The only good thing that's come out of the change so far is that, as I'm still waking up around 5:30, I've got extra time in the mornings, so I've been able to get some recording done before work, while the house is quiet.

Auditions for My Fair Lady on Monday. I'm trying out for Eliza. I can reach all the notes, and I can beat the pants off anyone else auditioning on accents, but we shall see. I tend to get cast in very minor roles or in the chorus in most musicals (twice in non-singing roles!)

I'd been thinking about doing this for a few weeks now. I have new housemates, and the one directly below my "office" (it's an attic loft, spaces are designated by furniture arrangements) has been running the bathroom extractor much more than the previous one. The roof vent for the extractor is right above the office, which means that when it's running, I can't record. So I'd been thinking of moving the office to the space catty-corner from where it had been, which just happened to be the "bedroom"; unfortunately, it couldn't be a straight swap, because there's a column in the office corner that makes that space smaller than the rest of the corners, so I had to move three corners... bedroom to "dining room/spare bedroom"; spare bedroom to office, dining room to open space in the middle of the loft, office to bedroom.

While I was going to be moving stuff around, I figured I'd try to make myself a better recording booth. Several months ago I built a frame for a booth out of 1" PVC pipe. It looked ok just by itself, but when I covered it with soundproofing blankets it got a bit saggy. It ended up being a glorified dog house for Lucy. Then I had another idea. Pegboard sheets (I can get 2' x 4' sheets at the hardware store) covered with acoustic foam tiles, attached in pairs with binder rings (which I had been using to hold up the blankets in the first booth). The tiles came at the end of last week, and I finished attaching them to the pegboards Friday afternoon. I used adhesive spray, but I think I'm going to have to go back with a hot glue gun, because a few have already come loose. I'll need to test it first, though, to make sure it won't melt the foam.

I started off with eight pegboards, which made a 4' square. On the floor inside I laid four interlocking rubber mats (like you see in children's playrooms), but once I had the four panel pairs up around it, and the mic inside, I found it a bit cramped, so I added the final two mats (which I'd been saving for blocking knitting projects) to make a 4' x 6' little room, and hung two of the sound-blocking blankets across the spaces between the pegboards.

I'm quite chuffed. I need to get a small table, and a second monitor to go with the secondary keyboard and mouse I already have, so I'll be able to leave the laptop outside the booth, but still be able to read off the screen, and control it from inside. And maybe a little stool instead of the chair.

Can you say, "week from hell"?

I got the flu on Monday, was sick till Wednesday, and just as I was starting to feel better, I found that my scooter had been stolen from the driveway while I was out of it. Fortunately, it was found on Thursday, but that made that a stressful day, dealing with recovering it and getting it to the shop, and talking to the insurance people, etc.

And then cap off the week with three fun, but stressful performances of Gypsy!

Ai. I'm worn out.

Was chatting with one of my coworkers, and the subject drifted into Hebrew words and phrases we were familiar with. He was trying to remember the "writing on the wall" from the book of Daniel, "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin" (KJV); what came out was "many, many tickle a parson".

When we got home we discovered that the weight of the snow had bent the poles of the canopy we'd put over my scooter.

I'm going to have to see if I can find something with stronger poles.