A strange new sound you never heard before

OK, so I lied. Its not that I didn't have stuff to talk about, I just didn't seem to get back in front of the computer much. There were many culprits, watching poker on tv with my father, playing Canasta with my parents, playing Settlers of Catan with my parents, playing Munchkin with my siblings, playing the bean game with everyone, and playing Final Fantasy III that my brother got me for x-mas.

So in case you just skipped through that paragraph, blame my brother, I do.

For those of you who have been wondering, we did have the ultra-sound, and we do know what we're having. The title lyric is all the clue you need, if you're too lazy to figure it out, you didn't really want to know anyway. SL has already figured it out, why, because she's cool like that. Follow her example won't you? Then get the song, its one of my all time favorites.

(OK, let's just get this out of the way, I know you're thinking, "Is there ANY post he's going to do that doesn't reference his music tastes in some way?", the answer's NO. Get over it)

We had a great x-mas, as predicted we did the drive back without stopping for the night. It must be the psychological effect of the time change going west. Go figure. Portable DVD players for the car are great for entertaining your child. Though I must admit I was hesitant to get one for Gavin, probably because I didn't have one when I was a kid.

Quick note on the elections, I was REALLY hoping that looking at the field, religion would stay the hell out of the Republican primaries this time. I thought we had a good shot. God fucking dammit. Let's get this straight, I don't give a damn how/if/when you pray, I care about leading the damn country. Truthfully if it wasn't for the religious right, I'd be leaning republican. I've always been drawn that way for fiscal policy, they're just plain morons by messing it all up with stupid social policies that just piss me off. Republicans should be for equal rights for everybody because it makes more money, you discriminate, you lessen the talent pool. Simple economics, wake the hell up.

To be clear, I think Huckabee's a pretty nice guy, I'm not targeting him with that rant, I'm just pissed religion became an issue that Romney has to defend, and even Giuliani (seriously?) jumped on.

Oh and stop predicting who has this sown up after one state, especially since that state is Iowa. Stupid primary system, thus ends that rant.

Since we got a 2nd kid on the way (nice transition there don't you think?) I'm giving myself 2 years to finish the basement. I took a big first step by measuring the damn thing. I say a big step because I've been talking about doing it for over a year now. Gavin wanted to help, but once he realized that meant having to stand still holding the end of the tape measure in one place, his enthusiasm waned. But its done, and I'm trying out Google SketchIt (free!) to put it into the computer to try a couple of ideas. Then I get to figure out if I can actually afford this thing.

BTW, for any house builders out there. PUT THE DAMN FURNACE IN A CORNER INSTEAD OF THE CENTER OF THE DAMN BASEMENT! I know why you did it, but moving 10' to the wall would still keep it mostly centralized and made my choices for the basement much better. I won't get started on the placement of the bathroom rough-in.

To end this bit of ramblings (hey, check the title of this blog), I'd have to say that last year was a pretty good year music wise for me. I discovered 2 new artists who have some real staying power with me, Martha Berner & Liz Tormes. And even though you don't care, here are my yearly awards.

Best Music: Tori Amos - American Doll Posse.
Best Lyrics: Liz Tormes - Limelight (specifically, Black Luck)
Best New Discovery (for me): Martha Berner
Biggest Surprise (Good) : Charlotte Martin - Repruductions (Its a freaking cover album that's actually good!)
Biggest Surprise (Bad): Collective Soul - Afterwords (decent album, but lacked the punch that "Youth" had)
Best Complete Album: Martha Berner - This Side Of Yesterday
Worst Complete Album: I can't say, because it was a gift.
Best Guilty Pleasure: American Gladiators (OK, its not music, but still.....)

All is calm

Well, we've accomplished the long drive to Pittsburgh. Gavin thankfully was pretty good for the trip, even though he hates being cooped up in a car for a long time. We stopped for the night in Columbus, and Gavin got his own big bed which he loved. I had to let him run laps in part of the hotel main floor, but not that many people were there so no one was bothered. Thankfully the pool was open late so Gavin got plenty of swim time to exhaust him. As I get older, the trip going east seems to get harder and harder, so I was thankful for the break. Strangely the trip going west I do in one day without a stop. Probably because 1) We get an earlier start and 2) The time change works in our favor in a weird psychological way.

My sister has a dog now, and Gavin loves it. The dog loves Gavin too, but a sometimes little too much as it is twice Gavin's size. Gavin loves to run, and the dog sees running and catching as a game, you can see how this works out.

Christmas Eve is when my family decorates the tree, which is probably a large reason why I hate doing Christmas decorations right after Thanksgiving. Gavin attempted to help decorate, but with breaking 2 out of the 4 decorations while attempting to put them on the tree, he got a new job of unwrapping decorations which he tackled with great enthusiasm. Gavin loves 'helping', I wonder how long that will last....

Its been a calm Christmas morning, Gavin isn't at the "OH MY GOD SANTA CAME!" stage yet. When asked what Santa did, Gavin said "Bring candy canes". Gavin was impressed by the number of presents that appeared after he went to sleep, and is currently cuddling with the very large Elmo doll Santa brought him. He's not nagging anyone about opening the presents though. We're waiting for my brother to arrive, and my sister to awake. My brother lives about an hour away, so good money is that he'll get here before my sister wakes up. I'm sure once everyone arrives and he sees the orgy of present opening, it will imprint on his mind and he'll be much more excited next year. I'm enjoying the current calm and quiet right now though. I had a great Christmas present this morning when Gavin crawled into bed and said "I snuggle daddy, I love daddy".

I know I haven't been blogging much recently, blame work, I do. In fact, I'm doing a little work right now, not much but they're moving all the servers from one building to another over the break and I need to make sure my apps are still up. Merry Christmas to me :) Anyway, while I'm on break I'll be blogging quite a bit.

If they told me you'd be the one, I wouldn't have believed them

So when my stress levels get high enough, I have a habit of buying more music, only blindly. This is usually an incredibly stupid thing to do, as you can easily end up with some really terrible stuff no matter how good that 30 second clip is. Surprisingly, I'd had some really good luck in the last couple of years.

I saw a quick article about an new artist named Liz Tormes, never heard of her before, and apparently her stuff was folk/rock/blues which means the reviewer had really no clue how to classify. I decided what the hell and got her on iTunes (Limelight is the name of the album), and as a back up I bought some more David Gray since I figured he's be a safe bet, and because spending MORE money is always the answer...

Anyway, after listening to her, I agree with the reviewer, we have no freaking clue how to classify this person, but damn its a good album. If you're in the mood for something different, yet fantastic, download "Black Luck", its more of an emotional/musical painting rather than a traditional song. The whole album has this off-the-cuff, raw live feel. This won't be for everyone, if you only listen to very structured music stay the hell away from this one. But if you're in the mood for something different, give it a try.

As for the David Gray album "A New Day At Midnight", quite good, and the man continually finds ways of pissing me off. I should NOT LIKE the song "Be Mine". Its a freaking simple cheesy poppish song....but he has a way of perfect execution that takes stuff like that and makes it irresistible. Frankly the man is a genius when it comes to instrumentation, and can perfectly layout a track so it shines no matter what genre he decides to tackle. All my years of writing and playing music, and the knowledge that I couldn't even think of the stuff he comes up with in the most subtle ways to craft a song irritates me.

Speaking of stuff I shouldn't like. I hate cover albums. I usually hate most cover songs in general. Played live they're usually OK, but in recorded form they usually just fall apart. Either they're not even trying and just copying the song (so why am I buying it?) or putting a 'twist' on the song that usually involves a drum machine to turn it into a dance tune.

So why the hell am I enjoying "Reproductions" from Charlotte Martin so much? When I saw she was putting out a cover album I pretty much avoided it until I heard a clip on her site. That was "Bizzare Love Triangle", and it was a complete re imaging of the song that sounded incredible. I played it for Pam and she liked it as well. She even took songs I wasn't that fond of ("Cloudbusting" by Kate Bush) and made them not only listenable, but loveable.

Charlotte is definitely embracing the iTunes system, while she is putting out albums she's also putting other bits and pieces on iTunes as EPs. And I can't resist gobbling them up (see, thanksgiving reference, you can stop looking now). If you want to try one new artist, try her. Give her some love so she keeps the good stuff coming.

Everybody wants to know the score

Its been hard to blog, since really the only things noteworthy deal with work. And remember what my first post said...

What do you mean you haven't read the first blog post? For heaven's sake, start at the beginning and work your way back here.

While those people are off reading, I can talk about what else is going on.

Gavin is definitely in the imaginative stage, he makes up lots of games (I think we're on 5 variations of his "baseball game"), he practices conversations with himself, he talks to his bunny, its all quite cute. He doesn't always explain the rules of the game at first, but he'll teach you as you go. And he's very gracious, when I roll a ball down the banister for him to hit with a drum stick (baseball variation #2) and he misses. He calmly picks it up and tells me "I missed. Try again daddy". I highly enjoy the imaginative stage, some parents do get weirded it out by it though, especially the self-conversations. I just think its cute, I think that speaks for itself about my personality.

At this point, I've completely lost track of who we've told, so if you don't know, Pam is pregnant. If I tell you again, just live with it. I really should keep a chart of who we've told and who we haven't. Both Pam and I though the other told our next door neighbor, so she was the last on the block to know. And no, we don't know what it is. And I won't mention what I'm hoping for in case our future child reads this blog at some point in time because well, they just had a boring day. But if you know who you have to free from the Big Daddys in Bioshock, then you know what I'm wishing for. No way my kids will know what that game is when they get old enough :)

Speaking of video games, it seems slightly strange to me that a 32 year old guy like myself is still into that kind of thing. Apparently it isn't something you out grow. Though I do find myself passing on a lot of the normal action bang-bang boom games that are in the market, and really get engrossed in the ones with a great deal of attention to the world & the story. Bioshock is becoming one the best games I've played, frankly they should take the story and make a movie/book. It is that engrossing.

Music wise I'm addicted to Vanessa Carlton's "Home" and "More Than This". The album as a whole is ok, if a bit uneven. Definitely listen to those two songs. I've been listening to some clips of a new artist Liz Tormes and will probably download her sometime soon when I remember to take the iPod out of the car.

In reference to my last post, I've long resolved never to be "that parent" who pushes their kids to excel in something with an irrational passion. Like football, or some other sport. Yet, I find myself on the brink when it comes to hide and seek. Seriously. You have to understand, my family are at the professional level of hide and seek. Some of my siblings had no patience whatsoever, but would sit in a hiding spot for hours. I'm not kidding. The kid's got to step it up, the family's reputation is at stake!

You got to know when to hold em, know when to fold em

On Saturday I played probably the best game of poker I've ever played from a technical perspective. I got away from every hand I should have gotten away from, I raised when I should have, I played slow when I needed to.

And I still lost.

No matter how good you are, you will have some nights when the cards just don't like you. For example, I got dealt 2,3 seven times that night. Now, that isn't as bad as 2,7, but it isn't good. When I got them as a suited connector, out of frustration I decided to bet them. Lo and behold, I get 2 more 2's on the flop. I go ahead and keep betting them driving people out of the pot except on guy who would sometimes stay in longer than he should. It turns out I had him beat the whole time, until a 9 showed up on the last card giving him 3 9's to my 3 2's.

It was that kind of night. Still fun though.

Oh, and I forgot something from the last post, Pam's iPod's hard drive died as well in that 2 month period.

Gavin's reached a point where his conversations are much more complex, and his ability to draw conclusions has really improved. There was a book he was addicted too, "The Bunnies Are Not In Their Beds". He asked for it as the "Bad Bunny Book", but no where in the book does it say that the bunnies were bad (though they were). His social skills, while not perfect, have improved quite nicely as he usually plays well with others. He enjoys group play, though I've noticed that sometimes he will leave the group and just play by himself. He's really pushing to grow another inch or two so he can reach his pedals better on his tricycle. His friend J can pedal it and Gavin is determined to do it too, just legs just aren't cooperating.

My favorite Gavin moment had to be when I was sick in Chicago. He was downstairs watching Sesame Street (which is holy writ to him) when I had to sprint to the bathroom to be sick. I hear this "DADDY!" from downstairs, then the sound of little legs pumping up the stairs. Next thing he was behind me patting me on the back asking "You OK Daddy?", "Feel better Daddy". It was nice, even if being sick wasn't.

He's still the worst hide and go seek hider in the history of the game, we'll have to work on that...

...Pulls you down on your knees

So what was so screwed up about August & September?

First, our camera broke. It wasn't completely unexpected since M&K have the same exact one and it broke 3 months earlier in the same way. Basically your pictures were colored snow. For someone who takes as many pictures as I do this was a major issue.

Second, as was blogged before, the new computer I had purchased and put together had some major issues. Let me be clear, I will still be putting my next computer together from scratch like this one. I have built all my previous computers from scratch and they've been perfect long term performers. However, something strange was happening with this one. I ended up shipping the motherboard back twice to ASUS, then shipping my processor back to Intel. Since processors are not supposed to be defective, what we believe happened is the 1st motherboard was defective and fried the processor. The 2nd one was probably OK, but ASUS never tested it. The 3rd motherboard was tested, which led us to realize the processor was fried.

Third, my car. They did an oil change and rotated the tires, and afterwards when I hit 40 MPH the steering wheel started shaking. I took it back in, and they said the back wheels were not balanced correctly which they fixed. But that didn't solve the problem. So I took it back in, and they re-rotated the tires back to their original position. That fixed the problem, and I guess I can't rotate my tires anymore until I get 4 new ones.

Fourth, we had a nice visit to Kansas City to see some friends. When we came back home, we found the refrigerator had broke. After getting a guy to look at it, the culprit was the compressor. Unfortunately to fix that costs $800, so we just bought a new fridge (which is why I'm hoarding money right now).

Finally, the night before we went to Chicago, Gavin got a stomach bug which delayed and almost canceled our trip. He gave it to me, and I was sick on the day we came back which left all the driving duties to my wife.

My old roommate found nothing weird about all these things happening in the same timespan, because he's used to this stuff. When I've mentioned MacDonald's law of luck, people think its something I came up with. The actual law was discovered by my old roommate, who found that there was some relationship to Murphy's law, frankly it wasn't as consistent, and had that taste of spite. He then came up with I believe 3 corollaries to the law, the only one I remember though is the one of distance. "MacDonald's law will not touch those close to Scott MacDonald as it would draw attention away from the spite and suffering when the unfortunate instances occur from the main target, therefore, those close to Scott MacDonald will have a greater concentration of good luck not only to keep them safe to witness the events, but to act as a foil to the shit that happens to him". I'll have to remember to ask him what the other two were, but they were of no help to me :)

Now we are in October, all my issues have been resolved, I have a working computer, car, camera, and fridge. So next is the house blows up I guess.....

More posts coming soon :)

Where the honey flows and takes you by the hand

OK, I know I was going to give an account of the many woes of the last month, but I figured I'd delay that with something good that went on. I saw Genesis live, and it was good. And oh my god they played Ripples!!!!!!

You don't know what song Ripples is do you. Fine, go to iTunes, download it from the Trick of the Tail album, I'll wait.

OK, we all good now, fine, OH MY GOD THEY PLAYED RIPPLES!!! (See, you're on board now).

We had to travel to Chicago to see them, because no one good comes to play concerts in St. Louis anymore (besides Rush). I don't know what we've done to piss good shows off, but whatever it is, we as a city are sorry. We had nosebleed seats, but we had a good angle on the stage, and we could hear everything perfectly.

I'd like to digress on that for a second, so many concerts I go too you get lots of sound, but you can't understand a word of the lyrics, or even when they talk to the audience. I usually blame the over reliance on the bass levels. Whatever it is, I usually am annoyed with the sound crew. I had NO complaints that night, it had a great full sound that reached the rafters, yet it was clear & clean. OK, digression over.

It was a great set, combining old stuff with new stuff. From the set list you could tell it was a lot of band favorites with a lot of energy. Collins spent a good amount of time behind the drums and there was a good selection of instrumental movements. They did some interesting things, like opening with Duke's End transitioning to Turn It On Again, then later did the middle part of Duke's Travels (right before Duke's End starts) in the middle of an instrumental medley piece.

Sigh, just go buy the Duke album then re-read the last paragraph. If you like creative music you won't be disappointed, its a very solid album with strong instrumentals.

Another good point was that my wife experienced a Genesis concert with me, and hasn't divorced me, so that's a good sign. She says she understands my obsession more now, which could be just her humoring me, but I'll take it in the positive light :)

Next Genesis surround sound box set due out in November, can't wait!

So we were at the art fair a couple of weeks ago. Frankly it was a bit of a disappointment, the best pieces on canvas were actually photographs. Some good pieces there, but nothing worth spending big bucks on. At least I only saw two booths with fruit & bowl art. I despise fruit & bowl art. If you want to practice on that stuff fine, but don't waste a booth at the fair with that stuff. I don't like the 3d mixed media stuff (it freaks me out) but at least its something interesting.

On the upside, while waiting for Andi & AD to make their purchases I heard some music that caught my ear. Female singer, good voice, very clean chord structures on the guitar. I checked the performance schedule, made a note of the name and went to dinner.

I listened to a couple of 30 second clips on iTunes, which is about as satisfying at eating only 1 chip, and decided to take a chance.

Her name is Martha Berner, and the album "This Side of Yesterday" is fantastic. Incredible vocals, great lyrics, and beautifully written songs. Its very acoustic/folk with some twists thrown in. I've been quite addicted to the album for weeks now, I had to buy it on iTunes since I can't find her in Best Buy, but I highly recommend you checking this out.

On another note, sorry I haven't been posting much, as many of you know the technology gods have not been kind to me. This will be the subject of the next post which should be out in the next day or so while I'm in Chicago (Genesis concert on Tuesday!!!).

I notice that my opponent is always on the go

Sorry for premature posting earlier, I hit the wrong button, we now give you your very late post in full.

Well after a month off, I'm back at fencing. The month of August was rough with it being the end of our fiscal year, plus visitors from out of town, add a week of a sick kid and the month goes by pretty fast.

While not my best bouts in foil, at least my epee was pretty solid. What's the difference? A foil is the basic fencing weapon, you place hits on the chest only. Its a very light weapon, with quick flashy strikes. Basically everyone starts learning with that weapon, and it lays down the foundation for the rest of the sword types. The epee has a much larger guard, and its more of a positional weapon. Any part of the body can be hit, and instead of parrying you do more of a counter strike. Frankly, while I enjoy the foil, I was born to wield an epee.

For those of you who have watched Olympic fencing, let me assure that what we do is nothing like that. Our fencing is actually fun to watch, and is a martial art. What goes on during the Olympics is basically spastic motions with no thought for defense. We act as if the point is actually sharp and would kill us. It makes a large difference.

Women seem to get in sync with fencing more then men, don't know why, it just is. Probably because men's basic instinct is to smash, while women are more subtle.

It does take a certain change in mindset. Your basic instinct when a sword point is coming at you is to bash it out of the way with a lot of force. This however puts you off balance, unable to launch your own attack, and a skilled opponent will simply dance their sword around that parry and hit you. Instead you almost need a sterotypical super-calm British mentality. As if your body is saying "Would you terribly mind moving that sword to the left just a tad so I may live and skewer you? Jolly good!". The perfect parry is one that has your opponents sword almost brushing your body. Its an economy of effort that allows you the best chance for a strike at your opponent before they know what is happening. When you have two skilled practitioners bouting, you can get movie quality sword fights every couple of minutes.

Its a lot of mental and physical discipline, but its an awful lot of fun!

My computer is still awaiting a good motherboard (and yes, the irony of a previous post has not escaped me), so blogging is still sporadic. Hopefully this weekend everything will be OK, but considering my luck with electronics this month, I'm not holding my breath.

Help me through the hopeless haze

I'm being a bastard with the lyric today, you'll have to know the song (or google for it) for it to make any sense.

So I drop off my car for its oil change and safety inspection. The guy they gave the job of driving me back to work was the chatty type who was asking about my job. When I brought up the hardest part was the scientists constantly changing their mind, he mentioned it was the same for him. When querying on his work, I found he deals with custom work for cars & detailing.

Now having people want to change software all the time can be understandable since it's just text (all developers reading this just winced a bit). But frankly, if you're going to detail your car, this is not something you should be wishy washy about. I guessed flip-flopping came because a husband made design choices the wives later disagreed with. It turned out I was right :).

Speaking of those scientists, we're going to be locking our users to what they want early. If it isn't funded, they probably aren't going to get it. This allows us to devote our resources a bit better, and frankly will give me less gray hairs. Predictably, our users like this as much as they like getting their nose hairs pulled. But this initiative came from way above me in the food chain, so I can just point the complaints in that direction and get on with work. Hee hee.

Gavin's growing again, and he's definitely more little boy than baby now. He's much more self-sufficient these days. Even to the point of being able to ride his bike down the hill without daddy right behind him. More importantly, daddy doesn't have to carry the bike back up the hill anymore. Because I like being lazy in my old age.

Reservations on the next train to the moon

I've been away for a while, work has been hectic, home life has been hectic, blah blah blah

We suffered a strange illness in our son that even had our doctor scratching her head. Basically, after a day of sickness & vomiting, he would be fine the next morning. But then, at 4pm he's just shut down in a very disturbing manner. He'd just lay on the floor, not wanting to eat, saying he's sleepy, and basically being miserable. He'd want to be put to bed, then come stumbling out, come right up to me, then plop down in my lap, or on the floor. Maybe some more vomiting.

The next morning, he'd be fine, until 4pm rolled around again, then we repeated the drill all week.

When your child is energy personified, this is pretty much my personal hell. Thankfully, on Saturday when 4pm came around, he was his old bouncy self. He then started eating the whole house, so we were happy again.

The pieces of my new computer arrived, and for the first time, when I put it together, it wouldn't turn on. This was a problem. 3 tech support calls, a 2nd power supply and 5 days later it was determined that I needed to send my motherboard back. So it will probably be another week before I have a computer again.

All in all, not a great week.

Now I’ve looked in the mirror and the worlds getting clearer

By the time you read this, I'll be 32, happy birthday to me :)

Unfortunately its going to be during a work day, and even worse than that it will be on a 'meeting' day AND a product release day. So no lazy day for me. The challenge will be to find time to do my ritual listening to "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway" straight through. Since its 90 minutes, that isn't very easy during a work day. I'll probably have to wait for Gavin to go to bed and listen while Pam watches 'Big Brother'. Or I'll camp out in an empty conference room and not tell anyone where I am.

We had visits from Gavin at 2am and 5am last night. He wasn't hard to put back in bed, I'm thinking he's just randomly waking up, and since he's up, he figures he should come to our room. At least he isn't going downstairs and setting off the alarm. At least not yet. I'm slowly getting accustomed to getting up earlier in the morning. I've never been an early bird, I much prefer staying up later. Gavin isn't giving me much of a choice these days though, so I'm adjusting.

Finally saw the Bourne Identity tonight, good flick. I'll be interested to see how they tie in the sequel. My neighbors invited me to a guy's afternoon out to see the 3rd one this weekend, so I need to catch up :)

Speaking of our neighbors, we had a block party over the weekend which went pretty well. We tried it in a row of back yards instead of the cul-de-sac for a change. It worked pretty well though lighting was an issue as the night went on, but we managed. The kids all had a great time grazing on junk food and running every which way. We had some friends in from out of town, and we also had M&K (w/ C&T) join us giving a nice sized contingent.

You know I'm tired when I'm congratulating myself on spelling 'contingent' correctly on the first try, go me.

On a random side note, I've been amazed at how much the latest Tori Amos and Charlotte Martin albums have been sticking with me. After months, they're still on my current favorite listening play list. Cardboard Ladders, The Dance, Redeemed, Digital Ghost, Secret Spell, Girl Disappearing, Dragon and Programmable Soda seem to be destined to be long time favorites of mine.

I know that no one took me up on my call to buy the "Playing the Angel" album by Depeche Mode (yes, I checked when I was over at your house, deal). But give those tracks a try.

And so as the clock is soon to toll midnight on another year of my survival, I shall sign off with this

And all we have is who we are
And where we been got us this far
So let me go

Would you say if I was wasting my time

OK, so there's going to be a "Sex and the City" movie. Why? I was a large fan of the series, but what possible movie could you make of it? The episodes were nice and bite sized, and considering they put everyone in a happy place at the end of the series, the launching point is going to be quite ridiculous. Notice that no one has made a Friends movie, there's a reason.

Speaking of Friends, we've started watching the old episodes on DVD again. I still find them quite amusing after all these years, even some of the crappy episodes in season 3 are better than some stuff out there. I know a lot of people focused on Jennifer Aniston, but Courtney Cox & Matthew Perry were really the heart of the show, and the work they've done outside of the show shows that (Dirt is awesome, and I loved Perry in Studio 60).

Gavin has started coming in to visit us when he wakes up in the morning. Its all nice and cute, but at some point in time I'm going to want that half hour of sleep back. Especially with the week of work I've had where I've been going in early and working late.

I've also started planning a new computer purchase. I've had my current one for 3 years now and its getting to the point where I should hand it off to Pam and get a new one. Pam gets the hand me downs because she primarily uses it for email, reading big brother blogs, and occasionally playing The Sims. I'm looking forward to handing it down as much to reduce the noise in the room (her current one is LOUD) as much as getting a shiny new toy. However putting together the pieces for a new box is much more complicated these days, 3 years ago I had 3 choices of motherboard chipsets. For those non computer people, its the big circuit board in your computer where all your components plug into. Now there are like 9. Plus the options of computer cases, they're just now and explosion of different brands and types. Do I use water cooling, or conventional fans? Decisions, decisions, decisions.

Researching all this to get it right borders on obsession, but thats because I want my computers to last 6 years (3 for me, 3 for Pam). So far I've been pretty successful. Amusingly, each time I do this, I end up with a price tag of $1,100 - $1,200. Its looking like it will be the same this time.

Why do I build my own instead of getting something from Dell? Dell appears cheap, but you do make tradeoffs. They might give you a good graphics card but you'll get a crappy motherboard. You can upgrade a graphics card, upgrading a motherboard that's made specifically for a Dell box can be a major pain. IBM, Dell, Micron all seem to skimp on the motherboard, networking, & I/O, and those are the heart of a machine. Now if you're like my wife, you'll never notice. But for someone like me who pretty much abuses any piece of hardware put in front of him, quality components are a must. Usually I can put together a box that gets close to the price of a Dell but your components will be better quality. And with quality your box can last quite a while, Pam's box is 6 years old, but beyond the noise by the fans it still works great for what she needs. And upgrade for her just means she'll be able to play the Sims at a higher resolution :)

So I'm waiting to see if the rumor of a processor price drop happens in July and I'll do the buy. At which point I won't have to think about this stuff for another 3 years.

Tired of the computer talk yet? I bet you're wishing I would start taking about Genesis again right about now :)

Need more water if this gets much hotter

OK, so I've been slacking in my blogging. It isn't that I haven't had anything to write about, its just after work, playing with the kid, and entertaining the wife its hard to get the drive to do this. However I do feel slightly guilty since A & P are in England and don't get to hear much of what's going on with us, so I will try to do better.

Anyway.....

Gavin's entering the phase of development known as the 'fish stage'. Kids these days have a huge advantage since they sell float vests now. Gavin's taking full advantage of it and doggy paddling away. At his age I was doing constructive drowning. Thankfully he doesn't seem to have any fear of going underwater anymore in the pool. However he still refuses to dunk his head in the tub, go figure. Thank god for the pool, something for him to do in this summer heat that he loves and tires him out for a good nap :) I don't know how

People are loving his new haircut, its weird seeing him without the curls though. Its like its changed him from a toddler to a little boy.

On another note, I did get those Genesis surround sound DVDs, and they are incredible. Its like I'm hearing the albums for the first time. The use of the surround speakers really lets the subtle parts come out. There are parts of the music I'd never heard before and I've been listening to these albums for over a decade. Surprisingly, Gavin enjoys them as well. He likes running to the individual speakers and listening to what's coming out of them and usually saying 'cool!'. The cutest thing was when he grabbed the speaker and started singing into it like a microphone during "Behind the Lines". The Duke album is our current favorite though Trick of the Tail comes a close second. When I have him to myself on Tuesday nights, we usually end the night with "Duke's Travels" before going to bed. Corrupt them early...

My fencing hobby is going quite well, I've found that the Epee is really clicking for me (for those of you who don't know what an Epee is, just ask next time your over, its really quite clear when you hold one the difference between that and a foil, you just can't explain it in text). However, one should never ignore the basics so I had our instructor give me a foil lesson the other day since I wasn't feeling quite right with that weapon anymore. I make a point of mentioning this lesson because I did almost all of it (30 mins) blindfolded. Yes, you read right. We had a rough start as he would thump my opponent's chest to let me know where to point my weapon, and I had to explain to him that being deaf in one year, I can't tell the direction of sound. However we got that worked out and down to business. Now, he didn't blindfold me to have me access my latent Jedi skills (would have been cool though), the whole point is to develop the tactile sensation of your opponent's blade on yours. If its coming straight down the blade you want to one type of parry, if it leaves, you'll do something else. Its MUCH harder than it sounds. It does give you another way of anticipating an opponent though, not just by sight, but by feel as well. Cool stuff. There is a tournament coming up, I missed the last one because Gavin was just born, I might try this one though for the hell of it. Honestly just for the hell of it, the tourney will be Foil. I'm decent at it, but I stand almost no chance in winning unless I'm having a REALLY good day.

Well that was enough material for 3 separate posts condensed into one single random one, I really do need to post more.....

The hurt doesnt show; but the pain still grows

OK, so the last ceiling fan is up, finally. Though no attic work as I was replacing the crappy contractor fan, it was still a pain. Ironically, this was the one I really needed a 2nd person for, and yet this one I do by myself. For those who have not seen our bedroom, it has a vaulted ceiling, and the fan is on a slant. Which meant I was really high up on a ladder trying to bring a heavy fan down (held in one arm while I quickly unscrewed wire caps), and putting a heavier one up.

Of course in the middle of trying to take the fan down piece by piece, there is an emergency at work (by the way, 29 releases on the same day is NOT going to go well, no matter what testing says). So I hastily attempt to reassemble it and get on the problem. Only to find that I've completely unbalanced it and the light isn't working now. After taking care of the problem, I was left with the fact that while I had attempted aborting this task today, I now have no choice but to proceed. Fearing another call from work, I said screw taking it down piece by piece and just brought the whole thing down as described above in parenthesis, which you probably skipped reading.

With only one false start after that however (one must put the coverings over the wires and drop rod BEFORE one wires it up), we had success. You'd think that after hanging 3 of them so far, THIS one would go smoothly. Well you'd think unless you knew me, then you'd just expect the opposite.

On the Gavin front, we stole the toddler bed from Pam's parents and put it in his room to get him used to it before moving him to it. Gavin had none of that however and immediately wanted to take a nap in it. Probably the first (and last) time he has been eager to take a nap. 2 nights later he probably doesn't realize he still has a crib. Though this sudden transition was unexpected, it was far from unwelcome. Though I had to instruct him not to bounce in this bed, though in return, he may bounce in Mommy & Daddy's bed (this is true). Frankly, our bed is pretty big and Gavin probably won't fall off of it. When I was growing up I always resented the no bounce rule, so I feel I should give him something. Sort of a very delayed rebellion.

However he's taken this to the next level apparently as today he was showing off for C by jumping from the bed to the floor. I greatly admired his technique, distance, and the fact he did NOT take a step on the landing. Then I put him in the corner and told him never to do it again. So if he's anything like me, my grandkids will be jumping from the bed to a specially made floor. That's progress.

And yes, I do realize that the song referenced for this is puny due to the subject matter, and all I can say is no one is perfect, and puns run in the family, so its not COMPLETELY my fault.

Crazy skies all wild above me now

I'll make you google that title to understand it, I'm in that kind of mood.

Anyway, we're back from our vacation, hence the lack of posting. To be quite honest we've been back close to 2 weeks now, I've just been very lazy. That and the fact that apparently I can't leave work for a week without things going nuts.

But first off, the cruise. It was fun, food was good, but I have discovered some rules.

1) Always leave yourself 2 hours after your excursion to make it back to the ship
2) Always assume your excursion will come back 2 hours later than stated
3) 30 SPF does nothing for you while snorkeling
4) It especially does nothing for you when you do your second snorkeling dive.
5) Only do one excursion a day
6) The cruise ship knows nothing about the excursions its selling you, especially about things like how long it takes to get there, and how long the event actually is.
7) Use my wife to book all your excursions (pam@pmmtravel.com)
8) The entertainment staff love their jobs, I mean REALLY love their jobs, or they are REALLY high.
9) Tenders suck, if you can, book a trip with the least amount of tenders to go ashore as possible.
10) If you go into the shops in multiple ports, you are not crazy, they are actually selling the same stuff with different names for the most part.
11) Fresh pineapple is much better.
12) If you're going to pay extra for the fancy dinner, don't eat. At all, I mean the whole trip up to that point.
13) Go to the piano bar early, as the night goes on the guests will start buying the player shots. He'll still do good, but after 3 shots, there is a limit to how good.
14) Towel animals are cute for about 5 minutes, then they're just in the way.

Those rules aside, the cruise was quite nice. I even got to play some volleyball, which I miss. However you can't play volleyball for any community area unless you have a team. Getting 6 people is hard. Especially since you should have 8 in case someone doesn't show.

If you get the chance to do a dolphin encounter, I highly recommend it. It was a lot of fun, and hey, dolphins are cool. Pam enjoyed the stingrays which I don't understand at all, frankly I'm not wild about being in the water with an animal with the word 'string' in the name. Bad things are bound to happen.

Its late, so I'll stop there for now and catch up on other stuff later on.

Can you tell me where my country lies?

said the unifaun to his true love's eyes.
"It lies with me!" cried the Queen of Maybe
- for her merchandise, he traded in his prize.

"Paper late!" cried a voice in the crowd.
"Old man dies!" The note he left was signed 'Old Father Thames'
- it seems he's drowned;
selling england by the pound.

Sorry, I can't start that lyric without singing the whole thing in my head, so I might as well write it down. In fact, those lyrics are probably a major catalyst in my love of music. I can still remember sitting on the couch listening to my new tape on my parent's stereo. On the start of this day I didn't know that Peter Gabriel had also been a lead singer of Genesis. I had been listening religiously to Invisible Touch, and with my meager funds I had picked up a second album based on the interesting picture on the cover. Those lyrics opened the album, and turned me from a Genesis fan into a fanatic.

I bring this up for a reason. Those who know me know that I am the cheap Scotsman. My wife constantly teases me about my hesitation about buying anything over $50. I've put off my new computer purchase for months (and more months to come), and I haven't picked up a new game since 2006.

However, even though I own all the albums, and 2 box sets, I will not hesitate on June 12th in heading over to Best Buy and slapping down over $200 the new Genesis 1976-1982 surround sound mix box set.
Reviewed at http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/musicreviews/2285/genesis-in-surround.html

The fact the reviews of the surround sound mix were very good was the final nail in the coffin.

For all my frugality, I do have very little willpower when it comes to hardback books and music. Especially for my favorite bands.

Now, there's something I want to point out about my favorite top 3 bands vs what is out there today.
Between 1974-2007 Rush had 17 albums
Between 1990-2007 Tori Amos had 9 albums
Between 1969-1997 Genesis had 16 albums

That averages to an album (I didn't count live albums) under every 2 years. If you look at the early years of Rush & Genesis you'll see sometimes they did an album every year, or twice a year. Compare that with today where new artists won't see their second album until after 2 years, usually 3. You have to wonder if the ability to continuously craft your music back then really helped these bands grow. They could gradually evolve their sound over time. In fact, if you listen to the albums from their beginning days to current day you can see the connections. As opposed to today where an artist's second albums is usually a glaring contrast to their first.

With today's technology, you'd think producing more music more often would be easier. However the industry seems to want to space these things out, and I think its a reason people are dissatisfied with the recording studios in general. They seem to want to gamble on each release being a huge hit instead of growing an artist. Especially with their love of the 'single'.

While I despair over the possibility of the potential loss of the album in today's digital age, I hope it means that artists get to push their work out more often, and get better at honing their craft.

The cleanest I've been

Well, after over 3 years of faithful service, our faithful companion started showing signs of its age. Stuttering, stumbling, and falling. I am speaking of that most reliable of servants, our Tivo. For all our research, we found only one way to save it. Wipe it clean and start over. All the favorites, preferences, and knowledge its accumulated throughout the year, all gone. No longer will it find episodes of "Family Guy"wherever it may show and bring it to me. At least, not for a while.

Its amusing that after a certain amount of time our computers and computer like devices need to be cleared out and restarted. Even in a virtual world, we can't clean up after ourselves.

Driven up and down in circles

So I spoiled my son a bit and bought him a little three-wheeled scooter. We fitted him with a helmet (which he will slap while on his head going "knock-knock"), and pads and turned him loose on the streets. And by streets, I mean my driveway and the adjoining sidewalk. He's getting off to a decent start though sometimes he will end up kicking the wheel by accident. We definitely need to keep the knee pads up as he's already scraping them up.

I mention the padding because with that padding came some fingerless gloves that we did not put him in. However he discovered the gloves and insisted on wearing on them. At this point he went around stating "Gavin Cooking!".

Speaking of driving, gas prices have gone up again. This of course leads to my chortling at SUVs, and reading in the paper about how catastrophic it is. This irritates me. Not the chortling, I quite enjoy that. Here's the deal, the U.S. can handle $3 dollars a gallon. SUVs are still selling quite well, and while hybrids are well publicized, they're still a drop in the bucket in production. The economy will adjust. And don't get me started on that one day boycott of gas. You'll just buy it the next day, you know, I know it, they know it, stop kidding yourself. Useless public gestures just irritate me. Its just for people going "Look at me! Look at me!".

I'll give you a second to see the irony of that last statement.

Back to Gavin, he walked his first dog today. Well, he started walking the dog, it ended up with the dog walking him. He never let go of the leash though, he was determined to get it done. It was quite adorable.

We can act like we come from out of this world

Gavin and I have a secret, when mommy's away, we dance. Though his version of dancing usually evolves into spinning, it still looks a lot better than mine. Hence we do it while mommy is gone. Otherwise there will never be a brother or sister for Gavin (not that we're currently trying, but still). It is just that bad, but we have fun. However I need to make sure not to choose "Steam" by Peter Gabriel since its so long, dancing around with a 2 year old can take its toll.

Speaking of music I had a great day on May 1st. Having a new Tori Amos, Chantal Kreviazuk, and Rush album come out on the same day is almost too much. But not quite. Now I was a little worried about the new Rush album. Their last album, Vapor Trails, was not one of my favorites. However, I am pleased to say their new outing is quite good. In fact, all of them are very well done. My current favorite is Tori's new outing, she can fully pack a 74 minute CD with no fluff again and again.

On a very bad segue, what the hell was up with this season's Amazing Race? For an "all-star" season all the legs were poorly planned, and generally very weak. The worst was the season finale where all the teams went through multiple tough tasks, only to have that not matter because everyone was going to be on the same flight anyway. You'd think they would have learned from the season Chip & Kim won after doing terribly on all the tasks leading up to the final flight. Here's a hint, on the final leg, do the flight, THEN do all the tasks.