i just returned from the casino.
for some reason i never went there, although i’ve been allowed to for more than one and a half year…

it was nice, even though i lost my money rightaway.
unlike certain people, who even FOUND respectable amounts of money on the floor,
or others who apparently discovered the perfect bet (a 66 per cent chance that worked out)…
still, it was a fun night!

anyway, i don’t think i’m gonna spend any more money on gambling.
there – my rational tendency breaches through again :-)

lately i told some of you about the first big and stationary resident of my pond.
today i managed to get a good shot of him:
meet: the male southern hawker dragonfly in action

[view photo]

in the course of the day, i’m finally going to post some photos that i’ve been putting off for some time now…

subjects will include nature (fungus, caterpillars) and the city.

just to let you know ;-)

***update***
so those are the new ones:
    [2004-08-19 swallowtail caterpillars]
    [2004-08-27 innsbruck at night (2)]
    [2004-09-02 puffballs]

yesterday was the second wedding that our vocal ensemble “cantus borg” was supposed to sing at. it took place in fritzens this time.

it was amazing!
again, i enjoyed it so much – i think i’ll finally need to get into a choir that has regular rehearsals and concerts.
i feel so much more alive after singing, it’s just great!

plus, now i know we really produce a nice sound. you can’t tell when you’re singing yourself, but i tape-recorded us yesterday, and it sounds a lot better than i thought it would!
(taking account that my little mp3-player wasn’t originally designed for cd-quality-recordings)

i even took some pictures, this time!

[listen to samples]
cantate domino (w.a. mozart) – zip [mp3], 184KB
lass mi bei dir sein… (tyrolean folk song) – zip [mp3], 442KB

[view photos]

when i was taking a short walk today i stumbled across a vespiary.

they’re usually not agressive animals, only when they feel threatened, so i decided to take some pictures…
i was able to get as near as 10cm (4 in) to the burrow with my camera, and although the wasps were getting curious, they let me take pictures without stinging…

[view photos]

finally, i’ve completed the new website.
i’ve added a few new functions (like this page you’re reading right now), and changed the basic structure and layout of everything else.

i had anticipated blogging for some time before i actually got wordpress – so i saved some of the highlights in my little world and copied the stuff in here.

within the next week, i’ll try to finish uploading the last missing pictures, like my trip to the us in september/october 2003…

so there you are, have (decent) fun on my website! and if you like it, sign my guestbook or leave a comment in the blog!

[lyrics quote of the moment]
” … and the rain let up, and the sun came up, and we were gettin’ dry… ”
van morrison – and it stoned me

today i returned from an 8-day-music project located in toblach.
“puschtra wind” is/was a youth wind orchestra with musicians from the pustertal valley and surroundings.
you might wonder what a double bass is doing in a wind orchestra – the answer is: there were two, not just one ;-)

it was totally cool, i had a great time down there!

there were rehearsals all over the day from 9am to 10pm. and still, marco (the other bass player) and i met early so we could play duettos and stuff.
i don’t think i’ve practiced that much in the whole last year!
and then, in the end, we held two concerts – the first one in toblach and the second one in lienz.

besides that, i met many cool musicians from south tyrol (which actually belongs to italy) and east tyrol.
i’m really looking forward to meeting them again soon!

so today i had to get up at 4:30am to catch the train back to innsbruck (altogether about 2 hours of sleep). and by the time i arrived, i was 10 minutes late for work…
the good thing about it is that, having slept only 2 hours, the working-time of 8,75 hours just flies :-)

i took some pictures when i was down there, of course…

[view photos]