David S. Read

It has been a busy November and December both at work and home.  End of year work projects took a fair amount of effort, including a project to design and implement a data extraction utility for a business process management environment.  I’ll write specifically about that soon as its design allows it to be used to export information regardless of the underlying processes and data structures by producing XML.  The final target data structures will be created using XSLT.

Another fun opportunity has been working with the youth at church.  The intrepid group of brass players that accompanied me on the Jenkins’ Benedictus over the summer agreed to add a brass flair to our worship services around Christmas.  They decided to name themselves the Brass Kickers based on an expression that they enjoy, specifically that “Trumpet (or trombone) players kick brass!” 

I created a couple of hymn arrangements (Joy to the World and O Come All Ye Faithful) so that they could accompany the congregation.  Joy to the World was my son’s choice since it is his favorite hymn.  I chose O Come All Ye Faithful since it is one that I enjoy and is a little more challenging for the players.

I also had the opportunity to work with a broader set of youth preparing to sing for our Christmas Eve service.  They will be singing There Are Angels Hovering ‘Round based on the traditional tune and the updated words from Garrison Keillor.  It is always fun being able to work with the young children as they grow in confidence with each rehearsal.

I have uploaded videos of the brass players from today’s service.  I will add the Christmas Eve videos when they are edited and rendered late this week.  The videos are listed at the end of this post.

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