Heart attack!

So I'm sitting here at home, practicing French horn in preparation for Instrumental Ensemble auditions, and all of a sudden, wham, my middle valve is sticking straight up. This is 90 degrees more up than it should be. Turns out one of the strings that attaches the valve to the key came loose. So I almost have a heart attack, thinking that the horn isn't going to work, and that I won't be able to take it to get fixed before I go back to Prov...and all that other junk. Luckily, with about half an hour of effort, I finally figured how to restring it, and it works just fine now. Phew.
As a side bonus of taking up french horn again, my trumpet chops are nicely improving, especially my range. (Warning: Trumpet geek talk ahead)
Because the partials on a french horn are so close together, it is a fairly difficult instrument to play - the level of lip control you need is much greater than, say, a trumpet. As a general rule, the smaller the brass mouthpiece, the more difficult it is to control. Oddly enough, the french horn mouthpiece is the smallest mouthpiece you'll ever play on (excepting a piccolo trumpet, but I'm not sure if those use a regular trumpet mouthpiece or not). So, the increased control needed for a french horn means that on a trumpet, my range has greatly increased, and my tone is nicely improving. I hope this keeps up for the whole year - I was hitting double G's today (2 octaves and a 5th above middle C).
(/trumpet geek rant)