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.

---

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