New Song!

I've got a new song up on my website, it's called "Answers Without Questions." Joe J. thinks I've listened to too much Yes and Moody Blues. You be the judge.

The song is based around a bass riff I've had since about 1994. About 2 weeks ago, I finally decided I needed to do something with it (I'm a fast worker). I wrote a chorus bass part, and then started working on the arrangement for other instruments. I decided on a Police-esque guitar for the verses, and a screaming rough tone for the choruses. The middle eight is just me rambling on a keyboard solo. Fun stuff. Oh, there's also a rhythmic keyboard part throughout the verses, that gives it a bouncy feel along with the guitar part.

There's some timing issues in the song, but hey, it's only a demo. I'm not looking for perfection here.

Now, because I've got this done, I'm going to start converting the old tapes of the Mike/JP/Joe project from back in 1994. It'll be the last old audio archiving I have to do for any time in the forseeable future, save should some other tapes come into my hands.

I've promised some photos the past few times I've posted, so here you go. On Thursday morning, some of us from ORL went on a tour of the new residence halls being built here at Dartmouth. Here's a photo of one of the rooms:


That's Meg in the cool hard hat and goggles, by the closets in one of the rooms.

Here's an unfinished ceiling from one of the lounges.

And now, for something completely different, a sign of great importance...

I hope they had fun up there...

And now, back to construction...

Here's a photo of Angela, one of the other CD's, with big construction stuff in the background...

So, I hope that satisfies your hunger for photos, but I know it won't. You're a beast, blog readers, who are never satiated with just a photo or two. You always want more! MORE!

Talked with Joe J. today on the phone, and our conversation went to me as an old man, once I get my band together, yelling at musicians because they're not playing my music right. "That's a dimished 7th, you twit, not an augmented 3rd!" Pesants!

Well, it was funny on the phone...

NP: Frank Zappa; King Kong

Group Process!

So, we finished our UGA group process for this term, with another session waiting for us in the Spring Term. Myself and a number of the other CD's went out tonight afterwards to enjoy each other's company. Fun was had by all.

I have a fairly good sense of humor, and it's nice to exercise it with other who share the same mentality.

No photos tonight, I'll load up some tomorrow for your consumption.

NP: King Crimson, Elephant Talk - November 1995

Busy!

Busy day, lots of work, and then a busy evening, with lots of work. Photos tomorrow!

NP: The Colbert Report

Has it really....

....been since the 17th that I've posted? Seems true, but I didn't think I was actually away from here for that long.

This is a busy week at work, with lots of UGA one on ones, and helping out with our student staff selection process on Thursday and Friday nights this week.

I spent a good portion of Saturday night finishing the music recording of my new song. I put some midi-percussion on it, keyboards, and a "la-la" vocal track, getting a sense of a rhythm/melody that will make sense over the music. Now I just need to write some words, and record some vocals. Once I do that, I'll put the rough demo up on my website. Opinions always welcome, even if you think they're no fun.

Two phone interviews today for two different jobs. One interview was your basic phone interview, while the second was was great, because the interviewer really pushed my answers out of me, asking good follow up questions, looking for tangible thoughts (contradictory?), not just the basic "I'm a good worker, because I say I am" that so many interviews can fall into. Who knows where it will lead, which is why I'm not putting the names of the places I interviewed with up here at this time!

Mmm, nothing beats a good Cherry Coke!

Joe and I did a great radio show this weekend, on Saturday night, starting around 10pm. Check it out over on Pseudocertainty! I think the nighttime is the best time to record these things, as we're both a little bit punchy.

NP: Yes, Siberia

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

Busy Week

It's a busy week, with lots of evening committments. I'll summarize later this weekend.

Weekend notes

Ah, the end of a weekend... Here's what I did:

• Proctored for the LSAT's on Saturday morning. I was hoping to sleep in this weekend, but I got a call on Friday asking if I could proctor. It's hard to turn down $70, even with losing sleep. So, I was done by 1pm (got up at 7am), napped in the afternoon, and finished my book, "The Triumph of Sociobiology."
• While proctoring the LSAT's, I was thinking about genealogy, as I am want to do. I thought about a family story, passed to me by a distant cousin, about the Coulson's. Richard Coulson was my g3-GF, and he was born and married in Ireland. However, before he came to the US in 1853, supposedly he lived in England for a bit, and his second daughter Jane was born there. I made the leap on Saturday morning (don't know why it didn't occur to me before), that perhaps Richard was in England for the 1851 Census. When I got in, I checed on Ancestry.com, and sure enough, he was there with his wife Eliza, and daughter Martha (my G2-GM, who married Robert Lord). I also found Richard's parents, Richard and Sarah, also living in England in 1851. A very good day for genealogy.
• Sue was sick this weekend, so I tried to comfort her, and just help out in any way I could. Basically, with her head cold, what she needed was vegging, so I just stayed out of her way and assisted where I could.
• On Saturday night, I recorded a bass part for a song I wrote. The verse part was written back in about 1994, and the chorus/bridge were written last week. I think I'm trying to use up all my old riffs, to clear the deck of old things. I need to come up with guitar/keyboard parts, perhaps drums, and lyrics... We'll see how it develops. As soon as it's in good shape, I'll post it over on my website.
• Today, we had a Super Bowl viewing in Brace Commons. A good turnout, better than either of the previous two years that we had done it.

And now, I'm writing this... It'll be time for bed soon, but I want to take it easy for a bit...

NP: Rick Wakeman, The Last Battle

Stuff

First, a victory for the good guys. Want to read something fun? Go to:

Logic and reason finally prevail!

Yes, it's long, but go to page 136 and read the conclusion. Great stuff...

Now, on another subject, I bet you've been wondering, What Has Mike Been Doing With His Genealogy Recently? Well, wonder no more!

Just in the past few weeks, I've discovered some Canadian records of Boomer Partridge, a great-great-granduncle, sent away for Irish birth/marriage/death records, sent away for some Polish birth records, sent letters to cemeteries in New Jersey, requested a death record from New York, and discovered some wills of old dead Scottish relatives.

Not a bad bit of work to kick off the new year. Some other goals for this year include:

• William Nixon was my great-grandmother's half brother. I know he had at least one child, Virginia, who lived into adulthood. I'd like to find her or her relatives.
• I'd like to dig around in some Polish records from the towns of Zaborow, Niebylec, and Glinik. I can get the Zaborow records from the Mormon Family History Centers, and perhaps even the other ones...
• I'd like to make some breakthroughs on the Lord line. Right now, it ends with Robert Lord, my G4-Grandfather. I know he had a son, John Lord, who's my G3-GF, but that's it. I don't even know who Robert's wife was.
• I'd like to contact some more close living relatives, to learn about what photos they may have buried in basements, or hiding in attics.
• One thing I've wanted to do is send some letters to addresses in NJ, where my relatives used to live. Who knows, maybe there's some boxes marked "Lord" in an attic in Kearny, NJ, that someone doesn't want to throw away, that hold some rare items... I know, a distant hope, but genealogy is all about hope.
• The ScotlandsPeople website will be releasing the 1851 and 1841 Scotland Census records soon, hopefully by March. It'll be interesting to see what comes of those...

I think that's a pretty good list for now. Ask me in the future how I'm doing...

NP: Robert Fripp, Green Park Suite: Polychromatic Park - 21 Nov 1996

Addicted to Oil?

No, it's not a new Robert Palmer song (RIP), not even a new Power Station song (RIP ditto), but something that Our Great Leader talked about in the State of the Union address last night.

Interesting now that people in power are realizing that if we had energy independence, perhaps we wouldn't be as beholden to regimes or other leaders who control the energy supply of the country. And this is not just a Republican thing, the Democrats, while being a little better with it, are still far off from being good advocates for alternative energy sources.

So, kudos to OGL for mentioning this in the State of the Union, but if something actually happens from this, I might actually be a happy guy. The only other kudos that OGL gets from me is giving NASA a goal to head back to the Moon by 2020, which NASA actually hopes to do by 2018 or 2017, according to Space.com.

Just finished exercising for the day. I try to do at least 30 minutes each day on the recumbent bike. It gives me a bit of activity each day, and keeps most of the flabbyness away.

Got something for Sue last night for her birthday. Can't tell you what it is yet though... Not till March.

Today was payday, so bills were paid, and I'll put some money into savings tomorrow, and throw some additional cash at my student loans either this week or next. I'd really like to get rid of this loan before the end of the year. I have less than 10K to pay off, and I'm just tired of paying it each month. If I were to pay it normally each month, it would take till April 2009 to pay off the loan. So, if I can aim to get it done this year, I'll knock off a bit of interest that I'd be paying in the future.

NP: Chris Squire & Billy Sherwood, Days of Wonder

Tuesday Evening

Just had a good phone conversation about Babylon 5 with Joe over the phone. He's rewatching a lot of the show on DVD now, and is picking up a lot of interesting parallels, for those of you with interest in the show. Perhaps he'll detail some of them on his blog...

Sue's feeling a bit under the weather, hopefully she won't get any more sick...

I think this weekend I'm going to be trying to record something new on my home recording setup. I want to do something, but don't have any immediate ideas. I'll see what develops between now and then, setting that for my goal...

NP: Steve Hackett, The Devil Is an Englishman

Ach!

Okay, before you read this blog, read the one below it...

Have you read it yet?

I realize I didn't mention the issue with my presentation in Friday's blog. Here it is. The conference has put my Sociobiology presentation at 9:45am on the closing day of the conference. Unfortunately, my flight is at 11am or so. Therefore, I can't really do the presentation without missing my flight, and the cost to change the reservation would be over $300, and I can't make my work pay for that.

So, I've put in a request to have my presentation at a different time, but I have not heard yet if it's going to be changed at all...

Uh oh, I just realized maybe I did talk about this, in a blog before Friday's. I didn't check back that far when I went to look before. Ah well, repetition never hurt, at least with one of my stories...

I would like to still do the presentation, but if it has to stay on Wednesday, I'll have to pull out... And the other thing is, I don't know how many people actually go to presentations on Wednesday. Not that attendance is everything, but I would like people to actually attend the program if I'm going to put the work into it.

If nothing else, the work now can get me ready to do it again for next year, should I choose to resubmit it.

NP: Jeff Buckley, Lover You Should Have Come Over - July/Aug 1993

Reading

Have I mentioned that on here before that I pretty much need to be reading a book at all times? I finished the 3rd Harry Potter book on Saturday, and I thought about taking a little break from reading something, but I couldn't do it. I started "The Triumph of Sociobiology," written by John Alcock, last night. I am continuing to do reading for my presentation at ACPA in March, although I'm a bit unclear if it will happen now, due to what I mentioned on here in my last entry.

I did mention it on there, didn't I?

Anyway, I'm about 50 pages into it, and I'm enjoying it quite well. Sometimes, when I'm reading "scientific" books, I worry about skimming over hard parts. However, I've been pretty good about re-reading sections that are giving me trouble, so that I can be conversant in the ideas when/if I do the presentation in March.

I have a few other books on my "To Read" shelf right now. There's "Return to the Moon," by Harrison Schmitt (or Schmidt), about resources that could be used on the moon to make it worthwhile economically to go there. There's "Darwin's Children," a book by Greg Bear that's a fiction book about the next "stage" of human evolution. I have another Sociobiology book, called "Defenders of the Truth," which is about the debates that raged in the 70's/80's about the veracity of Sociobiology as a discipline within biology. I also have "Consilience," by E. O. Wilson (yet another science book), and "The Blind Watchmaker," by Richard Dawkins, a great writer in the field of evolutionary biology.

I'll probably pick up in paperback the 4th and 5th Harry Potter books at some point. They're great reads, and I can see why both kids and adults get into them. The adventure is good for both age groups, and adults can remember what it's like to be that age, or it's good to be reminded periodically of what kids, even fictional kids, can get into at that age.

I continue to be on the lookout for good books to read. It is one of my vices, but any vice that keeps the mind active, reflecting, and thinking can't be that bad...

NP: Brian May, Driven By You - 15 June 1993

Koop!

Here's a photo of Brian Reed, CD extrordinaire, C. Everett Koop, and myself, in Brace Commons in my residential cluster. Koop visited to speak to a group of about 15 student about issues in the medical field, generally about the cost of care, the aging of America, and old folks.

I learned that Dr. Koop is 90 years old. A very sharp guy! Brian and I were glad we were able to pull this together for students. Brian did most of the work, so I give my kudos to him. Props!

You say you want some more photos? Here's one in town, just a sign...

Vermont is not really in the sky, it's West. And that's the town of Lebanon, not the country. We are a bit remote up here, but not *that* remote...

It's been a longish week. A pretty good one, but still long. Lots of meetings, evening committments, and other work. It should be better this coming week.

My goal for this weekend is to get a more structured outline created for my Sociobiology presentation in March at the ACPA conference. Shouldn't be too hard to do after my note taking last weekend. Also, I hope to get a book order from Amazon tomorrow, which should continue to put me on the right track for this presentation. On Monday at work, I'll start developing some material for my other presentation/roundtable, on making the transition from single to married/partnered while living in the residence halls.

NP: King Crimson, The Rich Tapestry of Life - 17 Oct 1972

Photos soon!

Yes, I took some photos today, but I won't load them up for a bit of time. Definitely by the weekend, probably before that.

Generally a good day today, I helped out with a presentation about our selection/hiring process for our student staff, got a lot of good info out, and got some good small laughs from the audience. I remember the days where I couldn't talk in front of a group without getting freaky scared beforehand, but now it doesn't bother me that much. My main concern nowadays when I talk in front of groups is keeping it interesting. I think I've done enough of it now that I'm much more comfortable with it, but I still want to develop more comfort doing it, better eye contact with the audience, etc.

Think that's all for now!

NP: Faith No More, Take This Bottle

Weather

I'm going to break one of my cardinal rules and comment on the weather here. We've had abnormally warm weather recently, but now have snow back on the ground. I'll grab some pretty photos of it tomorrow, assuming that it's still looking nice then.

Exercized today for the first time since Saturday. I'm continuing to do the recumbent bike, and need to eat a bit less to make the benefit real.

Received a new CD I ordered around the new year in the mail today, a new Frank Zappa release called "Imaginary Diseases," recorded live back in 1972. An interesting album, the band was basically a rock rhythm section (lead guitar, drums, bass, slide guitar) with a 6 piece horn section. Very different from a lot of other Zappa on the first listen, it was cool. I'll need to listen a bit more to really get a flavor for the music in depth.

NP: King Crimson, Cadence and Cascade - 12 March 1972