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them wacky new saints

Get the fire.
You’ll have to excuse my lack of writing lately, or rather my missing of days. I’ve been doing the working evenings thing again, but making sure to limit it to about an hour. That’s part of it, but really we’ve just been busy at night – having people over or falling asleep early or just not caring to write. Here goes what I’ve done today, good or bad.

Did you guys know that my daughter is going to be born already equipped with math skillz? That’s right, this story will tell you about it. Half the reason I like the story is because its unabashed use of the word “maths,” as in a plurality of math, or multiple math-like things. I myself like to use the word “math” as a verb in addition to its more accepted noun-form, as in the statements such as, “I need to math that out,” or “Look at you mathin’ it up.” Ahh… I really just wrote this whole paragraph because I could talk about babies and make a “maths” joke.

In the religious-blog world, a recent re-hash of the whole “DNA disproves Mormonism” thing is making for good conversation. Among the many things that non-believers cite to discredit Mormonism, the lack of a DNA link between Native Americans and the Tribes of Israel is a more recent tact. (With things such as Kinderhook Plates, and proven-fake languages reigning as more established fights).

From the time he was a child in Peru, the Mormon Church instilled in Jose A. Loayza the conviction that he and millions of other Native Americans were descended from a lost tribe of Israel that reached the New World more than 2,000 years ago…

A few years ago, Loayza said, his faith was shaken and his identity stripped away by DNA evidence showing that the ancestors of American natives came from Asia, not the Middle East…

For Mormons, the lack of discernible Hebrew blood in Native Americans is no minor collision between faith and science. It burrows into the historical foundations of the Book of Mormon, a 175-year-old transcription that the church regards as literal and without error.

The book’s narrative focuses on a tribe of Jews who sailed from Jerusalem to the New World in 600 BC and split into two main warring factions.

The God-fearing Nephites were “pure” (the word was officially changed from “white” in 1981) and “delightsome.” The idol-worshiping Lamanites received the “curse of blackness,” turning their skin dark.

According to the Book of Mormon, by 385 AD the dark-skinned Lamanites had wiped out other Hebrews. The Mormon church called the victors “the principal ancestors of the American Indians.” If the Lamanites returned to the church, their skin could once again become white.

(read the entire article)

Not that you really need DNA evidence to question a theory about a lost tribe of Israel finding their way to Central America and producing generations of color-changing Hebrew descendants, one of whom one day would use magic glasses to receive revelations from the Lord… but, y’know, it helps. I want to make a t-shirt with the evil Galactic Overlord Xenu boofing a prostrate Angel Moroni while Jesus looks on from heaven, crying. That would be so money. Oh man, I’m running the risk of going to like three different Hells right now. I need to go to confession, or maybe an audit, or perhaps just wash my Holy Underwear – so, Allah willing, I can be right with Jah again.

I am so not into writing right now. Goodnight.

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geezer in training

FetusWatch 2006
One week to go! That’s one measly week, or seven even measlier days. Funny how havin’ babies makes you change the way you think about things. I was watching the Simpsons at lunch yesterday, and was aware for the first time that, in the opening theme, where Maggie’s sitting in her carseat turning a fake steering wheel, she’s doing so from the front seat. For a baby Maggie’s age, it’s a cardinal sin of modern parenting to ride in a front-facing carseat – let alone one in the front seat next to mom. See, that and my constant yelling a the local “whipersnappers” to “tone down their hootenanny” show me I’m already a geezer in training.

Heard about this new “Digital Wax” program via Coolfer, and was pretty excited. It’s an auspicious effort to digitize rare, out-of-print, and perhaps previously unreleased vinyl. I’m not too interested in the initial lineup of labels, seems kinda underground punk and hip-hop based – but if they every make it around to some of the stuff that was released in the 60s and never again after that, I’d turn my head. I guess it may be doubtful though, that any major/major-owned label with potentially marketable unreleased stuff would license it for the project when they could skip the middle-man and digitize/sell the stuff themselves. Either way, the audiophilia associated with the press release is certainly boner-inducing:

The system, almost eight months in the making, offers Orchard labels a digitization platform that is unrivalled and unlikely to be exceeded in the future. A modified Simon Yorke S7 turntable fitted with a Kondo IO-j cartridge feeds the esoteric, rare, expensive and exquisite Kondo M1000 preamplifier, via a Kondo KSL SFz step-up transformer. This signal is in turn converted via an audiophile A-D 2 channel converter, and archived in DSL. All wiring is Kondo age-annealed 99.9999% pure silver wire, and all components are isolated by Vibraplane active isolation platforms.

Falling asleep, goodnight.

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the two iPod family

Happy Valentines Day, nerds.
Happy Valentines Day peoples. I hate Valentines Day… I really do. But, if I get a nice dinner with my wife and unborn child out of it, I figure I about break even.

A loooong time ago, I signed up for a website that was all the rage at the time, a website called freeipods.com. I linked the site on the blog, and also added a link to my completely old and busted, yet still highly trafficked, ? and the Mysterians page. When my free iPod didn’t materialize in a month or so, I lost interest in the whole deal – it seemed it took too long to get five people to sign up and jump through all the required hoops. Every few months or so, I’d log on to freeipods.com to see if I’d perhaps accumulated enough folks – but despite nearly fifty people registering, only four of them had completed their offers. Then, the other night – I got an e-mail at my hotmail address saying one of my referrals had completed an offer. I logged on to freeipods for the 1st time in several months and, sure enough, was greeted with the the free iPod screen. So, if all goes well, Sharaun and I will have gone from iPodless to a two iPod family in the course of a month – both free. There was some rigmarole about them needing 7-10 days to “verify” that all my referrals were real and did whatever they’re supposed to – but if that all goes off without a hitch, my 60GB video will get a new little 30GB video sister to play with. I’m so pumped.

Watching the news in between episodes of the Simpsons Monday night, the 10 day extended forecast came on – and I realized that Keaton’s due-date was on the screen. You know it’s getting close when the weatherlady is saying it’ll be cool and partly cloudy on the day your daughter is set to be born. I wonder, y’know, if she’ll actually come on the due-date. I wonder what that percentage is… babies born on their Dr.-pronounced due-dates? I never thought the last few days would be so excruciating – being able to see that little baby squirm and move under the seemingly paper-thin skin on my wife’s swollen belly, I know she’s all crunched up inside, she must be ready to get out and stretch her legs, right? I know she hears my muffled voice from behind all that blood and goo and thinks, “I can’t wait till the day I get to met this handsome lumberjack of a man, the timbre of his voice alone tells me he’ll be a good dad.”

Somehow I came across a remastered/re-released copy of a 1968 album by a British group called Love Sculpture. Now, I’d never heard of Love Sculpture, but allmusic tells me that the one and only Dave Edmunds was a member, and, man… does this record cook. I mean, outstanding driving guitar-based blues rock. Edmunds showing on this album is simply brilliant, sharp and slick and a pleasure to listen to. If you ever get a chance, pick up this disc – or stop by my house with a USB key and I’ll “loan” it to under the Fair Use clause, with explicit instructions for you to delete it to NSA standards 72 hours later. That way, you can hear some great music, and we’ll all be cool under the watchful eyes of the RIAA – the music lover’s best friend and compulsory conscience.

‘Night.

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blues on the speakers

I'm sky high.
Not just any old Monday for me this week folks, nay – this Monday marks the 1st day of single-digit pre-baby waiting. Nine days to go, nine measly days… incredible. A weekend filled with a few last-minute baby-related tasks: installing the carseat in Sharaun’s car, putting together the baby swing, and getting Sharaun’s hospital bag ready to go when the contractions finally come. When the contractions finally come… wow.

I don’t know what it is, maybe a sign of musical maturity – but lately I’ve been wanting to listen to nothing but blues. I’ve been on a rash downloading streak, grabbing byte after byte and building a pile of gigs in my blues directory (all legally purchased music, of course). I always enjoyed the blues, had always been aware of it’s influence on rock music, and was an instant fan of blues-based rock acts like the Allman Brothers and Led Zeppelin. But, despite all that, I never really was a hard-core roots blues fan. Lately though, I’ve been immersing myself in the scratchy acetates of Furry Lewis, Son Seals, Blind Boy Fuller, Mississippi John Hurt, and a myriad of other amazing blue pioneers. I just can’t seem to get enough – the music makes me feel anything but blue. It spreads a smile across my face, and makes me somehow feel connected to the beginnings of rock and roll. Some of this stuff, being nearly 90 years old, is completely amazing and engaging, like being musically transported back to another time.

The past few days in Northern California have been simply outstanding. 70 degrees and sunny, with the air clear enough to see the Sierras stretch from the edge of my left eye all the way to the edge of my right. Friday was so gorgeous, in fact, that I decided to play work-hooky and pull a “working from home.” Unfortunately, I had meetings to call into most of the afternoon – but even sitting on meetings was ten times as good in the ground-level, breeze-thru-open-windows, blues-on-the-speakers comfort of home. I keep thinking about my upcoming time off in a week or so – sitting at home with the windows open and sun shining, holding my new daughter. I’m anticipating spending hours just looking down at her tiny face and drinking in her baby-skin-smell. Damn, I am straight homo.

Everyone’s on about Songbird lately and, I must admit, it does look pretty dang cool. An open-source music app, not unlike iTunes, built on the FireFox browser engine but with some pretty cool twist. Songbird treats webpages containing MP3s as playlists, and even has the ability to auto-download songs from your favorite canon of MP3 blogs. I grabbed it for the home PC, and plan on pointing it to me regular rotation of music sites to see what happens. Who knows, maybe they’ll build in iPod support some day and this thing will be a working iTunes alternative. A guy can only dream.

Before I go, I wanted to pass on my congratulations on to the now two-bigger family of sounds familiar reader maygsters – who gave birth to twin boys this weekend. You guys beat us by just about a week, way to go. Can’t wait to get all the babes together for a puke ‘n’ poop party.

Later peoples.

Posted on

naught but a fortnight

FetusWatch 2006
Two weeks.

Is that still fourteen days? Hmm… it is huh? Interesting. Work is becoming increasingly busy, I think because I’ve started to obsess about “setting the machine in motion” before I leave. I’m desperately trying to get things on some semblance of “autopilot,” so I won’t be preoccupied with thoughts of deadlines and milestones while I should be focused on the baby. Deep down, I know work will fly out the window as soon as she’s here – but I’d still like to have all my ducks in a row before I drop off the face of the work-Earth. Let’s do the one-liner thing, the Mostly-Grammy Edition:

Man… Valentines Day… I hate Valentines Day. I resent it for being a contrived holiday which demands you show sentiment sentiment. I’ll show sentiment of my own accord, thanks.

I logged onto CNN at work today and was greeted with the headline: “Bush urges end to cartoon violence.” I immediately thought of Dubya drafting a law against dropping anvils – y’know, to protect that nice kitty Tom from that mean old mouse Jerry.

Coldplay’s dodgy performance last night at the Grammys was totally not representative of their amazing live show – don’t let it dissuade you from paying the price of admission, even if you’re not their #1 fan.

In fact, did anyone else notice how shitty the mix was for all the live performances at the Grammys? The guitars were buried, and the vocals and hihats were shrill and too up-front. The bass was pale and off in the distance, and they mixed in way too much crowd noise.

Didn’t Macca rock it with Helter Skelter? And how about Kanye… I know I’d sure hate to be on the debate team tasked with arguing against “Goldigger’s” status as 2006’s “song most likely to have massive amounts of ass shaken to.” Even I – pasty and arrhythmic – feel the need to move to that bassline, and that’s never a good thing.

50% effaced and 1cm dilated.

Guess I coulda made a paragraph after all. At least I squeezed one out. G’nite.

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who is mike jones?!

I am Mike Jones!
Happy Monday… lately I sometimes feel like the days and weeks are simultaneously dragging and speeding by blurrily. It seems like this day will never get here while feeling like it could be tomorrow at the same time. Think, think, think… babies and money and all sorts of things. Let’s move forward.

OK, I’d heard about it, but hadn’t actually heard it. Then, this weekend, I decided to hunt down the new Built to Spill album, which leaked a week or so ago. Word on the street was that the album sounded great, and it’s certainly one of the more anticipated efforts of 2006. Rumor also had it that the early leaked version was protected with a unique type of DRM: each song being marred by rapper Mike Jones asking, “Who is Mike Jones?!” every minute or so. Yeah, so, Mike Jones isn’t actually on the new BTS record, but he was sampled over the top of this leak… either by a band with a sense of humor, or some sadistic, perhaps rap-lovin’ and indie-hatin’, release crew. Whoever the culprit, the “Who is Mike Jones?!” form of copy protection is probably one of the more effective schemes I’ve run across. It’s hard not to listen to the songs without trying to guess when the next “Who is Mike Jones?!” sample will pop up, and it’s impossible (yeah, completely impossible) not to laugh when it eventually does. I like the album so much though, that I’m afraid I’ll become accustomed to the Mike Jones version. I’ll be the guy at the BTS show in a few months who shouts out “Who is Mike Jones?!” every few minutes so I can experience the songs the way I learned to love ’em.

I’ve been wondering if I should change my blog theme… I like the front page OK, but I think I’d like to change the comment section. I’ve got some stray div tags that get put in when you’re looking at a post in permalink/comment view which I’d love to clean up. Thing is, WordPress theme implementation has changed sooo much since I first hacked together my blog, it’s almost like I’d have to start from scratch. My index page and stylesheet, while functional, are spaghetti on the inside. My CSS skills are mediocre at best, and most of what I get is luck rather than skill or artful use of the stylesheet. I’d love to start with a clean modern WordPress them and start hacking from there… just so I could slim down my main page loop code and bloated stylesheet. However, that’s a lot of work… and I am partial to how things look now – it’s been my format forever, after all. What do you think, friends? Should I redesign from the ground-up, or are you, too, familiar and happy with the look of this page? I’m just not sure.

Continuing the blogging thing, keen observers may have noticed that I removed the toplink to my “cast of characters” page. I did this because the thing was just sooo outdated. I thought about going through and making a sweep of it, to bring it up to date… but the thing about that is having to stay on top of it. I’m not sure what the eventual fate of the page will be. I entertained a quirky thought about opening it as some kind of limited-access wiki where each person in the cast would own their own bio, and be responsible for keeping it up-to-date. Those who didn’t log on and polish their info once every three months or so would be bubbled-down and eventually “hidden” from the cast, re-listable only after an update. It’s a cool idea, maybe I’ll give it a shot. Right now though, the page isn’t gone, it’s just delinked from the header – several older entries still point to it. We’ll see.

Let’s do some linking, shall we? I know it’s lighting up the blogosphere lately, and I’m rather late to the party – but for the benefit of those who may have not seen this yet, I really recommend reading Jeff Jocoby’s We Are All Danes Now op-ed piece over at the Boston Globe. I’ll let you read it and mull it over, but I certainly enjoyed it. Not sure I like the term “Islamofacist,” but I do like the article.

Before I go: What does Mike Jones have in his hand? A neon pickle? Dildo? No, folks, after much analysis I’ve decided it’s a wad of bills. Classy Mike Jones; classy. Goodnight friends, until tomorrow.

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parting shots (or, chicken soup for the blog)

Back to school.
Today I’m gonna gay it up, so break out your Cher CDs, aromatherapy candles, and Sex in the City DVD collection. No offense to the gay readers, of course, I use the term in it’s colloquial form where it means… “gay.” So without further exposition, let me introduce things (I know, I know).

Sharaun’s last day at work was last Friday (Last Friday was Sharaun’s last day at work?). Modifiers and their potential misplacement aside, she’s done with the whole job bag. Upon leaving, her class prepared a photo/memory album for her, each student writing some parting thoughts on a little 3×5 index card. I sat down early Saturday morning and flipped through this book, and decided that the messages were just too good not to share. Now, if you’re naturally weepy and prone to tears, you may want to get some tissue now – because, although sometimes hilariously poorly written, the sentiment here can get pretty thick and sappy. Names have been omitted to protect the innocent; and spelling and punctuation, or lack thereof, have been kept largely intact. Before you laugh a the English – remember it’s not the native language of a handful of these kids (though I’m not going to tell you which ones). Here we go:

When I was little I was most fond of my mother’s posts (pots) and pans and my father’s Pepsi (which turned out to be my first word). I hope your baby is as fond as those items as I was.

I hope your baby girl is kind, smart, and healthy. I wish Keaton will have a good life.

I wish the Keaton can be beautiful and smart as her own mom. I wish she could be strong into music just as her dad. Let this baby dream and be adventurous. Let her be who she wants to be, but be there for her in the good and the bad. Guide this baby to soar to the sky and achieve her dreams.

I know that you are going to be a great mom. You’ve already had a lot of experience with us. From my experience in being a kid the best thing you can do is push your daughter. Don’t overwhelm her of course, but don’t let her slack off. You’ll know what to do.

3 top things you should know about loving Keaton

  1. Let Keaton know you love her
  2. Cheer her on when she does something good
  3. Give lots of hugs and kisses when she is blue!

I wish your baby will become very smart. I also wish your (baby) will become very kind and happy.

I hope Keaton is smart and kind. I wish your baby has a great life. You will also feel you have a new life.

One of my best childhood memories is when I broke my elbow because my mom was always sitting beside me and taking care of me.

I hope you have a great time and a nice day. Your baby is going to be a nice kid when she grows up and she is going to be smart, kind, and lovely. I will never forgive that you are my teacher. Your a nice teacher. Keaton is going to be a good little baby.

I hope your baby is smart. I hope she is happy. I hope Keaton is cute and smart. I also hope she’s a healthy baby.

What do you have to say for yourself having a baby? You have wonderful students, you’ve got it all. As a mom you will need all the help you can get from your husband, your ma, pa, and other family members. Also you will need us. But with your kindness your baby will be more than comforted (trust me, I know all about babies, I babysit them, including my sister).

I hope your baby will grow up to be similar to you. I wish your baby will become smart, kind, and gentle. Hopefully the apple won’t fall far from the tree.

Please don’t spoil Keaton. She will become a humble child and will be kind and loving. That is my dream. I want a world of kindness.

I wish Keaton becomes smart, like you. I want her to become smart so she can become whatever she wants to. I hope she is kind and sweet. We will miss you, I hope we will meet again. Till then, goodbye.

I wish a lot of hopes and dreams for the baby girl. I hope that she is smart, beautiful, not snobby and all of her dreams come true. My other wishes are that she is healthy, kind, and happy. I hope that your family will have a new and beautiful with the baby Keaton.

One day your baby will be a well educated person just like you. She’s very lucky to have you as a mother. Keaton has many things ahead of her, she has a fantastic mom, a great dad… there will be no doubt that she won’t succeed. Just don’t spoil her too much! I just know you will support and care for her a bunch.

Hey what’s up? I just wanted to wish you and your child the best luck and luv through the rest of her life and yours. I hope she grows up to be a nice and great person to know like you are today. I know I haven’t known you long but even though you were the best teacher I ever had. I have love and props for Keaton. PS – We will never forget u!

I think you will be a wonderful mom. Keaton will be very happy. I have some advice for you. Don’t spoil your child and don’t go to her every need.

I wish that your baby has all of my wishes, as long as you want them too. I wish that your baby is as smart as you. Also as kind, as healthy, as gentle as you. The last thing that I want to wish your baby is that she is a caring and beautiful person just like her mother, and just like her father (even though I haven’t met her father).

I hope your baby will be as wonderful as you are. I know you will be a great mom because you know how to treat kids. I will miss you so much but at least a good thing is making you go. I hope Keaton will have a great time with you like I did.

I hope you have a healthy; happy; and a kind little baby named Keaton!!

Once when my mom was teaching me to ride my bike. I always fell. One day when my friends were outside we rode are bikes. I thought that I still had my training wheels. I was so happy.

I know that you are quitting to teach, I decided to take out my time to write this letter of compassion to say good-bye to my number one 6th grade teacher. From all the respect that you gave to me I would put you on the wall of fame for every great teacher, but I decided that you would on the top of the ladder with principals from your academic of achievements that you gave to me and the class. This is all I wanted to say thank-you for giving us full of love I suggest that love will be given to Keaton.

I

wish that the baby comes out and healthy nice, and kind like you are. But don’t spoil her because my mom spoiled her son and he wants everyone to do something for her.

I hope your baby will grow up to be smart, kind, healthy, and fair. The only thing you don’t want to do is spoil the baby. What should do is just spoil it a little but not too much.

When I was young I dove and caught a ball. My mom felt guilty because that was the only game she missed. So don’t miss your child’s games!!

I hope your baby lives a long and happy life and that you enjoy your time together. I hope Keaton grows to be healthy and strong. Hopefully Keaton will be just as smart as you. You should be very happy with Keaton, congrats!

I hope that you will have a wonderful life with your new loving daughter. I hope that your daughter will be smart, kind, and happy just like us. You are one of the best teachers I ever had! Don’t worry we will never forget you. Hope you come and visit us with baby Keaton!

I hope you have a smart, healthy, beautiful, kind baby girl. You would be a great mom because you know how to control your emotions towards kids. Also, don’t spoil Keaton, just love* her all you want, and try not to get stressed with her. *=Love is contagious.

Back in my old town, my parents were usually gone in early morning till late evening. Though one day my mom decided to buy some time to bake, and my own self knew what she was making. Cream-puffs were a favorite between our family. This is considered a cherished memory because that day I spent time having fun baking and eating most of the batter. Though, think about it, working most of the day. You should always buy some time with your child.

I know you will be an awesome mom, and I hope your baby turns out just like you. Try not to spoil her too much, just make sure she gets a puppy or two. Enrolling her in preschool and teaching her math at and early age will make her smart and make her want to go to school. I know I loved soccer and swimming when I was little, and I’m sure she will too. You’re going to be a great mom! I can’t wait to see your beautiful baby! PS – Don’t forget to give her that puppy! Mini-schnauzers are great!

It’s OK for a mom to spoil, if she knows her limits. When my family moved, my mom taught me how to swim. I hope Keaton has a great life with you.

I hope that you will have fun with your new daughter. I remember when I was little. My dad too off my training wheels and I tried to do it once, but I fell. I thought, “Oh well,” and kept trying, but I kept falling. Finally I just gave up and cried. My mom was their and she said to keep trying. Of course I was nervous, but I kept trying. And guess what? I did it!

I love how these kids’ notes are a window into their family life; you can see their folks’ priorities, which, until they start deciding on their own in a couple years, they’ve inherited wholly. You can see the values their parents have instilled in them, and get an idea of how they are treated by the way they advise Sharaun to treat Keaton. It’s amazing.

And that’s it for today friends. Until tomorrow.