A practice room for all seasons

Ahh, summer practice.  The time of year when I finally have time to concentrate on all the big horn-related projects I've been wanting to tackle without all the daily concerts and rehearsals sucking up my time.  I always feel like I accomplish a lot over the summer, but it's also harder to know whether that's really true.  This week especially, with Memorial Day and some hot and sticky 80 degree weather, walking inside the air-conditioned abandoned music building has felt like some strange recurring dream.  I stand inside the same fluorescent room and play the same excerpts and I wonder if I've in fact done the exact same thing the day before...or maybe that's still today.  Maybe I'm been co-opted into some secret government operation wherein I absolutely MUST perfect the second horn part of Beethoven 3 or state secrets will be revealed, which is the only reason for spending so many hours inside this desolate concrete building.  I've always imagined that a think tank (really a sinister sounding place) must somewhat resemble a university music building in the summer.
As I said, I think my brain might be turning to mush.  Walking out into the sunshine at the end of the day feels like I've walked through one of those wavy, iridescent worm-hole doorway things you see on sci-fi TV shows.  On the bright side of things, it makes me want to be super efficient with my time spent practicing indoors.  And makes me feel justified in drinking cold beer nearly every evening.  So there's that.

Ooh, and I found this great blog this morning on practice and performance tips for musicians: www.bulletproofmusician.com.  Kept me on task and working hard for today at least.