Late Night...

It's a late night here, and I've got nothing much to say... Homecoming has gone well here at Dartmouth, I've been out of the apartment with my public face, and I've been talking to a lot of students. Things seem to be going well. I'll head off to bed around 1:30am or so...

NP: Bill Bruford, Sample and Hold

Marion Houston

When I first started doing genealogy, back in late 2001, I collected a lot of old family photos from my Dad. Amongst the photos was this one I hadn't remembered seeing before...


I asked my Dad who this was, and he said, "That's your great-grandmother's mother." My great grandmother was Bessie Nixon, who married Robert Partridge. Bessie's mother was Marion Houston, and I had no idea we even had a photo of her. She died when Bessie was about 4 years old, so she never really knew her mother at all.

When I found the photo, I really knew nothing about the woman. However, through my research, I discovered that the Nixon's were from a town in Scotland called Paisley. That name rang a bell in my mind, so I dug through my photos and files, and found this photo. I realized that the Paisley in the lower right corner signified the location of the photo.

Marion Houston came over to the US on 17 August 1885, and married Robert Nixon on 20 Augutst 1885 in New York City. My guess about this photo is that Marion and Robert knew each other in Paisley, and when he came over in 1884, he either brought the photo with him, or Marion sent it to him in NYC in the year they were apart.

Of course, I have no real proof for these stories, but it makes sense... And my great grandmother had the photo as a memory of a mother that she probably didn't really recall from life that much at all, since she died so early in Bessie's life.

Marion is about 20-23 years old in this photo, from my estimates. I have no photos of she and her husband together, but I do have a photo of someone I think is her husband standing alone. I'll put that up here at some point...

E-mail goodness

Today was a good day for my genealogy research. Part of what I do in order to get in contact with distant branches of the family tree is put out posting on message boards, basically saying "Here's the relevant info on my Lord ancestors, if you're connected, contact me."

I put enough for readers to identify if the information connects to their family, but not enough for someone to try to pull a fast one on me, should they want to. However, I know that's a fairly unlikely circumstance, as there's no real reason to mess with someone like that.

So today, I get an e-mail from someone who is related to Boomer Partridge. Boomer was the brother to William Partridge, my great-great-grandfather. All I knew about Boomer was that he was born in 1873 or so, and had immigrated to the Toronto area of Canada at some point. The woman who e-mailed me is Boomer's granddaughter. I haven't heard back from her yet, but I'll now be able to fill in some of the blanks on that side of the Partridge family.

I hope to do some more work on the genealogy stuff this weekend. I have a genealogy page on my personal home page, so check it out if you wish.

I also heard from a Lord relative today, which is the first time I've heard from him in awhile. I've been bad about keeping in contact with people, I need to do a "How's everyone doing" e-mail sometime soon.

I think that's all for now... Cheers!

NP: Steve Hackett, Carry On Up The Vicarage (Live)

Krakatoa

My new reading is Krakatoa, by Simon Winchester. Again, a book I picked up because it's on a topic that everyone knows a little about (Krakatoa exploded/erupted in the 1880's, and it was big), but that I'd like to know more details about. I'm only 30 pages or so into it right now, and so far there's a lot of background on the history of the area (Portugese/Dutch trading posts, trouble with the locals, all the usual suspects). I'm looking forward to the explosion.

This weekend is Homecoming here at Dartmouth. Big bonfire built in the middle of the Green on Friday night. I end up hanging out in the main lounge of my cluster for Thursday-Friday-Saturday night, just being available and accessible in case there's any issues or emergencies. I'll probably use the time to perhaps do some genealogy work that I've put aside for awhile. The music stuff has taken over for a bit of time as my main hobby, and I'd like to strike more of a balance.

I think that's about all for now. If I think of anything else to write, I'll be sure to update later on...

NP: Rick Wakeman, The Pyramids of Egypt

Flooding!

Here are some photos of flooding by my mom's home in Asbury Park, NJ from this past weekend. The above photo is from her roof, looking towards Loch Arbor, NJ. If the photo continued on the right, you'd see the Atlantic Ocean. The water is Deal Lake, and there's normally a road in front of those homes. My mom told me that she and my dad actually looked at the blueish home in the middle of the photo when they were looking to buy a house back in the late 60's.





The above photo is looking south and slightly west from my mom's roof. Again, there should be a road running in front of those homes...




This last photo is from the Asbury Park side of the Deal Lake bridge. Normally, there's about 5-10 feet of water under that bridge. Thankfully for my mom, the Asbury side of the lake had higher banks.

I know this is only a taste of what the people down in New Orleans and elsewhere have been experiencing, but it's enough, that's for sure...

NP: Out in Brace Commons, and it's pretty quiet...

I Have Returned

Back in NH after a few days in Florida. It was for Sue's sister's wedding that we were down there. Got down on Thursday, back today. A good time was had by all. Or, at least, by Sue and I. Who am I to speak for everyone??? Although, I do believe everyone did have fun.

The band was a wee bit loud though... But, near the end, they turned down their 80's Yamaha drum machine sound, and it became a bit more bearable. Good to see people, we had a fun table, sitting with the bride, groom, and other members of the wedding party. Once I get some photos, I'll post anything that I'm in. Because, it really is all about me.

Speaking of me, the bride and I had a good conversation about blogging while at the rehearsal dinner. It was nice to be encouraged... And I should point out that I'm starting to post music over at my personal home on the range.

Sue and I got to see my friend Brad from high school on Thursday evening, which was good. He's always a good egg to see. And, he's greyer than I am, even though I'm a year older.

I finished two books while down in FL, the Shakespeare book (a good read), and Philip Roth's "The Plot Against America." I enjoyed that also, although I felt the ending was a bit jumbled. I haven't read any Roth previous to this novel, and I'd be willing to seek out some of his other books.

I also, just tonight, revised my lyrics for the song I'm working on. I think I'm getting closer to the final shape of it, and to how the song will be performed. It'll be a fast one, which means I think I'm going to have to chuck the music I've already written for it. I was writing on guitar, and I think I'm going to have to write on bass. That's how I'm hearing it in my head, and then I'll come up with guitar parts afterwards. Once I get the third/final verse into better shape, I'll post the lyrics up here again. Look in the archive for the first draft.

And now, I think travel is catching up with me, so it's time for bed...

NP: Brian Eno, "Stars," from Apollo

Away for a few...

I'll be away from here for a few days... Going down to Florida for Sue's sister's wedding. We'll probably also see my friend Brad from High School, who lives in the Tampa area.

So, updates when I get back. Enjoy the break...

Music's coming together...

Tonight, I've been working on the music for the song I'm in the process of writing. I have a basic structure now, with verse/chorus, but am still refining major/minor chords. I've figured out that I write a very basic, usually two chord progression first, then start embellishing the chords to find neat additional combinations or voicings to the music.

I'm making this sound a lot more thoughtful and planned than it is. It's really just trying to find something to back up the words at this stage. My basic vocal track I recorded helped a bit, but I was too out of time to record anything to that vocal track. And, I'm not quite ready to record music yet. I've also learned not to push the process at this point. It's good to work on it, put it down for a bit (after writing down the chord changes above the lyrics as they stand now, of course), and let it sit so I can come to it fresh. The lyrics will also have to be revised a bit to fit the rhythm/sound of the music, which is fine. I'm hoping to write a bit of an intro to this piece, musically, but haven't started to develop those ideas yet either.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that, at least as of now, I have a pretty haphazard writing process for this song. More to come later on!

NP: T.O.O.L. - Don't Worry, Be Happy

Out by the snack bar...

The Residential Cluster I'm in charge of here at Dartmouth, the East Wheelock Cluster, is special for a lot of reasons. One of them is the fact that there's a snack bar that's open each night (save Saturday) from 8pm-2am. I'm trying something new this year, where I'm going to hang out here each Monday evening from about 10pm (after my staff meeting) until about midnight. I've already had a bunch of casual conversations out here, which is neat. I like working with college students. It's fun.

So, while I've been out here, I've updated my website. There's now a bunch of music up, mainly from the era right after college, although there is a T.O.O.L. clip up, along with the most recent thing I've done, a version of the Moody Blues song "Out and In." Great fun. The old stuff is also entertaining. I'm waiting to put more stuff on the site until I hear final word about the space I'll have on the server. Obviously, music takes up a lot of memory, and I don't want to push it too far right now...

I did record the vocal track for the song I've been working on. I did it after work today, and got enough of a working version down to begin to think of music for it. I think that will be the mission for tomorrow evening. I have to call my friend Joe McGlinchey, and also start packing for my wife's sister's second wedding this weekend. Packing won't take long, but I just want to get it done...

NP: The sound of the Brace Commons Ice Machine

I'm Indexed

A few years ago, reporter Barry Seaman came to Dartmouth's campus to do research for a book he was writing on present day college life. He stayed in my building, and I got to chat with him for awhile. It's finally published, and it's called "Binge."

I haven't read the book yet, but I am indexed in it. I'm mentioned twice, once cited correctly, and the second time slightly incorrectly. I'm looking forward to seeing what the book says...

So sue me...

Okay, okay, I didn't get around to recording my lyrics yet, but I think that I have them in good shape... I think Tuesday night will be when I put some of this stuff on tape, or perhaps right after work tomorrow. I'll see how I feel.

I've been putting a lot of my CD's on computer, to continue developing the playlist for my own personal radio station for when I'm exercising or working on the computer here. I've put a lot of my comedy CD's on here (Carlin, Pryor, Dana Gould, Richard Jeni, amongst others). Music I've put on here this weekend include Yes, ELP, and various offshoots of those two bands.

I'm a big fan of British progressive rock, bands like the aforementioned two, along with Genesis (with and without Peter Gabriel and Steve Hackett), King Crimson, and others. Frank Zappa and Queen also make up large portions of the 1600 CD's that Sue and I have when our collection is joined. For more modern music, Radiohead is up there, and Phish used to be good, before they took up the mantle of the Grateful Dead. Other artists worth checking out are John Cale, Jeff Buckley, Mike Keneally, and David Bowie.

I've been listening/watching the new ELP DVD, Beyond the Beginning, while working on the computer today. It's a good overview of a lot of early live stuff from the band, much of which I haven't seen before. Sue thinks they're a bit self important, and I suppose they are, but I enjoy good portions of their catalog, perhaps because of the pomposity. Not stuff I'd listen to every day, but their work does it for me when I'm in the right mood.

NP: ELP, Pictures At An Exhibition

Late evening weekend

I've done some more work on the song that I've been writing. I got some more verse material, perhaps a chorus/middle eight, which is much like the verse, and some other ideas to develop. I'm going to make a pass at recording sung vocals tomorrow (Saturday) to give me a sense of melodic ideas for both the vocal line and possible music. If I can get some basic guitar backing, I'll probably record an acoustic demo.

I think this is turning into a mid tempo song. I'd be curious to see if I can make it into something a bit faster or rockier, but I don't know if that would be forcing it into shoes it can't wear. I'll fill you all in on how it goes after I do some recording tomorrow.

I bet you're wondering what I've been reading. I'm reading "Will In The World," a biography of Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt, a Harvard professor and an expert on Shakespeare. I'm about a quarter of the way through the book, and it's quite interesting. Because so little is actually known of Shakespeare's life, the book is a reconstruction of the Elizabethan era, and how Shakespeare's plays and other writings may show some details of his history. Speculative, certainly, but interesting nonetheless.

I think that's going to be it for now. I'm getting tired, and will probably go off to bed soon.

NP: Pete Townshend, "Song Is Over," from Lifehouse Demos

Watch the Skies...

Yesterday evening, Joe Johnston and myself did our "So What's The Deal With Alien Abduction" presentation over in another residence hall on Dartmouth's campus, where I work. In fact, it was in the cluster I used to oversee, back in the 2001-2003 time frame.

We had an audience of about 25 students, and Joe and I regaled them for a little over an hour about the "history" of alien interaction, mainly during the 20th century. The students seemed interested, although there were less questions than I thought there would be.

Joe and I also determined that if we're ever to do this again, we're going to try to cut our blather down to about 30-40 minutes, in order to give more time for questions at the end. We both thought that while people were interested in the topic, members of the audience probably just felt beat down by the end of the talk.

All in all, it was a fun way to spend an evening. Joe and I afterwards watched some Babylon 5 commentaries from the 5th season of the show, which since they were sans Jerry Doyle, were actually filled with content and merryment.

We also have an idea to record our own commentaries on B5, which we can do with Joe's home audio recording set up. I'm sure we'll do this over time, it should be fun...

I am now sleepy, so it's off to bed for me. But first, notice the new link at the top of the right hand column of links. I have finally created a personal website! It's very basic right now, but watch for actual content as time goes on...

NP: Silence

The Aristocrats

I just got back from seeing the movie, "The Aristocrats," with one of my co-workers. It's a film about probably one of the dirtiest jokes ever told. It's an in crowd comedian thing, people looking to top each other in how elaborate, and quite frankly, gross the joke can get. If you're into comedy, and don't mind being offended, and/or hearing disgusting humor, then this film is for you.

I love comedy. I have a lot of comedy albums, that I enjoy listening to repeatedly (as long as the act is funny, of course). People have asked me how I can listen to the routines over again, when I know what the jokes are. For me, it's about the construction of the joke, the word choice, the pacing, the release, and all else that is involved with the telling of a great routine. This movie gets at that, in showing how different comedians put their spin, and analyze, this old vaudeville joke...

George Carlin's telling of the joke, perhaps because it's one of the first, or because I'm such a big Carlin fan, is one of the best. Gilbert Gottfried's is also fantastic. It's also told in mime, through a card trick, and in fake German. Go see this film!

On another track entirely, I have finally started my own personal presence on the web. It's pretty basic right now, with no content, but it will grow... Check it out.

Tomorrow, Joe J. and I will be doing our Alien Presentation here at Dartmouth in my old Residential Cluster. The fun never stops!

NP: The Daily Show

Writing Process

Yesterday, I talked about writing a new song, based on the idea that some people just can't stand being alone at all. They'd rather be in a bad relationship than no relationship at all.

Tonight, I took my first real stab at the poem/lyrics. I tend to fall into an A-B-C-B rhyme scheme fairly easily, and I didn't fight it tonight. What follows is a first pass rough draft at writing this. I don't know if I like it yet, but getting the ideas down on paper will get the ideas started. Here it is:

The moment you enter my life
Is the moment I know I'm complete
Our life and love magnify
I'm ready to come in from the street.

And when you finally turn on me
Like I knew you would always do
In a moment I've found the next one
The next one I'm certain is true

I want someone to complete me
Or at least to take up my time
With you I've got half the deal
I know you really don't mind

I give you all that I have
As much as I'll give to the next
You know that I'll love you truly
As much as I loved all the rest

I have this need inside me
I can never be left alone
As much as I can love you
My heart's really only on loan.

Copyright 2005 Mike Lord-Mars Central

Already, even typing this out, I have some ideas for revision, but I'll keep those to myself for now. It's a little sing-songy, but it's not bad for 10 minutes of work.

This is also the first time that I've written words with music on in the background. I didn't think that it would be good, but I could actually tune out the stimulus of the music pretty easily.

I'll keep you posted on the progress of this song as it develops. I'd like to have a stable set of lyrics in the next few days, perhaps by the weekend. By then, I may have some chords to go along with the words.

In other non-music related comments, my present reading is Will In The World, a biography of Shakespeare. It's fascinating to read a biography about someone we don't really know much about. There's a lot more about the context of the times than about Shakespeare's particular life right now, but I'm only 40 pages into it. Perhaps that will change as I get deeper into it. However, there aren't a lot of primary sources about Shakespeare's life from his era. It'll be a good interesting read, I'm sure.

Soon, it'll be off to bed for me.

NP: Radiohead, Climbing Up The Walls

Ah, the weekend...

A Saturday evening spent doing "work" with some friends, at a retreat for student health educators. There are times I really like my profession, and this evening was one of them. Good students, good professionals, and a good time had by all.

Today, Sue and I did our proctoring for the LSAT's. Another fun morning spent watching future lawyers take a test, while Sue and I read our respective books. I'm about 100 pages out from finishing Matt Ruff's "Set This House In Order," which I am really enjoying. It's a book about mulitple personality disorders. I may ask my psych friend Joe McG to read it, see what he thinks about the counseling/psych end of the story. As someone with a lay knowledge of psych and multiple personality disorder, it's ringing true to me, but I'm curious what a professional would think.

While doing the LSAT today, I tried to do some lyric writing. I'm running into the issue of how much reality to put into lyrics. I have ideas to write, but do I try to make personal experiences general, so that others can empathize, or do I keep them more personal, with therefore perhaps more meaning to me, but perhaps less to others? It's something I'm trying to reflect on, to help move to a different level in writing.

I'm trying to write something about people who have the fear of being alone in a relationship. I think it's fascinating when friends tell me that they can't stand not dating or being with someone. While I personally really like being in a relationship, I was without one for long enough during my life to know that people can make do without it. However, I know some people who truly can't function without a relationship, even a bad one, in their life. For example, there was a girl in high school who always was in a dating situation with someone. These would be long term dating relationships, of at least a few months (decades in high school time), but then when it would end, it seemed that within a short period of time, she'd be dating someone else, and would be just as serious as the relationship that just ended. That always fascinated me. If you're always in a relationship, does any relationship have meaning? Perhaps that could be the theme for the song... See, I know there was a reason to start this blog!

I should be getting a personal website up on Dartmouth server space soon. I'm hoping to be able to post some music up there, and perhaps some of my genealogy stuff, mainly old photos. We'll see how it goes.

Sue and I will probably go out to eat tomorrow, and perhaps to a movie. Who knows what we'll see, but I'll keep you posted.

I'm out.

NP: King Crimson, Calliope

Someone woke up at NASA

It's about time.

If the money put into the shuttle had just continued with a reduced Moon program, we wouldn't have to worry about going back now...

Seems obvious in hindsight, but how could the past have been so blind?

NP: The Daily Show

Damn robots...

I actually had to change over my comments section in this blog so that I wouldn't get spammed by robots. Do people who set these robots up really think that people will click on a link because a nice link in a comment points to it?

Morons.

I've been thinking more about the bass piece I recorded last night. I need to play it a bit more, and actually arrange it... Figure out what it's all about, besides being dark and moody. Sometimes that's enough, but I need to have some more structure in it. That's a job for this weekend...

NP: Jingle Cats, Here Comes Santa Claws

Is the Night Time The Right Time?

For Blogging? It is for me. I like taking it easy in the evenings, kicking back, and reflecting on the day.

Sue is feeling a bit under the weather. Poor Sue! She's dealing with a cold, which is never fun. Hopefully rest and time will have her feeling better soon.

So, Mike, you may be thinking, what are you up to nowadays? Here's a few fun things for your enjoyment...

1. I've been trying to work on a little mournful bass song that I've been generating over the past few weeks. I actually gave a go at recording something on my digital home recording setup tonight, but it didn't turn out very well. I really need to sit down, figure out the different parts of the piece, and arrange it in some semblance of creative order. Then, I can get into figuring out what to do with it. So, keep your ears peeled.

2. I started reading the last book on my "To Read" shelf, Matt Ruff's Set This House In Order. I read his first book, Fool On The Hill, a month or two ago and quite enjoyed it. So far, this seems like a good book, but I'm only about 40 pages into it. More updates later on.

3. My good friend Joe, of Taskboy fame, will be coming up here next week, to help out with a presentation we'll be doing for some students about alien wackyness. I'll be sure to let you know how the talk goes. It should be fun...

4. This weekend, I'm proctoring the LSAT's, the law school admissions test. Lots of fun to do, as I generally get to read a book during the test. Perhaps I'll try to write some lyrics for the aforementioned bass piece I'm writing.

That's what I'm up to now. Some fun stuff, and some casual things. Any suggestions for books to read once I'm done with the Matt Ruff book?

NP: The Daily Show

Mike

A week's gone by...

So, I think I started this little bloggy about a week ago. Even if it's been a bit longer, it feels like a week. I'm happy to say that I've enjoyed putting some thoughts down here each day.

Today was officially a day off from work, as I was able to take a relaxing day away after working hard this past month. I slept a bit late, did some minor stuff around the apartment, went into West Lebanon to buy some used CD's to re-sell on E-bay (see link at right).

I did have a good E-Bay weekend, with my closing CD's brining in about $85. Not a bad take.

This week, I plan on doing some songwriting, to start using my home recording setup on the computer to do some new things. I want to find a website where I can put up music. I'm still looking at the possibilities.

And now, I'm getting a bit tired, so I'll have to wrap this up for now, and write more tomorrow.

Cheers!

Mike