The Bottom of the Well

I've been absent from these pages for too many days now. Some of you have written wondering if I fell down a well or some such fate, and you weren't far from the truth.

The good thing about being at the bottom of a well is that when you look up, all you see is light, no one bothers you, and it is relatively easy to focus on your goal even if the climbing out means hard work.

My primary focus for the past week has been finishing my orchestral arrangement and score for the May 14 Chattanooga Waterfront Grand Celebration, which I'll perform along with Zachary Carrettin, Hussain Jiffry and the Chattanooga Symphony. The score has to be done by the end of the Yanni tour which concludes in four days because I won't see Zach and Hussain again until a few days before the performance.

The good news is I'm almost done and can now turn my attention to other projects and daily tasks from which I've been hiding.

One of those tasks is email.

I'm begging forgiveness from those of you who've emailed me in the past week, andI have to confess that I did something really stupid. I'm normally methodical about keeping up with email, flagging messages that I don't have time to answer immediately, and trashing junk on the spot. My email client, Entourage, is set to the highest filtering level and anything that comes to me from an address that is not in my address book goes automatically to my junk mail folder.

I normally do a quick junk mail scan when I check my mail and add the addresses of messages I want to keep. Everything else I delete. Well since I wasn't checking my email regularly, my filtering system, based on the way I set it up, did the work for me. Unfortunately it deleted everything in the junk mail folder that had been there more than one day. It means a lot of email got deleted even before I had a chance to see it.

If you wrote me an important letter and are wondering if I got it, then go ahead and send it again. I have since changed my junk mail filter so I have to manually delete junk mail messages. I plan to spend much of my free time tomorrow catching up on email that didn't get deleted.

I have pictures to post and stories to tell but they'll have to wait. It is time to go get ready for the Jacksonville show.

More tomorrow! ¶ 6:22 PM 5 comments

Rembrandt, Sam and Nicholas

Yesterday was a good day. We arrived at our downtown Washington D.C. hotel at around 6:30 am. I slept reasonably well on our bumpy overnight ride from Detroit and opted to get the day started by joining Hussain for a swim in the hotel pool, followed by cappucino and oatmeal on the bus.

We were only a couple of miles from the Capitol Mall area where I planned to meet Sam Rizzetta and Nick Blanton at 11am in the National Gallery Museum. They weren't hard to spot as Nick is around 6' 7", and I'm guessing Sam is only about 5' 7". We started the day with a tour of the new Rembrandt exhibit which was amazing and inspiring.

As we exited the building the subject changed to the art of instrument building and the rest of the day flew by like a bullet. Sam and Nick have been building together for the past 20 years and Sam is globally recognized as an innovator and master craftsman. He's someone with whom I've wanted to converse for years but I've been a little intimidated to just give him a call. I was like a kid in a candy store listening to Nick and Sam discuss my theories and questions. I had dozens of misconceptions corrected and a few dozen more questions arise that will have to wait until another time.

You can see Nick's instruments here. Sam also designed a large portion of the Dusty Strings line, including the instrument I play, and you can see them here.

Some of Sam's recordings are available here. ¶ 8:43 AM 4 comments

Visiting with Steve Schneider

My journal has been a little quiet as I've done more visiting with friends than writing for the past few days. I needed a break from staring at the computer screen, as my friends and wife have reminded me, after spending way too much time making choo choo train animations and the like.

The Chattanooga Dulcimer Festival web site is mostly functional now and I'll be adding details as we nail them down.

I had the good fortune Thursday night of sleeping in an actual house after being invited to stay with Steve, Mary and Zach Schneider on our night off in Detroit. We were all surprised to find that our hotel was just a couple of miles from their house. Steve is one of the best known hammer dulcimer players and teachers in the country, and I was honored to be his guest. The title of this blog post is a link to his web site. Make sure you read about his Northern Lights retreat. I hope to attend it someday myself.

The visit was made even better when we were joined for dinner by another legend in the hammer dulcimer community, Cecilia Webster. Mary served up a wonderful meal and we closed out the evening with great conversation and some of the best dark chocolate I've ever tasted. Steve and I took in a couple of snowy walks during my visit and I equally enjoyed playing with his dog, Daja, who couldn't seem to get enough of catching the frisbee. (You can see a few pictures by using my Photographs link.)

It was such a refreshing break from hotel living and it all ended with them attending the Yanni show Friday night.

We're in Cleveland tonight and will make the long overnight drive to Washington after the show. I'm going to meet a couple more hammer dulcimer legends, Sam Rizetta and Nick Blanton tomorrow at 11am at the National Gallery. It should be a great day. ¶ 6:13 PM 2 comments

Don't shoot me, I only want my luggage.

We arrived in Minneapolis mid-afternoon Sunday after an over 14 hour long bus ride from Pittsburgh. I'll admit right now that I was a little crazy after being in the bus that long, but so was everyone else. I sincerely thanked our bus driver Lance for getting us there safely and enduring the trip without sleeping - at least he told me he didn't sleep.

My desire to be back home grows in direct proportion to a mounting abhorrence of hotel rooms, but In this case after such a long ride, I was looking forward to a shower and some alone time. It took two trips to get all my stuff, up to the room. "Yeah, I've made it," I thought and scattered my things about to make it feel like home. I purposefully left the inviting pillow-topped bed clear so I could take a nap after my shower. Just as I kicked off my shoes there was a loud banging at the door.

"Maybe they'll go away" I thought, but the banging grew louder and seemed to have a predictable urgency. I opened the door to be greeted by a hotel security officer who told me there was an emergency and I needed to grab what I could and leave. I asked if it was a fire and learned that no, there was a guy with a gun on the floor. OK, I'm listening now. I threw on my backpack and was escorted down the hall.

As we approached the elevator I saw several policemen, guns drawn, talking through a hotel room door. An agitated male voice was shouting back at them. The elevator doors closed and silenced the scene. This, I reckoned, was going to be a long day.

As other bewildered guests gathered in the lobby we realized there was no way for the hotel to predict when this would be over. A swat team, complete with helmets and assault rifles entered the building. This was going to be a really long day.

David Hudson appeared from the elevators and since he was on the 11th floor he had no idea anything was wrong. He invited me up to his room to hang out. Hussain joined us later and after a couple of hours passed I decided to check in at the front desk for a progress report. The clerk said you won't be able to go back to the room but it would be OK to go back to the 6th floor and someone would help me move my luggage.

Hussain offered to go with me since I had three instruments plus luggage to carry. We hopped on the elevators and pushed the number 6. When the door opened we immediately knew things weren't back to normal. It was pitch black. Out of the blackness stepped an unhappy officer with an assault rifle who demanded to know what we thought we were doing there. His mood didn't improve when I told him I 'thought' we were going to get my luggage. I explained we were sent there by the front desk. This didn't make him any happier and he escorted us to the lobby to make sure no one else surprised them. It was a little tense when we reached the desk and the clerk demanded I tell him who it was who said I could go get my stuff. I explained that I hadn't thought it necessary to take names, but I'm quite sure I didn't make it up just for a little excitement!

I asked if there was any way I could at least get a room in which I could take a shower. I was told there were others in front of me and I'd have to come back. I found out where the rest of the group, meaning those who'd showered and changed clothes, were having a superbowl party. I don't think I've mentioned up to this point that I was still wearing the pajamas I had on from the night before and that my coat was up in the barricaded room so I really couldn't go anywhere.

After a while of eating hors d'oeuvres in my pajamas I was given a new room on the 10th floor. As soon as I opened the door I was hit with the strong smell of smoke. There sat an ashtray on the desk. Yes, this was a smoking room and it had been heavily used. I knew I wouldn't stay there but I quickly took a shower and put back on my pajamas for the trip back to the desk. By now about 4 hours had passed.

It didn't take long this time to get changed to a non smoking room. So up to my new room on the 9th floor I went and kicked off my shoes. I was thirsty and my bottled water was with my stuff on the 6th floor so I called David to see if he would loan me a bottle of water. Over to his room I ran in sock feet, got the water and returned to my room to discover that my key card didn't work. It was back down to the lobby for me, this time in sock feet and pajamas.

Around 9:30 I got a call from the front desk and was going to be escorted back to the 6th floor as the drama had ended peacefully. It didn't look so peaceful as we exited the elevator through a pile of broken glass. It seems the swat patrol had broken out all the emergency lights so they could use their night vision goggles, which I guess they don't get to try out very often.

Finally, around 10pm, I settled into my room for a good night's sleep.

On Monday morning as I was preparing to go spend the day doing laundry at Bradley Joseph's house, I heard a report on Minnesota Public Radio. The report said, and I'm not making this up, that a man was in custody after barricading himself in a room in the Marquette Hotel threatening to shoot someone. He was, according to the report, upset about the service.



Check pictures I took with Bradley on a frozen lake by using the photographs link. ¶ 2:35 PM 15 comments

Chattanooga Dulcimer Festival Progress

I made a lot of progress on the Chattanooga Dulcimer Festival web site yesterday. I'll be poking around there more today. I hope to make the festival home page interactive just like this journal is becoming and I'm building the registration form.

Thanks to those of you who helped me test the comment feature on this page. It looks as if it is working so join in the conversation any time you'd like!

We have a show in Pittsburgh tonight and then a long overnight ride to Minneapolis. Right now it is back to work on the festival web site. Make sure you take a look at the flash animation at the top of the festival home page. It starts out just like the one at the top of this page but keep watching for a surprise. ¶ 1:35 PM 2 comments

Pittsburgh Pics

I just posted a few pictures taken yesterday on my brief venture outside. It was a beautifully sunny day and in the 40's, so I took a short break from working on the Chattanooga Dulcimer Festival web site to take a walk along the river.

I'm trying out a new feature this morning which allows you (I hope) to just click on the title of this journal entry to go directly the pictures. Of course you can always use the Photographs link in the upper left of this page and get there as well.
¶ 1:27 PM 3 comments

Pics posted

Use the photographs link.
¶ 7:49 PM 4 comments

Final Canadian Show

I just got back from breakfast at a cool little restaurant here in Ottowa called “Cora’s” with David, Hussain, Erika and Bobby. Tonight we have the last of our Canadian shows and I hope this audience has as much fun as they did in the other cities in the frozen north.

This is after all a Yanni show, so it’s normal to see hundreds of middle-aged women on their feet enjoying the concert. But the diversity of fans here in Canada, all really actively enjoying the show, has been noticeable . Near the end of the London show a small child, probably five years old, escaped from his parents and made his way to the front. He scampered down the isle while reaching expectantly toward the stage with a small picture book and a marker. Matt, one of our cameramen happened to be watching when the child slipped away unnoticed while his parents applauded.

The isles were clear as the usher’s had already taken a firm position on not letting anyone come down front. The little boy’s mother saw him headed toward the impenetrable employee and rushed down to bring him back. Just as she reached him Yanni noticed what was happening and said, “It’s OK, let him through.” Matt trained the camera on the scene just as another little boy appeared with a flower in his hand. It was the most genuine touching moment I’ve seen while on tour.

Matt later told me it made him cry as he realized how much he missed his family. I can relate. The children and audience were delighted that Yanni took the gift and signed the book. Everyone was smiling and happy as we played an encore.

The next order of business for the show was when Yanni introduces a bunch of us. David Hudson is the last to be introduced.

When He came out to take his bow he was carrying a pen and a card and ran up to Yanni, exaggerating like an excited fan. For a split second we wondered what was going to happen as he he was caught off guard, but Yanni grabbed the card and quickly signed it. In response David starting jumping up and down with the card in one hand and his didgeridoo in the other and shouting “I got his autograph, I got his autograph!”. I know it all sounds a little silly but it was a lot of fun. Every now and then, especially when we're lonely and tired we need to be reminded that entertaining can, and should be, entertaining. Thanks David.

After last night's show I was in my bunk on the bus and asleep before the wheels started rolling. It is funny to me that I couldn't sleep while in the Toronto Four Seasons hotel and slept like a baby on the noisy bus. My how things have changed.

We arrived here in Ottowa a little after four AM and in a effort to get sleepy again I decided to spice up my train animation (at the top of this page) with a little smoke. It worked! If you aren't seeing smoke come out of the stack you need to refresh your browser. I had to empty the cache on mine before it appeared.

Quite a few of you have written to tell me you’re signing up for blogger but have no idea what a blog is! I’ll post a more thorough explanation later today. Right now I have to get a little work done on the Chattanooga Dulcimer Festival web site and I need to get some practicing done. ¶ 1:22 PM 4 comments

Volunteers?

I'm trying to make it possible for people to add comments to my journal posts and need real people to help me out.

Rather than just allow anyone to post I think I want to have an request and invitation system to keep spammers out. Here's how I think it will work: if you see a journal entry and would like to comment you just need to send me a request to join. I'll then make you a 'team member' and you can post anytime you'd like. This may not work like I think it does so would a few of you be willing to give it a try?

Once we figure it out (notice how I'm talking about WE now) I'll make the instructions obvious. For now, just click on the comments link at the end of this story and see if you're allowed to make a comment. Mostly likely you won't be able to. I want to find out if the code automatically asks if you'd like to request an account or just asks you to get a blogger account. If so then you'll need to email me your blogger name. At least that's how I think it will work. So, come on volunteers! Start clicking and email your experience to dan@danlandrum.com
¶ 6:59 PM 12 comments

Oops!

I'm in the process of making more changes today so the look of my first page may or may not be familiar to you depending on when you log in.

When I'm finished, all the familiar links will be back in place.

Dan
¶ 1:15 PM 7 comments

Ironing Out the Wrinkles

I've learned from a few regular readers that Internet Explorer in Windows is having a problem with my site. The problem is solved by increasing your browser window size. You shouldn't have to do that though so I'm trying to correct the issue. Stay tuned, and thanks to those of you who are helping correct it - especially Bob McMurray.

I'd like to add the ability for you to comment on journal entries from this main page so in the process of ironing out the wrinkles I hope to end up with a new shirt!

Dan

¶ 1:10 PM 0 comments

Lots of Changes

I've been cleaning up around the web site today as part of setting up the Chattanooga Dulcimer Festival Pages. I think everything is working order but please click around and see if you find anything that is broken.

We head to sound check in just a few minutes. I'll try and get a few pictures tonight. These Canadian concerts are always fun. I'm looking forward to being on stage tonight after spending the day in front of this goofy computer screen.

Dan
¶ 3:46 PM 0 comments

See the train?

I'm beginning to put a few new elements in place on my web site. The 'Hammer On!' CD announcement that used to be at the top of the page should have been replaced by a banner for the Chattanooga Dulcimer Festival. If you aren't seeing the new image, click refresh in your browser.

Please email me if you're having trouble. ¶ 9:16 AM 0 comments