In New Jersey

So, I'm down in New Jersey now, at my mom's place. I'll be down here till Monday, seeing family, doing genealogy stuff, and whatever else strikes my fancy. Tomorrow, I'm heading to Trenton, to go to the State Archives, to look for old birth, marriage, and death records. Lots of fun... Really!

I'm not sure what I'll do with some of the other days, but I'll probably see family in the area. Maybe even try to contact some people that I haven't seen recently.

I'm on someone's wireless right now... I don't know whose, but I thank them, whoever they are....

More later!

Dirty jobs...

So, in reviewing this Census stuff, I found a great job title.

Bobbin Polisher.

Get your minds out of the gutter...

New Census!

This is the stuff of a genealogist's dreams... Today, I was doing my periodic check of some of my favorite websites, and on the Scotland's People site, I saw that they had added an index to the 1861 Scotland Census!

The Census can be a wealth of information for genealogists. It's a great way to see households as they stood at a moment in time. They're helpful for eliminating possibilities, and creating new ones.

I was able to, in the span of about 1 hour, get 1861 Census information on families of John and Mary Nixon, my G3-grandparents, Matthew and Margaret Lindsay, my G4 grandparents, Elizabeth Houston, my G4-grandmother, and some other secondary relations. Lots of fun! There wasn't really anything terribly surprising in these records, but I did learn some birth/death information, and had more support created for some of my ideas about certain side branches of the family.

For instance, I have a G3-granduncle named Archibald Houston. I had managed to trace him in the records till about 1857, but he then disappeared into thin air... So, for the 1861 Census, I searched for one of his kids, John Forsyth Houston, who would have been about 4 in that year. I found him, and discovered that his mother was marked as a widow. Therefore, that's where the guy disappeared to! Another piece of the puzzle marked in. Now I just have to find Archibald's death record.

One interesting piece of cognitive dissonance for those of us who pursue genealogy is this divide between "Wow, I just got a piece of information," and the reality of these people who were going through a bad situation, with a mother left to raise 4 kids when her husband died an early death. Granted, the situation I'm thinking about happened about 140 years ago, but reprecussions of that event play out in the lives of the descendants of Archilbald Houston and Elizabeth Forsyth to this day.

That is assuming, of course, that they have living direct descendants. Maybe one day I'll find some...

In the meantime, I'll have fun entering this information into my computer database, and will have to see how this may inspire more research. One of the great things about genealogy is that there's always more to do!

NP: Random chatter in Brace Commons

Fall is Calling

Today was one of those good Fall days, cool, but not cold, good clear sky, leaves blowing around, and a hint of Winter in the air. All in all, very nice.

Today was a good day at work, it seems like a lot of good stuff is falling into place now. I had a meeting with someone from the Faculty side of the College, to talk about finding ways to encourage Faculty involvement in the residence halls. We had a good conversation on the subject, and now I have some direction to move in with this project. We also just shot the breeze for awhile, which was productive in a good, collegial way. This is someone who used to work in the Dean of the College area (meaning the Student Affairs side, where I am), so we had had some contact in the past, but not any real working relationship. Our conversation was a good start to building a solid professional base with her.

Of course, there are some things in the air over here in the Res Life side of the world, which I am waiting to see how it all develops. Word should be out soon, and perhaps by the end of the year I'll have some new information to share with you all... We shall see...

NP: The Daily Show (coming up now!)

Nobel

So, tonight I shook hands with the first Nobel Prize winner I've met. His name is Sidney Altman, and he was one of the recipients for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry from 1989, for his work with RNA. If you're actually interested in the chemistry of this, check out the link with his name above.

Here at Dartmouth, we have a program called the Montgomery Fellowship. The program brings learned, interesting people from many different backgrounds here, usually for a week, in order to speak, visit classes, and generally enlighten the student body and college community. The East Wheelock program, where I work, has a relationship with the Montgomery Fellows office, and we try to get them down here, usually for a dinner with students, which is what happened tonight. The dinner was at the Faculty Associates home, which is a great setting for these more casual dinners.

Dr. Altman, a relatively soft spoken man, got to eat and hang out with residents from one of my buildings. He took some questions from the students and from others in attendance. I asked how he was notified of the Nobel win, and how it changed his work and life since the win. In theory, you're not supposed to know if you're under consideration, but sometimes you get hints dropped, which Dr. Altman was oblivious to until looking at them in hindsight. Afterwards, he said the biggest change was that he got invited to speak at more places, but other than that, it wasn't that big of a change.

He also told stories of baseball, and of his friendship with Bart Giamatti, the former President of Yale who then went on to be Baseball Commissioner in the late 80's. All in all, an interesting guy who once met George Gamow, one of the originators of the Big Bang theory.

I have a neat job.

NP: Steve Hackett, The Steppes

Updated...

Hello! Just a quick note to say that I've updated my website. Take a look, especially at the Genealogy page. I've put a lot of photos there.

I have a lot more I could put up, but I want to think a bit about the layout, what would make the most sense.

Anyway, enjoy!

Mike

Welcome to the Time Change

I'm assuming everyone survived the time change last night. Nothing too shocking for anyone, I would think...

Today was a good relaxing day, although my body hasn't adjusted to the change in time yet, as I got hungry about an hour earlier than I really should have.

No real music related activity today, although I did backup the home recording files on my computer, so that if the computer blows up, we'll be spared the indignity of losing my musical output for future generations to lament over.

I have been reading "Binge," the book written about modern college life. It's not a bad read. The author, Barry Seaman, who I met and hosted while he was here at Dartmouth, is generally a nice enough guy. Reading the book as someone in the field of Higher Education, it seems to be a very "surface" look at the issues facing colleges today. I could imagine though, someone who is less familiar with college being a bit more intrigued by the book. Not a bad read, but I don't think I'm going to gain much perspective from it, as I haven't read anything that's surprised me yet, or that I didn't already know. I haven't reached my references yet, and since life is really all about me, I expect to be thrilled with what I have to say...

NP: Catherine Wheel, Tumbledown

A fun Saturday

Ah, the weekend. Got to sleep late today, till about 10:45am or so. It's good to be lazy on the weekends, especially around sleeping. But even with it being a lazy Saturday, I still got a good amount done.

Sue and I were a hit with our "Industrial Accident Couple" get up for the Halloween party we went to. It was one end of a prop bolt going through my forehead, and the other end coming out of her's. Sue's idea, and quite funny! I think next year I'm going to start working on a Londo costume during the summer...

Funny thing with the party. I thought it started at 8pm, but Sue actually looked at the invite around 5pm, and she noticed that it started at 5:30pm. Even so, we were one of the first people there, so life is good.

I just finished up some demo recording of the song I've been working on. I've given it a tentative title of ""So In Love (with your presence)," although that might change. I did a completely new demo version, starting with recording the bass part to a click track, then I did vocals. I wanted to start some ideas for the accompaniment (I think that's spelled wrong, but I don't care right now), so I loaded up a midi keyboard, and just put down chords of an electric piano on the beats, and it actually sounded quite good. I'll have to listen to it again in the cold light of day, to see if it's just the late night talking to me right now.

I also did a vocal recording of a repeatitive bass line that's been going through my head. It's simple, but it has a groove to it, so I wanted to get it on "tape" so that I wouldn't forget it. Tomorrow I may try playing along to the vocal track on bass, so I can start working on other pieces of it.

And, I've continued my burning of CD's onto my computer, so I can enjoy Radio Mike Lord whenever I choose. I'm a bit more than halfway through right now, and I'll be glad when I'm done with the majority of the music.

I finished the Krakatoa book today. Quite good, although I would have liked more photos in it. There was a lot of description of the Modern Krakatoa, and a better map showing the old and new layout together would have been helpful. I'm sure if I do a bit of searching on the interweb I can find something very easily, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

Now, I have to decide what book to start next. I have a few on deck, including a new biography of Neil Armstrong, and the new novel by Kim Stanley Robinson. Neil Gaiman's new one is also on my shelf, along with the book Binge, that I'm indexed in. I may read Binge, to get it out of the way, since I've borrowed the book from the director of my office.

Tomorrow, my plan is to clean up around the apartment, do some genealogy updating, get gas for my car (since on Sunday's some of the stations knock 5 cents off the price of a gallon), and enjoy the extra hour of sleep. I also have to call a few friends to chat, I haven't done that in awhile.

Cheers! Get some rest!

Saw...

There's plenty of opportunity for puns here, but I watched the film "Saw" on DVD today over at a co-workers apartment. Not a bad movie in the horror/suspense/thriller genre, although I thought the film lost it a bit at the end. Some good scares in it, which always make me laugh more than anything else.

Am I sick for finding humor in "scary" movies? I just think the situations are usually so outlandish that there's plenty of opportunity for humor, even when the action is played straight. That's what I liked so much about "Evil Dead II," it was a horror movie that realized there's a lot of humor to be had in the situations. Not that EDII was the first example of this, but it was the first one that came into my orbit.

Of course, for pure suspense, I always enjoyed John Carpenter's "The Thing." There's something about a situation of isolation and fear that just works for me in that movie.

Tomorrow, Sue and I are going to a Halloween party of a friend/co-worker. It should be fun, I've never been to this person's house, and it's always neat to see where other people live. We're just doing some basic makeup/bolts through our head as a costume, neither one of us were too energized to create a costume. If I'm going to create something for Halloween or another event, I would have to start quite a bit earlier. I believe I mentioned my Londo idea here before.

Am I already starting to repeat myself here? Sad...

NP: Delius, Violin Concerto

Writing...

I just spent about 45 minutes writing the bass/melody for the song I've been working on. The music for the song is going to be more bass based, so I figured it would be good to listen to my guide vocal while playing along a bit. This ended up not working as well as I had hoped.

What I ended up doing was getting familiar with the vocal and keeping it in my head, while messing around on the bass, and finding the "right" notes to play along with what I was singing. I think I came up with a decent verse and chorus, but I'm not sold on the middle eight section yet musically. I think tomorrow, I may redo the recording I have, in order to get a more coherent demo to work with.

That's the great thing about the computer demo/home recording process, is that it's easy enough to start over, especially at this stage. Once I get a bass/vocal part down, I can start working on a midi drum part, or perhaps guitar or keys. I'll have to see what I'm in the mood for.

In the inane weather part of this blog, we had our first snowfall yesterday. Nothing that stuck around till today, but we did actually have accumulation, which is not necessarily normal for this point in the year. Winter is surely coming, as it does every year.

Sue and I went out to get some Halloween costume stuff for a party we're going to this Saturday. We're keeping it pretty basic. I think that it's best to keep these things simple, unless you have more time to work on something. I'd love to dress up as Londo from Babylon 5 at some point for a Halloween costume, but that would require a lot of work. I did think for a bit of being Buster or Gob from Arrested Development, but those would both be more high concept costumes/performances, and I'm not sure how many people would recognize the characters.

NP: Jeff Buckley, Dink's Song

More Music

Howdy! Homecoming is over, and I've been able to sleep a bit, along with doing some work, of course.

Not that work isn't crazy exciting, but in other news, I now have official web space to host plenty of music and other files. If you go to my site, you can go to the Music section and listen to all the stuff I did back in the 90's. Everything of value is posted there now. And value is, of course, a relative term...

I generally like the stuff I recorded back then, but I think the music was a bit simple. I'd write different stuff for some of the music now, but others, I'd keep just as they are.

Enjoy!

NP: Moody Blues, Legend Of A Mind

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