Leading a Horse to Water

As I've mentioned before, I grew up in the heart of East Texas. My homeland has a simplicity of life that escapes the city slicker. There is a neighborliness that seems inherent in this type of life and which seems elusive to those who live in the more concentrated population centers. The extended family seems more important.  A closeness to your aunts, uncles and cousins seems a given there. Lest I paint a picture that country living is all goodness and virtue, I must also state that there are ugly things, too. Some are very ugly.

Simplicity of living often coexists with willful ignorance. Come to think of it, living in general usually coexists with willful ignorance, whether in the city or the country. Some of these country folks never question what they were taught as they were growing up. This can lead to wrong thinking and erroneous beliefs, all rooted in the ignorant notion that things are the way they are and that they don't get better and won't change.
 
The Ku Klux Klan had a foothold in the community I lived in--perhaps a tenuous foothold, but a foothold nonetheless. The KKK preys on ignorance because around this type of ignorance, racism flourishes like Johnson grass on an East Texas roadside. I grew up among some racists, and I'm sure there were people I knew who were secretly involved with the KKK, but it remained a secret, outside the knowledge of myself or many others in the community. It's not the kind of thing you would be proud of, like a new grandbaby. There would be few who would want talk about it.

I remember a time in the early 70s when the KKK approached our school to do some recruiting. They entered a meeting of Young Homemakers on the high school campus one evening, scaring those ladies nearly to death.

When I was in high school, I remember seeing signs promoting a Klan rally in the area. Not too many days after this rally, I remember seeing photos in a regional newspaper that had been taken at the rally. Amongst those photographed were two boys that went to our school. They were wearing their hoods like good little Kluxers, and were carrying guns, too. I remember how hateful and mean these boys were in their everyday lives. I remember wondering if their hatred came from being aligned with the Klan or if it was a more general hatred that drove them to the Klan.

I remember some people I knew had a card labeled a "Ni**er Hunting License". They would flash the card, thinking it funny. I remember how wrong it felt just to read that card.

I think we all carry around a touch of racism. There's certainly a meanness in us all.  Most of us are able to outgrow it with maturity, sort of like we overcome the unpleasantness of bed wetting. I also don't think that whites are necessarily the only ones guilty of race-focused hatred. It can come from both sides of the tracks.

There are times when I go home to visit family and I hear the people from this community say things that I now find shocking. Names are called, epithets hurled. You hear the wrongness, not as much in the words themselves, but in the tones used to communicate the words. They are tones that communicate dislike, distaste, and on occasion, simple hatred. The ignorance that fuels the Klan is the same ignorance that fuels this kind of latent racism, too, though perhaps to a lesser degree.

It's one of the things about my heritage that I despise. It's one of the things I'm ashamed of, not because of what I've done, but because of the dark stain that has been left on my heritage by racial hatred.  I don't feel that I'm necessarily better than those folks I grew up amongst and around. I know the same darkness lurks in me, too. My mind can still conjure up the darkest of thoughts, the vilest of feelings and emotions. My heart is not immune to hate. I just have it under my control most of the time.

I remain thankful that the curse can be broken--that there is a power greater than the power that can decompose a person's soul with hatred. May I always give that greater power the rule of my life.

Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. ~I John 3:18-20

Believe It or Not

One of the weird stories I remember from my youth was the story of the Saratoga Light.

Saratoga is a town not far from where I grew up, in the heart of East Texas, the Piney Woods and the Big Thicket. The Big Thicket can be a spooky place all on its own. It is a sparsely populated, thickly wooded area. On an unmooned night, the roads can be as black as a killer's heart. Add to this a good ghost story and a supposed apparition and it can be even spookier.

Just north of Saratoga is Bragg Road. Bragg Road is what we used to call a tram road. A tram road is a road built along what was once a rail bed. These railways were mostly used for logistical purposes of some type of industry (oil or timber), and when their usefulness evaporated, the rail bed could easily be converted to a road. The tram roads that I remember were usually only dirt roads, some more traveled than others. Some of the more heavily traveled roads were county maintained, which meant that the county had cut in ditches and would occasionally resurface the dirt road with a maintainer. In the case of Bragg Road, it had been used to supply the oil industry in the area in the early 1900s and was abandoned in 1934. The rails were later pulled up and it became a regularly traveled road, eventually maintained by Hardin County. 

A phenomenon is said to occur on Bragg Road on occasion:  the Saratoga Light. A mysterious light would appear, often at a distance on the road. At times, attempts to approach or follow the light would be unsuccessful. Other reports have stated that the light would approach vehicles, and on occasion would enter vehicles. The light has been photographed and even appeared in National Geographic's October 1974 article about the Big Thicket. Here is a copy of the image, a 20-minute exposure taken by Blair Pittman (you can see the trail left by a star captured in the photograph over the exposure time).

There are many explanations given for the Saratoga Light. The more practical is that it is swamp gas, a car's light or the reflection of a car's light. The explanations I remember hearing tended toward being more fanciful. Among them are:

1. It was the ghost of a railway worker who had been decapitated by a train. The light was from the lantern he used to look for his missing head.
   
2. It was the ghosts of Spanish men, returning to the area to look for lost gold.
3. It was the ghost of a man, shot by Confederate soldiers.

I remember hearing these stories from my pre-teen years through my high school years. I remember hearing wild tales of personal encounters, most likely complete fabrications based on third-party recollections of things that happened on Bragg Road. I remember poorly laid plans made with friends or cousins to go to Bragg Road to see the light for ourselves, plans that would never materialize.

Do I believe the light exists? Yes. There are many reputable accounts from those who have seen the light--more reputable than any who can claim to have seen Bigfoot. Do I believe it is caused by numbers 1, 2 or 3 above? No. There is some good explanation for the phenomenon that doesn't dip into the realm of the supernatural. But I think these wild explanations are sort of like Santa Claus. Knowing that there is no such thing as Santa doesn't mean its not fun believing in him anyway.

Messiah

I don't remember the first time I attended a performance of Handel's Messiah. I'm going to guess that it was in the neighborhood of 20 years ago. I don't know how many times I've seen the performance since then, but it's been a few.

Messiah is a classic amongst Christian audiences. They love it for many reasons. The libretto (the words that are sung) is simply scripture, taken straight from the Bible. The music is breathtaking. There are awe-inspiring choruses that can bring tears to all but the most jaded of eyes. It speaks of a Savior and his role in history--past, present and future. It is a musical masterpiece; few would question that it is the crowning achievement of George Frideric Handel, its composer:  his magnum opus. Beethoven was an admirer of Handel's, having reportedly once said: "Handel is the greatest composer that ever lived." (These images show a transcription Beethoven did of Messiah in order to study Handel's style.)

Handel composed Messiah during the summer of 1741. Having received the libretto from a friend, Charles Jennens, he set to work on it at the feverish pace he was known for, often working from sunup until sundown, often forgetting to stop and eat. At this pace, he finished it in 24 days, quite a feat when you consider the orchestration and its inherent complexity. It is said that Handel's household staff reported him overcome with emotion several times during the composition, once saying in his broken English, "I did think I did see all heaven before me and the great God himself!"

Messiah's first performance was April 13, 1742 at the Music Hall in Dublin. Handel himself led the performance from the harpsichord and the orchestra was conducted by Matthew Dubourg. Handel repeatedly revised Messiah himself, the most familiar version coming to be in 1754, when it was performed in a benefit for the Foundling Hospital in London, a favorite charitable cause of Handel's.

Handel conducted Messiah himself on many occasions. He was known to alter the composition to suit the performers, either the vocalists or the orchestra. This variety of versions leads to the conclusion that there is no true official version of Messiah, nor one which can be authoritatively considered "most authentic."

In 1742, Jonathan Swift was Dean at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin. At that time, the theater in general and Handel's music in particular were viewed as "profane and subversive" by many ministers of the day, Swift included. Many choir members from St. Patrick were singing in the chorus in the first performance of Messiah. Swift almost derailed the performance by forbidding the choir from performing, yet he finally gave in and allowed it to take place. This all took place many years after Swift had penned Gulliver's Travels and A Modest Proposal (1726 and 1729 respectively), and just a few years before his death in 1745.

The Hallelujah Chorus can easily be regarded as the most ubiquitous movement from Messiah. It has been used in ways that would have shamed Handel (commercials, movie soundtracks, etc.), yet to those who love Messiah, it is almost always the high point of any performance. There is a lot of legend surrounding the chorus; whether rooted in truth or totally spurious, no one can know. One story tells that, during the London premier of Messiah in 1743, King George II rose to his feet during the Hallelujah Chorus and remained standing until its end. Of course, when the king rises, everyone else does, too, so this would be the birth of the tradition which has endured until this day. I had heard another legend referenced, yet tracing it down was a bit more difficult. I'll quote the passage complete so I won't ruining it with my paraphrasing.

During the week of her coronation, when Victoria was still a young lady, she was sitting in the Royal Lodge while Handel's "Messiah" was being performed. The lady-in-waiting came to her and said, "Everybody in the room with the exception of the Queen will rise and will remain standing for the duration of the music. It is royal etiquette that the Queen should remain seated." The music continued, sweeter and fuller, it seemed to be sweet enough for heaven. When the "Hallelujah Chorus" began, the people rose and stood with their heads bowed. It was obvious that the Queen was deeply moved. Her lips trembled and her eyes filled with tears, her body shook until the melody sounded, “KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.” In spite of the royal etiquette the young Queen rose and remained standing with her head bowed till the music ended. 

In the original version (from my memory), I recall a specific detail telling of how the queen also removed her crown during the chorus. As much as I would like to believe this, it is most likely fiction, made up by someone along the timeline for whom the truth wasn't meaty enough.

My family went to see a performance of Messiah the other night by the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra and the Southwestern Seminary Master Chorale. It was amazing. Simply amazing. Though Messiah is not specifically about the advent in such a way as to be a Christmas specialty, it has traditionally been performed during the Christmas season. Messiah is one of the few things that can actually make me look forward to this season.

Go see Messiah if you can this year. If you cannot, then do what I did one year when I could not attend:  I bought it on CD.

Sources: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messiah_%28Handel%29
http://www.gfhandel.org/messiah.htm
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/The-Glorious-History-of-Handels-Messiah.html
http://www.christianhistorytimeline.com/DAILYF/2001/04/daily-04-13-2001.shtml
http://www.oratoriosocietyofny.org/notesDecember.htm
http://www.cai.org/bible-studies/queen-victoria

Briar and Burley on a Cool Winter's Eve

I have been a pipe smoker, off and on, for the better part of the last decade. In the early part of that 10-year  period, I had a pipe in my hand most every evening. I spent many hours online, chatting with other pipe smokers, burning bowl after bowl of different blends, steeping myself in the culture of the briar.

There's an interesting congruity between pipe smoking and the computer. I always enjoyed puffing and clicking, having the monitor occasionally obscured by smoke, letting go of the mouse on occasions when I needed to tamp. Around '02 or '03, I was active on #alt.smokers.pipes, an IRC (chat) channel on the Undernet, even serving as an operator for a little while. Wasted a lot of hours online and met a lot of interesting pipe smokers there. Pipe smokers are generally good people. In the normal course of life and all its comings and goings, you just don't run into many pipe smokers anymore. They're still out there. You just have to go and find them.

On the recommendation of some friends on ASP, I once tried a blend I'd heard great things about: Haddo's Delight. I ordered a tin and fired it up that first evening after it arrived. Fifteen minutes into what would normally be a 30-minute burn, the room started spinning. I thought, Surely this will pass. It didn't. (The room did stop spinning, but it was about 20 minutes after my pipe was cool.) I had never experienced that with any other pipe tobacco I had smoked, and haven't since then either. I ended up sending it to one of the guys on ASP that liked it and moved on to other, less intense, tobacco experiences.

My pipe smoking has tapered off quite a bit in recent years. I usually experience a resurgence in the winter months, especially when there is a firm chill in the air. Pipe smoking seems a perfect fit on a wintry eve with a fire in the fireplace and a chill in the air.

I haven't bought a new pipe in quite some time. I've only recently bought some new blends, but they seem to last me forever, given my diminished consumption. The biggest challenge now is keeping it hydrated and smokable. When I started buying tobacco in bulk, I bought some jars--the glass kind with the rubber seal around the glass lid. They keep the tobacco moist, especially if you put a slice of apple in there. One of the jars I've labeled "Kitchen Sink". Kitchen Sink is where I dump my small amounts of tobacco, what's left at the bottom of a tin after most is gone. Kitchen Sink is an ever-changing blend that would be totally impossible to recreate, even with a lot of well-funded scientific research. There were a few young fellows that used to come over and smoke a pipe with me. They all liked Kitchen Sink. It's a nice, mild blend with a decent, mysterious taste. There is also an appeal in its transient nature. Each bowl you smoke could be the last one just like that, because next time it might be different.

Right now, I'm puffing on some Kitchen Sink in my Peterson (shown here). It's my favorite pipe. Welcome back, Old Man Winter.

Weblogging: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

 

The advent of weblogging (which I still refuse to call "blogging") and the rise to its present ubiquitous state has been quite a mixed blessing. In the old days, before self-publication in the print realm became so easy, books that were self-published earned the moniker "vanity press". The idea was that when a writer who couldn't find a publisher to buy his book went ahead and paid himself to have it published/printed, then these were the actions of a vain person. Vanity press books were usually poorly written, poorly edited and poorly published. What did the publisher/printer care? They were getting paid anyway, and up front, too. In other words, self-publication once carried a negative connotation.

Fast forward to the new millennium, where printing is cheap and online diaries are free. The general quality of the written word has risen exponentially. Did I say "risen"? Sorry. I meant FALLEN!! Sure, there are good writers out there, many of whom still make a good living selling their wares. In spite of a small vein of quality which still endures, we find ourselves in the midst of a constant deluge of bad writing, punctuated by bad grammar and spelling, and it seems no one cares.

  Take xanga, for instance.  Never mind that. I'll refrain from biting the hand that feeds me, as I am still a freeloader and have been for the last 1,577 days (according to the nag bot). Peruse the pages of our fine city and you'll see profanity. You'll see frank discussions on the most intimate sexual matters (Don't tell me you haven't  been lured to this page by those stealth Plugz?!?!). If I weren't of stronger stock, it would cause me to despair. I suppose when people can speak freely, some will tend to speak freely about indecent things. Some will speak without restraint. Some will say things that should have remained unsaid because...well, it's generally considered good not to say stupid things.

I recall a line from A & E's "Horatio Hornblower" series. In this particular episode, Hornblower is being taken somewhere in a longboat, no doubt to engage in some derring-do. As they move along, the coxswain attempts to make small talk with Hornblower. Horatio finally interrupts him to say, "Wolfe: why must you speak when you have nothing to say?" Amen, brother.

People will continue to post the indecent and inane, and free weblogging doesn't create a market-driven product, so the quality will only get worse. On more than one occasion--perhaps many more--I have clicked "Save Changes" when I should have clicked "Delete", so I'm guilty. We're all guilty of thinking someone wants to read the random detritus that rolls around in our gray matter. Our production line continues to churn out product. The QC man retired and he wasn't replaced, yet on occasion, something good comes off the line, and on other rarer occasions, something really good, so I keep on reading.

I believe weblogging carries the DNA of the medium that spawned it. We all know that there are good things out there on the web. You just usually have to shovel through a lot of doo-doo to find them. So let's do our part to improve things. Let's write well. Let's provide a good product for our neighbors, whether we're telling about our weekend or the end of the world as we know it. Let's raise the standard!

The Common Touch

There was a change that took place in me when I went to college. I became a bit of a snob. I would go back home and behold the ways of the people that I grew up among and I would marvel at just how much better than them I had become.

Of course, I was really the same person. I had been exposed to some things they most likely hadn't experienced, but in the grand scheme, I was still the same person. So why, I ask, did I consider myself better than them? Well, the answer isn't that complicated.

We can all fall victim to this temptation--to elevate ourselves above those around us for one reason or another. Anything we have, anything we know, anything we are that differentiates us from someone else can be twisted by pride to make us think ourselves better than them. Social status or money can do it. Knowledge can also corrupt attitudes as powerfully as money. Give someone a book on systematic theology and you may have created a monster. Study philosophy for a year or two and you just might well find yourself in a state of arrogance from which you can't recover. All of these things must be tempered with humility. Looking at our greatest accomplishments, we will always find ourselves in the shadow of someone even greater who has accomplished more and has done better. And the greatest of men in the light of his highest accomplishments still stands in the shadow of a God who is not impressed.

Perspective. We need perspective. John Bradford, the great English reformer and martyr, was known to have said, "There, but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford." So what is it that really separates us from this person to whom we consider ourselves superior? We usually think it is something we have done--something we have accomplished. Well, if it indeed was us that has accomplished this thing, we might well indeed be superior to this person in that exact way. But don't be fooled. You did nothing on your own.

So I strive to maintain the common touch. I tell myself that we are, under God, all the same. I have limited success in this struggle because I still battle a voice which tells me I'm better than some people. I'd rather be listening to another voice. That voice told me: "As I have loved you, so you must love one another."

The Ebenezer

Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer,  saying, "Thus far has the LORD helped us." (I Samuel 7:12)

One of my boys and I spent a lot of time today attempting to place a new stone atop our Ebenezer. It is the largest  stone yet in the construction, I'm guessing approaching 1,000 pounds. Here's the rest of the story:

There was a time when things weren't as good for my family as they are now. I had worked for the same company for over 6 years when they sold to a competitor, putting me out of work. For the next few years, I found myself underemployed in a major way. I worked as a carpenter. I worked as an assistant director of a non-profit, faith-based ministry. I worked again as a carpenter. We were never unfed. We never were without a roof over our head. However, it wasn't easy to persevere. We were subjected to the humility of going to the food pantry at our church. We were often unable to pay bills when they were due. This often puts you in the unenviable position of having to apologize and ask for the forbearance of your creditors. It was a dark time, often lonely, as our friends were unaware of what we were really going through. The ones that were aware were often unable to respond in meaningful ways. This was usually because they had been protected from such times in their own lives and they secretly assumed that it was something I had done, or more likely something I wasn't doing, that had caused our circumstances.

After traveling this unlit corridor for too many years, I eventually rounded a corner and saw light creeping from under a door. I can now look back on these years, remembering the times as bittersweet--unpleasant, yet not without benefit.

Trials and tribulations teach us what we cannot learn otherwise. There are at least two major lessons I learned in the Dark Times. One is the importance of contentment. Being satisfied where we are and with what we have is an underrated, under-practiced discipline. Not having a choice in your circumstances distills the general notion of contentment into real contentment. You are either content or your are unhappy all the time. The second lesson I learned was true thankfulness. Being thankful for the small things isn't hard either when those small things aren't so small. Giving thanks in all things, including those difficult efforts at being thankful for the hard times, is another thing that Christians talk about yet don't often fully understand.

During this time, I prayed that when we exited that dark hallway, we would be mindful of our friends in like circumstances and would offer whatever assistance we could, without judgment or criticism. I've not been able to do this on the level I'd hoped, but we continue to do what we can for our friends in their own dark times. I also feel it is an obligation that I primarily owe to our friends and family. This is the network of support that God created for such times. If you aren't there to meet these needs in those closest to you, who will?

After our exit, I built an Ebenezer behind our house. What is an Ebenezer, you ask? In this case, it is a pile of large stones I gathered from my property and organized in a conspicuous place. When you look out the back door, there it is--you can't miss it.  It is to serve as a reminder to myself primarily, and to my family also, that God's faithful hand has brought us to where we are. I wanted to remember His faithfulness and I wanted the opportunity to point to that monument and tell others of His goodness. I don't do it as often as I should, but that speaks poorly of my faithfulness, not His.

Give thanks, my friends, because God is good, all the time.

The Destruction of Our Planet

Most of you are familiar with the Second Law of Thermodynamics. It concerns entropy, or general decay. It has been paraphrased in the statement, “Things run down.” It can also be stated in egghead terms, using words and concepts that I cannot begin to understand, yet the concept touches all of our live in a myriad of ways. Entropy is what prevents perpetual motion. Entropy prevents complete efficiency in the usage of all forms of energy. In other words, any process which converts matter to energy—even at the most efficient levels—experiences some energy loss. Entropy cannot be stopped, cannot be controlled, and cannot be affected beyond a certain point.

Yet we humans think we are invincible, beyond the reach of this basic law of physics. We think the planet can be saved by limiting carbon emissions, a notion which I think is flawed at its core (sorry, Al Gore).  We think that world peace is possible, yet we ignore the fact that the entirety of human history has not experienced a time when this was even momentarily true. How naïve. How arrogant.

Saving a snaildarter here or recycling a Coke can there will not slow down the eventual destruction of our planet. Our planet was created with its eventual destruction in mind. In the words of John MacArthur, “If you think we’re damaging our planet, wait until you see what God does to it.” Our planet will be destroyed, and it will most likely be before the polar icecaps melt or before the hole in the ozone level is mended or before Al Gore gets his next Nobel Prize.

Our sinfulness is responsible for the earth’s destruction. Frankly, I look forward to Earth’s obliteration for no other reason than it will prove the ultimate vindication of God, the Creator. I can almost hear God saying, “I brought you into this universe, Earth, and I can take you out of it!” 

So I leave you with this: given the eventual demise of this big blue marble, our energies would seem better spent making peace with our Creator instead of making love to Mother Nature. Whose side would you rather be on anyway:  Al Gore or Almighty God?

The Wedding Shoot: Part II

 Since writing "The Wedding Shoot", other events have unfolded.

(DISCLAIMER/COP-OUT:  From the beginning, I felt I was overextending my skills to shoot this wedding. This was, after all, a full-sized, real wedding. But my friend, the groom, asked me if I would be the official photographer, and I assumed he was taking into account the risks and my constraints, so I agreed to do the wedding.)

After my friend returned from his honeymoon, I gave him a couple of CDs containing the images instead of printing proofs, as this was the preferred proofing medium. Within a day or two, my friend, acting as the middle man between wife and photographer, came to me with a complaint. He noted that there was one photo missing: one of just the bride and groom. The moment he mentioned it, I immediately knew that no such photo existed. I didn't remember taking one, nor seeing it as I proofed the exposures. In the crazy chaos that existed in the post-ceremony formal shoot, I had overlooked that one exposure, a fairly critical one, yet overlooked none the less. I had bride/groom posing with every other person or group of persons in the wedding party in every possible configuration, but none of just him and her.

At that point, I told him there was really only two choices, unless time travel suddenly became a reality. One, deal with the absence of the photo, or two, let me "find" the "missing" photo (i.e., exercise my master Photoshop skills). He chose the latter.

I told him that any subterfuge concerning the "found" image would be his; I would trust him to take the image and use it in the best way possible. The "found" image actually turned out OK, but I remained guarded about her reception of it.

I haven't heard yet what she thought, but I'm thinking all will be OK. I prefer the truth be know, but it's out of my hands right now.

The Love of Low-Down

A life-long love of low frequencies has brought me much enjoyment in a variety of ways. I've always had a penchant for the bass guitar. This fondness has stayed with me for the better part of the last 33 years, believe it or not. Just think of it: I've loved the bass guitar longer than most of you have been alive.

Within my life, the 5-string bass has been developed/invented and grown in popularity. In the earlier part of my life, the 5-string would have been impractical. There was little or no sound equipment that could render its tones well, as the tonal range of the time was somewhat narrower. The open B on the 5-string vibrates at 30.87 hz, whereas the open E, 4th string on this and most other bass guitars, vibrates at 41.20 hz. The frequency response of older stereo/hi-fi systems would have most likely rendered anything as low as 30.87 as distortion, or at least the stereo equipment I used would have. Audiophiles of the time may have had better experiences.

The human ear can distinguish sounds generally in the 20hz-20khz range, so the 5-string is well within that range, but does tend toward the lower limits. Sounds below 20hz are called infrasound.

Infrasound is a cool phenomenon. Sounds in the upper infrasound range most often cannot be heard, but can often  be felt. Since they are unheard, the sound waves that are felt are sometimes attributed to other things, very often to supernatural events, believe it or not. Infrasound can create feelings of unease, nervousness, fear or awe in the unsuspecting. Infrasound has been used in some film soundtracks to create such feelings intentionally. Infrasound can also have physiological effects, too, in some cases causing breathing difficulty or digestive problems. Then there is also the fabled "brown note", which is supposedly a frequency which creates a resonance that can cause a person to have an involuntary bowel movement. Recent research has more or less proven the "brown note" notion to be mythical, not factual.

Low frequencies can do a number on a fellow, though, even within the hearable spectrum. I was at a concert once, on the floor not too far from the stage. The bass player of this particular band would play a particular note on this one song over several measures. This note created a resonance in this venue that was transferred to my insides. The feeling, one of a very noticeable pressure on my guts, was super freaky weird. Yet I still didn't experience the feeling that my body was out of control. Thankfully.

A love of lower frequencies does not make me a universal appreciator, though. When some bozo pulls up next to me at a stoplight, and his subwoofers are pumping unwelcome sound waves out of his car and into mine, I am inspired to perform violent acts, not to appreciate his offering. In the old days, people my age would try to do this but would only succeed in creating an unbearably loud noise with their stereos, almost all of it grossly distorted. Technical advances in stereo design have both blessings and curses, I suppose.

For a while, I had in my possession a Rickenbacker 4003 bass guitar, a Mesa Boogie Buster 200 watt amp, and a Mesa Boogie Diesel 2-10 speaker cabinet. When a friend of mine would come over and we would be playing, I noticed that when I played an F (first fret on the E-string), even at normal volumes, it would create a resonance in the room that would cause things to shake and fall off of shelves. It was awesome.

To me, the best application of the bass in music is this: it must be heard and felt.

 

The Wedding Shoot

A couple of weeks ago tonight, I was hard at work photographing a friend's wedding. I mentioned this in an earlier post, and it has finally come and gone. I'm thankful. Here are my reflections:

1. It wasn't truly my first wedding. I shot another wedding about 18 years ago. It was also for someone I  worked with at the time, but was held at a dude ranch and had a very non-traditional format. Guests sat on hay bales and the altar was the porch of a dog-run cabin. I shot the entire wedding on 35mm film using my Nikon FM-2 and a cheap, aftermarket flash. All my efforts ended up as for naught, as the couple has been divorced now for quite a few years. Also, what the friend paid me to shoot the wedding I spent on processing and gave it back to him as a wedding gift. Net proceeds: less than zero. I kept none of the images from that wedding, and I now regret it.
2. This wedding was a shakedown cruise for my rig, as I had never used it in this high-demand capacity. I have two flashes, a Stroboframe flash bracket and a bagful of rechargable NiMH batteries. I thought I was set.
3. I learned that the biggest demand on a wedding shooter is flash power. Powering my flash with NiMH meant that I was always changing batteries. In some situations, I was overdriving my flash to compensate for longer shots, creating more demand on my NiMHs. At the reception, I found a convenient place to plug in my 15-minute charger and I visited it frequently.
4. Experience is indeed the best teacher for the wedding photographer. I'll be prepared to do a better job on my next wedding (assuming there is one) than I did on this one, and so on and so on...
5. Autofocus was my worst enemy. I am still learning the intricacies of autofocus on a high-tech digital SLR, so I made a few mistakes, thankfully none terribly serious. Most common: when taking a picture of two people standing together, make sure the focal point is not the background between them. Amongst my table shots, I took a couple of  pix with a perfectly focused background and two fuzzy people in the fore.
6. Be ready for a marathon. I arrived at the church at 4pm and left the reception at close to 11pm. For virtually the whole time, I was carrying my rig, which had become an awful burden by the evening's end.
   
7. Don't be afraid to be creative. Some of my favorite shots involved spur-of-the-moment ideas I had.
   
8. Don't be afraid to get in the way. My presence as the wedding photographer was fairly important, so I got over the notion that I would bother someone or get in someone's way. "Excuse me. Excuse me..."
9. Out of around 450 exposures, I culled out around 100, turning over around 350 to the couple. Out of that 350, there were a few that I didn't much like, but felt they were important and left them in.
   
10. My friend and his wife are very understanding about the challenges I experienced. Thankfully, I don't think their expectations are super high, otherwise they would have hired someone else. Hopefully, they will be happy with the results. I'll at least give them a good price to pay for the experience, which was good.

When Congspeak Goes Wrong

It's no strange thing for the workplace to have its own peculiar jargon, words used in professional conversation that the layman may not understand. It makes communication snappy and precise and keeps outsiders in the dark. At my POE, we have jargon, too. But we've also developed a way of speaking which is more peculiar and not necessarily industry related or jargonesque. I call it Congspeak.

Mr. Cong is a man on staff, part time, who does the work of a porter, i.e., sweeping, taking out the trash, polishing things here and there. He is a Vietnamese national, now an American citizen. Rumors around work are that he left Saigon from the roof of the American embassy, leaving his family behind because his life was in peril. If that is true, he later retrieved them, reuniting all eventually in the good ole U. S. of A.. Another rumor, less likely true, is that he has a cleft in his skull, under the hairline, caused by a Communist-wielded machete. Both of these rumors link to another rumor that, while in Vietnam, he was in the employ of the C.I.A..

Mr. Cong is a gentleman in the truest sense. Polite, well-mannered and considerate. He's also very short, which has given rise to tales of him having to shop for clothes in the boys department. His grasp of the English language has not been absolutely firm. His usage is usually somewhat broken, as he often employs speech without the benefit of articles, conjunctions and other parts of speech deemed necessary for normal, unbroken English. He communicates just fine, only without the spit and polish most of us employ.

When I first started working here, another co-worker, Mark, would speak to Mr. Cong by mimicking his broken pattern of speech. Mr. Cong takes no offense. He is, as I've said, a gentleman, and it would be beneath him to take offense at such silliness.

Over the years of listening to Mark talk to Mr. Cong, I and others picked up the speech pattern, using it frequently to communicate to each other. The intent has never been to poke fun at Mr. Cong, and thankfully he has never misconstrued that intent. The reason we have and continue to use Congspeak is purely for its entertainment value. However, the usage, or in this case, the overusage of Congspeak has not been without consequences.

Early in my tenure, after I had become more accustomed to understanding and speaking the dialect, I found it hard to turn off. I would find myself using Congspeak to non-speakers, often generating curious glances and furrowed brows. When I caught myself engaging in Congspeak with non-speakers, I would get a little embarrassed and switch back over to normal English, hopefully not letting on that I had just done something truly weird. It was strange. Congspeak had wormed its way into my brain and wouldn't leave!

The process of using the dialect involves normal speech that deletes articles, conjunctions and other parts of speech that smooth the edges off of the words that trip from our tongues. For example, the question, "Are you going to the store?" would be rendered, "You go to store?".  Another problem occurs when the speaker gets too excessive in the words he omits and cuts out essential meaning from his communication. Take the above sentence, drop one more word, and you have: "You go to?". Without the benefit of the word "store" or the assistance of some type of context to fill in the gaps, it's gibberish. Well, Congspeak is essentially a dialect without rules, often translated on the fly, so those things happen. Often, the listener just asks for clarification by saying, "What in the heck did you just say?" or "Was I supposed to understand that?"  These questions are often peppered with expletives, depending on the mood or the moment.

Extreme Congspeak occurs when the speaker drops all parts of speech save one or two words, usually either a noun, a verb or one of each. A more complicated sentence may be rendered by adding an adverb or adjective to this two-worded thought. An understanding of context is absolutely necessary in making sense of this austere form of speaking. What began as an entertaining form of speaking with broken English has been transformed into a guessing game, with the listener attempting to divine the speaker's intent. The speaker, in employing Extreme Congspeak to a complex thought, often speaks in a halting, gapped fashion, as he is thinking of which words he can afford to omit and which ones he must hang onto.

I still find myself slipping into Congspeak in the presence of the undiscerning, but I'm getting better. The others I work with have their own problems with Congspeak, often the excessive usage of Extreme Congspeak. Curiously enough, this habitual dialect has clung to us for most of the last 10 years I've been working here. Those of us who were using Congspeak early on have infected others. Some of these others have chronic issues with Congspeak, often lapsing into unintelligible moments of seeming random words, having no order or discernable meaning.

It's good that this is mostly in the confines of our workplace. Those who don't understand might think we're nutso.

Not-So-Amazing Grace

There is a version--a "revision"--of "Amazing Grace" floating around out there which takes part of the first verse, "...that saved a wretch like me...",  and replaces it with "...that saved and set me free...". I've heard the same revisionism on CDs recorded by supposedly reputable vocalists, I've heard it rendered that way in churches (thankfully not in my denomination), and I've heard it employed by people who think they do God's work a service by correcting John Newton's "mistake".

This literally nauseates me, and I disagree on a number of levels. Here are a few:

1. Where does anyone get the gall to think they have the right to revise the words of this great man of God. Rather than deprive themselves of the opportunity to sing these words, wrought from the heart of a man who truly knew what grace was, these people choose to deface this work with their own sub-standard sentiments. People: move on to another song that better suits your weak, ineffectual commitment to the gospel and leave this one alone.
   
2. Anyone who thinks this an improvement over the original neither knows the meaning of grace nor has experienced it. Newton knew. He had experienced it firsthand. The "amazing grace" of his God and his Savior really had set him free. For those who have experienced God's saving grace, this verse is an anthem, a song of victory, not a condemnation or a put-down. We are wretches, and our only remedy is God's grace. John Newton himself said, at the age of 82, "My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things, that I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Saviour."
3. I believe that this revisionism stems from a low view of sin. People would rather worship a God of their own making, not the God as revealed in Scripture, who is holy and therefore cannot tolerate sin. People want to think that they're not that bad, just a little so. They try and reason their way into God's favor, thinking that weighing their deeds in a scale and having the scale tip in the direction of the good in their lives is all it will take to please Him. There will be no reasoning before God's throne. No one will stand justified before Him on the merit of his own deeds, no matter how heavily the scales tip in their favor. God's holiness is absolute and unwavering. Man's sinfulness is also absolute (Romans 3:23). The sad and unfortunate truth is that people who take a low view of sin, both in their own lives and in the lives of others, think that they and others can come to God on their own terms. This delusion will follow many to their destruction. 

I heard a lady recently tell the story of how her late father hated this hymn. She proudly quoted him as saying, "I'm no wretch." Sir, you were wrong, but I guess you realize that now, don't you?

The Ravages of Time

We visited my Dad recently. He lives about 250 or more miles away. He and my step mom, within the last year or so, moved into my grandparents' old house. My grandparents' house sits on some acreage in a small rural community on the Trinity River in southeast Texas. This community, this house and this property were the place that I spent many hours as a child and a youth. There are many fond memories associated with these places and very few unpleasant ones.

When I was born, I lived in this community. Upon my birth, we lived in a house in which my father had grown up. We lived there when my brother was born. About the time I was born, my grandparents had built a new house not far from this old one. This "new" house is the one in which my father and step mother now live.

Prior to my father's living here, my grandmother's house had been vacant for some 6 or 7 years. She, in her last years, had lived in an assisted living center, what we called an "old folks home." She had lived in this house alone for a number of years prior to this, as my grandfather had died in 1983. My contact with the old homestead(s) in the last quarter century has been occasional and sporadic, as most of those years I have been living quite a few miles away. With Dad's moving into Grandma's house, I have been given a new opportunity to visit the community of my youth. Things have changed.

The first house you see here is what we call the "old house." It is that house I lived in at birth. It is that house my father grew up in. Needless to say, no one lives here anymore, save an    occasional wild animal or two. This other house is my Aunt Maggie's old place. Aunt Maggie was my grandmother's sister and had been a widow from before my birth until her death. She was a fun-loving woman whom my brother and I loved very much. Memories of Aunt Maggie are filled with good times.

I spent some time wandering around these old places, talking with ghosts, and remembering these good old times. Very little about these places is as it was. Structures, with the exception of the property my Dad lives on, are in various states of falling down. Former residents have left this earth, never to return. Yet I remember. I remember walking this place, talking to those here before the ghosts moved in. I remember life being in what is now a dying husk. I remember an earlier day of vibrancy and potency that is long gone.

To stand in a place like this, I forget what has passed since then. Though my two sons sit off to the side, out of frame as I take pictures, I don't think of them. I don't remember my daughters, my wife. All I remember is me and here. All I remember is Aunt Maggie, Grandma and Grandpa. I remember Aunt Myrt, Grandma's other sister that lived across the street. I remember Lubie and Frances Nichols, Mr. and Mrs. Hudgins, and W. M. and Myra Hooper. I remember old Mrs. Roberts. I remember Uncle Bosie, my grandmother's batchelor brother. I remember hanging out at the railroad trestle over the Trinity. I remember mowing yards, working in gardens, and smoking corncob pipes full of cornsilks. I remember feeding the chickens and milking the cow. I remember climbing trees.

I put the lens cap back on my camera. The present floods to the fore. My sons sit there in the Mule, wondering what's going on with the old man.

I wander through a shed at my Dad's house and it begins again. I see a saw blade, hung on a rusty nail ages ago by my father's father. I see things that I know haven't been touched since he touched them. I find myself swishing back and forth in time. I wish my wife and children could have known him. I wish he could have known them. I wish I could hear him say, just once, how proud he is of me for doing such a good job with my family. I wish we could go squirrel hunting once again. I wish we could eat pears off his trees, juice running down our chins. I wish we could sit down and eat fresh corn on the cob and hot biscuits, smothered in butter than not long before was in a cow's bag.
 
I wish...I wish...

Self-Imposed Complexity

I have a complex e-mail situation these days. Let me explain:

My e-mail addresses:  Over the last 15 years of computing, I’ve amassed a few.

A.  My Juno E-Mail – This is the first one I had. I got Juno when Juno was a direct-dial-up, no internet e-mail. I got it before I had internet at home. I don’t use it, but I check it every six months or so, just to keep it active.
B.  My ISP-Centric E-Mail – This has changed over the years as my ISPs have changed. Right now, I think I’m on my third ISP, therefore my third addy. Good thing about these is that they disappear when you close your account.
C.  My Second ISP-Centric E-mail – I set this one up because I could and I thought that setting up a business-themed e-mail address would cause my ideas of starting a media company would take off without a push. Didn’t happen yet.
D.  My G-Mail Account – When Google started their e-mail thing, I had to get on the bandwagon, so I did with this address and…
E.  My Second G-Mail Account – (see letter “c” above).
F.  My Yahoo Mail Account – I just logged into it and found it was in a state of “inactivation”. I reactivated it for reasons I don’t fully understand myself, except that I need it to access a Yahoo group our church set up.
G.  My Work E-Mail Accounts -  There are three:

1. My Primary Work Account – This is the one I get all my important e-mail through.
2. The “Info” Account – A generic work account to which certain generic things are mailed.
3. The “Admin” Account – Being the System Administrator for our e-mail system, I need this one for other reasons I don’t fully understand. I don’t remember getting any messages via this account yet.

H.  My BlackBerry Account – This is the newest of the brood. I created this to keep my more permanent (and more important) e-mail addresses off of any AT&T servers. I forward copies of my work e-mail to it.

I tell this only to illustrate how complicated I’ve made my life. I have to remember addresses and passwords. If you don’t know it already, you’ll soon find out that the older you get, the more you have to remember, and the harder the task becomes. I’ve employed the assistance of a password keeper to help me keep track of all the passwords I’ve collected. And if e-mail addresses weren’t bad enough, anything you do online requires you to login with a username and password, so you have to keep up with those, too.

Reflecting on all of this has shown me that complexity does not necessarily enrich one’s life. Some think that running to and fro, having your day scheduled to one notch past the hilt, and not having any margin in your life is desirable because it shows how important or how popular you are, as if those are related. That complexity doesn’t enrich seems simply obvious, however if it is as true as it is obvious, why do we disregard the notion and continue to complicate our lives? I suppose we feel it necessary to complicate our lives, since this is the most complicated, information saturated age ever. Each of our lives prove it to be untrue, though. Having more to do, being responsible for more things, and having more e-mail addresses than we need brings nothing into our lives except more stress and confusion. We need to lighten up.

To follow my own advice, I will start by deactivating one e-mail address. Address "C" will be the first to go.

Doug Burr

Friday night, there was a party for my friend, Adam. He's graduating with his PhD from seminary and his wife wanted to throw him quite the shindig. Well, the shindig was Saturday night, but Friday night, the family and a few friends were invited to a coffee shop in Fort Worth for some music and coffee.

Blake Hicks, a friend of Adam's and a budding musician, opened for Doug Burr. We had gone with Adam and Holly to see Doug Burr about a year and a half ago at the Modern in Fort Worth. It was a great evening. The Ron Mueck exhibit was closing and the museum was open until midnight. There was live music outside and inside. It was a cool October evening. Good times.

The Mueck exhibit was great. I'm not one to easily recognize the virtues of modern art, but Mueck is more than squares painted on canvas or pieces of wood glued in random sequences. At the time, Adam had already been a fan of Doug Burr for a bit. Doug was there with his band and they played a set of decent length. His CD, On Promenade, was new at the time and he performed a good bit of it that night.

Fast forward to present:  Seeing Doug in the intimate climes of a small town coffee shop was great. He, nor his music, were in any way constrained by the tight corner of the shop where he was perched. In fact, he seemed in his element, needing neither bass, drums nor keys to make his music sound as it should sound.

I must admit to being mesmerized at times with how natural it seemed for him to be doing what he was doing. I've never been a big fan of folk-type acoustic music. This is one place where Adam's musical tastes and mine have tended to differ, but I'm easily warming up to it, especially as it concerns Mr. Burr.

There are a number of songs from On Promenade that I just love. Slow Southern Home, Come to My Senses, Graniteville, Whiporwhill and How Can the Lark are the first five tracks from this CD, and they are just simply great. I've listened to his new disc, The Shawl, and find it great as well. The Shawl is nine songs that are basically Psalms set to music. It has a wonderful, ambient sound, probably the product of a little post-production reverb, but also due to the locus in which it was recorded. Production notes tell that it was recorded in Texas Hall in Tehuacana, Texas "in twenty-seven hours." Now that's an austere production schedule. I bought these two CDs from him that night, plus his first: The Sickle & the Sheaves. I have yet to delve into it, but I expect nothing less than I've discovered in the latter two.

Doug is a great guy as well. Very approachable, he was more than willing to talk about his music with us, yea, even eager.

Mr. Burr has a lot going for him that causes me to be envious. He's not a widely known musician, yet that doesn't bother him. He is completely content where he is, while at the same time he would gladly welcome being able to do what he loves--his music--full time. However, the part that always has escaped me as a musician (as well as many others) is genuineness. As a musician, I have always been grossly self-conscious. I have always over-worried about how I sound or how I look (cringe), and this has crippled me to the point that I do nothing. I don't think I'll ever grow beyond my self-consciousness enough to be a good musician. I'll keep trying though. Who knows; now that I'm old and not so much a looker, I may get over that crippling shallowness.

I've always liked the idea of local music and local musicians and wanting to support them. I'll be glad to support Doug Burr in whatever way I can. Keep up the good work, sir.

Laying My Soul Bare

I'm addicted to Altoids. Peppermint-flavored Altoids. 

I don't really feel bad about saying that. After all, how harmful an addiction is that? I'm not breaking into cars to buy my next tin or taking food out of my kids' mouths or hocking my wife's jewelry. I spend about $3-5 a week on two or three tins, depending on the intensity of my habit for that week.

Right now, I have an open tin, probably 75% consumed, with an unopened one waiting in my bag. Recently, I decided to start saving the empty tins. I've thrown away many more than this, but I decided to start saving them just to see how many I could amass. It also gives me a good look at just how my addiction is progressing. (See image of empty tins at right)

More than a month ago, I was out with the family for a birthday dinner. As we were on the way home, my wife mentioned that a friend had told her that Altoids were on sale at Kroger, 10 for $10. Even at the best everyday price I can get for singles ($1.50), that's a 33% savings. I swept into Kroger and picked up two boxes, six tins in each. I felt like I had won the lottery. Much like lottery winnings, the cache soon dwindled to zero.

The first time I remember experiencing Altoids was back in 1987. I was a security officer working a rotation in the Sid Richardson Museum in downtown Fort Worth. The attendant was a friendly lady, and we would chat when the museum was empty. One day she offered me an Altoid, which I specifically remember because of the "Curiously Strong Mints" terminology. Interesting, I thought, yet at that time I remained practically unimpressed. A few years back, Altoids became a regular part of my diet. Peppermint is the only flavor I buy, with maybe an occasional experiment with one of the others. I want to try Ginger flavor. Other Altoid-aholics have sang/sung their praises. Yes. There are others. Google "Altoid addiction" and you'll find quite a few folks out there, "battling" the same addiction.

The power of Altoids is in their recipie. Real oil of peppermint is used in their creation, and apparently a healthy dose of it. I think its this blast of peppermint power that I am addicted to. When I feel it surging up my nasal passages and cooling my throat, well, the world is just a better place than it was minutes ago. I find myself longing for that cool, minty explosion again and again. Sure signs of addiction. If it were crack instead of Altoids, I'd be laid up in a dilapidated building somewhere, my teeth all rotted out, having recently urinated on myself. As it is, however, I simply have minty fresh breath most of the time.

Another benefit which I regularly promote is the settling affect that peppermint has on the stomach. Feeling a little queasy? Pop an Altoid or two and you'll be as right as rain, whatever that means.

I'm developing quite a reputation as an Altoid-aholic. That is probably why our friend passed along that message concerning the sale at Kroger. I always have a tin or two handy, and if I don't then I'm either on the way to the store to remedy that or something is terribly wrong.

The manufacturers advertise that the recipe for Altoids is the same as it has been since its creation. around 1800. All I can say about that is when anyone at Callard and Bowser gets brave enough to change the recipe or to replace the oil of peppermint with an artificial flavor...well, it won't be pretty.

On Cell Phones

I confess: I am a shameless nerd. I like nerdy, geeky things. With that out of the way, I introduce you to my new phone, the BlackBerry Bold.

Since smartphones became, well, smarter, I have wanted one. With the advent of the 3G network, providing faster upload/download times, I have finally seen the usefulness of phone internet. More and more have begun making online content mobile-friendly, too.

I have never truly liked the iPhone. Sure, it's cute and does some cool things, but it all seems so trendy. Not being a trend follower, I suppose I never saw the iPhone as being that impressive.

The BlackBerry Bold, however, caught and held my attention immediately. Take the classic BlackBerry design, give it a hot makeover, add 3G speed, and you've got the Bold. Having had it for going on a month now, I must confess:  I still love it.

One of the first things I did with my Bold, after, of course, the transfer of contacts and the housekeeping that normally goes with that, is that I downloaded Bible software for it. Olive Tree has a great system. You download the Bible Reader for free. It is platform-specific, and they have readers for all the major smartphones. Then you download whatever Bible(s) you want. These are not free and differ in price according to which translation you choose. The price is reasonable, given that you would probably pay nearly the same for a hardcopy Bible of the same translation, if not more. The cool thing about their system is that once you buy the Bible files, they will work with the Bible reader on any phone. For instance, if I purchased the BlackBerry Bolder-Than-Bold in a year or two, all I would need to do is download and install the BTB Bible Reader and it could use the Bible files I had purchased for the Bold. No repeat purchases for the same Bibles. Now that, I thought, is value.

I make another confession:  I don't read the Bible as much as I know I should. However, I won't be caught without a copy on me now. Who knows. Maybe I'll slip up every now and then and read it like I ought to.

Small Pleasures, Tiny Blessings

I love the little things I find in the details of life. I love looking at a person, getting to know a little about them, and seeing how the bits and pieces of their lives have made them who they are. I love seeing the small, seemingly insignificant blessings of life, too. These are some of my favorite things. To me, it's like receiving a card from the Almighty. It reads:  "Hey, I was thinking about you today, so I thought I'd drop you a note. Take care. Remember there's someone up here that loves you." These little blessings communicate to me that circumstances have fallen in my favor on a tiny scale in such a way as to seem customized and hand-crafted. I've shared this most recent occurrence with some friends. They most often haven't shared my excitement, especially given the technicality of the story's details. Knowing that you, my readership, are technically savvy, I share it with you now.
   
I recently purchased some hardware for my home studio. I had been using a Firewire interface (the M-Audio Solo pictured at top) belonging to my friend/studio partner/guitar player buddy, Dale. It hadn't been a problem, as he didn't actually have his home studio up and running at the time, but with the day fast approaching, I deemed it necessary to get mine up and running ASAP.  

A recent mad-money windfall equipped me to purchase two pieces of equipment. I purchased a M-Audio Firewire 1814 audio interface and a Røde NT1A large diaphragm condenser microphone (pictured at middle and bottom respectively). I have a couple of dynamic mics, both Shure SM58 knock-offs, but I felt I needed a LDC mic for better vocals and perhaps a better representation for acoustic guitars and other non-electric instruments. My research showed that the NT1A was a well-favored microphone (at the right price, too). Running Pro-Tools M-Powered, I was somewhat forced to purchase M-Audio hardware, and the 1814 had what I wanted (inputs/outputs), also for the right price.

Like a kid at Christmas, I opened the box from Musician's Friend, eager to plug in my new purchases. As is the case with most audio hardware that interfaces with a computer, the 1814 was shipped with a useless CD of outdated, non-working drivers, so I skipped directly to the M-Audio website and downloaded the latest thing for my OS (XP SP3). I plugged in the 1814 and immediately noticed problems I had never experienced with the Solo. XP ran much slower and was very unstable. When I started ProTools, it would take forever to load, assuming it didn't crash (it did that on quite a few occasions). If I got ProTools up and running, opening a project file took another eternity. During these long periods of waiting, there was no disk activity, leading me to believe it was a hangup of some kind. When/if a project file opened, playback of audio sounded distorted, with a buzzing like a car's speaker with a loose or torn cone.

Needless to say, I was thoroughly frustrated. Deductive reasoning told me it was most likely a M-Audio problem, so I got online and submitted a support ticket. This type of support is not timely, so I waited. First response asked me for a list of IRQs (these are numbers identifying hardware, allowing that hardware to demand the attention of the CPU when necessary). I sent the IRQs and received a response telling me that I more than likely had a Firewire card problem (the thing the 1814 used to connect to the computer). I figured this was simple buck-passing, as hardware/software companies are notorious for blaming some other component for failure, but I began researching for a Firewire card that met M-Audio's specifications for Firewire cards. I found one that was reputable and only $30. This was only $30 more than I wanted to spend, but I accepted the inevitability of the event and prepared to shell out more simoleons.

One night, unable to sleep, I took apart my machine to determine if I had room for either a PCI-Express or regular PCI Firewire card. In the process, I noticed something that I had either forgotten or failed to pick up on initially. My Pinnacle video capture card, which has a multi-conductor jack for a breakout box (inputs/outputs for the video capture card), also had three Firewire ports on it. I thought, What the heck! Let's plug into it and see what happens. First, I plugged in the Solo, which Vista and XP recognized. Then I fired up ProTools with the Solo. Everything worked as it should. Then I boldly plugged in the 1814, fingers crossed, and fired up ProTools. As you have now guessed, it worked just fine. In light of this discovery, I pulled the old Firewire card. It had been a cheap one I purchased out of need, apparently enough for the Solo but not enough for the 1814. According to M-Audio, it's something about "not enough recourses", but that's above even my head.

Connecting to the original thought now:  I was impressed that the solution ended up being so simple. The solution was already in place, even before I discovered the problem, and it didn't cost me one extra dime. There you are, friends:  thirty of my hard-earned dollars, still available for something else. Go ahead and roll your eyes. Go ahead and show your godless skepticism. I know who solved my Firewire problems, and I am truly grateful for His input.

Forgotten Greatness

When the great personages of mountain climbing fame, specifically as they relate to Mount Everest, are recalled, names such as Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay jump to the fore. Lesser names may be recalled. There are names from more recent climbers, whether they succeeded, failed or died on the slopes of Sagarmatha, as the Nepalese call it.

I recently heard the name and story of George Mallory. George was an English mountain climber who, when  asked why he desired to climb Everest, said, "Because it is there." He had attempted Everest on two different occasions, both falling well short of the summit. In 1924, he joined his third expedition, and was paired with Andrew Irvine. They made the ascent using supplemental oxygen bottles, which was a new innovation at the time.

There are two ascent routes for Everest: the southeastern ridge and the northeastern ridge. The south route is considered to technically be the easiest route, and is the most frequently attempted of the two. It is also the most politically accessible. The southeastern ridge is accessible from Nepal, the northeastern from Tibet. Tibet, under the control of Communist China, has made access to the northeastern route difficult since the 1950's.

Mallory and Irvine made their ascent on June 8, 1924, up the northeastern ridge. They were last seen by Noel Odell, a geologist who was assisting them on the climb, ascending the Second Step, a hazardous outcropping just above the 28,000 foot mark.

At 12:50, just after I had emerged from a state of jubilation at finding the first definite fossils on Everest, there was a sudden clearing of the atmosphere, and the entire summit ridge and final peak of Everest were unveiled. My eyes became fixed on one tiny black spot silhouetted on a small snow-crest beneath a rock-step in the ridge; the black spot moved. Another black spot became apparent and moved up the snow to join the other on the crest. The first then approached the great rock-step and shortly emerged at the top; the second did likewise. Then the whole fascinating vision vanished, enveloped in cloud once more.

That was the last sighting of the pair on that day.

For the next 75 years, it was assumed that they had succumbed to the same fate as so many others had on  Everest. It is estimated that there are nearly 150 bodies of climbers still on the mountain. Most who die there remain there, as the recovery of the body is too hazardous for the reasonable to attempt. Those who climb this mountain assume its risks.

In May of 1999, a group sponsored by the public television show Nova and the BBC, set out on an expedition to look for the remains of Irvine and Mallory. In 1986, a Chinese climber had reported to his tentmate that he had discovered what he referred to as "an English dead" at 26,570 feet when he had been climbing back in 1975. This fueled interest in discovering what they assumed to be the remains of Irvine (An ice axe belonging to Irvine had been discovered in 1933, approximately 800 feet above where the body had been sighted).

On May 1, 1999, the Mallory-Irvine Research Expedition ascended the northeast face in an attempt to locate the body of Irvine and/or Mallory. At around 10:45 that morning, after an already exhaustive search, they found a body which was assumed to be Andrew Irvine. The team, scattered across the face of the mountain in an intensive search, were called together at the location of the find using code words. It was widely known that the radio frequencies they were using would be monitored by others and definitely would be monitored by the Chinese.

In investigating the body and the area directly around it, the group was surprised to find that the remains, given 75 years of exposure to the harsh elements, had been rather well preserved in the dry, alpine air. They found goggles in a jacket pocket, leading them to assume that the climber had died in the night. Checking the clothing, they found a label which read, "G. Mallory." The crew was blown away. In thinking they would find the remains of Andrew Irvine, they instead found the body of George Mallory.

After gathering samples of the garments and gathering DNA samples, the group "buried" the body and held a short, Anglican committal service for George Mallory. In a transcript of the Nova video, Andy Politz, a member of the search party, says:

We're not worthy for this. We do this out of respect for this man. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy. Slow to anger and of great goodness. As a father is tender towards his children, so is the Lord tender to those that fear, for he knows of what we are made. He remembers that we are made of barefoot dust. He flourishes like a flower of the field. When the wind goes over it, it's gone.

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Here's some links to my reading:
Article on Mallory:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Mallory
Article on the Expedition:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mallory_and_Irvine_Research_Expedition
NOVA - "Lost on Everest":  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/everest/lost/
Article on Mount Everest:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Everest
Images of the Find:  http://mountainworldphoto.com/IF_Pro/cgi-bin/ImageFolio31/imageFolio.cgi?direct=George%20Leigh%20Mallory%20Discovery

Where Has All the Time Gone...

I've recently looked around myself, seeing pockets of neglect. My camera has been untouched for months. I haven't touched a string on my guitar(s) in at least the same period. I haven't read a book. I haven't posted to xanga much either (with one exceptional, anomalous period of productivity).

Analysis shows that my life isn't full of idleness either. Other things are sweeping in and taking over the time normally allotted to these old friends of mine. Side projects, those great consumers of time, have been the primary culprit. I'm hoping with the advent of spring, these side projects will dry up and I'll find myself back in the company of my old friends, shutter and string.

Spring is one of my favorite times of year. Newness, freshness, and vitality abound. One cannot help but be swept up in the season when you're surrounded with such vigor. It means I'll have to start mowing the yard again (bummer), yet the boys are getting old enough to be a help in that arena.

The harbinger of spring at my house is wildflowers. We have a lovely variety of flowers native to our yard, and they choose to bloom right before I must start mowing. We're treated to a period of this beautiful variety of color brought on by winecups, evening primrose, horsemint, indian blanket, cornflowers, tawny paintbrush, indian paintbrush and even the lovely bluebonnet. There are others in there yet unidentified, also making their presence known. It's a beautiful sight, the top of our hill, when spring has sprung.

Then boys and I have been working on some home repairs, an ongoing project which may carry us into '10 before we see it finished. It seems a massive undertaking, yet we continue to plod along as quickly as I, the project manager, can push. Spring may breathe some life and energy into the project.

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Who ever knew that the purchase of a new cell phone could be such an invigorating thing, yet Hil's testimony proves it true. My phone is a work-provided unit, however I am the "Director of Technology", a true, yet misleading moniker. Being the director of technology, I have sway over cell phone purchases and contracts, a thing my boss, the president of the company, doesn't care to think about. I'm thinking of leading the power users--a group consisting of 5-out-of-8 users--into the realm of nerd phones. Having mobile internet and e-mail, not to mention GPS or a useful calendar/scheduling tool, would be a boon for us. I am totally enthralled by the Blackberry Bold and will be pushing hard for it. I'm thinking that some may opt for the trendy iPhone, but I want something with real buttons.

Amongst the power users, there are a couple of us counting the days until the upgrade. We nurse our old phones, our torn carrying cases, all the while ready to ditch them at a moment's notice. The other power users seem indifferent, yet I know they will like the upgrade, too. There is one in the group that would complain about any change, yet often refuses to speak, knowing that speaking such things will often mean that he is left out when the rest of us get new, cool things. Two more months until new phones, a subject so full of joy that I most definitely will need to write about it.

Hopefully, I'll post some--perhaps a little--between now and then.

In Search of Pi

I am not a mathematician. Though mathematical concepts came naturally to me during my educational phase, they held no interest for me. I never proceeded beyond Algebra II. I never took advanced maths, such as trig or calculus. Beyond the practical aspects of math, I saw it as boring and non-productive.

In math, even in my small insignificant experience, you quickly learn of pi (π). Pi is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. It is a constant, being the same no matter what size the circle. Calculating the value of pi is apparently not quite so simple as the mathematical formula: π = C/d.  It is very involved. However, this is not the magic of pi.

The magic of pi is that it is infinite. Those who have calculated pi to the extreme (the record is 1,241,100,000,000 decimal places) have found that there is no pattern or end to that point and none predicted from there on out until infinity, which is to where they assume pi extends.

I find this amazing. I do not mean I find the marvels of pi amazing. It is amazing, but that's not it. I find it amazing that people will marvel over such things, spending millions upon millions of dollars delving into pi, yet will ignore truths which seem more obvious yet which are far more marvelous. Everything in creation, pi included, bears the fingerprints of its creator. So, when a person sees marvels such as pi, why do they not immediately look to a greater wisdom, a higher power, that was behind the making of such things? Why is it so hard for people to acknowledge that God is behind all these things?

It takes a whole lot more faith in lesser things to believe that what we see evolved from that primordial soup. A big bang seems to be a shot in the dark. It seems to be a guess--a mere stab--at what might have happened if we deny the presence of a creator. It seems to be formulated by someone who, in their desire to write God out of life, takes illogical steps of fancy and places more faith in whims, theories and opinions. I'm amazed at the lengths people will go to in order to avoid acknowledging God. I suppose they know that acknowledging God will mean they are to be subject to him. If they are subject to him, they are no longer the masters of their own destinies.

Then again, it could simply be that faith is indeed a gift of God. He gives us the ability to understand these truths. In our natural state, we don't have the capacity to understand these things. For some, God removes the scales of human nature and reveals the truth that dwells beneath our existence. We will see then, all too clearly, the true nature of life and that it all stands as a tribute to its creator, the only one worthy of such worship and praise.

He does indeed call us to be his subjects, but he is a benevolent Master who wants only our good. We find, in giving up this control, that we are actually liberated rather than enslaved. We are set free from pointless, futile lives that end in destruction. We are set on a path of true knowledge, not empty meaninglessness.

Infinity is the fingerprint of God. Infinity is, to us, a theoretical concept that we can only acknowledge the presence of, yet can never understand. The universe is infinite, with no end. It goes on and on, passing countless stars, planets and galaxies, yet continuing on without end. Pi stretches out to infinity. They say there are small, attention-getting irregularities in its numbers as it stretches out to its known reaches, yet there is no pattern, no end and no reason to expect either of these in the unknown reaches of pi.

Pi is the fingerprint of God.

Suit Sleeve Phenomenon

My silence of late hasn't been due to a lack of love towards you, my xanga readership. My insufficient apology is this: I have simply been too busy. Things on the proverbial back burner have boiled over and left a reeking, scorched mess on the bottom of their respective pots as I have tended to those front burner matters. Excuses, excuses. We will make the time, you say, for the things that are important to us. Perhaps you are right. Pitiful apologies aside, I offer you this interesting post: The Suit Sleeve Phenomenon.

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Any of you who have read this weblog with any degree of regularity (both of you know your names) will know that I, by profession, am a mortician. A death services merchant. I have worked in this field for the last ten years. Over the years, I have observed many things which seem rather incongruous, given my field of employment. One, there is less crying associated with this business than you would expect. I figure that most dying folks are rather old and full of years and their shuffling off is pretty much expected and natural and not really that sad. There are other things I've found interesting over the years. Some families grossly overestimate their loved one's importance in the community at large. Other families will bicker and argue over the stupidest of things, refusing to put aside their petty differences for even one day to bury Pop. With a little experience, you can spot the fake cryers, too, with their insincere sorrow put on as a show to all present. The insincere cryers are usually those children that lived 1,500 miles away from Dad and only saw him every Christmas, yet they missed the last couple of years due to pressing commitments. Their tears are guilt hopefully disguised as grief. There are many more I could bore you with, yet I'll press on.

There is one thing I've learned that still puzzles me to this day. I call it the Suit Sleeve Phenomenon. Let me explain...

The bane of the mortician's existence is flowers. We hate them. Those funeral directors that don't admit to hating flowers are either, a) making money on the sale of flowers at their on-site shop, or b) liars. Flowers, at a funeral home, are handled repeatedly. They are moved into the room. They are moved from room to room. They are moved from the funeral home to the church. They are moved from the church to the cemetery. They are moved from the cemetery to the family's home. By this time, we hope to be done with them.

Many floral "masterpieces" take advantage of lillies of various kinds. In certain seasons, these lillies have pollinating stamens still attached. Floral pollen has the uncanny ability to horribly stain a shirt or suit if you respond incorrectly to being pollinated by an arrangement as you handle it during one of these junctures. First, you never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never try and clean it off with a damp cloth. That sets the stain in until Christ's return. Also, it is not best to rub it at all, even with a dry cloth.

One way to remove it is to take a towel and beat it off. The force of the beating, plus the wind generated by the beating, often dissipates the pollen and it mostly disappears. I've also used compressed air, like the kind to blow out computers and computer components. It works about as well as the towel beating method.

The best way I've seen is magical. A fellow director showed me this trick one day, probably passed down to him from generations of directors before him. I suffered a pollination one day and he rushed up and wiped the sleeve of his black/gray suit over the pollen. It disappeared. I looked at the sleeve of his suit, expecting to see a smear of orange-yellow pollen. I saw nothing.

Since that day, I have employed the trick myself, teaching it to others as I have had opportunity. To this day, I do not understand how it works or where the pollen goes. It is baffling. Also, since it may be a magical power accorded to only morticians, I would not recommend trying this yourself with your best dark suit. My usage of the Suit Sleeve Phenomenon has not taken place outside of the industry, so I cannot guarantee the same results to non-professionals.

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Next:  "In Search of Pi"