Today is happy birthday to my Sue! I think she'll like what I got her. I'll reveal it after it's opened... Don't want to give away any surprises.
We'll go out to eat this weekend in celebration, and have a tasty meal somewhere. I'm sure I'll give a full report once it's happened. Very exciting stuff!
First day of study days for students here at Dartmouth. At this time next week, they'll be off for spring break. And then I leave for Indianapolis the next day for a conference. What a destination location!
Not really, but hey, I have to psych myself up for it somehow...
I sent off today to Joe and JP the mp3's of our old band project from 1994. And of course, as soon as they're off, I discover two more old tapes. I'll have to make an addendum to the discs, once I get these converted to mp3's.
NP: Bill Nelson, Working Man
09 March 2006
07 March 2006
Tapes!
The dubbing of the old band project tapes has gone much faster than I expected, mainly because I have less tapes of the project than I thought I had initially. I'm on the last tape now, and may try to knock it out in the next evening or two, in order to be done with it.
The music still speaks to me at times, which is reassuring, that we were able to create some pieces with staying power. At least to my mind.
Exciting stuff on the genealogy front today. The Scotlands People website released their online version of the 1851 Scotland Census today, which means that I've been able to find some old records for a variety of relatives in a relatively fast period of time. I was even able to discover a record for a guy named Alexander Lindsay, who is my G5-GF. I was pretty sure he died before 1855, and I found an Alexander Lindsay in the census who was the right age, living with someone who could be one of his daughters. The birth location is the right place too, so all signs point to yes, as the saying goes.
Now, I just have to wait for the 1841 Census to come online, and all will be well.
Sue is being tempted by the big box sitting on our table, waiting to be opened on Thursday for her birthday. I think she'll be able to resist until then...
I got a CD of music from my old T.O.O.L.-mate Dan VanArsdale yesterday in the mail. I have to give it a listen in the next day or so. I'm very interested to see where his musical travels have taken him...
NP: Billy Squier - On Your Own (from the Metropolis album by Giorgio Moroder)
The music still speaks to me at times, which is reassuring, that we were able to create some pieces with staying power. At least to my mind.
Exciting stuff on the genealogy front today. The Scotlands People website released their online version of the 1851 Scotland Census today, which means that I've been able to find some old records for a variety of relatives in a relatively fast period of time. I was even able to discover a record for a guy named Alexander Lindsay, who is my G5-GF. I was pretty sure he died before 1855, and I found an Alexander Lindsay in the census who was the right age, living with someone who could be one of his daughters. The birth location is the right place too, so all signs point to yes, as the saying goes.
Now, I just have to wait for the 1841 Census to come online, and all will be well.
Sue is being tempted by the big box sitting on our table, waiting to be opened on Thursday for her birthday. I think she'll be able to resist until then...
I got a CD of music from my old T.O.O.L.-mate Dan VanArsdale yesterday in the mail. I have to give it a listen in the next day or so. I'm very interested to see where his musical travels have taken him...
NP: Billy Squier - On Your Own (from the Metropolis album by Giorgio Moroder)
06 March 2006
Weekend!
I've spent a good portion of this weekend converting old audio tapes of a band that Joe J., John S. and I were in back in 1994. We didn't have a name for it at the time, but I'm now calling it Nick's Eef & Be Ho. That's the name of a place in Cambridge (Nick's Beef and Beer House) that we used to go to, but there were some letters missing from the sign. With a few permutations, that's what we ended up calling the place.
Funnily enough, I was talking to Joe tonight on the phone about the band, and what went wrong with it. We only rehearsed for about 4 months, and while we produced some workable arrangements of songs, both written outside the band and developed through some improv, we never went any further. Like a lot of things, it came down to young guys not really being able to communicate with each other about what was going on. My perception was that Joe wanted it to be a band that played the songs that he wrote. I personally liked the stuff we were coming up with by jamming, and wanted to develop more along those lines. But of course, we never talked about it in a real way. We may have talked around the issue at the time, but never confronted it head on.
And JP was a good middle ground for both of us. An excellent drummer, he was willing to work on most anything musically, and had a good sense of humor about life, even while he was going through a pretty crappy year or two himself. JP and I actually worked at the same place, actually two different places (the Mass College of Pharmacy and Boston University) at the same time. Good times.
So, rehashing old band politics from 1994 aside, it's actually a lot of fun listening to these tapes, with the distance that time gives me. Good playing in general, all around. I actually don't think I play bass as well now as I did back then. Although, put me in a band setting with a drummer, and I'll be interested to see what happens.
Some of these tunes will get posted over on my website, perhaps as early as the end of this week.
In other weekend news, Sue and I watched some movies here at home, and I went out to see "Capote" on Saturday night with a friend from work and some other people I didn't know very well at all. Great movie, it really showed the complexity of Capote, as someone who is a great writer, but also self-absorbed, and willing to use people for his own ends. I haven't read any Capote to speak of, but the movie does make me want to go read "In Cold Blood" now.
Other than all that, a good relaxing weekend.
NP: The fan from the computer
Funnily enough, I was talking to Joe tonight on the phone about the band, and what went wrong with it. We only rehearsed for about 4 months, and while we produced some workable arrangements of songs, both written outside the band and developed through some improv, we never went any further. Like a lot of things, it came down to young guys not really being able to communicate with each other about what was going on. My perception was that Joe wanted it to be a band that played the songs that he wrote. I personally liked the stuff we were coming up with by jamming, and wanted to develop more along those lines. But of course, we never talked about it in a real way. We may have talked around the issue at the time, but never confronted it head on.
And JP was a good middle ground for both of us. An excellent drummer, he was willing to work on most anything musically, and had a good sense of humor about life, even while he was going through a pretty crappy year or two himself. JP and I actually worked at the same place, actually two different places (the Mass College of Pharmacy and Boston University) at the same time. Good times.
So, rehashing old band politics from 1994 aside, it's actually a lot of fun listening to these tapes, with the distance that time gives me. Good playing in general, all around. I actually don't think I play bass as well now as I did back then. Although, put me in a band setting with a drummer, and I'll be interested to see what happens.
Some of these tunes will get posted over on my website, perhaps as early as the end of this week.
In other weekend news, Sue and I watched some movies here at home, and I went out to see "Capote" on Saturday night with a friend from work and some other people I didn't know very well at all. Great movie, it really showed the complexity of Capote, as someone who is a great writer, but also self-absorbed, and willing to use people for his own ends. I haven't read any Capote to speak of, but the movie does make me want to go read "In Cold Blood" now.
Other than all that, a good relaxing weekend.
NP: The fan from the computer
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