Okay, I've been on these pages for some time. Previous to this I was fairly involved with usmilnet.com, etc.
I'm a musician, but I can't make a living doing that any more beyond the Army. It's a passionate hobby, one that I'm pretty intense about.
Mrs E and I have moved around quite a bit over the past few years, and we have finally landed - never to move again, believe me - in the Little Rock area.
From a musical standpoint, there is a lot more happening here than in other places, and I'm delighted to be here. To that end, I've begun playing BBb bass (tuba) in the Natural State Brass Band, a competing ensemble in the North American Brass Band Association (NABBA). Brass banding is the thing that gets me out of bed in the morning -- it's intense, it's difficult, it's challenging, and it keeps me on my horns.
I am not a tuba player by trade. Per my screen name, I am a euphoniumist. Yet I began playing tuba in 2009 and have developed a reasonable amount of skill (though one never truly "arrives").
I'm also a bass trombonist, and have played in several ensembles and a symphony orchestra. Ditto with that -- I am a euphoniumist, though I have developed a reasonable amount of skill on that instrument, having begun in 2005. I began playing bass trombone and tuba 10 years and 14 years, respectively, past my retirement from the Army. Kinda tells you how big I am into low brass. lol
Lately, I have auditioned and have been accepted in the Little Rock Wind Symphony, a collection of truly outstanding musicians, on both tuba and euphonium. I'll audition again in September on bass trombone.
Yep, I'm liking this Little Rock thing. Couldn't get anywhere in Mississippi (no surprise there since I don't play guitar or mouth harp) and things were only marginally better in Missouri, where we lived from 2007 till 2015.
As hickok45 says, "Life is Good."