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"

Thanksgiving is Thanks-Living

The title of this post is one of those sappy signs you see displayed at churches, yet I find it hard to disagree with its sentiment. I'll tell you why...

We went through a dark valley of under-employment and near-poverty conditions in the not-so-distant past. In the midst of this, I found that what I wanted to learn--what I diligently prayed I would learn--was gratitude and contentment. I did.

Gratitude and contentment aren't lessons you learn once, like riding a bicycle. They are lessons you continue to learn. Really, it is a practice you build into your life, sort of like the habit of flossing your teeth (one I've failed to implement thus far).

We all have a lot to be thankful for. For one, God hasn't destroyed us as we've deserved. Let's start there. I'm guessing that you're reading this from the comfort of your home, sitting in front of a nice PC, wanting for nothing.  The fact that you can afford broadband access at your home instead of $10/month dial-up is thanks-worthy. We all have mp3 players that we paid at least a couple of hundred for, which helps us avoid the inconvenience of those bulky portable CD players.

Don't misunderstand me. I don't speak from any moral high ground. Just because I was forced to see life differently by difficult circumstances doesn't give me any special knowledge. Just a different perspective.

I prefer not having Thanksgiving with our family every year. Our family gatherings aren't necessarily focused, directly or obliquely, on gratitude. I prefer to spend it with folks that we know have real gratitude built into their lives. It's nice, if you should so choose to express your thanks to your Lord for his generosity, that you not do so receiving weird looks of misunderstanding. It's nice to do so amongst people who know what you're talking about and pretty much agree with you from the start.

It's OK, maybe every other year, to do Thanksgiving with the folks. But a break from that now and again helps me remember to focus on the holiday's root, not what I've chosen to make it.