According to ‘Clustermaps’ information (look for link on the left hand side of my blog) - I have had over 10,000 visitors to my site, since January; beating my usual 6-7,000 and there are still another 5 months of the year to go. This could well be my most popular year to date since starting my blog 3 odd years ago!

This calls for something special… if anyone has any ideas of what I can do to mark this momentous occasion then please comment your suggestions below!!

If you have nothing constructive to say, then please go post it here > I have nothing constructive to say so….

In other news, I now have to practice three times as hard, as I am now in an A Grade band, and I want to at least get placed at the next contest! Oh and by the way, I’ll be attempting my first ever solo next year, and if I can polish the piece sufficiently I’ll be going with Arban’s Carnival of Venice. It’s still sinking in that the band have entered and won THREE major contests in the last 12 months - I joined shortly after their NZ win. Sometimes I wonder to myself if this was the real reason I was supposed to come to New Zealand? Since the caliber of people I am playing music with right now, is extremely humbling. It’s certainly given me my five minutes of fame that’s for sure!

I’ll never forget my roots however, with good ol’ Frodsham Silver!! If I ever head back, I’ll be up the bandroom like a shot!

Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to present - Pelorus Trust Wellington Brass Band. Performing Mambo Caliente at the 2008 Band of the Year Contest, in Christchurch!!

THIS IS A DREAM COME TRUE FOR ME!

I hope this remains online for a while, cos it ROK’D

Edit to track back to related post… > A Grade

Monday has arrived, I’m still on a high from the long weekend of music, settling back into the work flow - I have decided to change the configuration of my little lab at work, so that I can play around with some very specific ‘layer 2′ scenarios based around traffic/load sharing and high availability….to ‘bespoke’ end user site running 2 IP instances (one for backup); it’s all really technical and really boring so I won’t pollute my blog any further than this.

In other news….? Wellington Pelorus Trust Brass Band = Grade A (yeah!!!)

Whilst I played my part, it’s largely down to all the fine soloists in the band to have got us where we are today. It certainly humbles me each time I hear them play. Meanwhile my own playing is slowly coming along.

A few shameful skating pictures will follow soon, along with some of the rather English looking architecture of Christchurch!! Loads of Christopher Wren influence abounds…

Yup we went, and we did it again, and to be fair it was an extremly CLOSE contest, we only won by 2 points! However, this now means that we can compete in the A Grade next year, which means Wellington once again has an A-Grade band - which hasn’t been the case since around 2001 I believe?

Also - I managed to learn to ice-skate (cringe) …uh… kinda…. fell over like thirty plus times, got extremley sore, but after an hour and a half managed to stay away from the wall, with some semblance of forward movement for about 20 seconds!! Which I think is amazing for my first try, plus the fact I have no sense of balance.

To round of the last week of Brass Banding we competed in the Band of the Year contest which along with our section contests were streamed live over the internet! Alas I think they weren’t stored for retrospective viewing, unless they come later? I’ll keep my eye out, anyways unspurisingly Woolston Brass won; and I am told we came joint Second with Cantebury Brass. Woolston were even kind enough to loan us use of their bandroom whilst we were in Christchurch and this was quite a humbling exprience for me, as the bandroom has a museum dedicated to this bands illustrious history, I’m gutted I didn’t think to take any pictures of the hall, but hey ho….I’ll upload some of my Christchurch piccies when I get the time, as I have work in the morning, and need to grab some sleep….