It's Wednesday, but it already feels like it *should* be Thursday. Several things to report:

First of all, Exultate business. The concert two weeks ago was a lot of fun, although the Wednesday night rehearsal at Christopher's turned out to be a Really Good Idea. The music programme--a bit of opera, a bit of Canadiana, a bit of P.D.Q. Bach, and a lot of quirky modern 'fun' pieces, was generally easier than Exultate's usual concert, but on only three rehearsals it still seemed plenty hard. The extra practice really helped. We had a record number of people (for this time of year), continuing the choir's steadily improving profile.

Exultate's 20-something fundraiser last Friday was also a big success. Although we were worried about attendance (not enough advance tickets sales) and we had bad luck with the weather (pouring rain) we ended up with a good crowd, and the event played out like clockwork. Hugh Lawrence did an amazing job as auctioneer, and we're pretty sure we managed to blow the doors off of last year's event's revenue, further improving the choir's bank balance.

In other business (work), I'm staring work on a project in the Toronto office, doing technical design for a portfolio management product. This is very likely to keep me busy in town all summer, even if none of the other proposals comes through. Good news! Not going to be fired yet. ;-)

I dropped off Mom & Dad at the airport yesterday. They're off to England for the summer. It seems like a long time since I was last in the airport, and in the context of last year's weekly trips it has been a long time. I'll be back there next week, however, as I have a brief workshop to attend in Chicago on mobile Commerce (PDA & cell phone banking, etc.) I'm looking forward to it. I might also be going to Amsterdam at the end of the month to teach a course in Internet Architectures, which would be a very useful way for me to start 'internalizing' what I know on the topic. I've never been to Amsterdam so I hope it works out...

Lastly, the weather today in Toronto is gorgeous but it's still cool. No complaints here...
posted by Tom at 10:23 AM | link |