Happy Fourth!

Well, now here in mostly sunny Hawai'i, getting ready to see the
fireworks tonight. Things are going well here as I work helping
releather and restore a pipe organ here. Most of what I'm doing is
actually replacing the gasketing on the wind chests and associated
entities in the swell division. It's okay, although there's not a lot
of space under there. I'll get some pictures. It's maybe 3 feet to
the underside of the chests, and most of that space is taken up by
reservoirs. The organ's about 40 years old if I'm not mistaken, so
most of the leather has worn out. One of the biggest things the
church does is put on weddings, mostly for Japanese couples.
Apparently with the gift-giving to the guests and everything, it
somehow ends up being cheaper to have your wedding in Hawai'i than in
Japan. That and Honolulu has a higher percentage of residents (and
guests) of east Asian heritage than any other non-Asian city I've been
in. That and it also sort of feels like a nicer, more laid-back,
touristier, greener, much smaller cross between LA and SF. Or one of
the nice smaller cities in between those two. Well, I guess not
really, but there's something... Surfing? Also, like those cities
there's a weird feeling that you've seen the place before, only to
realize that it was on TV or in a movie.

Anyway, this church does about 1200 weddings a year. None today,
which was a relief, except we only worked about half a day. All the
weddings are a problem, because of course we can't work up there
during them. Add to that hearing "Here comes the bride", the
Hawai'ian wedding song, Schubert's "Ave Maria", and Mendelsohn's
recessional march 3 times a day gets a bit grating. The other day
there were 5, all in the sanctuary (even more happen in a little
chapel next door). At least they're only about half an hour, 45
minutes tops, and usually start on time. Usually we manage to
schedule projects to do downstairs or lunch during them, but sometimes
they just suck up time. Okay, well, need to go, more sooner.