Aborted Memings, thoughts from the week, and Dropkick Murphys in Richmond
The silly one with jobs... According to it, I should really be a set or costume designer. It did suggest Recording Engineer, but only at number 39 after a number of horribly unsuitable suggestions. I briefly worked on adding additional information but it wasn't getting much better so I wandered off.. Software that attempts to use inference logic to determine something about the user but doesn't provide (obvious) ways to provide negative feedback on poor results is badly broken and it just wasn't amusing enough to hold my interest.
The week had some nice highlights.
Sunday began with jlfranklin coming to town to work on the townhouse. After that ended, he invited me to lunch with yubbie and colleenk - there was enough chatting and catching up after lunch that we outlasted our waitress's shift. The conversation had the tendency to drift to computer/nyetwork geeking often enough that colleen pulled out her book to read as the boys went off on yet another technological flight of fancy.
We wandered over to the Easy Chair in search of caffeine and were joined by walkinthewilds who was in town for a conference. More catching up and discussions ensued, plus playing with walkinthewilds' iPhone. The OS is definitely the most slick of any phone I've seen and part of me lusts after a well designed UI for a phone. But ... between the tie in to AT&T and the fact that I have a habit of walking into things at just the right height to crack the screen, I'll stick to a flipphone. That and I kind of _like_ not having the internet with me at all times.
The group migrated over to Boudreaux's where we were joined by
kittenchan and
vond. More catching up, geeking, and conversation ensied, keeping Franklin in town well past his initial departure time.
Thursay held a combination lecture/drum workshop/performance by Jim Donovan formerly of Rusted Root. The lecture part was enjoyable, being a combination of recollections from touring with Santana (and experiencing every musician's nightmare of obviously screwing up in front of tens of thousands of people - and then having to do it again and again) and applying the lessons he learned to relationships and life in general.
The workshop was fun - I rarely get to experience playing percussion with thirty or so other players and that large of a percussion group has a certain energy that nothing else I've experienced has. It was pretty basic African rhythms designed for beginners but I still enjoyed it. And it was amazing how just playing sucked me out of reality into a much simpler existence. My mind still wandered a little but much less than it usually does. And importantly, I completely lost track of the fact that I'd gashed my foot open the night before in a bed related injury (sadly, nowhere as fun as that sounds like it should be). It had been throbbing pretty much all day, but once I was playing, it just vanished from my thoughts.
He's collected a bunch of online videos and resources on drumming so if you're interested in performance or instruction videos, check this site out.
The performance had a cute moment for me - the nightmare he experienced had to do with losing "beat one" - the first beat of four in the rhythm most rock music is in. He began the performance segment with a piece he said was inspired by the experience. At this point, I instinctively can find the one in music I'm listening to and I had it all the way up until the very end where he sped up and went into a drum solo. I asked him about it later and asked if it was an intentional bit of humour - he admitted that in the course of speeding up an extra beat had slipped in but said maybe he should keep it as a joke.
Whether it was inspiration from the performance or not, I did go back to the office afterwards and finally finished up (mostly) a chunk of code that had been hanging over me all week.
Friday night's lesson was that if someone who grew up in Floyd and thinks that driving around curves really fast is a good time suggests an alternate route to a venue, saying no is in order. We were heading up to a small town just south of Lynchburg and he'd found some tiny backroad that he was sure would get us there faster ... while driving a 24 foot truck.
The route ended up involving copious amount of deer, fog, switchback curves with sharp drops and no guardrail, and ... a tunnel with a height restriction of 8' 2". We sat there, the truck at least six feet too tall to fit, facing the choice of going waaaaaay back to the highway or to go exploring the backroads of rural VA in hope of detouring around the tunnel. (with no GPS) We opted for the exploration and managed to find our way to the hotel eventually, arriving around fortyfive minutes after the direct route would have had us there.
The show was a wine and music event, with a mix of folk/jazz/blues/raggae/island/rock/funk music. The organizers apparently believe in having a variety and using diversely talented musicians, as all of the above was performed by a duo and a trio. The weather was absolutely fantastic - a beautiful Virginia fall day, the venue was pleasant (a Victorian Mansion that's now a small museum, the organizers and audience appreciative of the work, and the wine tasty. Oh yes, and after a week at Burning Man, the portapotties seemed both blessedly clean and free of "Happy Birthday."
None of the wines were amazing - I stand by my statements that Virginia tends to grow acceptable but non-notable grapes. There was one desert wine I'll track down later that was pretty tasty and the Rebec Winery Sweet Sophia spiced wine was interesting enough to snag a bottle of. Somehow the two $35 "reserve" class wines I stated (both Cabernet Sauvignons) managed to taste like watered down Merlot.
I did also get to try some of the Peaks of Otter "Kiss the Devil" wine. This isn't the watered (well, wined) down hot wine they had the the Vintage Virginia tasting, but the "cooking only" version. I've been unable to locate a Scoville Unit rating for the stuff, but it's advertised as being made with 30+ varieties of peppers and is what I would call medium hot. And given that what I call mild is enough to make some people cry.... It's tasty but be warned.
Lastly, the Dropkick Murphys are playing Richmond this Saturday (9/22) in support of the album that comes out this Tuesday. Any DC/Richmond are people interested in going?
The week had some nice highlights.
Sunday began with jlfranklin coming to town to work on the townhouse. After that ended, he invited me to lunch with yubbie and colleenk - there was enough chatting and catching up after lunch that we outlasted our waitress's shift. The conversation had the tendency to drift to computer/nyetwork geeking often enough that colleen pulled out her book to read as the boys went off on yet another technological flight of fancy.
We wandered over to the Easy Chair in search of caffeine and were joined by walkinthewilds who was in town for a conference. More catching up and discussions ensued, plus playing with walkinthewilds' iPhone. The OS is definitely the most slick of any phone I've seen and part of me lusts after a well designed UI for a phone. But ... between the tie in to AT&T and the fact that I have a habit of walking into things at just the right height to crack the screen, I'll stick to a flipphone. That and I kind of _like_ not having the internet with me at all times.
The group migrated over to Boudreaux's where we were joined by
kittenchan and
vond. More catching up, geeking, and conversation ensied, keeping Franklin in town well past his initial departure time.
Thursay held a combination lecture/drum workshop/performance by Jim Donovan formerly of Rusted Root. The lecture part was enjoyable, being a combination of recollections from touring with Santana (and experiencing every musician's nightmare of obviously screwing up in front of tens of thousands of people - and then having to do it again and again) and applying the lessons he learned to relationships and life in general.
The workshop was fun - I rarely get to experience playing percussion with thirty or so other players and that large of a percussion group has a certain energy that nothing else I've experienced has. It was pretty basic African rhythms designed for beginners but I still enjoyed it. And it was amazing how just playing sucked me out of reality into a much simpler existence. My mind still wandered a little but much less than it usually does. And importantly, I completely lost track of the fact that I'd gashed my foot open the night before in a bed related injury (sadly, nowhere as fun as that sounds like it should be). It had been throbbing pretty much all day, but once I was playing, it just vanished from my thoughts.
He's collected a bunch of online videos and resources on drumming so if you're interested in performance or instruction videos, check this site out.
The performance had a cute moment for me - the nightmare he experienced had to do with losing "beat one" - the first beat of four in the rhythm most rock music is in. He began the performance segment with a piece he said was inspired by the experience. At this point, I instinctively can find the one in music I'm listening to and I had it all the way up until the very end where he sped up and went into a drum solo. I asked him about it later and asked if it was an intentional bit of humour - he admitted that in the course of speeding up an extra beat had slipped in but said maybe he should keep it as a joke.
Whether it was inspiration from the performance or not, I did go back to the office afterwards and finally finished up (mostly) a chunk of code that had been hanging over me all week.
Friday night's lesson was that if someone who grew up in Floyd and thinks that driving around curves really fast is a good time suggests an alternate route to a venue, saying no is in order. We were heading up to a small town just south of Lynchburg and he'd found some tiny backroad that he was sure would get us there faster ... while driving a 24 foot truck.
The route ended up involving copious amount of deer, fog, switchback curves with sharp drops and no guardrail, and ... a tunnel with a height restriction of 8' 2". We sat there, the truck at least six feet too tall to fit, facing the choice of going waaaaaay back to the highway or to go exploring the backroads of rural VA in hope of detouring around the tunnel. (with no GPS) We opted for the exploration and managed to find our way to the hotel eventually, arriving around fortyfive minutes after the direct route would have had us there.
The show was a wine and music event, with a mix of folk/jazz/blues/raggae/island/rock/funk music. The organizers apparently believe in having a variety and using diversely talented musicians, as all of the above was performed by a duo and a trio. The weather was absolutely fantastic - a beautiful Virginia fall day, the venue was pleasant (a Victorian Mansion that's now a small museum, the organizers and audience appreciative of the work, and the wine tasty. Oh yes, and after a week at Burning Man, the portapotties seemed both blessedly clean and free of "Happy Birthday."
None of the wines were amazing - I stand by my statements that Virginia tends to grow acceptable but non-notable grapes. There was one desert wine I'll track down later that was pretty tasty and the Rebec Winery Sweet Sophia spiced wine was interesting enough to snag a bottle of. Somehow the two $35 "reserve" class wines I stated (both Cabernet Sauvignons) managed to taste like watered down Merlot.
I did also get to try some of the Peaks of Otter "Kiss the Devil" wine. This isn't the watered (well, wined) down hot wine they had the the Vintage Virginia tasting, but the "cooking only" version. I've been unable to locate a Scoville Unit rating for the stuff, but it's advertised as being made with 30+ varieties of peppers and is what I would call medium hot. And given that what I call mild is enough to make some people cry.... It's tasty but be warned.
Lastly, the Dropkick Murphys are playing Richmond this Saturday (9/22) in support of the album that comes out this Tuesday. Any DC/Richmond are people interested in going?