Monday, March 06, 2006

Just Another Manic Monday

A co-worker approached me this morning and informed me I was accompanying him to Phoenix next week for business. This was news to me, and not welcome news at that. I have no desire to leave town right now, especially for a week. Fortunately I went to the project manager later to find out just what it is they want me to do in Phoenix. It turns out he had me confused with someone else. I'm not going anywhere.

Then I get a phone call about my father being in the hospital. This is the same father who was given a grim prognosis last fall, and then proceeded to stage a miraculous recovery. In lieu of details I assumed the old disease was back. It turns out it's something else altogether--something operable. Not that surgery at his age and condition is a great option, either, but it's better than the terminal inoperable condition he supposedly had last fall.

Then, of course, I had a person I needed information from for a top priority project stand me up twice. I finally was able to contact her this afternoon, however, and things are moving forward again. This week is not off to a great start.

On the other hand, I found that I do have some options for composition software. Finale, which is the package I learned on in college, has a free-ware version they offer as a lead in to get you to buy any of four upgrade-to-full versions. The freeware version doesn't seem to offer any sequencing functionality, but it handles notation well, and does offer limited playback so you can check to make sure it doesn't sound too awful. It's a 30 MB download, but it's pretty good for free. I may be able to arrange a piece for the choir after all.

The top-o-th'-line version looks pretty darn impressive as a sequencer and composition tool. But it's $500, requires WinXP, and up to 1 GB of memory for the more advanced features. I guess that will have to wait. But ooooooh...covet covet.

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