Wulf's Webden

The Webden on WordPress

22 August 2025
by wpAdmin
0 comments

Heel Goed

If my use of translation engines is correct, that should approximate “very good” in Flemish, which is how I would describe Charnwood Concert Bands’ recent tour of Belgium. Our Antwerp gig was a bit lightly attended although it served well as a warm up. St Walburga’s in Brugge provided a better audience and a reverb time that could be counted in seconds (as well as a few resident bats to join the larger human audience). Finally, it was a great end to the tour to perform in the large Wapenplein bandstand in Ostend – as a city square with many cafes spilling out onto the cobbles and with decent weather we got a good sized and enthusiastic audience for free.

It was also good to have a lot more time with fellow band members than at rehearsals and a chance to get to know many of them much better. Having been a successful tour, there is every chance the band will resume its habit of taking a trip every other year and I’m very inclined to sign up should that happen.

I was also pleased that my arm held up well to all the playing and that my equipment packing (helped with the purchase of a cheap cool box from Lidl for waterproof storage of all the small bits) worked well in easing the transportation of my gear.

12 August 2025
by wpAdmin
0 comments

Nips and Tucks

Jane was leading prayers at Hathern Baptist last Sunday and wanted to use a promo video from Care as part of it. The trouble was that the video was over ten minutes long and without an obvious way to watch it without logging onto either their site or YouTube and hoping the Internet connection was working well. That sounds like a cue for video-editing-man to don his cloak and get to work!

The program I used to use for grabbing offline copies of YouTube videos for such situations no longer works but it turns out that you can do the job using the wonderfully capable OBS software. Video and audio captured, my next task was to shorted the piece. I didn’t want to change what they were saying so I worked mainly as if I was sitting at the projection station and manually moving the video forward to key highlights (albeit with laser-focused precision). I did indulge myself with a couple of J and L cuts, where you make the sound fade in before or after the picture (with the video above the audio, that looks like a J or an L in the editor) just to make the transitions fit the production style of the original.

Job done, and the nips and tucks meant Jane could introduce the congregation to Care while still leaving some time in her slot to actually get on a pray as well.

11 August 2025
by wpAdmin
1 Comment

222

I didn’t get round to posting yesterday but that is the neat number that I have got to in the Bible reading plan I mentioned back on 1 January. Originally I thought I might try and pull ahead but I’ve ended up following the plan as presented. There have been a couple of days I’ve missed and caught up but I’ve chosen to read other passages when I’ve had more time rather than to pull ahead. I’ll have to see if I’m still on track when I get to day 333, at which point I’ll also have to begin planning for what to do after I finish the 49th week of readings.

9 August 2025
by wpAdmin
0 comments

Sing-around Songs – 9 August 2025

Today’s sing around session was in Mo’s back garden rather than at Thorpe Acre church, and blessed with glorious sunshine. I decided to take my banjo for this one – plenty of space for a double bass but I’m going to leave serious playing of that beast until after I’ve done the Belgium tour with the concert band.

I got asked to kick off the session so decided to go for a song I know inside out – Folsom Prison Blues. For my next offering, I brought a song I haven’t done before – You Wreck Me by Tom Petty. The original version is definitely a guitar (and bass) driven rock song but I slowed it down a bit, dropped the pitch to suit my voice and the banjo and gave it a go. I didn’t nail it but it went reasonably well so one to work on a bit more and bring back again.

The third song I led before Jane and I decided it was time to bow out was the gospel blues number Keep Your Oil Lamp Trimmed and Burnin’. That is definitely back into the safe zone for me and also an easy number for others to join in with. Next session due on 23rd August, back at the church hall, although I’m not 100% sure if I’ll be there for it myself.

8 August 2025
by wpAdmin
0 comments

Drowning in Raspberries

I wonder if I might have a few too many raspberry bushes? Since last Friday I’ve brought home approaching 2kg from the allotment (with only the ripest harvested) and more from the back garden. Conservatively, that is about £25 worth of fruit at supermarket prices! Of course, that means having to deal with a large volume of fruit that doesn’t keep well in its natural state. If nothing else, it can feed the compost heap – the raspberries are such easy plants to grow that they just require the labour of picking and also pruning out their vigourous attempts to spread.

Next year, I’ll aim to scale the amount of canes back somewhat to make more room for other things but it is still a win for this year.

7 August 2025
by wpAdmin
0 comments

Back on My Bike

Now I’ve got the new shed in place, I can keep my bike in the old one. It will be easy to remove when I want to work in the shed but also means the bike is easier to access for maintenance and the all-important purpose of taking it out to ride. The other thing that has shifted lately is that our neighbour has switched to a new vehicle and, rather than parking on her side of the drive all the time in a large van, often parks up at the kerbside instead after she has taken her dogs out for an early morning walk.

All of that means that the two major impediments to me travelling by bike more often have been removed and I’ve cycled to work a couple of times this week. It saves me about half the travel time while still giving me an equivalent level of exercise so I expect I’ll keep going with that… and also get back into cycle maintenance again!

6 August 2025
by wpAdmin
0 comments

Hacklily

Although my work is often busy, there are also periods of waiting between appointments. There might be a computer or two being updated but even that is mainly waiting with only a few points of direct interaction. One of the things I’ve done to fill the time is work on transcribing various bits of music into Lilypond files. As the files are text based, it just needs a text editor but, with more complex pieces, it can take a long while to debug the results when I get back home and can see how the results display as music.

I can’t install Lilypond (or Frescobaldi, my preferred GUI editing environment) onto the work machine but today I discovered a website called Hacklily, which allows me to check the scripts online. It does run a bit slowly if trying to type the commands in directly but the workaround of typing up elsewhere and pasting in chunks as they are ready seems to be effective. It also felt a bit slow on a longer score but my “cheat” there was to change earlier sections to a series of (easy-to-render) rest bars.

Hacklily isn’t a full substitute for a local editing environment but it seems to be working well to meet a simpler need of doing some troubleshooting while I build my file – a solution worthy of the ‘hack’ title.

5 August 2025
by wpAdmin
1 Comment

Slip Jig

One of the parts of my job is labelling the storage shelves that different categories of laptops are put on. This helps, for example, to quickly identify an upgraded laptop that someone has come back to collect or to find a suitable device for the ‘Rapid Exchange’ service. We have magnetic holders and we fit in slips of recycled paper to write the necessary details. The challenge is producing paper slips of the correct dimensions. 1mm too wide and they won’t slide in but 1mm too narrow and they will fall out.

I’ve been pondering this for a while but, with a couple of colleagues who were particularly good at the “paperwork” having moved on, I decided it was time to turn my ideas of a jig to assist in the task to 3D printed reality. My first thought was more about a guide to quickly mark the paper with the correct dimensions but then it struck me that perhaps I could work out a simple way to cut the pieces directly.

My first attempt was a low rectangular block, with a section removed to give me the 80x17mm slip size. It worked okay but, with the paper in the way, it felt like a potential risk to fingers. Version two, designed and printed tonight, involves a second piece to fit into the one from yesterday. With the paper sandwiched between two pieces of plastic, it should be easier to hold the paper in place safely while making accurate cuts with scissors.

If it works, I might consider incorporating a hinge to keep the two parts together but there might also be scope for other useful refinements. The first test cut at home felt safer and looked accurate but it is hard to say for sure until I test it tomorrow and see if the resulting slips fit neatly in the holders.

4 August 2025
by wpAdmin
0 comments

Thick-necked?

According to website Factory Weights, the average UK male neck size is 38cm (or about 15″). I’m thinking about this because I’d like to buy a second black shirt for the upcoming tour. The challenge is that my neck is over 17″ around and so finding a suitable shirt on the high street is near impossible, particularly if I want to avoid one that hangs off me like a tent.

I suppose at least I can claim to be above average…