Pretty eventful year!

In August, I got married.  The ceremony was lovely and simple and homespun.  Best of all, that day, E started calling me Papa.  Still makes my heart turn over when she says it.

R and I sold her old house and we got all of her and E's stuff pretty much integrated into my thought-it-was-huge-but-now-not-so-sure house.  A LOT of ( Read more... )

E is visiting her grandparents for two weeks, and her grandmother wants to watch the old Disney Cinderella with her.  R and I would certainly not have proposed it ourselves -- this is the kind of blatant "girls' only goal in life is to grow up to be a princess and marry a prince" BS that she gets too much of from every direction as it is.  But is ( Read more... )

My job is building better ways for people to tell computers what to do. Right now, the ways people tell computers what to do make it easy to tell them wrong, and this leads to computers that don't work well and that bad people can take over easily.
My job is also to tell other people how to understand computers and how to build them right. I work ( Read more... )

Almost the only time I get to sing these days (except for folk songs) is when I visit my mother. Her eyes aren't so good these days and she can't sit long enough to practice very much, so it's hard to get new things under her fingers; we tend to just return to the same group of Schubert songs every time. And each time, I think to myself, "What ( Read more... )

When I visit my family in Longmont (CO), I always try to make it to any Contact Improvisation events that might be happening in Boulder -- they have a wonderful community here, much bigger and more energetic and full of amazing dancers than Philly.  And, as I've done on the past couple of visits, I invited my father to come along.  To my surprise, ( Read more... )

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Went tonight to hear Anonymous 4 singing their christmas program (*), a sort of christmas tradition for me and R, as it was one of our first official dates two years ago when we finally acknowledged that we were dating.  :-)  Most of it was medieval pieces in praise of Mary, with some early American carols thrown in at the end.  I love listening to ( Read more... )

Following up the discussion a few weeks (months?) ago about music for little ones...

For music lessons we've decided to wait till next year.  E seems not quite ready yet to deal with daily practicing, and isn't demanding to learn an instrument, though she's interested in experimenting / playing make believe with them -- seems better if that ( Read more... )

Recently back from a wonderful week of nothing but dancing, eating, sleeping, and playing with little kids (E along with 10 other 4-6 year olds!) in western Massachusetts.


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Listening to E in the bathroom singing Lookin' Out My Back Door at top volume while finishing morning ablutions, and noticing all of a sudden that she can carry a tune now.  She's always been passionate about music of any kind -- making up songs by the yard, strumming on her ukelele, banging on drums or (often rather interestingly) on the piano, ( Read more... )