Teaching

I wish I posted more.
Here's a thought I was having:
I like teaching.
I also like being a teacher. 
I'm a little ashamed to say that I'm not sure which one I like more.
Here's an XKCD cartoon that I happened upon recently.



I'm not sure if it's pro-teaching or not, but I like to think it is. 
The cartoon got me to thinking about technology and the future of human survival.
I'm a big fan of the "we need to work on getting off this planet and out of the solar system if we really want to survive" mentality. I think we could do it. Look at how creative humans can be when they put their mind to something. The only problem is, the technology that could save us is much less popular than the technology that is destroying. If we as a species are going to outlive this solar system we either need to refocus our technological interests (more to the things that aren't killing us) or increase our maturity to help us handle it.

Back to teaching...
As a teacher and as a new parent, I am often thinking of the best way to help my kids absorb the things I think they need to know. Over the years I've learned a secret: An excited kid will be more likely to learn on their own and more likely to actually enjoy the thing that they need to know. This is something I learned through personal experience - more through regret than appreciation, sad to say.

Besides being healthy, one of things I hope my son will learn is to play an instrument or two. I was never forced to play an instrument when I was younger. My brother ended up playing saxophone. I always thought it seemed like the most boring thing in the world to play orchestra-style saxophone. Maybe, if I had been shown something like the video below, I would have been more interested in playing an instrument.
Enjoy.

Last Day of Newvember

So today was it. The last day of Newvember. Today's challenge: blog about Newvember. I never completely intended on blogging about Newember all month long, so when I created my schedule of challenges today was going to be the only entry. I'm glad I blogged kind of regularly though. Let's look at all the things I tried.

1. Take a new route to work. Done and fun. 
2. Practice hand-stands. Done and painful. 
3. Be 10 minutes early for an appointment. Technically done, but not very well. Not something I see myself doing in the future. 
4. Study sign language for 1 hour. Done and done and done and done. My favorite challenge by far. 
5. Change the lyrics of a song to compliment someone. Done...with lots of help.
6. Go out of my way to meet someone new. Done. Not very fun. 
7. Write a review of an artistic performance. Sooooo done. Fun but exhausting.
8. Sleep on the floor. Done. So fun we did it two extra times. 
9. Make a t-shirt. Done. Thanks for your printer, friends. 
10. Make a new playlist highlighting one artist. Technically done, but not completely finalized. 
11. Make a collection of happy photos sans X. Collection started, but not completely finalized. 
12. Write a speech and give to myself in the mirror. Not done at all. Complete fail. 
13. Eat nothing but pizza all day. Done and loved it!
14. Paint a picture with someone else. Done. I hate painting. 
15. Write an actual letter to someone and mail it. Done and appreciated by the recipient.
16. Write stream of consciousness. Done and done. Very fun. Will do it again someday. 
17. Write a grateful email to someone. Done. No word from the recipient yet. 
18. Meditate. Done. Late. No fun. 
19. Pick up litter all day long. Technically done, but very weak. Not much litter where I was. 
20. Write a poem. Done. Late. No fun. 
21. Reply to a reddit writing prompt. Done. Meh...
22. Learn all I can about Spanish (my least favorite subject in HS). Not done at all. Complete fail. 
23. Do everything with the opposite hand. Nope. 
24. Be vegan for a day. Failed by accident then gave up. Didn't prepare well for this one. 
25. Blog about Newvember. Almost done. 
26. ***Study sign language and write stream of consciousness were done on multiple days. 

So...out of 30 days/challenges I completed 26. That's about 87%. That's me, 87%. A couple of them were done late. A couple of them are not entirely completed. That's ok. I practiced sign language enough to make up for any missed challenges. I also blogged a lot. I also made two t-shirts and slept on the floor two extra times. With all that extra credit I think I may have sqeeked out an A-. I'm pretty satisfied with the month. Actually, I'm extremely satisfied with this month. Other highlights include:

• Brother having a baby!
• Friends coming to visit and having a great time. 
• 3rd place in a 5k. 
• Pizza Fridays and faculty basketball Thursdays are going strong. 
• The ultimate season went out with a bang. 
• Football was fun. 
• Thanksgiving with family was great. 
• X is getting cuter by the day. 
• Got someone else ice skates and went ice skating. 
• Got to know coworkers better. 
• Listened to a lot of good music. 
• Visited NY and went on a great hike.
• Biked to work more. 

All this on top of Newvember!!
And it's No-Shave-November as well!

Wow, how can December match this? Here's what I'm hoping December will look like:

• Continue to practice sign language with wife, child, and coworker daily. 
• Be in bed by 9 so I can...
• Be at the gym around 5am three days a week. 
• Run at least two days a week.
• Continue to not eat any unapproved snacks through the rest of the year. 
• Streamline my biking routine to make it quicker. 
• Not freak out about flying out west with a 1.5 year old.
• Blog once in a while. 
• Be in bed by 9. It's going to be hard to do this but I really think it is the crux of the month.

Wish me luck...or come by for a visit! 

The stream will never run dry.

I really like stream of consciousness writing. Here's my latest stream. Someone else gave me the topic. It's one of my fav's.

The future.
I like thinking about the future. I really like planning and thinking on the future. Is “thinking on” a real phrase. I’m thinking of the time I saw some author speak and she said that she needed to stop “meditating on” her enemies. She meant that she needed to stop thinking so much about her enemies and thinking they they are negative. Oh well. Ok. Back to the future. I just watched back to the future 3 the other day. Not al of it. My father had it on while we were waiting for another movie to cue up. Is that the right way to spell cue for this meaning. Or is it que? Not sure about that one. So, the future. I really hope to do many things in the future. In the near future I would like to finish Newvember strong and consider it a successful month. I can already consider it a success depending on how I rate myself. If I rate myself like I was in school, I would only need 65% completed to pass. I definitely have that done already. But I want to hold myself to a higher standard. In a way, anything but 100% will be considered a failure, but that’s unfair. I think as long as I can finish some of my incomplete challenges by the end of the month then I’ll call that a success. Next month I’m going to make it simpler. I really only have two main challenges for next month: continue to learn and love sign language and work out regularly. I’m feeling lazy and weak and crappy. Last year we did the push-up bonanza, maybe I need to do one of those again?! No, I don’t want to do that. I want to go to the gym and work out. Since my breathing is not very efficient right now I’ll put cold weather running on hold an stick to bike riding (which I’m actually enjoying a lot lately). What I would like to do after this session of consciousness is map out a route from my house to school that will have me avoid hills and add some miles on my morning commute. A half-hour commute would be ideal. That would give me some exercise in the morning and afternoon. To really maximize my health I hope to go to the gym before riding my bike to work. I know it’s possible; I’ve done it before. I just need to take it one month, or week, at a time. Ok. Now I’m kinda freezing on topics. Someone else has disappeared and all I hear is the churning of the dishwasher. Ok. Now she’s back. She seems to be eating something. She said “wow, that was quick” when she saw the amount I have already typed. She then said “I do need the computer when you’re done.” That’s good, that will give me a reason to get off quickly and let my fingers/hands rest. I like this type of typing because I get to type really fast but it does hurt my fingers and hands pretty quickly. I wonder if those split keyboards are good enough to invest in. ok, I can see the word count at the bottom of the screen. I’m over 500 words. I’m drifting off. Someone else needs the computer. It’s time for me to go. This is the last stream of consciousness for Newvember. I will definitely do this again someday. It’s always fun and fun.

Tomorrow I have to learn all I can about Spanish, the subject I disliked the most in high school. I guess I'll do that while my better half is out and about. I'm not really looking forward to this. I didn't like spanish then and nothing has changed to make me rethink my opinion.

Oh, and here's a fun thing. This is a link to a google spread sheet. It has all the words I can currently sign (there might be a few missing) in alphabetical order. Feel free to use these words to create a sentence, paragraph, or conversation for me to practice. You can email it to me if you know that info, or you can just post it in the comments.
Thanks in advance for such a ridiculous request!

Stream of consciousness

Today's challenge was to write stream of consciousness at least 500 words. 500 words is pretty easy. I feel like I could do this everyday. Now lets just get one thing straight; I'm not writing brilliant prose or deep thoughts, it's more just a log of what my brain is doing at the current moment. Here is the unedited product. I decided to write this just after school when all the kids had left. I did it in my room, at my desk. I wrote it on Word so it corrected some of my errors, but the grammar is all me!

Enjoy

I ride my bike to school. I’m glad I ride my bike to school. Last year I really didn’t like it. I started off not liking it and even though I changed routes and incorporated different things to make riding more enjoyable (better clothes, better lights, music/pod casts) I never really liked it. I’m very happy to think about my coming bike rides. I still need to get some things for the winter, mostly cold weather gear, but I’m pretty set and happy with my set-up. As I type this I’m looking at my bike in my classroom and I feel like listing the things I enjoy about my bike.

1. I like the basket I put on it. It’s an old milk crate. I think this is the best type of basket to put on a bike. It’s ugly, but functional. 
2. Uh oh, a friend of mine just Google chatted me about a JP Morgan settlement. He’s asking my view on the issue. Am I ashamed to admit that I have no idea what’s going on, or am I proud to admit that I don’t have any idea what’s going on. I’ll take the later. Now I’m thinking about how I’ll have to look this up. But do I look it up first and create a quick opinion…..oh, his second message is a link to the case in case I haven’t heard of it. Ok. So what I’ll do is respond that I don’t’ have a response yet. Then I’ll read over the information and discuss it with Zanny, she’s very helpful at making things clearer…except for when she makes things more opaque. Is that the correct usage of opaque? I hope so. Ok back to talking about my bike. 
3. I like that it’s kinda a nerd bike. Let me quality. One time I was in a stationary store on mass ave. I was reading a book about bike snobbery. In the book the author listed different type of riders. There was the rider who rides for exercise. The rider that is really a runner but who’s injured so has to ride a bike (ugh). The rider that is just trying to be a hipster. The rider who is trying to shrink his/her carbon foot print. The rider who just rides to commute. And the rider who just rides for pure enjoyment. I am obviously the commuter. They broke down the different type of commuters and I feel into the “nerd” type category. The characteristics were someone who just rides a bike that looks like an old mountain bike that has never really seen a mountain. Basket on back. A bunch of safety lights. A banana seat. Something that the owner has made into pure comfort and utility. Besides the banana seat, that’s my bike!
4. I like that, although I’ve had to fix the gears a bunch, my bike is pretty durable and has lasted a good amount of time. My parents bought me the bike when I moved back from California and I’ve used it ever since. I did actually get to ride it on some trails in the ADKS, but it now has road tires on so it wouldn’t be too useful on a trail. The shocks are also completely shot so they wouldn’t help either. 
5. I like that my bike fits nicely in my class. That is more a nod to my class than the bike, but whatever, this is my stream of consciousness writing.

I guess I should say some things I don’t like about the bike…..but I can’t think of any right now.

Actually, right now I can only feel sad and a little regretful at the fact that next year, I will (hopefully) not ride my bike at all and instead I will be running to school. That would be AWESOME!

Well, that’s more than 500 words. This took me just a couple of minutes. I like it. I will definitely do it again sometime.

But for now, I have to get changed and head home on my durable, utility oriented bike.
Bye.

Signing is fun

Signing is very fun. Someone else and I had a nice time practicing tonight. We took the 3rd lesson quiz and got 100% (although I feel like I took it before). I practiced a little with my coworker. It's hard to just walk into someone's room and start signing, especially when I'm really not that good yet. I signed the sample paragraph that was at the end of lesson 3. She was pretty impressed. So was I.

Oh, quick story about why I love this lifeprint website. I wanted to go to her (my coworker) and tell her that because ultimate was cancelled, I could practice with her for a bit. When I searched the word for Ultimate on lifeprint, the teacher showed the sign for frisbee!

Hand cramps

Today’s challenge was to pen and send a handwritten letter. Obviously I won’t be sending it today, what with it being Sunday and all. It was fun. I’ve actually been eager to write a handwritten letter for some time now even though I absolutely hate my handwriting. And I hate handwriting. To minimize the sloppyness of the letter I typed it out first and then just copied it down. Sure, it’s not as romantic as sitting at a desk stationed near a sunny window in a shadowy room, feather pen moving back and forth while a narrator speaks the words I’m thinking, but it works for me. I was going to write to a friend who lives in Long Island, but instead I wrote to a friend who lives upstate. Even though I’ve wanted to write for a while, I didn’t really know what I was going to write about. I just saw this friend less than a month ago. It’s not like we can’t reach each other by phone or email anytime we have a thought that we need to share. So, what to write about? Well, I did what any other talent-less writer would do; write the letter about writing the letter. It was nice. I think he’ll appreciate it.

Tomorrow will be practicing sign language again. I absolutely love learning how to sign. I’m making my way through lesson 3 on lifeprint. It’s great. I’ve downloaded an app onto my wife’s smartphone and I continue to drop in to my coworker’s classroom to practice. I love it. The end of the 3rd lesson has a practice paragraph, which I can move through pretty quickly. There’s an accompanying video that I can watch to practice reading signs. Reading is kind of difficult right now, especially on a video. It’s not like I can ask a video to slow down (which I could sign if I was talking to an actual person). I hope I can take my signing to the next level when I get through the lessons and take a class or something. I also hope I’m brave enough to actually use it if I ever meet a deaf person. I can see now why my wife is shy to talk to someone in Thai when she meets them, although she did spend more time learning and speaking Thai language. But still, it’s scary.

Non-newvember news: No-shave November is going well. I may try to keep the beard all winter long…even through our Utah visit. My car is sick so I’ll be biking a lot more, which is exciting. We get to go ice-skating this Tuesday and before that we’re having pizza with some family! Oh, and I may become a new uncle this week! And we’ll be visiting my parents this week and our friends are going to be around and we’ll get to hang out with them. Good times this week!

And I’m getting excited for the holiday season!

This week's challenges should be good. I’ll study sign language, write stream of consciousness for at least 500 words, pick up litter wherever I go, do everything with the opposite hand, write a grateful email to someone, and meditate. Guess which one I’m looking forward to the least.

Painting....ugh...

Tonight's challenge was to paint a picture with someone else. I hate painting. I hate painting like I hate yoga and fishing and reading and meditating and other slow moving patience needing activities. I didn't want to do it before I started, I didn't like doing it while I was doing it, and now I don't like writing about it. Ugh.

Yesterday's challenge was to eat nothing but pizza all day! It was awesome. I wish I had been exercising and running these past few weeks so pizza day was more thrilling, but it was still great.

Tomorrow I will write an actual letter to someone. This should be fun. I'm going to write it to a friend I have in Long Island. Maybe then he'll finally reply to one of my communication attempts!

Probably not though....

I have a problem...

"No Duh," says my wife.
My problem is that some of these challenges are so involved that I don't have time to do them completely and perfectly. Take the playlist for example. The massive 56 song playlist that I came up with is really just step one in a larger process. Here's how to make a great playlist.

1. Decide on an artist/theme. 
2. Listen to a bunch of the songs to see if you're correct. If you're not correct, repeat step 1. 
3. If you are correct, start selecting songs to choose from. 
4. Listen to the songs you've selected.
5. Start eliminating some of the songs. 
6. Rearrange the order of the songs so the next one compliments the previous one. 
7. Go back to the original list and see if any other songs would fit certain spots better. 
8. Rearrange/delete/add songs to optimize flow and feeling. 
9. Repeat steps 7 & 8 until satisfied. 
10. Put playlist on a portable device and listen to it. 
11. If it is good, burn it to a disc to listen to in the car. 
12. If it is not good, repeat steps 7 & 8 until satisfied. 
13. Edit it to make it middle school appropriate. 
14. Done. 

I am currently in the middle of step 4. How could such a process be squeezed into a day? It's only possible in what I call a "broken-leg-scenario."  Have you ever wanted to do something that you know is a complete waste of time should be way lower on your priority list but you really really want to do it? Then you say to yourself something like, "Someday, if I'm bed ridden and I can't go anywhere, like if I have a broken leg, I'll get X done." That's a broken-leg-scenario. I've never really been able to complete a broken-leg-scenario. Either I'm not really incapacitated and I end up doing something else or I'm so incapacitated that doing anything besides watching TV and sleeping is impossible (either way I end up being happy [i like being sick {i am a very good baby and i always have somebody to take care of me}]).

Today's challenge, create a folder of pictures that make me happy sans Xavier, is similar to the playlist one. I started doing it and after an hour of looking through maybe 5% of our pictures (and picking about 65 of them) I realized that this would have to be a multi-step process. After I go through all my pictures and pick out the top contenders, I'll have to walk away from the process for a while to clear my head of the pics. Then I'll have to go back and pick out the ones that, just by looking at them, make me happy. I will re-blog when the process is nearer to completion.

Here's a sample of the pics I have so far. They are some of the earliest pics from my collection. If you don't see yourself don't worry, I probably haven't met you as of the time the picture was taken (or I've never met you at all). 

When we lived together!

Guess who's room?!

"What are you up to?"

In NYC to pick up a friend...pre-courtship.

I was a different type of awesome back then.

No more dirty room thanks to her (and me).

This is Slide the snake...Say Hi!

I'm being spied on!

First time above the clouds!

Colden slide after the Trap Dike.

Giant.

Her tights match the rope...she's a keeper!

North Lake w/bro.

Oh, and I realized I didn't blog yesterday. Sign language went well. I took a 60 question quiz and got a 100%. The prompts were not just single words but simple phrases. I got all excited thinking I was doing good, then today when I walked by Art I tried to say something but I froze and looked like a moron :-(   Oh well, tomorrow will be better.

Tomorrow's challenge: Make something yummy and bring it to someone! I'm excited for this one. I love baking and I like giving away what I've baked!

Make a t-shirt

Today was great. It started with some leftover challenge from yesterday (sleeping on the floor, which will be repeated tonight!). We ran a 5k in the a.m. and I came in 3rd. Then we had a fun day of fun.

The challenge for today was to make a t-shirt. There were a few bumps on the road to complete this. Neither Fed Ex or Staples will print on the transfer paper I was to use to make the t-shirt. We had to call some friends at 7:30 to see if they had a printer. They did! We went over and hung out for a bit while we printed out stuff. Xavier got to play with their kids and he was acting sooooooo adorable.

After the friendly and helpful visit we went home, ordered pizza, put the boy down, ate the pizza, and made two cool shirts!! I'll have to take pictures and upload them soon, but until then, you can check out xkcd's What If? page to see the logo I used. I love this logo. It has the perfect accompanying picture to one of the worst/best questions ever asked. A t-rex being dropped into a sarlacc, what's not to love!

Tomorrow I need to make a new playlist highlighting a particular artist. It will probably take me several hours :-)

ps - in case you are wondering, xkcd does allow the use of his cartoons for not-for-profit use.

Old School Camp Out!

Today's "challenge" is to sleep on the floor! Who ever came up with sleeping on the floor is a genius. Of course, this is purely a middle class opinion. Some people sleep on the floor because that's all they have. I'm sure they don't approach their daily slumber with the same type of enthusiasm that I have. We have all our blankets laid out to make it as comfortable as possible, although I anticipate a restless night. It's a good thing we have a 5k to run tomorrow morning!

The one bad thing about tonight: I'm being forced to watch The Hobbit :-( The lord of the rings movies are sooooooo bad and sooooo long. They stink on so many levels. I'd love to write a review of them, but I reserve my reviews to quality pieces of art, not terrible pieces of junk. Here's a couple things I don't like about the lotr movies:

1. Too long. Do we really need to watch 3 hours of some morons walking around making bad decision?
2. Too many of them. Really, we need 3 of these movies? 3 movies each over 3 hours long somehow equals at least 20 hours of torture. It's too bad this type of compound math wizardry couldn't have been used for good instead of evil.
3. Too racist. Why is the short fat dwarf character Scottish? I know why, because it's a racist movie with nothing original to say.
4. Too contrived. Hey movie makers, can't you just make it seem like things are happening naturally instead of just writing in more stupid twists that make no sense. "Hey everyone, lets ride horses or walk instead of using this awesome flying bird. That way we'll take a completely unnatural amount of time on our stupid quest."
5. Too played out. Oh look, another old man as a wizard. Oh look, another axe wielding dwarf. Oh look, monsters that drool. Oh look, another movie where people with cool powers don't actually use them for anything productive. Oh look, another "hero" who spends more time being a diaper baby than actually getting things done.

Ok, I said I wasn't going to review the movies and look what I end up doing. One more reason to hate lotr: it makes you hate when you don't feel like hating.

Off to watch what I predict will be one of the crappiest prequels of all time (second only to Prometheus). I wish I had some Oreo's and skim milk, then it would be a true camp-out.

Who knew I could write so much

Today I am to write a review of an artistic performance. I was looking forward to this one. I suppose I out and chosen a play or poem or short video or something, but I’m just going with music. I love listening to music and I love talking about listening to music and I love love love saying why the music I listen to is awesome. There are some difficulties with this challenge, ones that I am kinda eager to face:

1. Which artist to choose. I want to review someone I like so I enjoy the process, but I also want to review someone that others (my faithful blog readers) like/can tolerate so they will dig the linked music.
2. I am not creative. How do I go about writing a review when I have scrabble-fright? It will come out sounding like a 4-year-old wrote it. (Scrabble-fright is a new term I just made up. It’s that thing where a smart person with a slightly above average vocabulary freezes up during a game of scrabble and can only come up with 2-4 letter words.)
3. How can I find some way to let the reader listen to the music without signing up for some privacy-robbing, music-sharing-social-media account? I could find the music first or just burn a bunch of CD’s and hand them out to whoever wants to listen to the music I review.
4. How do I write about anything but The Mars Volta? This is an unanswerable question.
5. If I do write about The Mars Volta, how do I control myself?

So here is my review of The Mars Volta album Frances The Mute.

 

Let me start out by saying I am a huge fan of The Mars Volta. Although I don’t like their two most recent albums as much as their earlier ones, they grew on me very quickly and I listen to them all the time. The first time I heard Frances I liked it right away. At the time, I wasn’t a big fan of ambient noise during songs or in between tracks, but the way The Mars Volta laid out this album changed my mind. This album is not even my favorite Mars Volta album. That goes to The Bedlam In Goliath. Bedlam is a great rock album, but Frances brings you places. You are simultaneously in an infinite open space and a finite dome. You are brought up and down hills, through the woods, and into the wires and mechanics of the instruments making the sounds. The lyrics are meaningful and clever, but they are not needed to enjoy the album. The sounds that the singer makes while singing are more than enough to carry you from place to place. It energizes you and settles you throughout the album making you want more and yet be ok when it ends.

The concept behind Frances The Mute is unique. As wikipedia states: “The story given by the band on the album's concept concerns a diary that had been found in a repossessed car by late sound technician Jeremy Ward, while working as a repo-man. The author of the diary is unknown but appeared to be someone who was adopted and was searching for their birth parents, and who may have suffered from mental illness caused by the death of a loved one. The lyrics for each track on the album are loosely based on characters and life events described in this person's diary.”

I used to be able to find this information on the band's website, but I couldn’t tonight. Needless to say, the wikipedia article is, as far as I am aware, accurate.

Search various lyric sites or songmeanings.com and you’ll find lots of people discussing each track. Breaking them down to really figure out the characters in the story.

Listening to the album I don’t really follow the story. I have, before this review, sat down and read the lyrics while listening to the music, but that was awhile ago and I had since forgotten all the information and clever lines you receive. In my opinion you don’t need to understand the lyrics to appreciate the album. The sound alone is reason enough to listen to it. In fact, I will be framing my song-by-song review more in the sound than the message/lyrics.

Here is the track listing for Frances The Mute by The Mars Volta.

1. Cygnus…..Vismund Cygnus
2. The Widow
3. L’Via L’Viaquez
4. Miranda That Ghost Just Isn’t Holy Anymore: A. Vade Mecum
5. Miranda That Ghost Just Isn’t Holy Anymore: B. Pour Another Icepick
6. Miranda That Ghost Just Isn’t Holy Anymore: C. Pisacis (Phra-Men-Ma)
7. Miranda That Ghost Just Isn’t Holy Anymore: D. Con Safo
8. Cassandra Geminni: A. Tarantism
9. Cassandra Geminni: B. Plan A Nail In The Navel Stream
10. Cassandra Geminni: C. Faminepulse
11. Cassandra Geminni: D. Multiple Spouse Wounds
12. Cassandra Geminni: E. Sarcophagi

Here's is a youtube playlist of all the songs. I think it's missing The Widow. Oh well.
Enjoy!

 

 

 

Cygnus….Vismund Cygnus

          The album opens with a little acoustic guitar and within a minute it’s blazing through Spanish lyrics with whaling guitars and fast drumming. The verses are full and slick. The breakdowns between verse and chorus are thin and sparse. The singer, Cedric Bixler-Zaval, leads the music through ups and downs nicely. Just after 4 minutes the songs slows down significantly. Omar Rodrigues-Lopez, the primary guitarist and producer, slowly brings the song back to speed as the drums and bass follow along. The next 4 minutes the song works towards the crescendo moment when it returns to a blazing rock song. This only last a minute though before the songs starts to tumble away. Random street sounds replace the instruments and a creepy, repeating, circling, beeping noise takes over while cars and electrons pass by. The sounds wind down and the song ends at just over 13 minutes.

 

The Widow

          The most radio-friendly song on the album. Clear start and finish, and a music video to go along with it. This song definitely relies more on lyrics and vocals than instruments and sounds, although the instrumentation is very solid. It’s a slower song than Cygnus….and it starts to tumble out of control at around 3 ½ minutes. After hearing about the shady man in the song the listener has about 2 minutes of circling beeping noise sans passing cars.

L’Via L’Viaquez

          The noise from The Widow continues into this song. Heavy reverb and drums go for just over half a minute before the kicking into a fast, bass heavy song. Most of the lyrics are in Spanish. The sound is made even fuller by the fact that I can’t understand what is being talked about! Cedric inserts well timed moans/groans/yells to accompany the tiny peaks between verses. Then, very suddenly, at about 2 ½ minutes the songs takes a turn. He sings in English over slow wavy guitars. The drums turn hollow. He speaks of his mother. Within a minute the guitars are back in full force. The drums are driving the song further up and up. The Spanish returns and the song is back the way it was a minute ago. This pattern of sudden stops and fast rises continues again. About halfway through the song, 6:30, he sings of not being afraid while the drums bring the listener down a deep well. At the bottom, a gong sounds, the drums go hollow, and the singing is draped with reverb. The entire pace of the song slows. A clean piano sound comes in at about 9 minutes. The guitars fly back and forth. At 11 minutes the instruments stop and the vocals wither away and die like a radio that’s slowly losing its batteries. In the end, the only thing left are the sounds of a peaceful forest.

Miranda That Ghost Just Isn’t Holy Anymore: A. Vade Mecum

          The forest sounds are slowly taken over by a dreary symphony of far off instruments. Ghostly woos join in. The woos ebb and flow from peaceful to painful. After 4 minutes an acoustic guitar tries to bring order. Horns follow. After a total of 5 minutes a mellow song forms. A theme is previewed as the song meanders through an open field. Mentions of mothers, children, pain and suffering give the song a dire feeling. The song breaks down as the horns come back in. Guitars march along while electrons fly by. The song becomes more triumphant as the singer talks of everyone turning away. At 9 minutes most of the instruments fly away and what’s left are sounds of an open field with a few spurting horns and keys. The song slows to a sound just above white noise. However, with 2 minutes left the white noise starts to be over taken by the sound of a song that will appear later in the album.

 

Miranda That Ghost Just Isn’t Holy Anymore: B. Pour Another Icepick

          The song starts with a hard stop from the last song. Fast drums and even faster (but quiet) guitars flank the singer as he talk of becoming one of the others. Some sort of vocal effect creates ridges in the vocals as he sings of two people from his past. He is brought to his knees. He sings as though he is being taken up higher. The music rushes him higher and higher before pausing for him to say, “No there’s not light, in the darkest of your furthest reaches.” The music holds him up there as his voice echoes throughout the expansive world he has been brought to. The guitars step back as the horns bring him higher again. At just over 4 minutes the guitars and bass come in very heavy as he sings of shackles freeing you. The music slams you over and over.

Miranda That Ghost Just Isn’t Holy Anymore: C. Pisacis (Phra-Men-Ma)

          The song starts as the slamming from the last song speeds up. No longer slammed, you are now being driven through the scenery. The drums and guitars let you go to flail in all directions. The echoing lyrics are speaking directly too you. Woos and moans, hisses and screams, ascend and descend as the lead guitar comes back in. Although the end of the song is 4 minutes away, the drums start to pound away at the ending. The guitar goes in and out. The singer tempts you to stay and partake of the events at hand. At 3 minutes the song picks back up. It thins out before reaching the summit. Eventually the instruments start to break down. They try to leave as the lyrics try to stay. The instruments return. The singer pours his soul into the ocean of sound. He repeats come cryptic lyrics over and over. Percussion takes over as the guitar dissolves into reverb.

Miranda That Ghost Just Isn’t Holy Anymore: D. Con Safo

          The beginning of Con Safo marks the end of Miranda. The singer repeats the lyrics that ended the last song. This time the lyrics are up front and leading the instruments. The horns and keys follow close behind the vocals. They rise high as the crescendo reaches it’s maximum height. Although not quite in utter space, we are now clearly out of this world. With very sharp horns the song starts to tumble downward.

Cassandra Geminni: A. Tarantism

          The horns take over and bring the song spiraling downward. The bass joins in as the guitar takes hold. The drums aid. Soon they all subside. The vocals come back. There’s nothing you can do. The air is cold. The guitar starts a tiny riff. The drums beat to signal the end. The vocals become whispers. There is still a song there, but it’s being broken down. Over the next few minutes it will break and be rebuilt. At just over 5 minutes the bass changes tempo. The end may be near. Sounds fly by as the drums fade in and out. Around 7 ½ minutes the song slows.

 

Cassandra Geminni: B. Plan A Nail In The Navel Stream

          The only thing constant is the bass. The guitar whips by you, pulling you around. The drums march along next to you. For the next 5 minutes you are being moved through space. There are no vocals. You don’t know if you are moving around these objects or if they’re moving around you.

 

Cassandra Geminni: C. Faminepulse

          There is not discernible song yet. The drums are fighting the horns. The bass is still there. The guitar whizzes by. The chaos increases until the horns win out. At just under 2 minutes a song starts to emerge with the horns leading the way. The bass and drums have teamed up to drive you faster and faster. The guitar has gotten on board as well. There is a familiar sound. You’ve heard this song before. Brick by brick the songs is built. You are driven faster and faster upward to where you were before. The driving stop and the drums hold you in space.

 

Cassandra Geminni: D. Multiple Spouse Wounds

          “No there’s not light, in the darkest of your furthest reaches.” Miranda visits again. You are surrounded by familiarity, but only for a moment.

Cassandra Geminni: E. Sarcophagi

          Acoustic guitars signal the beginning of the end. The album ends the way it began. You wonder: Did it even happen? 

Happy NEWvember

Today is the first day of Newvember!
"You spelled November wrong."
No, I simply changed the spelling to reflect all the cool NEW things I'll be doing this month.
"Oh."
I understand it's exciting, but try to contain your enthusiasm.
"So everything you do in Newvember will be a new activity that you've never done before?"
No, not entirely.
"Then what the crap?"
 Well, a buddy of mine sent me a list of activities to do in the 11th month. It was a collaborative list so I added to it. Ever hear of google doc's?
"Google has doctors?!"
No. Doc's is short for documents. It's actually called google drive now, probably to avoid mistakes like this.
"I don't want a doctor from google to work on me."
I don't think it's anything you have to worry about.
"I also don't want my doctor to need to google anything to help me."
That does seem a bit disconcerting.
"Seriously, if a doctor needs to google something they should have their license revoked."
Is this someting you have personal experience with?
"Um....uh......lets talk about  Newvember."
Ah yes, the point of this post. So, each day in November I will do something a little different. Most things I've never done before. I will try to blog each day to report in on how things are going. My blog posts will probably not be in this format, but you never know, maybe I'll continue this duologue with a pretend character for the whole month.
"What do you mean 'pretend character'? Are you going to invite someone else to be in on this conversation?"
No, you are the pretend character!
"WTF!"
I know!!
"So I'm just some character you made up? I only exist in your head? I'm not real?"
Yup.
"So what was this whole bit about me and my drama with doctors?"
I don't know, just seemed to make sense at the moment.
"So you're really just....talking to yourself....online?"
Yeah bascially.
"Don't you think that's kinda crazy?"
No, it's just a tool some people use when they write.
"So I'm a tool?"
Um....uh....lets talk more about Newvember! Today I took a new route to work. It was fun. I feel like I didn't see the usual cars I normally see. I was a little rushed because I left late, but everything worked out fine. Today's activity wasn't that exciting, I'll admit. It's hard to write deeply on it. Tomorrow I will practice hand stands 3 times for 15 minutes each time. That should conjure up more feelings.
"Let's hope so."
Well, it would be fun to sit here and keeping typing and talking, but the phone which provides our internet connection is needed by my spouse. It's time to post.
"Even with all the spelling/grammar errors?"
Take the good and the bad.
"Way to be brave."
Thanks.
Until tomorrow....

Future posts in being thought about....

Music - How much I love it. How awesome it is. Why the music I like is "great" and the music you listen to is "good."

Running - How much I love it. How slow I am. Why running is better than swimming and biking.

Food - How confusing it is. How tasty it is. What I am currently into.

Xavier - How cute he is. How much of a turd he is. How cute he is.

Other people - How hard I try.

Life - How awesome it is. How hard it is. How cute Xavier is.

Cartography...it never hurts to double check.

I'm not a genies, but I used to think I had a pretty good understanding of things here on this rock we call earth.  

Not any more.

I give you, a map where the blue...is land. 

Ok, you're confused. Here is the story: 

 As I was searching for an answer to the anonymous question "who was the first to discover milk from cows," I stumbled upon this article. 

The contents of the article are interesting and allowed me to answer the question to a satisfactory degree. The map, however, troubled me. At first I couldn't recognize what it was. Then I noticed Italy. It was blue. The blue on the map is land! What world is this?

It made me think of this:

In the first episode of Arrested Development Buster is charged with navigating the Bluth's yacht away the pursuing authorities. Using his cartography skills (and trying to avoid a panic attack) he points to a map and proclaims, "obviously this blue part here is the land." Needless to say, they don't get away. Later Michael Bluth, frustrated by his families lack of foresight, mocks his mother's decision to put Buster in charge of their fragile company by saying "Buster, the guy who thought that the blue on the map was land?!"

As an audience member I of course laughed at the absurdity of somebody thinking that any map containing land and water would have the land colored blue.

This picture has rocked my sense of what makes sense on this rock.

Maybe we should all be a little more like Buster.

Oh, here's another kind of Arrested Development. Gooooo 90's!

DTR

Dear Biking,

We have a problem. I don't like you. I need you, but I don't like you. You have many qualities that I value: speed, efficiency, purpose; and yet, I don't like you. You provide me with valuable exercise time and, now that I'm back into podcasts, valuable learning/listening time. You save me money on car costs and you let me brag that I'm "doing my part." People look at me and because of our relationship say "Way to go" or "I wish I could do that." Despite all these attributes, I find myself thinking negatively about you constantly. 

Why is that?

If we hope to have a long, healthy relationship we need to figure this out.

You might be wondering why I'm asking you. This seems like it's my problem and I should be the one who deals with it. But like any relationship, one person's problem is the other's problem as well. Especially in this relationship because, let's face it, you're an activity. A concept. If our relationship ends you cease to exist.

Suddenly this is very much your problem. So I'll ask:

Why don't I like you?
How can we fix that?

Or perhaps I should first ask:

Is this worth fixing?

These are very tough times we're going through. We may not like the immediate outcome, but whatever conclusion we come to, it has to be in my best interest. I'm sorry if that scares you. Just remember, you can't be scared. You're an activity.

Sincerely,

j

Dang I'm good at avoiding things

It's been a long time since I last posted. This can be excusable if my blog had been going on for a long time, but having only a few posts under my belt it's understandable if I lose my less serious followers....ok, I'm sure I'm just writing this for 2-3 people anyways, but they can be serious.

Here's my 4 picture update of what I have been up to since my last post. 

Parents and Nan visit Xavier.

Nina with Xavier in Utah

Someone else with Xavier in Colorado

Me on my marathon with a cute bandit

These pictures don't do my busy life justice. I still need a picture that represents my swim lesson, my new co-teacher, some church responsibilities, some injuries, homework, and a lack of motivation.

Now let's address the title of my blog.
Food - Someone else has been amazing at food lately. We are knee deep in winter vegies and I am totally loving it. They make for great leftovers and my lunches have been incredibly fulfilling.  What are some examples you ask....I don't know, but they taste good!

Avoidance - Against my own wishes I have been avoiding exercise in all it's forms. This is going to change soon. Other than that I'm continuing my usual practice of trying to avoid anything that falls under the category of responsibility. Although I'm not always successful at that. Here are two branches of the avoidance category:

1. Unintentional avoidance - This is one of my favorite things. Even more favorite than regular ole' avoidance. This is when I have actually chosen NOT to avoid something, but right before I'm about to jump in, something happens and I'm set free of my obligations! What a gift! Recently a good friend of mine asked for some help with her kitchen. She was going to have a contractor come over to lead a team of ragtag wannabe handymen in remodeling her kitchen. I was very happy to help, even sort of looking forward to it. However, when I got the email that the contractor had backed out, my heart lifted and my soul cheered! I had done the right thing and agreed to sacrifice a Saturday to help a friend, and my reward was getting my Saturday to do what I want. It instantly reminded me of one of my favorite George Costanza quotes: "I don't think I've ever been to an appointment in my life where I wanted the other guy to show up." I hear you George.  
2. Unavoidance - One of the things I have done a good job at avoiding for most my days has been reading my scriptures. It's very easy to avoid this. Scriptures are long, kinda boring, difficult to read, and not immediately applicable to my job (which is what I do most of my reading for). Despite all these things, I have been reading my scriptures every morning for the past week! Unavoidance at it's finest.

Running - I will not be running anytime soon. I have some lingering injuries that I fear will only get worse if I try to do any sort of running in the near future. I'm going to take advantage of my YMCA membership and hit the pool, weight room, elliptical and row machine in an effort to maintain my running stamina and keep myself feeling good.

Well that's all for now. Recently I hit a sort of low in my mood towards life. The mood was best represented by this video.

That was short lived though, as most of my bummer moods are, and I'm back feeling like this.

 How are you feeling?

Spoon!

Remember The Tick? Not the live action one, the cartoon. Ok, you probably don't remember the live action one too. Well The Tick was one of those shows that not many people remember but I end up thinking it about a couple times a week. In fact, every time someone says "spoon" I think of this cult-classic. Take a gander at this short clip:

After I start thinking about The Tick, I inevitably start thinking about The Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs At Midnight. He is one of the greatest villains of all time...even if he never actually did much villainy and was disposed of in one night. Here's the whole glorious episode. Watch it and love it.

Why am I posting about The Tick only one post after I talked about my new baby boy Xavier? Well, because it's my blog and I can talk about whatever I want!
As I was putting the dishes away today I said to myself (as I say quite often) "...hmm...we use a lot of spoons." After thinking about spoons you can guess where my mind went next [to The Tick of course]. Luckily, today is a blog day and I am in the rare occasion were I actually get to blog about a though/idea/event that is still in my mind. Yay for me!

Here's another thing that happened today. I discovered a new ridiculous thing! It came while buying a well deserved spoil for someone else.

Have you been in the cookie isle at the grocery store lately? Have you been around the constantly increasing "oreo" section? Well, they have a new ridiculous thing: The triple-double!

No longer will kids think of basketball prowess when some utters triple-double. Nope, the sugar-food industry has hijacked that term and forever changed the future.

There are a couple reasons why this is ridiculous. The most obvious reason is the increase in sugar/fat that comes with this cookie.  But to that I say so what, it's not like the cookie was dancing the line between healthy snack and unhealthy indulgence, it's always been what it is. But what's really ridiculous about this cookie is that.....it's......nearly perfect! Every kid in this country has, at one point, disassembled a standard oreo and reassembled it to fit his/her needs. Nabisco has tapped into this desire and given us all sorts of goodies: double stuff, chocolate, fudge covered, golden, mint (yuck), etc. This new creation is just the natural evolution of that practice. Cudos nabisco, you may be producing delicious, slow acting poison, but at least your listening to our wants while you're doing it.

Have you tried this cookies yet? Did you watch the full episode of The Tick? Do you want more pictures of cute Xavier? I know the answer to one of those so here you go.

He weighs over 9 lbs now!

So tired & so cute.

Keep an eye our for a future post on music. I'm in the process of creating a play-list for a friend who is moving away. I'm going to fill it with songs that remind me of transition times in my life. Do you have any songs that come from a transition time in your life? Tell me about it.

Baby time...running time...watch time

So it's been a while since I last posted anything. This won't be news for most but I'm gong to pretend that there are more than 3 people who look at this blog and that some of them don't really know me and give the news anyway: I have a baby boy now!
Ok, so that's not news to most, but here's were it gets good. The day of birth I decided to keep a little log of the events and their times. This is not something that most people have seen so consider yourself lucky.

• 7:00am - Labor starts. Someone else woke me up saying, "We're definitely having this baby today." 
• 7:45 - Water breaks. The contractions were becoming more intense. 
• 9:25 - Leave for Mt. Auburn after 90 minutes in a low level panic!
• 9:50 - Arrive at Mt. Auburn Hospital. A tip for anyone who has to drive to a hospital; try to do it on a Sunday, there was no traffic!
• Our home-birth mid-wife was waiting for us with a big smile on her face and a chair with wheels. (Lets not limit the chair to it's usual title of Wheel Chair...it can be so much more than that!)
• I could (and should) write a whole post on our home-birth mid-wife. She is great. Her calming presence and slow walk up to Labor and Delivery is what made me want to keep a log of the days events. 
• 10:05 - A nurse started taking stats on the baby.
• 10:10 - Hospital mid-wife comes in. Now this is where it got great. The hospital mid-wife was friends with our home-birth mid-wife! Not only where they friends, but they both shared the same first name! Not only did they both share the same first name, but they both had long salt and pepper hair and had a earthy tone to them! We were so blessed to have so many great people caring for us!
• 10:14 - The baby pooped a bit! I will not discuss how I know that on a blog.
• 10:16 - An exam confirmed the baby's butt crack was going to be the first thing to come out!
• 10:30 - The doctor who will attend the birth comes in and introduces herself. I don't remember her name. She played a very minimal but important role. There were only a handful of doctors at the hospital that would agree to deliver a breech birth and she was one of them. Yay for open minded doctors!
• 10:35 - Someone else gets into a tub and is able to relax a bit. 
• 10:45 - The anesthesiologist comes in to talk a little about a cesarean birth. You can tell you're getting old when you look at doctors and assume they must be too young to have graduated med school and this must be some trick or experiment or something. She told us several times that she hopes to not have to see us again...and she got her wish!
• At this point her contractions were about 45 seconds long with a 90 second break between each one. 
• 10:50 - They stick someone else with a IV just in case she'll need one later. They also take some blood.
• 11:03 - "Oh no, you need to keep that on or you won't be allowed in here." That's what one of the nurses actually said to me when I requested another ID wrist band to put on my other wrist. This is rediculous for a couple reasons: 
• We had been in L&D every day for the past week and nobody ever questioned me even though I was clearly NOT wearing a wrist band.  So much for the crack team of security guards they have guarding the place.
• All I wanted to do was switch wrists, not escape the aforementioned security of the hospital. 
• Really, you're gong to tell an expecting dad that he has to leave his wife while she gives birth because he's not wearing a wrist band...really?!
• 11:45 - I sent a text to a certain JJM to inform him on the events at hand. I was risking getting some frowned eyebrows for talking so early, but  I was later not scolded for letting the secret out. 
• At this point her contractions are about 55 seconds long with about 70 seconds break between each.
• 12:15 - A nurse comes in to confirm that someone else's vitals, as well as the babies, are all perfect! This is good news to hear at this point because the contractions are getting stronger and it's hard for her (someone else) not to push.
• Doing a vaginal delivery of a breech baby is more complicated than a "standard" birth. The mother must resist the urge to push until she is beyond 10cm dilated. This is difficult and painful to do. Someone else was doing so well this entire time. In the tub she was able to resist the urge to push. 
• 12:40 - The staff and our home-birth mid-wife agree it's time to move someone else to a bed and prepare for delivery. This scares her because outside of the water the urge to push will be too strong to stop. Luckily that is ok. Pushing will be allowed as we move into the birth hour!
• She is allowed to labor on her side for a while, but her birth position must be on her back. This, like a lot of other things, was not in the plan.
• 1:30 - Part of the bed that will be where she gives birth is taken apart to allow for a better angle for the delivery.She is moved into a position on her back and is told to start pushing harder and push all the time regardless of a contraction.
• 1:35 - Someone asks her how she's doing and she responds with a quiet "fine." She then asks a young mid-wife who is attending to see her first breech "How are you doing?" The room is silent and the mid-wife is not sure she's talking to her. Someone else explains that she was just wondering because this is her first breech birth. Everyone laughs a bit at the fact that during this painful process, someone else actually cares enough to ask someone else how they're doing! What a gal!
• 1:45 - The butt comes out! And let me ask you this, if you only existed as a butt, what would you do? That's right, you poop! And poop he did! (oh, at this point I had confirmation that it was a boy, but someone else was still out of the loop). 
• 1:54 - Xavier August Perrino is born! He is brought right up to mommies chest and greeted with a lot of encouraging words. He was a little in shock because of the nature of the delivery so they took him to a warming table to make sure he was up and running...although I think they took him to the table just because it's their routine. They soon brought him back to mommy where he squiggled and squirmed for a bit.
• Things get a little confusing at this point. Lots of people mulling around. I failed to write anything down. 
• The doctor, who seemed pretty detached from most of the process, had a tear in her eye and a quivering lip when she said good-bye. We are so thankful for her skills and presence. I hope this was more than just a routine birth for her.
• 2:42 - Xavier feeds for the first time. 
• There a lot of visits (from hospital staff) all afternoon. Xavier never left our sight. The whole staff was great at getting us things we needed and doing their jobs to the best of their ability...except for when we intervened!
• 7:30 - The 3 Perrino's leave Mt. Auburn for a nice ride home.

 

Xavier at about 5 minutes old.

All dressed up at home later that night.

Oh, and in the past week I've gone running once and someone else and I each got a new watch!

Favorites

As a kid we ask and are asked over and over what our "favorite" is. As an adult I enjoy answering this question and am happy to talk about my favorites and debate with myself why it is my fav. This came to a crescendo  this past spring when I received the anonymous question "What is your favorite?" That's it. Not "what's your favorite movie/color/food/student/sport." Just "what is your favorite?" I entertained the possibility of standing in front of my class and rattling off ALL my favorites, but that would have taken too long so I just addressed the fact that it was an incomplete question and moved on.
As my current situation leaves me with plenty of time to ponder, I chose 3 different popular favorites questions and tried to answer them.

• What is my favorite band/music?
• Impossible to answer. Right now as I type this I'm listening to The Mars Volta. They have been on top of my alternative/metal/hard rock world for awhile. Charlie Hunter is consistently on top of my jazz world. But what about the "oldies?" Phish, Primus, Medeski Martin & Wood, and Tool? These are just the ones that are not mood specific. Mood can change the music I listen to greatly. When I wish I was a cartoon character, then it's They Might Be Giants. When I'm trying to recreate the pumped up angst of my teenage years, Rage Against the Machine please. What if I want to travel to distant planets in need of funktification...blast the P-Funk! No I can't give a favorite band. There are too many variables and it evolves too much.
• What is my favorite Food?
• This is another tough one, not so much because of changing mood, but because of the different levels of food that are out there. At a somewhat basic level, my favorite food is bread. But when I think of favorites I usually think what would I like to have on a deserted island? Bread, with all it's infinite goodness, would not satisfy on a deserted island. For that I turn to pizza, my favorite meal/food.

• What is my favorite movie?
• What is my favorite movie? At first I thought this category would end up like the band/music category. But after about 5 seconds of thought I arrived at my conclusion: Hot Fuzz. Hot Fuzz is a brilliant brilliant movie. I don't pretend to know how movies are made, but I would guess that even the writers, directors, and actors know that there are some parts of the movie that are fluff and some parts that are amazing. Hot Fuzz is all great. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that they were breaking new ground or redefining a genre. They just made a near perfect movie and I love it! 

I have many other favorites out there.
Tell me some of yours or go out and get some pizza and watch Hot Fuzz!

Oh, today is day 20 btw....soon my posts might take a slightly more grown up tone...

JFK Day

Let's start this entry off like my Saturday started off, with blueberry sonkers! What are blueberry sonkers?  They're sort of like a blueberry pie flipped over, only instead of thin flaky crust, you have thick chewy biscuits. And instead of only getting to have a little because it’s dessert, you get to have a lot because it’s breakfast! And instead of saying “pie” you get to try to say “sonker” while trying not to say “zonker.” 

This is just a picture from the web. I don’t think I can in good conscience be one of those people who post pictures of the food they make on their blog. I'm trying to blog, not lose all my dignity.

After an amazing breakfast we headed out to the JFK Library and Museum. We reserved library passes, which didn't make it free, but $3 instead of $12 is good enough for us. And then we realized that we had forgotten the passes as we were pulling into the parking lot. After weighing the cost of driving the 12 miles back to the library to pick them up against the cost of paying full price (and factoring in what a nice day it was), we decided on the drive. One hour later we were sitting in an air-conditioned theater (air conditioning being the real reason we were there) listening to JFK himself describe his childhood. An great start to the day, all considered.

The museum was nice, but doesn’t make for good picture taking. Here’s a smattering of pics.

Remember when you had to be 21 to vote? ...me neither! Being young is awesome!

Kennedy's famous "I am a doughnut" declaration.

JFK was the first president to have awesome space PJ's

The inside.

The outside.

After the museum we went out for dinner. We can’t really afford to go to dinner, but my wonderful parents and their infinite generosity thought it necessary to make sure we were well cooled during our mini heat wave. My urbanspoon app chose a Senegalese please in the South End called Teranga. It was great on so many levels. It had a separate vegetarian menu (oh, btw, I’m trying to go vegetarian) delicious food, and was right down the road from a bakery called Flour. Besides its good food, one notable feature is that I have a cookbook with a recipe from the chef that runs/owns it.

After the bakery we headed over to our friends house in Watertown. I won’t name names or post any pictures of them in case they would frown upon being mentioned in my blog. Instead I’ll just use web pics to approximate them.

She reads a lot and is very smart and proper.

He is awesome and has too many powers.

I know Bambi and Thumper are both male, but this is the most accurate way to portray their two adorable daughters.

We enjoyed homemade jam on yummy bread while talking about all sorts of things...yet all I recall right now is the surprising news that my wife has mammary glands and is not a unicorn. 


The day was perfect. Someone else and I had such a good day filled with U.S. history, good food, good weather, dance dance revolution, and great friends.

This post is a rather plain, informative post. For this I am sorry. But while at our friends’ house we watched a TED talk that might be the catalyst I need to go about making some character changes I’ve been dreaming about.

Because of our [soon to be] new edition I feel the need and desire to better myself. I would like to:

1.  Exercise more regularly and without excuse.

2.  Devote slightly more time to scholarly things like curriculum development or casual reading.

3.  Be a stronger member of my church.

4.  Blog more.

5.  Be a better husband.

6.  Be kinder towards people and less cynical in my brain.

7.  Help out others.

8.  Eat healthier.

9.  Play music.

I have ideas on how to do most of these, but I always seem to find some excuse to put it off or not dive into it wholeheartedly. The TED talk’s theme on positivity might be the push I needed. If you have any desire to join me on some character building experiments, reach out to me. Otherwise stay tuned for more developments…