphony chorus that I sing was involved in a performance of the opera Turandot (by Puccini), which we were grossly under prepared for, due to some major over commitment by the chorus to performing with several other local orchestral groups over the months of April and May (with 4 different performances/productions within just 7 weeks, including Carmina Burana, Mahler's 2nd Symphony, an incredibly difficult large-scale work by Poulenc called "Stabat Mater", plus Turandot). If anyone doubts me, the schedule is still HERE on our chorus website. Carmina has fallen off the chorus website's calendar, but it was the weekend of April 8th-10th (still HERE on the symphony's website though).

Turandot was the rockiest of all the four productions, with something like 60 separate choral music entrances, and only one "working" rehearsal with the orchestra before opening night (plus a dress rehearsal where we never went back and worked on problems, due to time constraints). We literally spent the hour before the performance re-reviewing the choral parts for all three acts, and then -- I kid you not -- spent each of the two 20-minute intermissions (which were drug out to probably 25-minutes), re-reviewing all of the music for the 2nd and 3rd acts, up until literally the minute before we walked on stage. (And by "re-reviewing", I mostly mean "learning" -- if not for the first time, then certainly "re-learning" at best). The conductor himself had to drag us on stage, away from our "mid-act" rehearsals. It was a pretty damn scary performance, but we got through it without any major train wrecks at least. (Whew!!!)

Then my wife and I were in St. Louis for about 6 days over Memorial Day weekend, visiting my Dad.

Since the homes tour, and especially since Turandot, I haven't felt much like doing anything, really, and I'm only now just beginning to come out of the fog. I've glanced at the board a time or two, and I'm still buried under a mountain of unread e-mail and unresponded to PM's. I know I'm still way behind on managing my BFT, and for that I'm really, really sorry. My life has been more than a little out of control for the last two months (and arguably for the last 2 years, but I won't go into that here and now).

Yes, I still have a handful of BFT's I still need to mail out (about six I think), and I hope to get to that soon.

My sincerest apologies for all the headaches, and all I can ask for is your patience in letting me try to get back on track as best I can. Thanks...

Rooster T.

Edited June 7, 2005 by Rooster_Ties

[Rooster_Ties]

More from Tom:

I should also mention that the biggest part of my wanting to really "back off" from anything and everything, is that the Historic Homes Tour is over finally.

I was in charge of the entire event, and my committee of four people spent 8 months planning and preparing -- meeting monthly, and then weekly for about the last 6-8 weeks. We had 60 volunteers on the day of the event, and it literally became the better part of a full-time job for me for about the last month before the event.

And then -- POOF!!! – in an instant, it came and went.

I've only been in that kind of position about three or four times in my life, where something became all-consuming in my life (and where it was all riding on me), and then the event was over with -- just like that.

Each and every one of those times, I've felt this huge hole in my life, no matter how successful the event was. Every day, for weeks on end, preparing for the "the day" would be the one thing I had to focus on, the one thing that motivated me -- and then suddenly, there was nothing else important to do the next day. Or the next day. Or the next day...

I don't know if I'd call it a depression that I've been going through since mid-May, because I haven't felt depressive as such. But since then, I haven't felt like doing a goddamn thing, even to the point where everything seems mundane, and thus everything seems like a Herculean task. I won’t go into any more details, except to say that this is a borderline serious problem for me.

I'm not trying to turn this thread into a therapy session for poor old Rooster. But I do think I owe all of you some kind of explanation for my absence on the board, and my fairly irresponsible handling of my BFT.

Edited June 7, 2005 by Rooster_Ties

[Dr. Rat]

Just stay where we can see you now, OK?

--eric

[AfricaBrass]

Tom,

I'm glad to see you got through the Homes Tour. I felt for you. You seemed like you were buried alive by it.

As one who has been in a major funk lately, I wish you all the best and hope for things to get back to normal for you.

I wouldn't feel bad about the blindfold test. It was a daunting task you took on with all the various cds. Even though I haven't participated in the conversations, I've enjoyed the music....THANKS!

[chris olivarez]

RT I know how it is. I have those days where I just want to lay in bed all day and stare at the ceiling. There are days where I really cant find joy in anything and I get stuck in the real big empty and everything seems really screwed up. Somedays it's all I can do to go to work but I do show up every day and that's half the battle.

Give some thought to your next challenge and if that doesn't come to you right away just keep putting one foot in front of another and sooner or later things should sort themselves out for you. I'll be thinking good thoughts for you amigo.