just found out this evening that my great uncle passed away. you never expect it, and when it happens it seems kind of surreal. i definitely look forward to spending time with my family at christmas. people are still amazed that i work and travel with my sister and mom and never get tired of them. i don't. sometimes i crave me time, but it's away from everyone, not just them. definitely this reminds me to treasure the time i have with people. you never know when they're not going to be there anymore.
thanks to the wonder of .mac, my pictures from scotland are out on the web...or most of them are anyway. here they are...
i set up a trial .mac membership tonight because i'm too lazy to use the gallery software that i have in place. this seems to be much much easier, and i was even able to publish the moving movie that i'd been trying to get out on the net ages ago. you can find the website here. soon it will probably replace the photography page. not like anyone leaves comments or rates photos anyway. ;)
sunday, mom and i went to los angeles to see the tallis scholars. it was beautiful - all a cappella. being as they were the tallis scholars, i had expected most or all pieces to be by tallis. being a christmas music concert, i guess i had expect christmas carols. neither was the case. they did a version of the magnificat by lassus that was just wonderful. i'm most familiar with beethoven's magnificat as that is what i have sung, but i really enjoyed this one as well.
the program:
o magnum mysterium
missa o magnum mysterium (both palestrina)
manificat iv for double choir
laudate pueri (both lassus)
regina caeli (isaac)
musae jovis (appenzeller)
lulla lullaby
this day Christ was born (both byrd)
gaudete iuaru (zielenski)
notice none of the pieces were by thomas tallis? ah well. they were beautiful nonetheless.
it was pretty rainy all sunday, but mom and i braved the weather and wandered around rodeo drive to have lunch and duck into a few shops here and there.
i spend thursday cleaning out the storage areas of the upstairs office area and ended up with out 50 boxes in my office for my trouble. they were slated to leave friday (today), but everyone got busy with continuing to clean, so i suppose i'll have to wait a week or so before i can see daylight. thursday was also the holiday lunch for work. i was completely shocked to receive the employee of the year award! (but very happy, regardless.) what a way to end the year. i get the feeling it's going to be hard to top that next year. ;)