Yesterday Jen and I started moving furniture around in preparation for Major Change. We’re having our new bed delivered on Tuesday, and we decided to prepare for it by emptying out the Cream room to make way for demolition (it’s the only room on the second floor without new electrical runs.) This involved moving her dresser out to the atrium, the bed into the living room, the other furniture to empty corners of the house, and scaring the cats out of their wits. We also cleaned off the front porch, which had become a junkpile/dustbin since before Christmas—I found our marriage license on the deacon’s bench under a pile of junk mail from December—and straightened up the rest of the house. I’m hoping we can get the electrical work in the bedroom done quickly (read: two or three weeks) so that she doesn’t grow sick of the arrangement and attempt to kill me in my sleep on our new bed.
We then got a call from the godless heathens Cauzzis, who wished us a happy Zombie day, and asked if we could bring them some food. Never ones to let a good meal go to waste, we called
When we got back home, we spent about a half-hour attempting to stay awake until the Indian tryptophan took hold and knocked us out, but not before wandering aimlessly through the house trying to remember where we put everything.
Friday night Jen and I were invited over to Todd and Heather’s place to visit, but wound up waiting at home for the Accidental Tourist. I’m calling Jen’s Dad the Accidental Tourist because we’re never really sure if he’s going to stop by when he says he might or not. Sometimes he travels out of town on business or up to Pennsyltucky and drives within a half-mile of our house, and doesn’t stop in to say hello. Which is kind of perplexing, because there’s really nothing we’d like more than to sit and have a glass of soda with the Captain and shoot the breeze. More often than not, though, he zooms past and on to his destination like Byrd racing to the Pole at some ungodly hour of the evening, and Jen calls the house repeatedly to check in. (He has a cellphone, which I’m told is older than Methuselah and about the size of a luxury sedan. It is never turned on, and would probably explode if it was.) Usually he’ll have made it home at 4am and caught forty winks and then gotten up to go to work, and he makes this sound like it’s an ordinary day at the office. The man, I’m convinced, is some kind of Navy-programmed sleep robot.
Anyway, he did actually stop by Friday night for a slice of pizza and a glass of water, and we caught up for an hour, and then he beat feet out of here, and we were left with the rest of an empty Friday evening to deal with. Which we filled with some PBR and the A&E Biography of the Bee Gees. Now before you go telling me that the Bee Gees weren’t punk rock and all of that shit, consider:
They were the only band in history to have five #1 hits in the top 10 at one time.
They were one of the only acts to have #1 hits in four consecutive decades.
Barry produced something like 14 #1 hit songs.
Robin had teeth almost as bad as Shane McGowan. That’s punk, motherfucker.
Before you think I’ve gone all Neil Diamond on you, I hated that song Barry did with Streisand too. But some of that mid-70’s Bee Gees stuff is killer. This evening, Jen and I were discussing the soundtracks our lives, and there’s a period of time in my life scored by both the Grease and Saturday Night Fever albums. (Particularly, the theme to Grease for me is driving in a brown Duster across New Jersey with my mother, sister, and the Greame kids, all of us singing along with Frankie Valli at the top of our lungs. It turns out Barry wrote and produced that song.) There were a lot of things I learned about the Brothers Gibb, and after the show finished, I had to throw down some mad props to the boys. (I forgot to pour out a little on the ground for Maurice, though. Rest in peace, my man.)
So it was pretty humorous to have heard about four Bee Gees songs while we were out today. (I think it was) “How Can You Mend A Broken Heart” was playing in the local garden store, where we bought a gardenia to plant somewhere in the yard to remind us of Savannah. “Tragedy” came on in the warehouse section of IKEA, as we were trying to decide whether or not to buy the queen size mattress we saw there, which was suprisingly firm but forgiving. (It’s being delivered on Tuesday. Cross your fingers for us.) “To Love Somebody” was playing while we ate dinner at Matthew’s and tried to ignore the basketball spectators.
It was a good day, and we’re hoping that the protective shield of the Bee Gee’s falsetto harmonies will bring luck with the purchase of our new mattress.
My sister Renie sends our family links every once in a while from the newspaper that covered the Putnam County area where we used to live. One of the ongoing stories has been that of my high school music teacher, who’s currently on trial for sexual molestation charges. The story is a sad one, and something that makes me feel conflicted for several reasons. Now, I should point out here that he never tried to touch my willy (girls were his target) and that he had a reputation when I met him for being inappropriate with students, but there was nothing that was proven—all was strictly hearsay.
I should back up and provide a little history here. When I was in sixth grade at a school in Conneticut, the music teacher asked any of us kids if we wanted to learn to play an instrument. This was during one of those excruciating sing-alongs where she would bang on the piano and we were all supposed to sing with her. I hated that class, and somewhere in my logical brain (which admittedly was’t firing all that well until I was in my late twenties) I made the leap: If I take instrument lessons, I’ll get out of this damned singing class. Besides, I was bored, and the idea of being different appealed to me. (This was before the regrettable incident where I wore camouflage pants into school one day and was forever tagged “G.I. Bill” by the Young Nazi Republicans In Training. But I digress.) Honestly, though, I think this was one of those rare moments where a higher power made me raise my hand, because I can’t really explain why I volunteered. This decision would change much of my life after that point for the better, however.
We were given a choice of instrument: the French horn, viola, or the bass violin. Anybody who’s played any of the three will tell you that they are love-hate relationships, for different reasons: the French horn is a big round honking thing, sort of like squeezing a duck to make it sing soprano, and only those with superior control, chops and practice can coax out a beautiful, melodious tone. The viola is (to me) kind of feminine and whiny. The bass violin, on the other hand, is relatively easy to play, but it’s the size of your Uncle Ralph and about as difficult to move. And it sounded cool. For obvious reasons, I decided on the bass, and was quickly issued a half-size model to take take lessons with. (Later I found out the choices were determined by desperation: they had nobody to play those instruments in the band.) I was taught by a piano teacher at school and a guitar teacher in town, both of which involved shoehorning the bass violin into the front seat of my mother’s green Gremlin (with me in the back seat, how embarassing) and carting it all over creation.
My first concert was at the elementary school with a group of about thirty kids, playing something I can’t remember, and was relatively uneventful. But my music teacher knew the conductor of the local youth orchestra, and quickly put him in touch with my parents, and we all learned a valuable lesson: kids who play the bass violin are rare, as are the parents who support them. Soon I was second fiddle (literally) to a tall, beautiful dark-haired sophomore girl who I instantly crushed on, and who was a skilled musician. We played a mixture of medolies (theme from Cats, theme from Fame, theme from Chariots of Fire) and a few orchestral arrangements, one of which I still remember—Procession of the Nobles, from the opera Mlada, by Rimsky-Korsakoff. (That’s a killer piece.)
Anyway, we moved out of Conneticut that spring, before I could tour Europe with the youth orchestra, (still bitter about that one) and into New York, where the school district placed as high a value on musical education as they did on football, because the teachers were all first-rate and so was the equipment. When I met the orchestra teacher at the high school, he was thrilled to find that I played bass, because he was classically trained on the instrument. He was a big guy with a Magnum P.I. moustache and bad cologne, and he took great pride in his students, typically sending five or six kids to the allstate orchestra every year. I was mistrustful at first, for reasons I can’t explain, other than that his personality was full of things I didn’t like—he was pushy, arrogant, and overbearing.
However, he was an excellent string teacher. He quickly sized up my playing technique (which at that time was mostly familiarity with the instrument and a vague ability to read music) and sadly informed me that I needed to be re-trained in posture. I had been taught by non-bassists, and so my stance resembled clinging to a lamppost in a flood instead of dancing the tango with a partner. The bow I had been using was French, and he switched me to German, which was better for my hand and lent a more intuitive feel for the instrument. (This process was not unlike Tiger Woods learning to swing a golf club a completely different way, and took a whole summer of retraining.) My music-reading abilities improved dramatically with the addition of complicated Bach, Beethtoven and Mozart orchestral suites he assigned for homework, and by the time school started, I was at least somewhat prepared for the fall season’s concert practice.
My companions in the bass section were two supremely talented juniors who both resembled David Lee Roth in both wardrobe and hairstyle. After playing alongside them, being tortured for a full year as the “new guy” and learning technique from them both, we slowly became friends. As I continued through high school, I took private lessons from this teacher as I moved up the line until I was first chair my senior year. Along the way, I was encouraged to try out for the Allstate orchestra (an alternate my sophomore year, second to last chair my junior year), and performed onstage at Carnegie Hall—in checkerboard Vans—with the rest of the orchestra. It was during this time that I met some of my best friends (who I’ve been abominable about keeping in touch with) and found a way to make it through High School alive and in good mental health.
My senior year with him was strained, as my focus had moved away from music and into art; I was the lead set builder for the drama club, in the marching band (the girls in the drama/band universe were far more interesting than orchestra girls anyway) and involved in other time-consuming activities as well as holding down a job, so my practice time suffered. The situation came to a head when I was abruptly informed that I had two weeks to practice for Allstate tryouts, which was scheduled for the same weekend as the opening night of the school play. As I was way in over my head on that project, sleeping six hours a night, failing math, and not willing to ditch my existing commitments, I told him I couldn’t do Allstate. He was furious, insisting I could do both, and couldn’t understand my position. I remember at one point he mentioned that he always sent bass players to Allstate and that this would be the first year he hadn’t, and then it really became clear to me what the story was.
We both said some things we shouldn’t have, I was threatened with losing first chair, and things got frosty. (Well, things got frosty that time I helped fill his office to the ceiling with packing peanuts, but that’s a different story.) Over time, we both backed off a bit, made some half-hearted apologies, and I played first chair for my final concert. I don’t remember ever having said goodbye to the man, or thanking him for teaching me what he did, but I respect that part of him and what he did for me.
Hearing about his current condition, the charges against him, and some of the details of the case has been hard for those reasons, and because I don’t remember him as an old man in a wheelchair with MS—he was a big swarthy Polish dude who water-skiied and drove a black Supra with personalized plates, kind of a middle-aged high school guido who got a decent job. I can’t say that I didn’t have my suspicions about his proclivities, but I didn’t think it made its way down to four and five year olds. I do wonder who testified against him, and marvel at how difficult that must have been. For all his faults, he had a cadre of devoted families centered around his music program who put all their kids through the orchestra, knowing that he was a good teacher. My only hope is that he didn’t betray their trust as well.
So I don’t know how to feel about that situation, really. I’m sorry for the children he (allegedly) molested; I’m sorry for anybody he may have diddled with as a teacher, and I’m sorry for him. I also remember him as a caring and talented man who had the best interests of his students at heart, for all that matters.
Droogle
Do a search on what’s in your liquor cabinet. Results may vary.
Two freelance checks in two days. The VISA bill will be paid off and we have seed money for one of two major house issues: a new big-people-bed or 2/3 of the first floor sanded. Jen and I are going to sit down and decide what needs to happen first.
Does anybody have first-hand experience with a Sleep Number bed? We’d like to hear some anecdotal evidence to justify $1,500 for a mattress.
I pulled lunch out of the oven on Sunday and went looking for Jen around the house. Realizing she had gone outside, I found her in the garden, trimming back some of the dead brush around last year’s perennials. She’s been surrounding herself with gardening books since she got a new library card, and my family sent her home from Christmas with the entire horticulture section of Barnes & Noble. Lately I can feel her gardening neurons firing like firecrackers, and I think she’s been waiting to get outside in the dirt since the end of January. Our beds look a lot less barren than they did in February, because we now have crocuses sprouting like crabgrass, backed up by daffodils and some early scattered tulips. We have grand plans for our yard this year, but as always, the money situation means we have to be clever about our planting and landscaping. Jen somehow made $34.72 successfully spread out over the entire yard last year in time for the wedding, and I think she’s got similar excellent plans for this year. Hopefully that also involves my renting a jackhammer for a warm afternoon and pulling the concrete sidewalk along the west side of the house. (Thanks, Shelly, for the beautiful lavender, by the way.)
Meanwhile, a quick scouting trip down the back side of Beechwood Ave. revealed a major sewer installation along the property lines of our neighbors’ houses to the end of Rolling Road. Our house sits on the high side of what used to be a creekbed, and the southeast corner of our property line is the beginning of the low spot which continues down the hill. It looks like the County is going to dig up and put in a 4″ drainage system starting two houses down by the looks of the concrete junction boxes and corrugated piping stacked back there. We can only hope this will help dry out our corner of the property and remove the mosquito problem we suffer through in the summertime. Curious, though, is why they’re not starting in our backyard and our neighbors’, because he technically has a bog for a back lawn, and the area out behind our greenhouse gets pretty mucky after a good rain…
Our weekend was a very laid-back couple of days, involving some recovery time on Saturday, a scouting trip to Restoration Hardware, where we found a strong candidate for hallway lighting, viewings of Napoleon Dynamite (recommended) and Saw (skip it), and relaxation. Sunday I attempted to get some painting done after a grocery run, but quickly lost concentration and returned to my laptop to get the weblog running.
Overall, I’m very happy and impressed with MT so far. The novelty of using the web interface instead of booting into BBedit every time I want to post to the site hasn’t worn off yet, and it’s BEAUTIFUL to be able to edit one include file and have it propagate through the entire site. I’m happy.
And Linda, we are terribly sorry we missed your birthday.
I’ve not been using my camera these days for anything besides some random shots of the hallway which never seems to progress; it’s a real shame because there are things out there to photograph, but I’ve just not been seeing them. Today, through one place to another, I visited heather’s site (she’s also responsible for the mirror project) and through hers another good photography site. I started thinking about pictures again. I remember when I first got my digital camera and was shooting everything I saw—living in a photogenic area of the city made finding subjects easy. Nowadays, I commute blindly by highway, rarely stopping to search for interesting shots. Instead of just carrying my camera around with me, I need to start using it again. Additionally: How to rig an old digital to take a picture a minute for the old Kodak sitting on the shelf.
Continuing on another thread, I’m rooting for Jay to win tonight, but thinking that Kara will probably take the whole thing.
Helpful Design Link: Fontleech, a site chronicling free fonts for poor designers.
painted hallway, 2.23.04
This morning my neck is a solid chunk of concrete, thanks to the hibernation-mode sleep I got last night. The good news is that the hallway is primed upstairs and 95% ready for a final coat of bright white paint; the bad news is that the entire house is covered in white dust again. Meanwhile Penn has suddenly developed that wierd eye swelling thing where the inside of the eyelid blows up like a balloon and makes him look like a post-match Rocky. This means I’ll have to squirt medicine into his mouth (twice) and his eye once every 12 hours for the next week or so—I think the poor cat is ready to run away from home by now.
I think that’s my old guitar…but I don’t know the girl.
In the winter of 1986, my Dad drove me out to Mt. Kisco to look at a bass guitar listed in the classifieds. I’d just picked up electric bass after playing upright for three years, and it was time to find a beginner’s instrument. We walked up a flight of stairs to a dark apartment building and met with a longhaired, half-stoned dude who took us into his practice room. He had several guitars lined up and handed us the largest of them all, a survivor from the late 1970’s: an Ibanez Blazer, woodgrain with a black pickguard. It had the longest neck of any guitar I’ve ever seen (21 frets), it weighed more than a car, and it had deeper sound than a foghorn. I tried it out with a rudimentary blues line, feeling sheepish and embarrassed, and it sounded good. I don’t know what my Dad paid for it, but we lugged it back to the Rabbit and took it home. On this bass I learned to play, finding it was easier learn jazz than keep up with Geddy Lee (not that I didn’t try.) Later, I bought a Steinberger from my friend, finding its portability and size easier for college, and the Ibanez became second fiddle (pun intended.) Eventually, in the post-graduate purge, I “sold” it to a friend so that his wacky girlfriend could join an all-grrl punk band, and it passed out of my hands. I think the bass in this Microsoft ad could be mine, only because the pickups are white—we had the original pickups pulled and replaced by the music store in town, and for some dumb reason they gave us white—we never bothered to have them switched out. I heard that girl moved to Philadelphia and took it with her years ago, so imagine my surprise when I saw it again. It’s nice to think that maybe one of us got famous. (And thanks, Dad.)
Jen drove to the LP City last night after work to see her Mom, and got about ten minutes in with her before they threw her on a medevac chopper to Georgetown University Hospital. Mrs. Lockard is resting now, but things continue to seesaw between Bad and Nearly As Bad.
I bought the Eric Meyer book at Border’s this morning, paying the extra $15 just to have it now (quite a penalty, when Amazon is throwing in free shipping), but so far it’s pretty decent. I’d recommend having a good grasp of CSS before you start, as there’s stuff in the first chapter he’s hitting you with that you may or may not be familiar with. (The book assumes you have a working grasp of CSS and its properties, but haven’t really made the leap to CSS layout.) I’m halfway through the first chapter, and it’s a good study so far.
Unable to join Jen for what was planned as an overnight stay, I accepted the invitation of a couple guys at work to mountain bike last night, which meant I had to dust off Andre The Giant and try to locate all of my biking gear. We rode a reasonably easy trail up at Loch Raven, which predictably kicked my out-of-shape butt three ways to Sunday. (not to mention it feels like I’ve been kicked by a horse back there.) But it did feel good to get outside and ride again.
1956 Oldsmobile Holiday, Oella, 6.27.04
Jen mentioned something to me the other day that got me excited—she asked if we could go to Assateague this year now that we have the Jeep. Friends, I had completely put aside the idea of camping on the beach again with the Scout off the road; somehow it had never occurred to me that we have 4-wheel-drive again, and the possibility of camping was back in our reach. This week I’m going to blow the dust off the camping gear and set up an expedition for sometime in September.
Huh. Today at work they asked me if I wanted to go to Siggraph in August, which is a surprise; not being the #1 3-D guru here, I figured I was low on the list of priority conference attendees, but somebody above me thinks it’s important to have me there. Of course this means I need to rethink some of my plan for Jen’s birthday, but the thing I had in mind was going to have to wait for the weekend either way. There are some very interesting and possibly interesting exhibits to see.
Recap. Saturday: Had the Jeep inspected—it passed. Bought a ladder, tested ladder, returned ladder and bought a taller one. Cleaned the sprayer, primed and painted the east side of the house. Cleaned out the Taurus. Got some soft serve ice cream with the Wards. Sunday: Finished painting the house, had a tasty breakfast, bought a steel motel table, two camera filters and an Emerson 550 for $21. Drove to Dave’s house and enjoyed some good conversation, Indian beer, and new music (Thanks Dave!) Returned home to a delicious meal from Jen, and planned out a budget. This Morning: Registered and titled the Jeep.
Monday Learning Links. How to Pick a Lock. | MIT open courseware. | Bootable OSX DVD how-to. | Photoshop weathering primer.
There’s a big huge tent on our front lawn; it’s surrounded in mesh and fabric, and it lights up at night. There’s a pile of Andy Nelson’s Barbecue in our fridge for the rehearsal dinner. I have seven hours of dance music on the iPod for our enjoyment, from gypsy swing to Motown dance classics. We’ve hidden a trashbag full of cicada carcasses as far from the house as it will get, and hosed off the back porch three times in the last three days. (They keep coming back.) The cooler on the back porch is filled with cold beer. Jen’s bridal gown is hanging in her room with the door closed, and I have a crisp tuxedo waiting in mine (with some of the funkiest rubber/patent-leather shoes I’ve ever worn.)
The stage has been set, and when the rehearsal party has been fed, responsibility for everything will pass quietly out of our hands and into that of a higher power. Pray to whomever you like that there’s no driving thunderstorms like the one we had this morning; no sudden infestation of cicadas into the—knock, knock—otherwise clean tent out front (and give thanks that the tent guy convinced us that the backyard was a bad idea); no last-minute disaster that we’ve lain awake at night and not forseen.
Most importantly, pray that I don’t step on my beautiful bride’s neatly pedicured toes with my big rubber patent-leather paddle feet during our first dance (which as been changed to Louis Armstrong’s A Kiss To Build A Dream On).