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- Wednesday, September 04, 2024:
Quotable Professor Day
Wisdom from Dr. Peter Spencer's Pedagogy of Music Theory class, Fall 2001
" We're not dealing with Philip Glass here; we're dealing with someone who can write music. "
" 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. "
" Not even [John Cage] would argue that you need to know how to write a C major triad. He wrote so many of them! " - on the importance of teaching music fundamentals
" Fundamentals textbooks are a lot like gerbils -- they proliferate a...
- Monday, April 22, 2024:
List Day: Labelled Years
1979: The Year I Was Born
1980: The Year I Came to America
1981: The Year I Lived Next Door to the Fishers
1982: The Year I Was Naturalized
1983: The Year Rosa Started Babysitting Us
1984: The Year I Started Kindergarten
1985: The Year I Started First Grade
1986: The Year I Started Second Grade / Skipped a Grade
1987: The Year I Started Fourth Grade
1988: The Year I Started Fifth Grade / Was a Lunchtime Dungeon Master / Played the Cornet
1989: The Year...
- Monday, March 04, 2024:
List Day: Currently...
Currently listening to... Formentera II by Metric.
Currently reading... Children of Memory by Adrian Tchaikovsky.
Currently playing... nothing since last November.
Currently considering buying... a new couch.
Currently creating... an online art print shop using OpenCart.
Currently planning... a permanent migration away from GoDaddy webhosting to AWS for parts of the modest web empire I manage.
Currently watching... Shogun and (rewatching) Fargo, Season Two , both on Hulu.&...
- Monday, January 01, 2024:
Planned Projects for 2024
Ongoing projects
Caring for this family : A cool wife, 2 cool kids, and a decrepit cat.
Working 30 hours per week : With health insurance!
Being the webmaster for Janny Wurts and Don Maitz : Probably the most constant side project I deal with right now.
Keeping the URI! Zone alive : Lying dormant for its inexorable return to popularity, like the 17-year cicada.
Being on the HOA : Monthly meetings and litter pickup.
Projects that will probably happen
Tune my 8 year old cloud empire : Specifically,...
- Monday, November 06, 2023:
Vote BU 2023
Please make sure to write me in when you head to the polling stations tomorrow. I have a winning or undefeated record against every other candidate, and an actionable, common sense platform.
Target will be required to keep at least 3 manned checkout lines open during business hours.
Diners will receive 20% off their orders at any restaurant that uses a QR code for their menus.
Amazon can no longer sell goods from mysterious knockoff companies whose company name was invented by mashing the keyboard with CAPS LOCK on.
Senators from the great state of Virginia can steal 1 vote from West Virginia by rolling a natural 20.
...
- Monday, October 09, 2023:
List Day: Currently...
Currently listening to... Cameras & Coastlines & Covers by Smallpools.
Currently reading... Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch.
Currently playing... Starfield .
Currently considering buying... nothing.
Currently creating... social media posts for the release of the last book in the Wars of Light and Shadow series.
Currently planning... the logistics of kid care while Rebecca goes to Atlanta next week.
Currently watching... Black Bird on AppleTV+.
&nbs...
- Wednesday, May 10, 2023:
List Day: 10 Family Routines
Rebecca tries to get to a yoga class on Friday evening and Saturday morning while I watch the kids. She then takes the kids to Riverside Church and the Farmer's Market on Sunday mornings while I get my own downtime.
We've had a regular babysitter who helps us about one afternoon per week (or a weekend date night) when not enjoying her retirement driving around the country. The kids love her!
After Rebecca picks Maia up from the school bus in the afternoon, Maia has an afternoon snack, some no-people downtime, and then usually heads outside to play with the neighborhood kids in the street or the yard (mainly with bikes, chalk, or balls).
Ian will always run to t...
- Monday, March 27, 2023:
Backlogged Side Project Status
7 months after this post
1) Swap out my PC power supply, which currently has a 40% of not turning back on after we lose power in a thunderstorm.
I upgraded my power supply last year, but unfortunately the power issue persists. When we lose power while the computer is on, something in the motherboard keeps thinking it's already on and prevents it from being turned on again. Mysteriously, the only workaround is to move the computer to another room and plug it into a different outlet (though still on the same breaker). Once I turn it on and off there, I can bring the computer back to my office and it works fine.
2) Become fluent in a non-Java programming l...
- Monday, January 16, 2023:
List Day: Currently...
Currently listening to... Friend Like You: Bliss n' ESO with the Brisbane Symphony Orchestra .
Currently reading... Gift of the Magi by Miles Cameron.
Currently playing... Overwatch 2 .
Currently considering buying... nothing.
Currently creating... nothing.
Currently planning... to learn the Kotlin programming language by redoing older Advent of Code puzzles.
Currently watching... Neil Gaiman's The Sandman on Netflix.
Currently anticipating...&nbs...
- Monday, November 07, 2022:
Vote BU 2022
If elected, I promise to enact the following changes in our society and daily way of life.
All dishwasher soap must come with its own built-in Rinse Agent.
LinkedIn users will be banned if they put a double line break between every single sentence in their post.
Alexa will no longer be able to tell you about all of the amazing additional skills she can do.
High efficiency washing machines will actually show the correct time remaining instead of staying at the 1 minute mark for 20 extra minutes.
Restaurants will no longer be allowed to call their tiniest orange juice "regular-sized".
All bagging area errors in...
- Wednesday, August 10, 2022:
List Day: 12 Backlogged Side Projects
Swap out my PC power supply, which currently has a 40% of not turning back on after we lose power in a thunderstorm.
Become fluent in a non-Java programming language (likely Python or Kotlin) in time for Advent of Code 2022.
Migrate away from Eclipse IDE for my polyglot projects, possibly towards something like VSCode or IntelliJ.
Restart work on my open-source library, Sparkour .
Update the URI! Zone's SSL handling to use free, auto-renewing Let's Encrypt certificates.
Update the URI! Zone's ancient reliance on Apache HTTPd, OpenLDAP, and Apache Tomcat, in order to learn more modern alternatives.
Do a v...
- Friday, June 10, 2022:
List Day: 6 In-Office Exercises Killed By Remote Work
The Half Crouch : When you enter a multi-person restroom and, without stopping, fluidly crouch down just far enough to see if any of the stalls are occupied.
Whole World In His Hand : Balancing a soda, mouse, and laptop all on one hand so you can reach your badge with the other to get through a security door.
The Uppercut : Again in the restroom, when you make a fist and punch upwards into the paper towel dispenser to make enough room for the bottom towel to come out without ripping it or pulling seven other towels with it.
The Leaning Tree : When you're in the elevator waiting for it to act upon your button press and you lean ...
- Friday, March 11, 2022:
List Day: Currently...
Currently listening to... Hadestown: Original Broadway Cast Recording.
Currently reading... Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldtree.
Currently playing... Fallout 76 .
Currently considering buying... a permanent sliding cover for my work laptop's webcam so I don't have to keep cutting out Post-it notes.
Currently creating... nothing.
Currently planning... a trimming strategy to allow our new-kid-on-the-block fig tree to gradually take over the space occupied by ugly box hedges.
Currently watch...
- Monday, November 01, 2021:
Vote BU 2021
Having trouble deciding on your elected officials tomorrow? Write me in! Here is my eminently actionable platform, which I'm sure we can all agree upon:
Videos will not be allowed to leap free of a webpage and follow you down the margin.
Every time VDOT construction lane markings cause an accident in the rain or darkness, all Virginia drivers get $25 added to their EZPass account.
The teens will be renamed for consistency and ease of learning: ten, ten-one, ten-two, ten-three, ten-four, ten-five, ten-six, ten-seven, ten-eight, and ten-nine.
Logging in using Single Sign On will no longer flash through every page on the Internet in an epilepsy-...
- Friday, January 15, 2021:
List Day: 10 Vetoed Baby Names
Russel Sprouts Uri
Nate Uri
Mormon Tabernacle Uri
Brown N' Serve Uri
Thick Sliced Uri
Mellow Yellow Uri
Hurricane Uri
With The Fringe On Top Uri
Hup Uri
Brother Bear Uri
- Monday, January 04, 2021:
List Day: 2021 Resolutions
Go into a restaurant and have a pint.
Put gas in my car.
Finish the last 2 puzzles in Puzzle Boat 7.
Visit my new office in Herndon which opened in April 2020.
Restart Monthly Poker Night.
Drop Maia off at the grandparents' for a week, month, or year.
Smell the BO of someone outside of my family.
Enter a Costco without feeling like I'm an extra in the prologue of an outbreak movie.
Have at least 1 barbeque.
Go down a grocery store aisle any damn way I please.
- Wednesday, December 09, 2020:
List Day: Labelled Years
As an update to my last attempt , here are the years of my life with summary labels.
1979: The Year I Was Born
1980: The Year I Came to America
1981: The Year I Lived Next Door to the Fishers
1982: The Year I Was Naturalized
1983: The Year Rosa Started Babysitting Us
1984: The Year I Started Kindergarten
1985: The Year I Started First Grade
1986: The Year I Started Second Grade / Skipped a Grade
1987: The Year I Started Fourth Grade
1988: The Year I Sta...
- Friday, November 06, 2020:
Maia Battle Report: Year 3 Month 4
Maia at age 3 is showing small signs of brilliance, like asking what's going on on the other side of the world when the sun goes down, or making a connection between something brand new and something we learned and forgot months ago. She is into a rhyming phase where she likes to string rhyming sounds together like "hocky, blocky, docky". She has definitely entered the WHY?? stage of life which is more irritating than I thought it would be. All it's doing is training me to hold back the reason for something I say so I'll have a follow-up ready for the inevitable WHY??
We're working on her joke abilities, and she has over a 50% chance to guess the punchline of jokes following a known pattern, like animal sounds...
- Friday, July 17, 2020:
List Day: 5 Fun Songs Written During Quarantine
I'm Good? by Hilltop Hoods
Parmas in June by Illy
Bored by Tessa Violet and Misterwives
All Together Now by OK Go
Wash Ya Hands by KT Tunstall, featuring Grace Savage and the Freelance Hellraiser
- Friday, July 10, 2020:
List Day: 10 Unlikely Perils that Childrens' TV Prepared Me For
Quicksand
Fake roads painted on walls
All of the animals escaping from the farm
Erupting volcanoes
Trains approaching while I'm in the middle of a bridge
Trains derailing because the track switch is toggled to the wrong side
Convicts trying to steal my vault of gold
Friends pressuring me into smoking cigarettes
Trapped in a cage with the key just out of reach
Drugs everywhere