Make Yourself At Home

Music

Tue, 1 Dec 2009 19:32:36 -0600

The service in church today was given over to music. The choir and the organist were joined by a string octet: Four violins, two violas, cello, bass. They played beautifully, transcendently at times. The last hymn was “On this Day Earth Shall Sing,” one of the truly beautiful hymns, and one the congregation knew well enough to sing boldly (because, if you must sing...).
I watched the string players closely. I have become fascinated by the idea of picking up a bowed instrument again. Violin was my first instrument. Thanks to my dear friend Annie I have a cello(!), which I am newly inspired to figure out how to play. She showed me how to hold the bow, and watching the cellist today didn’t yield any surprises, so I think I can probably pull something musical out of the old instrument.
The thought fills me with joy: Cello is possibly my favorite instrument to listen to. I’ve been listening to Jacqueline du Pre playing Brahms’ cello sonatas because my mandolin teacher recommended Brahms as a master of composition. In addition to hearing masterful composition, I have a refreshed appreciation for the sound of a cello.
This should be fun.
The photo is of the west side of Iowa City from the parking garage attached to the mall(!) I work in.

Back from New York [u]

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 21:49:29 -0600

I got three days of total relaxation with Megan, and two days and three nights with family. Katie masterminded a delicious meal whose portions were actually reasonable. Megan and I had one incredibly evil dinner of bacon with eggs and pancakes fried in bacon grease, which hit the spot. I still have not had an opportunity to get out into the countryside with my camera—it would help if I remembered to bring my camera—but I certainly can’t complain. Now I’m relaxing in my favorite chair listening to Dr. John’s “In the Right Place” on a new pair of speakers, an early Christmas gift from Joe. They’re deceptively small Insignias, and they’re a lot clearer and cleaner sounding than my big old Paradigm Phantoms. They need a catchier name, though. They’re NS-<mumble>, where <mumble> is a long string of numbers [update: the model number is NS-B2111]. Their tweeter is in the center of the carbon-fiber woofer, which is an ingenious design. It works really well.
Does anyone want a lightly used pair of Paradigm Phantoms?
My niece Beatrice is still ridiculously adorable. She’s now 16 months old and fascinated by her ability to manipulate her environment. This extends to the liberal use of the word ‘no,’ which she says in a nonchalant sing-song voice. This means that we need to keep a close eye on her. She went right for the liquor cabinet once, and got her hand on the gin just as I did. She’s still a bit young for the hard stuff.
Joe’s friend Bernard came up to join us. He’s a weathered Irishman with a booming voice and a wealth of stories (yes, he joked about the stereotype, but in this case it really was true). He was also quite comfortable singing and playing guitar. We spent a couple of evenings jamming in front of the wood stove, and attempted to record a song on Bernard’s literally brand-new iMac. Unfortunately, we needed to download a driver, and the satellite internet out there is intermittent at best, so that project has been postponed.
I enjoyed the Hyundai Sonata we rented. I wouldn’t mind if Enterprise ever offered better than the cheapest possible interior, though. It has a very large, but surprisingly accessible trunk.
The photo is of our fire pit, which would be entirely at home amid the Acropolis.

Off to New York!

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:12:39 -0600

Lots of closure today: I got my first test mule built and deployed for the upcoming version of the NAACCR standard. I had my last session with my trainer, Alex, who is graduating and moving on to better things. After a year’s delay, the roof is insulated. I’ll be right back to work when I return, but it’s nice not to feel like I’m walking away from a lot of half-finished work.
I’d be really happy if I’d finished integrating Xerces C++ 3.0, but that’s more than a week’s worth of hurt. My fault for waiting so long to upgrade from 1.6.0.
Unless the far-fetched gambit I’m going to attempt succeeds, the blog will be silent for this coming week. As if you’d notice, right? But I thought I’d let both of you know.

“After the Storm” Gallery is Back

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:10:38 -0600

Some of my favorite photos, taken in the wake of a whopper of a storm in July of 2006 and assembled for your pleasure.
None of the photos are edited or adjusted in any way. This is really what it looked like.
Enjoy!

There Is Now a Photos Page [UPDATE]

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:31:41 -0600

[Update: There’s a problem with the Hoefler Text family of fonts. This is a shame, as it’s one of my favorites, but it also explains why I’ve had so much trouble with iWeb. I disabled that font family and suddenly everything works like a charm.]
It’s linked near the top of the page, under the “Home, James” banner.
Its idiosyncratic design is required by iWeb, which crashes hard when I try to use their photo album widget, and simply fails to recognize my MobileMe galleries when I use their gallery widget. At least the format I’ve discovered offers plenty of room for photo albums.
With this in place I’ll be able to start uploading a lot of my old albums quickly and adding them to that page.