"The University of Florida has about as much right to call themselves a School of Music as I do to call myself a professional golfer. [...] Actually, I have more of a right to call myself a professional golfer." - professor

The Sixth Edition of the URI! Domain has now been around for a month, with over six hundred visitors. Although it never again reached the number of visitors from the first two days, there seems to be a small, dedicated contingent of daily visitors. Thanks to everyone out there for taking the time out of your busy day to stop by! Hopefully you've found something here to amuse you or something that made you forget about the tribulations of life for a few precious seconds. Knowing that people visit has given me an incentive to regularly update the news page, when in past years it often went untended for months at a time.

This weekend should be fairly low-key. Besides the usual rounds of errands, practicing, Irish Washerwoman, and geeky coding, there's a theory/composition department picnic on Saturday that I'll stop in at. Although there are familiar faces in my classes, I haven't even begun to scratch the surface of the music department. I usually don't meet a lot of people in a new setting; instead, I just establish myself and go about my business. After a couple years, people become familiar with me and meet me instead. It's not that I'm actively trying to be a loner -- it's just how my personality is wired. It takes longer to establish friends this way, but I think in the long run, the friendships are more lasting. Of course, I've always had the luxury of a few years to waste in the past. As a grad student, I could ostensibly be here for as little as three years.

There's a home football game today so traffic stretches to Hell and back again. I haven't really kept up on what the Hokies are doing this year, but apparently they have Michael Vick's little brother red-shirting, and beat some podunk school 63 - 7 last weekend in their opening game.

With no classes on Monday, I'm taking the weekend to do a pretty hefty project for another site. There may not be a deep and meaningful update tomorrow as a result.

"A company is trying to erase an embarrassing mistake it made on pencils bearing an anti-drug message. The pencils carry the slogan: 'Too Cool To Do Drugs'. "But a sharp-eyed fourth grader in northern New York noticed when the pencils are sharpened, the message turns into 'Cool To Do Drugs' then simply 'Do Drugs.' "We're actually a little embarrassed that we didn't notice that sooner,' spokeswoman Darlene Clair told today's Press-Reublican of Plattsburgh." - AP

I wrote another battle report yesterday for www.battlereports.com. You can check it out here .

CIA confuses reality with TV
Virginia Tech takes over the world

I spent most of Thursday and Friday packing and shopping and stocking up on Costco goods for the trip. On Friday night, I drove the cats to my parents' house after turning off the water and lights and random house appliances. Kitty replied by dropping a big wet turd in her carrying case, ruining a cute fuzzy red and yellow (and now brown) toy. Booty peed in her case, leaving a piquant odour in my back seat which won't go away until I've cleaned it for a few more months.

After they had settled into the new house, they were fine, and even did a little playing. I slept in my old bed that night, which triggered a round of dreams featuring people and events from high school and before.

To be continued...

A month ago I posted my Manifesto of Ambitions for the remainder of the year , so I thought I'd take today to show you my progress at becoming an ambitious, determined, self-motivated self-starter (with great people skills). The last day of the month is always some kind of throwaway entry, since all my regular readers are out turning tricks to pay rent on the first of the month anyhow.

1) Finish the sidewalk:
Any regular readers will know that the sidewalk saga ended this month, and now a quaint sidewalk engulfs over fifty percent of my house like an Aztec Pac-Man. I still need to create a planter box on the west side that matches the one on the east, but this task was rained out last weekend. Hopefully it will be finished this coming weekend. Outcome: Success!

2) Give a three-part Lunchtime Seminar at work on music:
The Whirlwind Tour of Music has come and gone and about forty people are now qualified to teach music in public schools. Maybe next year I'll do a couple more, so they can become tenured professors. I will probably never do three in a row again though. Outcome: Success!

3) Start playing trumpet regularly again:
With the exception of 4 - 5 days, I've practiced for a half hour daily all month. I hate the boring parts of practice so I spend more time playing through songs. My tone isn't where I want it to be yet (starting fresh on a Schilke 15 mouthpiece), but I have the endurance to play straight through the Ewazen, and my high range came back quite readily. Outcome: Success!

4) Visit the dentist:
I went to the dentist at the end of July . I never went to the oral surgeon about my wisdom teeth though. I figure they can pry them out of my cold dead body, since death is probably a more effective anesthetic than any dentist-prescribed gasses. Outcome: Success!

5) Resurrect Poker Night / Keep Poker Night Alive:
We've played poker every week except for one of them, and I've won once. We have enough people now where we can get a good crowd every week. In fact, we generally have to only invite people certain weeks so there's no gigantic million hour games going on (we do themed nights, such as "All Hokies", or "Ben's Extended Family" or "Anna's Immediate Family, Set 1 of 8" or "Good Friends From High School That I Only See On Poker Night Because I Never Keep In Touch With Them"). I hope that one of these weeks we do "People Worse At Poker Than I Am". That would be fun, at least for me. Outcome: Success! But No Profit.

6) General Goal - Exercise regularly:
I do sit-ups, push-ups, and a minute amount of biking every day, except on the days where I'm shaping concrete, doing yardwork, or moving other peoples' crap. And boy, have I moved crap this month! Outcome: Success!

7) General Goal - Cook real food more often:
I have decided that cooking real food is useless if you are only cooking for yourself. I have not bought raw meats (excluding hamburgers and hot dogs for festive barbeques) in months. If you want to help me achieve this goal, you need to come over for dinner and I will cook up a storm. Outcome: Failure :(. Blink tags are so annoying. I wish they were still part of the HTML standard. My entire page would blink just to piss you off.

8) General Goal - Make more of an effort to keep in touch with the old people and the new people:
There was a time when I would not leave a five-mile radius of my house or apartment to be social, and never initiating hang-outs on my own unless I didn't have to go anywhere. Nowadays, I do a much better job at e-mailing people I haven't heard from in a while, visiting old friends, and meeting new folks. Traffic cameras have spied me making the thirty-mile trip to Alexandria and its nearby environs not once, but multiple times this month! Ask anyone who knows me well and they'll confirm that this is something of a mini-miracle, on par with pre-cooked bacon or the discovery of an Eleventh Commandment. Outcome: Success!

So as you can see, I have successfully completed 7 of 8 goals for the month of August. I'm off to a good start! For the month of September, I'd planned to do the following:

1. Start composing again.
2. URI! Zone improvements
3. Remodel the second guest room.
4. Shake Booty (or just remember to feed her).

I've already sent e-mails to a few band directors I used to work with to see if they have any composing/arranging work for me. If that doesn't pan out, maybe I'll write some fun mainstream jazz charts. As for Zone improvements, I did all those in July, so that can be checked off the list. Since I also shake Booty on a regular basis, that leaves me with just one Thing To Do this month. I guess I could add "Turn 26" but there's not much work involved with that. If you have any ideas for suitable ambitions for me, please share.

Yesterday's search terms:
llamas pictures to draw, what does "your mom went to college" mean, street smart women wearing gloves beating men, bionic mouse photo, chips ahoy cookies and the 1960's

Cat Picture Thursday

Today's update is a rather self-serving one -- I realized earlier that Booty will be turning 4 this year and Amber will be 2. Kitty will be 7 or 8, I'm not quite sure which. Over the past seven years of cat ownership I've taken thousands of pictures and posted over eight hundred on this site, so I wanted to highlight a few of my favourites that may have been forgotten over time. Please humour me as I indulge my nostalgia and close out the month of August with a trip down Cat Memory Lane!

Early unnamed kitten in 2000, stalking a hamster but having trouble staying awake. This was during the time that Nacho, Bumpy, and Zoe were all name possibilities, although intertia and apathy allowed Kitty to become the official moniker soon after.

Some people are all about ass and boobs -- Kitty has always been about the legs.

Moments later, the Triceratops kicked Kitty's ass.

You can safely assume that we threw all our dishes in the dishwasher after this picture. OR DID WE?

This picture clearly sums up the rough and brutal treatment Kitty had to go through on a daily basis as we put leis on her, stuck balloons to her with static electricity, and dressed her up in angel costumes for Halloween.

This is Booty in 2003. There is a mouse toy on a string tied to a doorknob, and apparently it just KOed Booty.

When you have to teach from the worst sightsinging book in the history of sightsinging books, your best bet is to let Booty teach (it) a lesson.

I got tired of playing Fetch with Booty so I hid her mouse at the top of the window screen. This did not deter her in the least bit.

Every Tuesday morning I would come home from Walmart with my weekly allotment of groceries and throw the plastic bags around the apartment for Booty to play with. One time, they surrounded her and fought back.

I warned Booty against joining that gang, the West Side Huevos, but she was in her difficult teen years.

This is such an artistic composition. The only way it would be more artsy is if there were little grotesque baby heads in all the flowers.

A lazy Sunday afternoon in Centreville, 2003.

No, that curved dresser top isn't just perspective -- it's critical structural bowing under enormous weight. Your cat's so fat she fell on the wall.

Booty and Kitty engage in Synchronized Fighting.

Unfortunately the Olympic sport of Cat Stacking never made it big outside of our home town.

OMG HI2U

You can just imagine the crazy pranks Booty's cooking up in this picture. She ran out moments later and got some toothpaste and a bowl of warm water.

2005. Amber doesn't realize how dangerous this is, and Sydney just wants to sniff some ass in case there's leftover food in it.

Booty and the new kitten, Sydney. At least one of the three cats in this picture is not pleased...

The Caped Avenger and the Alligator of Doom. This was the day Sydney got spooked while wearing her Food Lion cap and bolted out of the room. Unfortunately, the cape chased her and the sound wigged her out even more. She proceeded to charge through every room of the house in a panic, reaching the speed of sound, before catapulting under the couch and colliding with the wooden frame in a daze.

Taking Stock Day

where the hell did August go?

Since the last day of the month (also known as "throwaway post day") has fallen on a Friday, there will not be any Friday Fragments today. Friday Fragments is a column of highly concentrated ingenuity, much like the end result of putting MacGuyver in a moonshine still, and to use it on the last day of the month (when posts immediately roll into the archive to make way for the next month) would be a travesty on par with putting the Jim Swearingen piece anywhere other than the Intermission on your concert.

Instead, today will be a chance to stop and take stock of what I've done and where I'm going. For anyone like Katie who was devastated to find that there would be no Fragments today, I'll even use the fragment spades to make you feel more at home.

Where I've Been

♠ January: I cancelled my World of Warcraft account, purchased Wario Ware, the craziest game of all time, and held the First Annual Impromptu Weekday Virginia Tech Poker Night (without Doobie).

♠ February: I took a week off from work and did absolutely nothing productive (unless you call beating Zelda productive), met Rebecca, and then had a lyrics-writing contest that Doobie won.

♠ March: I renovated my kitchen and living room, became the sole contributor to the Paravia Wiki (427 pages and counting), and had people over for St. Patrick's Day Corned Beef. Doobie was not involved in this month.

♠ April: Anna and Ben had a baby, I remodeled my bathrooms, and watched all five seasons of Six Feet Under while Rebecca was on a cross-country road trip. Oh, and bad stuff happened at Tech.

♠ May: I invented Museday Tuesday and had two parties: one for Cinco de Mayo and one for Memorial Day. Both parties had poker games, and I won for the first time EVER.

♠ June: I went to a Wine Festival, remodeled another bathroom, was introduced to sangria, saw Bill Cosby, and went to Jack and Kristy's wedding.

♠ July: Ella dressed up as Hedwig for the release of Harry Potter 7, and I went camping. Surely I did more than that, but that's all I can think of with my rapidly atrophying memory.

♠ August: I helped Jamie move, bought a bike, went to a fair with llamas and piggies, and made ten fifty mile trips to Bailey's Crossroad for work, earning $26 in gas perdiem each trip.

What's to Come

♠ September: The greatest month of all time (because of the birthdays it contains), I will be going to Bethany Beach for a week and celebrating my 28th with steak and potatoes. Charlie the cat, 20% of my sister's Christiansburg menagerie will also be staying at my house for two months, during which I'll introduce him to the mystical wonders of the catnip.

♠ October: October will be the month for remodeling my basement, and I may also try to make a trip down to Tech on a nice, quiet Away game weekend to help Becca get wasted. If I'm lucky, there will be a crappy student recital in the Recital Salon that I can turn pages for too.

♠ November: November, as always, is the Month of Thanksgivings, where I have a Thanksgiving Dinner every single weekend. Like last year, there will be a guest appearance by Paige of Spain, but she's only coming because her Wii in Spain is too far from the Internet hookup to download classic games and she wants to steal mine. The Passport Office might even have finished my passport by now.

♠ December: I'll be going to see Avenue Q at the National Theatre on December 2 and then spend the rest of the month wondering what the point of eggnog is. At the end of the month, when my leave pool is bursting at the seams with my three hundred plus hours, I'll sell some back for a hefty price, and then use the check with the "much less hefty because of taxes" payback to buy Christmas presents for everyone. I'm thinking live matching penguins for all my friends.

Happy Birthday to Don Linn on Sunday! Remember that there will not be a web site update on Monday, because it's a holiday and the only holidays I work for sound like Kermit and teach about symphonies.

Weekend Wrap-up

On Friday evening, I passed up the bass-thumping night life of the Reston Town Center to put the finishing touches on the Ormond Stone Middle School Band website, which is sure to revolutionize the way Centreville middle schoolers read about their band, and may also cure kidney stones. The old version is still up for comparison as well.

Saturday involved a trip to Lowe's for a propane exchange, because running out of propane on a Steak Night would be calamitous, and then the installation of a new spoon rack. I also finally finished the first season of Breaking Bad (to be reviewed on Thursday), put in a few hours of work-work, and then attended a barbeque at my boss' house in the middle of a gigantic monsoon. I also learned a new barbeque trick: when it's storming, don't put the beer cooler outside.

We got all sorts of errands accomplished on Sunday including the shrinking of my wedding band so I don't Jay-Chin it across the room during a staff meeting, and the purchasing of a wedding gift for another couple, whose single silver picture frame on Crate and Barrel costs more than our entire reception. We then made some aromatic Chicken Cordon Bleu for dinner, using the meat tenderizer that Katie Morton bought for us.

After dinner, we watched the movie, Duplicity, a heisty movie which was a little slow to start, but was surprisingly easy to keep up with and ended well. Clive Owen is still mostly a tool though. Final Grade: B

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. 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's a poorly constructed slum of a song supported by a foundation of droning double stops and abused tubas.

Lissome: (adj.) Agile, nimble, or active

This excerpt is written for selected percussion instruments wrapped around a creamy brass quintet center, and articulated with a banjo patch.

Memory Day: Snapshots

Here's another picture of me clowning around on my pride-and-joy He-man bike. I'm wearing the official sweatshirt (depicting a wise owl) of James K. Polk Elementary School which means this picture was taken in late 1985 or early 1986 while I was in the first grade.

End-of-the-Month Media Day

New photos have been added to the Life, 2012 album. As a reminder, you can type N and P to go to the Next and Previous pictures when you have opened up one of the photos.

Have a good holiday weekend!

End-of-the-Month Highlights Day

A few new photos have been added to the Life, 2015 album, but the large majority of activity was in the new Europe album.

• Events
  • Had our parents over for dinner and post-Europe slides on S 8/8.
  
  
  • Took a rock-climbing class on S 8/9 and learned how to belay.
  
  
  • Met Amanda and Frank for dinner on Lake Anne on F 8/14.
  
  
  • Played Dungeons and Dragons with the Ahlbins on S 8/15.
  
  
  • Went rock-climbing again on S 8/16.
  
  
  • Went to the Smiths for Game Night on S 8/21.
  
  
  • Rebecca went to Ocean City for a B(e)achelorette Weekend on F 8/28.


• Projects
  • Rearranged the living room.
  
  
  • Patched the holes in the foundation of my relationships house, and repaired some glue seams in our carpets.
  
  
  • Started experimenting with various game development programming libraries.


• Consumerism
  • Enjoyed seasons of Newsroom, Orphan Black, and Silicon Valley (reviews on Thursday), and the movie, Ex Machina. Also started watching Narcos and am really digging it.
  
  
  • Played no new games this month, but still have Hearthstone on auto-pilot.
  
  
  • Got a new queen-sized bed for the harem, and a new camera (Canon ELPH 340 HS) to replace the one I inevitably dropped that no longer focuses correctly.

August's Final Grade: B+, a good month of downtime after Europe to regenerate before "back-to-school" season at work.

End-of-the-Month Highlights Day

New photos have been added to the Life, 2016 album. I also have a new Colorado, 2016 album but it doesn't appear on my Photos page because Google is in the processing of breaking another legacy product (Picasa) in favour of their own awful offering. The old Picasa API will not show albums just created in Google Photos because Google Photos has no toggle to set an album as "public" (This is also called "irony"). I'll have to sort out the APIs another day and recode the Photos page accordingly.

-10 points from House Google.

• Events
  • Hiked in Sky Meadows Park on S 7/31.
  
  
  • Watched the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics with the Lowrys on F 8/5.
  
  
  • Went to a yoga birthday party on S 8/6.
  
  
  • Sent Titan back home and visited Old Ox Brewery with Rebecca's parents on S 8/7.
  
  
  • Went to the Smiths for some midweek Olympics on W 8/10.
  
  
  • Hung out in Boulder with Emily, going biking, hiking to Red Rocks (1 mile), and drinking a delicious Coffee Kolsch on S 8/13.
  
  
  • Hiked 7 miles on the Flatirons 1/2 trail and part of the Royal Arch trail, then had delicious Belgian beers at West Flanders on S 8/14.
  
  
  • Hiked 3 miles to Dream Lake and Emerald Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park on M 8/15.
  
  
  • Hiked 9 miles to Fern Lake in RMNP on T 8/16.
  
  
  • Hiked 9 miles to Black Lake in RMNP on W 8/17.
  
  
  • Hiked 10 miles to Sky Pond in RMNP on F 8/19 then got couples massages.
  
  
  • Drove Trail Ridge Road through the alpine regions of RMNP while listening to dance electronica by Parov Stelar that made it seem like we were playing live-action Mario Kart on S 8/20.
  
  
  • Attended the last day of the Breckenridge International Festival of Arts, featuring acrobat dinosaurs and normal acrobats, and also hiked 5 miles on Peak Trail #45 on S 8/21.
  
  
  • Hiked 7 miles up the 14er, Quandary Peak, on M 8/22.
  
  
  • Went horseback riding in Breckenridge on T 8/23.
  
  
  • Met Mike and Annie in Denver on W 8/24.
  
  
  • Visited the Science Museum and saw Ronnie Chieng at Comedy Works on H 8/25.
  
  
  • Stopped by Alexandria to visit with the visiting nephews on S 8/27.


• Projects
  • Did no useful projects this month.


• Consumerism
  • Ordered a new desktop computer in the face of sporadic IRQ crashes on the one that's almost 6 years old.
  
  
  • Decided to begin researching standing desks.
  
  
  • Got to level 230 in Overwatch.
  
  
  • Still enjoying Fargo, Season Two, and started Limitless, Season One as a lightweight treadmill show.
  
  
  • Enjoyed music by Spose, and compiled a list of fun album requests for next month's birthday.

August's Final Grade: A, two weeks of vacation in the mountains!

End-of-the-Month Highlights Day

New photos have been added to the Life, 2018 album. Google Photos sucks.

• Events
  • Went to the dentist for an overly long cleaning on F 8/3. Amber's front canine tooth started to fall out. Had burgers at Beer-Bourbon-Burgers for dinner.
  
  
  • Went to the Ambrogne's in Burke for dinner on S 8/4. Maia got to play with Emma and Norah.
  
  
  • Had a Solo Dad Date at Miller's while Rebecca and Maia visited some grandparents on S 8/5.
  
  
  • Did a full 9 hour day in the office on M 8/6, the first since I left that startup last August.
  
  
  • Pulled Amber's tooth on W 8/8, saving us an expensive vet trip.
  
  
  • Visited the Ahlbin clan in Fredericksburg on F 8/10 - S 8/11.
  
  
  • Went to Burton's for dinner on S 8/12.
  
  
  • Converged on my parent's house on W 8/15 for the arrival of Maia's 3 cousins.
  
  
  • Sara came to visit from Minneapolis and stayed in our basement starting on H 8/16. Had Car over for a Sara-themed taco night.
  
  
  • Visited my parents again for a massive grandkid-fest and taco party on F 8/17.
  
  
  • Went for a brief, humid walk with Maia at Claude Moore on S 8/18 then had dinner at The V.
  
  
  • Threw a party for Sara's return on S 8/19, sans meats, because, yogis.
  
  
  • Had a yogi salmon dinner with Rebecca, Sara, and Car, and also Facetimed Michelle in Berkeley on M 8/20.
  
  
  • The weather broke and Maia got to stroller-walk around Lake Anne on W 8/22.
  
  
  • Sara returned to Minneapolis on H 8/23. Took Maia for a cool walk in Algonkian.
  
  
  • Rented a cabin in Strasburg with Tammy and Zoe for the weekend, F 8/24 - M 8/27.
  
  
  • The Uri grandparents came to visit Maia on H 8/30.
  
  
  • Got my brake pads replaced on F 8/31. Had a solo dinner date at Miller's while Rebecca and Maia went out to visit Elizabeth, Sammy, and Renae.


• Projects
  • No unusual projects this month.


• Consumerism
  • Enjoyed watching Safe, Season One and reading The Gallant by Janny Wurts.
  
  
  • No new music of note this month.
  
  
  • Played Dead Cells in rare bits of free time.

August's Final Grade: B, neverending heat detracts from a nice month

End-of-the-Month Highlights Day

New photos have been added to the Life, 2020 album.

• Events
  • Drove home from the Outer Banks on S 8/2.
  
  
  • Rebecca and Maia went to the Smith's house for a two-night getaway on F 8/7 while I stayed home and talked to no one.
  
  
  • The Smith girls came over for a visit on H 8/13.
  
  
  • Came in 25th in a virtual work poker tournament on H 8/20.
  
  
  • Porch visit with Rebecca's parents on S 8/22.
  
  
  • Porch visit with my parents on H 8/27.
  
  
  • Caught up with Jack on the porch on S 8/29.


• Projects
  • Released the Janny Wurts - Official Website on S 8/16.


• Consumerism
  • Did our first ever grocery pre-order and pick-up at Giant on M 8/3 after the smashing success we had at the beach.
  
  
  • Started playing on the Oculus Rift again, in spite of the failure of its right headphone. Playing Beat Saber and Asgard's Wrath.
  
  
  • Enjoyed watching Hamilton this month.
  
  
  • No new music of note this month.

August's Final Grade: B, Made it through the second longest month of the year!

End-of-the-Month Highlights Day

New photos have been added to the Life, 2022 album.

• Events
  • Maia's first school event, Popsicles with the Principal, on H 8/4.
  
  
  • Date Night at Parallel Wine & Whiskey Bar on S 8/6.
  
  
  • Rebecca's parents visited on S 8/7.
  
  
  • Ian got his first COVID shot on F 8/12. Maia went to my parents' for the weekend, F 8/12 - S 8/14.
  
  
  • Dinner at Burton's with Ian on S 8/13.
  
  
  • Flew up to Rhode Island to visit my sister and her family, T 8/16 - F 8/19.
  
  
  • Rebecca's parents visited on S 8/20. Family dinner at Burton's.
  
  
  • Open House at Forest Grove Elementary School, on T 8/23.
  
  
  • Maia started kindergarten in Ms. Mocello's class on H 8/25.
  
  
  • Had Tammy and Patrick over for dinner (pork pesto pasta) on S 8/27.
  
  
  • Visited the Wilmers in Arlington on S 8/28.
  
  
  • Family dinner at Fire Works Pizza on W 8/31.


• Projects
  • Repaired the blown fuse in our 11-year-old toaster oven on T 8/2.
  
  
  • Continued maintaining the common area along Lillard Rd.
  
  
  • Troubleshooting on our 18-year-old "water too hot" water heater, ultimately leading to its replacement.
  
  
  • Upgraded my PC's power supply.
  
  
  • Combined, purged, and reorganized our 900 CD collection.


• Consumerism
  • Winding down on Fallout 76 at level 312.
  
  
  • Enjoyed Season Two of Only Murders in the Building and Season One of Everybody Hates Chris.
  
  
  • Enjoyed the album, HANDS by Wallis Bird.
  
  

August's Final Grade: B+, no one was sick!