Cousin Susan Comes To Kelowna

I love my cousin Susan. She and her husband Mike came to Kelowna this weekend to pick up a piano that I have for her. We started off on Friday evening with a wonderful vegetarian dinner of chick pea spicy soup and a pizza made with a home made crust and toppings from our garden. Yumm. 

During dinner I told Ruth about the new hole I put into Susan's head. Actually it was in her ear lobe.

She had walked into the pointy part of the kayak I am building in my work shop while she was looking at her new piano.

I had to put up a safety guard for her. It won't happen again.

She is actually a good sport . On Saturday we all laughed about it.

She won't do that again.I did feel bad about her cutting her ear.

I soon forgot about her misery once I banged the top of my head on her trailer while moving her piano.

Never try to jam a 6 foot man into a 5 foot trailer.

So we loaded her new piano into this little trailer with very few problems. First we had to get it onto a dolly.

The johnson bar is a beautiful thing. If I had one of these 42 years ago I would have a good back today.

I still needed to give a bit of a lift. You should have heard Ruth telling me to stop. I guess this is why I love her so much. She always has my back…So to speak.

But she should talk. Whenever she sees a job that needs some help she is in there right away. I hope her back doesn't hurt tomorrow. This Baldwin is over 800 lbs.

What I have always liked about doing things with her is that I don't have to tell her where I need her hands next. She has always just anticipated what is needed.

Piano is in , strapped and ready to take a ride to Washington. Everyone's happy.

So we headed in to celebrate with a terrific meal. I love to eat. So nice to be able to do that outside.

You can tell we are cousins. We both enjoyed every bit of our BBQ pineapple and ice cream.

She's going to kill me because of this picture. HAHAHAHA.

The Kids Were Over Tonight.

It was fun seeing the kids today. Ruth took them out for the day while I worked and we all had dinner together. It was a nice day. Jack was asleep in the truck while Brad and Ellie hung out by the pool.

She liked pretending they were  floating on the water.

Jack woke up and was all smiles when he saw them.So cute.

It only seemed right that he join them and become the centre of attention.

The calmness was short lived.

Dinner tome. Ellie loved the steak. Kept wanting more.

No drawer or cupboard left unopened with her here.

Jack played a few songs for us after dinner.

Then he sang a few more for us. I had to snap this quickly because he stops singing 

if he knows someone is taking his picture.

Another One Sold

So I got rid of another piano. Only a few left now. This one was sold about one week ago but the new owners couldn't get movers to commit to delivery for another few weeks. Seems like all the moving companies are busy. I had decided I would rent a trailer and get one of my guys to help me move it this week for them but they had other ideas.

They hired their music teachers kid and his band to do it for them. They are all nice guys but didn't know what they were doing. Bit of a gong show.

They listened to instructions just fine but the husband of the woman who bought it didn't .

He was all over the place. I guess I sort of pushed him around and he didn't like it. By the time they left our place he wasn't talking to me and his wife told me today that he was mad at me. I explained my position to her and that he was in the way. Why is it when someone's wife calls their husband " Baby " it is endeering but when I call the husband  " Baby " they get mad at me? 

Dinner Time With The Vegan

Ruth and Robert made a nice meal for us on Saturday evening. Robert is a vegan and Ruth has always been happy not eating meat . They were both in their glory. We talked and laughed a lot during the evening. They cook well together. 

The master chef's 

Indian food is very colourful. I must admit that I missed a little meat.

So after Robert went out to the guest house and Ruth went to bed I did up some meat balls for myself.

It's The First Time In 40 Years

There is a Canadian Piano Tuner's Convection taking place in Kelowna this weekend. It's the first time in 40 years that 80% of my class mates from the Yamaha Piano Tuning School were back together. There were 5 of us in the class. It was a terrific coarse. One year , six days a week , exams every 2nd Saturday followed up with a 2 year apprenticeship.This is before picture of our instructor.
Yoji Suzuki.

Here is a recent picture of Yoji.

We graduated in 1972 and were dispersed all across Canada to work for different dealers. I decided not to go to the convection as I am trying to retire but I will join them for lunch later on today. We had all the guy's over for dinner last night and it was a wonderful evening. We have all stayed in the music business and enjoyed our careers. The only one who didn't make it to the convention was Gaetan who lives in Quebec. We missed him but we didn't forget about him. We all told funny stories about him . 

So Ruth put up a feast of Veggie  pizza and spicy Meatballs with fresh mini buns for an appi , followed up with bean salad , lasagne  and rhubarb cobbler from our garden. I think we were all full by the end of the evening.

We set the table for eight. Daisy took her spot waiting for anything that might fall.

Robert helped get everything ready for dinner.

It was a musical table. Between all of us there was 250 years of experience in the music business.

Dave Paulson is a friend who is a retired piano dealer from Victoria. He is now a tuner/tech like myself. We went to Japan with him in 1984.

Robert Dettling was one of my class mates. He lives in Victoria and is an independent concert tuner/tech.

Ron Giesbrecht was also my classmate. He became Head Tech for Yamaha Canada and just retired from there. He's living in Toronto area. Now he will become an independent concert tuner /tech as well.

Then there is me. Full circle. Tuner to Dealer back to Tuner/retired.

Bruce Hettinger , another classmate ended up at the University of Edmonton and has kept their music program sounding the best in Canada all these years. He's also a concert Tuner/Tech.

His wife Jane has put up with his shenanigans for close to 40 years and was kind enough to come and listen to all us old piano guys drone on for the evening.

Mark Latin is from the Ottawa area and is the organizer for this Piano Tech conference. He's a nice guy and is very knowledgable . We thought it would be nice for him to join us tonight.

Here's the four of us. We laughed lots tonight as we reminisced . I kept telling Ruth after they left what a great time I had. It was so nice to see them.

Robert dragged a couple of benches over to my piano and had us all pretend we were working on the action.

I almost broke a shank pushing my end back in. That would have been funny. 

Robert wanted a comparison photo . This was us 42 years ago. 5 little monkeys.

Robert , Ron , Bruce , Gaetan , myself.

Here is a picture that was taken in Yoji's apartment when he invited us all to dinner.

Home Stretch On The Steinway

I hope to have it done in a few days. I've been working on this Steinway for 5 years. I'd like to have it finished by next weekend. There is a Canadian Tuners meeting being held in Kelowna next weekend and 3 of the guys I took my tuning coarse with in the early 70's are attending. I'm having them over for dinner on Thursday evening and I would love to be able to show off this piano. Here I am installing the new back checks into the keys.

I was a little worried about installing them because they are a new design and I have never done this before but they work perfectly. Let's hope the rest of the job goes the same way.

I brought the keyframe into the house this afternoon to do the key height and dip. I needed a flat work bench to do this procedure . Nothing flatter than a granite table.

Keys are all level and the dip is set. Tomorrow I reinstall the action and see if it will play.

Today Was Special

Not only did I turn 62 today , I have been married for 39 years as of 1:30 the afternoon. Big day.

We were just kids. I told Ruth today that it was the best day of my life. I knew it was a good day at the time. I just didn't realize that 39 years later I would be looking back thinking Whew , I sure am glad she said yes. That really has been my best and luckiest day so far.

I've always loved cake.

My favourite is angel food cake. This afternoon I told Ruth I wished I had an Angel Food Cake for my birthday with Strawberries and Whip Cream. A little later I noticed the Mercedes was gone. Next time I looked up I heard the beaters going. Yippee. She's so nice to me.

Yup. I got my wish.

I love a good steak and seeing as how it is my birthday I got to pick the menu.

What a great birthday /Anniversary dinner. Just the two of us. I loved today.