Book!

Finished a book today, "Darwin's Children," by Greg Bear (see links in my previous blog entries). The book is a sequel to Bear's novel "Darwin's Radio," which is about human evolution facilitated by viruses. In the original book, a generation of children are born who are "different." Stronger sense of smell, more control over skin pigmentation, both of which are used by the children in communication.

The new book picks up 12 years after the original book, meeting the children when they are in their early adolecence. The goverment in the US has rounded up many of the "virus children," and placed them in special "schools" (read, concentration camps), due to the fear by many of the "normal" humans to this new breed.

Without going into the details of the book, I did enjoy the time spent reading the book. However, I also felt that the book seemed to be a bit scanty on filling details of the story, or certain levels of characterization. I did not read the first book right before starting this one, so perhaps I would have had a better experience had I done so. However, I didn't, so my experience is what it is.

The story jumped from place to place very quickly, which usually does not bother me in books, but there wasn't a lot of explanation as to what was going on in the story. There seemed to be a lot of political issues coming up in the background of the novel, and I would have liked to know more about those, but I didn't get it. None of this would keep me from reading any of Bear's new novels, though, as he still generally tells a good story. I probably would wait for the paperback, as I did with this one.

In other news, I took the day off from work today. Slept till about 10am, then did some grocery shopping, updated genealogy stuff, listened to music, watched some Aqua Teen Hunger Force, finished the aforementioned book, and spent some time with Sue. All in all, a good day away from work.

While listening to music off of my computer today, my old song "Forever" came up on the mp3 docket. It's quite an enjoyable little ditty, if I say so myself. If I re-recorded it today, I'd put some nice drums to it, and probably a bit more biting guitar, doubling the ascending lines the bass does through parts of the song.

The new book I'm reading is "The Blind Watchmaker," by Richard Dawkins, a British biologist. Only 12 pages into it, so no real opinion on the content yet, although Dawkins has rarely if ever disappointed this reader.

I may record some guitar parts tonight for the music I've been working on. Last night, I determined that I may want to play the guitar a bit differently for the song. More like the guitar in "Roxanne" by The Police. We'll see how it works tonight, should I do the recording. I'm going to wait till later to do any work on it, as Mr. Johnston may be giving a call a bit later.

NP: Attack of the Clones Soundtrack; Bounty Hunter's Pursuit

Trio!

Tonight, over in East Wheelock's "White House," I attended a dinner program with the Newstead Trio, a chamber group out of Pennsylvania, made up of a pianist, a cellist, and a violinist. Great stuff, they did some Dvorak, some Chinese folk songs (one of which reminded me obliquely of King Crimson's "Trio," from Starless and Bible Black), and a Mendelsohn piece.

I got to talk at length with the pianist of the group, a guy who was born in China, and has spent the last 16 years in the US. A very good guy, willing to talk about music, but also about whatever else would come up. I talked to the other two members of the trio also, but not to the same length as with the pianist.

Other than that, it was a quite normal work day. The oddity of New Hampshire right now is the unseasonably warm temperatures. I think it may have been in the 60's today, and there hasn't been any appreciable snow on the ground since perhaps mid-January. I keep thinking we're going to get the "big storm," but it just hasn't happened.

Today was actually the start of my weekend, as I'm taking a day off of work tomorrow, just for the fun of it. I have a lot of days to use up by the end of June, so taking a day now isn't a bad idea. My main goals for this weekend include spending good time with Sue, working on updating genealogy, finishing recording the song I'm working on, completing the book I'm reading (Darwin's Children, by Greg Bear), and cleaning the apartment.

NP: Trey Gunn; Arrakis

Sweaty....

Just finished exercizing. I try to do at least 30 minutes a day on the recumbent bike, although last week, due to evening work, I was barely able to do it more than one or two evenings. Because of my blood donation, I took off last night, so tonight, I did about 35 minutes. Not bad, but my shirt doesn't absorb sweat very well, so I'm a bit sticky.

I'm sure you all wanted to know that...

It's been a quick week so far at work. These weeks where I don't have a lot of student meetings tend to go by faster than I expect them to. I'm also thinking of taking Friday off from work, to burn off a vacation day. I deserve it, right?

Had an interesting conversation today at lunch about the whole Dick Cheney shooting incident. One of my co-workers, and rightfully so, was debating the usefulness of this being a "real" news story. My point was that yes, the accident may not be much of a story (except if the victim dies) outside of the immediate circle of people affected, but that the handling of the story shows a level of secretiveness and ambiguity about sharing news that this administration has shown again and again for "important" issues. Except shooting someone in the side/face is a lot more understandable to people than lobbyist issues, or even illegal wiretapping, which are the "real" stories that need to be covered. We shall see where this all goes.

If nothing else, Dick Cheney will join the ranks of Aaron Burr in trivia questions about VP's who have shot someone.

Tonight, I *may* record a guitar part for a song I'm working on. It's a bit late, and I don't know if I want to start it at this time. I may just do a quick pass to see how it sounds, or wait till tomorrow or over the weekend to record it. Once I get this new song done, I'm going to start transferring the old Joe/Mike/JP band tapes, which won't take as long as the T.O.O.L. tapes did.

NP: The Fellowship of the Ring Soundtrack; Flight to the Ford

Exsanguination

I gave blood today, and here's a photo of me!

I was doing something called a "Double Red Cell" donation, which takes one pint of blood, centerfuges it, and then puts the plasma (?) back in your arm. Then, you give another pint.

It's pretty straightforward, although your arm does get chilly, because the stuff coming back inside has dropped in temperature while outside of your body. Pretty neat!

Then, on the way to Gerry to check mail and get some paperwork prepared, I took some photos of the Snow Sculpture on the Green. This is something that happens each Winter Carnival. Here are some photos of that:

This is the sculpture from a distance. It's a big D, sloped downwards like a bobsled run, with Calvin and Hobbes, the cartoon characters, sliding downwards in a bobsled on the run. Supposedly, since it's a temporary structure, Bill Waterson gave permission to use the characters. Generally, from what I understand, he's pretty protective of the use of his characters, which is understandable seeing how many bootleg t-shirts the characters appear on.

Here's another photo, closer up....

And here's one of Calvin and Hobbes, closer up.

And a photo from Inside The Sculpture!

When I got off work, I was sleepy from the blood donation, and ended up napping until about 9pm or so. Of course, now we'll have to see when I actually get tired enough to sleep again...

To close, here's a photo that I took last night, before going bowling. It's a double exposure, I was experimenting with nighttime photos. Pretty cool looking, I think...

NP: Brian Setzer Orchestra: A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square

Bowling!

Don't know if you can see this photo, but here's some bowling scores from tonight...

I scored 104! In my second game of the evening! I even scored over 100 in the first game, I believe getting 107! I was even happier because I beat Brian Reed, the other CD who's staff I was hanging out with tonight.

I have to give credit to Nora, on Brian's staff, who beat us both in the 2nd game. Good for her!

So, now for a bit, I have bragging rights in the world of CD bowling. Kneel before Zod!

Here's something else dopey. I had noticed that my digital camera had been able to hold less photos that normal on it's disc. So today, just now, I explored on it a bit, and found that somehow, I had put some MP3's on there. Needless to say, I didn't need those files taking up space on the camera disc, so they got deleted toot sweet.

Oh, and another bowling thing, at some point, I got to use the line "Irony can be pretty Ironic sometimes," so Mr. Paik should be happy. And it was big ball bowling, not candlepin, that odd creation of New England...

Other than that, that's about it for now... More to come tomorrow!

NP: ELP, Pirates

Saturday night/Sunday Morning...

So, I tried to write something up last night, but there were problems with the connection here. I'm out in Brace Commons, watching a bit of the Olympics, chatting with students as people come and go.

It's been a busy week, with a lot of evening committments. Dinner events with students earlier in the week, on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, a Student Staff recruitment information session on Wednesday, and staying out here in Brace on Thursday, Friday, and tonight. Fortunately, I've been able to sleep late today (Saturday), and this coming morning (Sunday), so I should be getting some rest to keep exhaustion away.

I have a lot less evening committments this coming week, which will make it much more bearable.

But, whate else have I been doing for fun? I've recorded a bass part for a new song. I want to put a guitar part on it next, and am trying to think of something creative for it. Some of my music tends to be kind of basic or samey to my mind, limited by my restricted playing abilities. I've been thinking of taking some guitar or piano lessons, in order to increase my skills. Perhaps in the springtime I'll look into it.

Sue and I watched the last four episodes of Arrested Development (Free Annyong!) today, which aired last night. It did a good job of wrapping up the storyline from the last 3 years, and should it be picked up by anywhere else (Hello Showtime!), there's enough to continue the show. There were a lot of great laughs in the final episodes, and some good surprises... Now, it's just a wait for the DVD's to come out.

This is the "Winter Carnival" weekend here at Dartmouth, which is why I'm hanging out here.

Okay, it's late, and I'm sleepy, so this is it for now. More to come tomorrow, which is today, but you know what I mean...

NP: Luge at the Olympics