Another weekend of home improvements down and many more to come. I also picked up three career-related books this weekend, Code Complete, The Pragmatic Programmer, and Rapid Development. I'm reading the middle one right now, since it's the smallest of the tomes. It's got some good info in it, but I'll post a better review once I'm all done and have digested the content.

Life hasn't been good to NASA since I last reported on their craterization of a comet (see my entry from July 6, 2005). Apparently their P.R. department has decided that instead of performing a successful mission and having a grand news conference upon completion, it's better to Harry-Pottercize the next shuttle mission into hype oblivion (In other news, NASA obtained a temporary injunction against Scaled Composites LLC , who wanted to fly up a day early and spoil the end of space for everyone patiently waiting on the Discovery).

They are parents, as well as sons and daughters; triathletes, nature-lovers and rock 'n' rollers; pilots, scholars and engineers; seasoned space explorers and first-timers .

It was heartwarming of CNN to make sure we knew that everyone on the shuttle is going to be a son or daughter, although I'm at a loss as to what else they could be. As usual, AskJeeves was not helpful -- he told me that if parents are planning on taking custody of one kid, it will usually be the son . This is probably good advice, since it's painfully obvious that girls have cooties and never amount to anything (not even the first woman conductor of a major symphony orchestra ). The obvious reasoning behind this byline is that the original copywriter was going to open with one of those obtuse brain teasers about your mother's father's uncle's son, but was fired and replaced by a less seasoned writer.

So now that the cast of our farce has been introduced, we move to the setting, which in this case is a twenty-two year old shuttle named Discovery. Years of studies in the insurance industry have shown that twenty-two year olds crash more frequently than those who are slightly older (NASA's attempt to skew this by buying Discovery a "hands-free device" was aborted when they realized that the shuttle had neither hands, ears, or cell phones). The crash statistic's veracity was proven rather readily when Discovery's window cover "fell off of its own accord" and damaged some heatshield tiles while the craft was just sitting on the ground . NASA was quick to point out that this minor incident would not delay the launch, temporarily ignoring the fact that damaged heatshield tiles were a primary technical cause in the crash of the Columbia. A possessed window cover is just par for the course, and although I have never seen my driver's side window "open of its own accord" on my own Accord, I have seen it not open at all, usually when I've just pulled up to a Chick-Fil-a drive-through speaker. This forces me get out of the car, much like the astronauts who were sitting in the shuttle when it was finally grounded indefinitely:

On Wednesday morning, it appeared foul weather might postpone the high-profile mission. Repairing a ground heater earlier in the morning had delayed filling the massive external fuel tank.

On Tuesday, a cockpit window cover fell off and damaged two protective tiles near the orbiter's tail section.

But it was the fuel sensor that stopped the launch, a little more than three hours before the scheduled 3:51 p.m. ET launch .

So in essence, self-detaching covers and damaged tiles which could cause the destruction of the space shuttle are considered minor problems while knowing how much gas you have left is a critical catastrophe. I think that if I were an astronaut in charge, I wouldn't really care about monitoring my fuel levels, because I would expect them to FILL UP THE TANK. If you somehow run out of fuel in space, you may be able to fashion an energy convertor that runs on the international space station's malfunctioning toilet and Chinese pig sperm . Your MacGuyver options diminish dramatically though, when you need to retile the wing of your craft in zero gravity.

Note: In case NASA has now reported me to the Counterterrorism Unit of the FBI, or Professor Richard Berendzen plans to "get up close and personal with me" like his ancestor, I have created this commemorative picture of me being struck by NASA with a force equivalent to five tons of dynamite. Note how I am six times brighter. Enjoy!

Sub-Note: I refactored the Comments section code last night and a few directory names have changed. If you are having trouble getting the Comments popup to appear, please clear your cache and reload the page.

Governor's School Week: Part IV of V

Before my senior year, I was a decent (if uninspired) trumpet player, easily making last chair or first alternate in All-District Bands. Although I was no Jason Price, I had a strong sense of rhythm and sightreading, and a secret weapon, my "beautiful tone". It didn't matter if I was playing a marching band tune or the solo in a Jim Swearingen song -- the only compliment I would ever get was "Wow, you have a beautiful tone!". I was the Tone Master -- if printers ran on tone instead of toner, I would have that call center job wrapped around my pinky finger.

During my senior year, I started experimenting with oddball mouthpieces like the 14B3A and the C3P0 because I figured it would be more fun to play high notes in jazz band and pep band than have a "beautiful tone" (it was). With this in mind, Governor's School was my last stop in "beautiful tone" land, during a time when I actually invested some effort into trumpeting.

Every day we would have brass ensemble for a rigorous 45 minute period, playing classic hits like the Weiner Philharmoniker Fanfare by Strauss. From there we would break up into brass quintets (there were exactly ten brass players in the right orientations) for another 45 minutes. It was here that I learned such quintet life lessons as "The Horn will probably struggle", "The Trombone player will try to take over as leader of the quintet", and "Despite common assumptions, the two trumpet players will not really care who plays 1st or 2nd because they'd rather be somewhere else". Our quintet wasn't half bad, and played several gigs on Variety Shows and Share days, which netted me several more "beautiful tone" compliments, but no hot dates. Another life lesson I learned is that you can't use the trumpet to pick up women unless you're John Schurman.

Another two or three hours per day was devoted to Master Classes (where you play for people so they can point out your level of suck), Jazz Band, and solo work. Practice rooms were merely empty dorm rooms in the basement of the building, so there were plenty of comfy chairs and beds to "think hard about trumpet" on when practicing got boring. There was no dedicated trumpet teacher, just a horn player, Alan Paterson, who worked with all the brass. Alan also co-taught our daily music theory classes.

Our first assignment in music theory was to write an 8-bar melody with strict rules like "no leaps greater than a fifth". At this point in my life, I was not a composer -- my idea of composing was to take a pre-existing score, enter it in Finale, and try to make it sound good on a Soundblaster sound card. This, combined with my dabbling in pep band arrangements, gave me a passable understanding of notation and transposition, but never really piqued my interest in writing original music.

For the thematic content of my melody, I turned to the description of a world in a fantasy book I was reading. I was heavily into Raymond E. Feist books at the time (this was a couple years before I finally realized that you can find better writing in a first year ESL class) so my first melody was inspired by a world (Kelewan) which was majestic and alien. I wrote the melody on a mini CASIO keyboard taken from home, with its high quality One-Note-Polyphony output in about twenty minutes after lunch (while eating an apple stolen from the dining hall, in the days before I was allergic to fruit).

When I played it for the music theory class, it was immediately the target of jokes because the first three notes are the same as Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man -- which, in my opinion, isn't a half bad way to start a composing career. The next assignment was to write an 8-bar B section to the melody. My B section was well-received by all the students, and (like Congressional pork in a popular bill) made the mocked A section more enjoyable by association.

As the month went on, we had to add a single-line accompaniment to the original piece, and then an 8-bar reprise of the original melody "with slight differences". My slight difference was to end on a high C, because high notes are fun. By week three, I had the twenty-four bar MASTERPIECE you see below, and was really enjoying this whole composing thing.

Forward momentum was achieved on the night of the third Dance, when resident composer, Marvin Curtis, (doubling here as a Dance Chaperone) approached me at the chess table and asked me to expand my composition for four instruments instead of two (he asked a couple other students as well). I was so excited to do this that I left the dance immediately (it was only 9:24 PM so I broke the rules), went to the grand piano in the auditorium, and had a five page monstrosity written in longhand by midnight. Every piece needs a title, so I picked Scintillation, pronounced by the brass ensemble with a dramatic half-whisper.

It was for full brass ensemble, not just four voices, and lasted a whopping 53 measures. As you can see from the sample above, I even invented a few percussion notation techniques, such as the timpani staff which seems to have several lines missing (in the "biz" this is also known as the West Virginian Staff for its resemblance to teeth). The brass ensemble was able to play it after a few hiccups (like the horns hating the high B in the beginning), and after performing it at a Share event for the rest of the school, Alan made the surprise announcement that it would be performed at the Closing Ceremony. The praise from my peers, even those that had no idea what a quarter note was, was enough to solidify my plans to be a composer -- an abrupt transformation that took less than twenty-two days to occur!

Tomorrow: The Stunning Conclusion

Happy Birthday Liz Dixon, Julia Mays, and Omar Harrod!

Museday Tuesday

As part of this feature, which I started in 2007, I compose a very brief work (under 30 seconds) inspired by a randomly generated title from an online word generator or suggested by a reader. The composition can be for any instrumentation, and could even be a purely synthesized realization that might not be possible to perform in the real world.

I work on the excerpt continuously for an hour and then post whatever I've managed to complete, even if it could be the hit single from Glenn Gould Plays Tatu.

Superannuated: (adj.) Retired because of age or infirmity.

This excerpt is written for a string quartet with miscellaneous accompaniment, and almost takes on the vibe of a drinking song. This transition was unexpected when I started writing.

Conquering Mont-Tremblant

There will be no updates tomorrow, as I'll be flying home!

Concert Day

At last night's free summer concert series in Frying Pan Park, featuring bluegrass music by The Special Consensus. Admission was Anna's other two kids.

Recipe Day: Seasoned Steaks

I normally prefer steaks with as little interference as possible -- a simple rare cut with a bit of salt, pepper, and if I'm feeling particularly extravagant, brown sugar. However, this more complex rub went over well at the most recent barbeque.

Statistics

• Serves 3 - 4 people
• Prep Time: 15 minutes
• Cook Time: up to 16 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon sea salt
• 1 tablespoon paprika
• 2 teaspoons onion powder
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 2 teaspoons oregano
• 2 teaspoons black pepper
• 2 teaspoons brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin

Steps

• Mix all ingredients except brown sugar in a bowl. Add brown sugar last and make sure to smooth out any clumps resulting from living on the humid East Coast.
• Lightly rub your steaks with olive oil and pat with paper towels if you overdo it. Rub the seasoning all over the steaks. This recipe makes enough seasoning for 3 - 4 steaks.
• If you already have magic grill hands, do whatever you normally do to grill steaks. If not, this simple pattern is a good place to start and customize to your liking:
  • Warm up steaks at room temperature for 10 minutes. Heat grill to highest heat.
  • Sear each side of the steak for 1.5 minutes on highest heat (total 3 minutes). Reduce heat to medium-high.
  • Cook steaks for 5 minutes per side for rare, 6.5 minutes per side for medium rare, and 8 minutes per side for medium.
• Let stand for about 10 minutes and serve with a Belgian ale.

Memory Day: Snapshots

This picture was taken yesterday at 8:08 AM.

Maia was 12 days old, Booty was 14 years old, and I was 37 years old. It was not quite feeding time, so I'd gotten up a few minutes early to have a quiet moment with Maia and teach her how to cosplay as a Roman mummy. Meanwhile, Booty is trying to give me pink eye -- Classic prank, Booty!

Review Day

There are no major spoilers in these reviews.

3%, Season Three:
The third season of this Brazilian dystopian show is held back a little by a low budget and distractingly poor background actors, but there's a fun progression to the story in these 8 episodes if you can just go along with the broad strokes. The departure of a particular actor is disappointing at first, but doesn't harm the story as much as I initially thought it would. Free on Netflix.

Final Grade: B+

Song of the Beast by Carol Berg:
This standalone fantasy novel about a musician who was imprisoned and tortured for years without explanation and suddenly released is a satisfying one-and-done. It employs a few shifts in first-person perspective without oversharing, effectively building up to final reveals, and also uses dragons in a reasonably non-tropey kind of way.

Final Grade: B

My Grandmas Basement by Jarren Benton:
This hip-hop album is a mixed bag, bouncing between overly earnest tracks backed by poor MIDI trumpets and vulgar shock tracks that are so over-the-top as to be funny. Don't Act is a fairly representative track.

Final Grade: B-

Dark, Season One:
This is a heavy, byzantine puzzle-box of a thriller to get lost in, and get lost you will -- the show (in German with English subtitles) opens without hand-holding by introducing several generations of multiple families (played by amazingly accurate doppelganger actors in the different eras). It gives off a Twin Peaks meets Fortitude kind of vibe with a little Stranger Things mixed in.

The story starts as a mystery about missing children and evolves into something else that's clearly broadcast in the first episode -- this show isn't trying to trick the audience, it just wants to see if you can keep up with the tightly-plotted web. There are lots of dialogue-less, brooding scenes which I would normally hate, but which gave my brain time to remember who I was looking at and how they were related at any given time. Other than the repetitive boilerplate "creepy" music and an ending that's more pause point than wrap-up, my investment in watching this show totally paid off. Free on Netflix (and the second season just came out).

Final Grade: A-

Ian Week #12 Battle Report

Ian is 12 weeks old! This is like 3 months if there were a true metric system for the passing of time.

I look back at all the blog posts I made about Maia's weekly progress, down to the length in millimeters of her boogers, and am a little disappointed that I don't do the same for Ian. However, the effort it takes to keep two children alive is exponentially greater than the effort needed to keep one alive while writing about her like an 8th grade book report. I do try to make sure there is time to appreciate how awesome the kids are becoming, even if it is dwarfed by the time needed to keep them alive, work for pay, and live in a tidy house without fungally fragrant furniture.

At this time, Ian eats well, gains weight like a champ, but can go from 0 to 60 on being bored or hungry. He's a little easier to put to sleep than Maia was -- I can pop him in the Bjorn to get him sleeping, then transfer him to a bed after an hour of snoozing. During the day, he wakes up immediately, but at night the transition works smoothly.

He still doesn't smile much, but he can have short "coo" conversations and knows how to hit toys in his Enrichment Jungle. He hates having his arms constrained, but also wakes himself up regularly by hitting himself in the head.

Maia's Art Day

Notable artwork from Maia's kindergarten portfolio

L: I see a cat. (me, cat, rap?, path, stepping stones)
R: I see a bunny. (me, bunny, tree, grass)

L: I like pie.
R: I see the tree. (star, tree, dad, me, mom, cat, pillow)

L: I like my dress.
R: I like my shirt.

L: I see a cat.
R: I see a bunny.

L: The black cat sat on the wall.
R: I see a bunny.