Live, learn, leave
I couple weeks ago I finally got around to putting a new horn knob on my Mustang (I got the part last summer). The old one was yellowed and cracked on one side from years of sitting in the sun. While I was at it, I tightened up the screws that that hold the horn assembly in place. It’s a good thing too; today I took the Mustang out and had to use the horn three times!
We’re just back to work from a long weekend, which started cold and stormy but ended mild and beautiful. We finally got to eat outside and break in our new patio furniture yesterday.
We went out to see a friend’s band, the Vintage Kings, play at a local bar. They were good and did some good stuff – Van Morrison, Chicago, Roadhouse Blues, and then strangely, Beastie Boys. I’m really digging not needing a sitter anymore, being able to go out spontaneously on a Saturday night. When we got home around 2 AM it had stopped raining and we saw a couple coyotes walking down the street right past our house. I had no idea we had coyotes in this neighborhood. They must’ve come from the Nature Study Woods.
I got in a couple good piano practices. Feel like I’m getting really solid, and working up a bunch of new tunes. More on that later, when I’m ready to share and updated set list. Meanwhile I got the horns done for Black Swan, a tenor and a bari. I stayed up late two nights in a row. It came out pretty awesome. I think the song is mostly done except for synth solo and some rhythm guitar. Another couple weeks.
Since I started looking into restoring the Mustang it occurred to me I should take some pictures of it to send to prospective restorers. Then it occurred to me I might as well wax it to make it look its best, like I do to my other cars in the springtime. The paint on the roof and trunk is really dead, but it’s been a few years, and I figure hey, you never know, it might help.
Well, I did a couple weeks ago, and it came out pretty amazing. Not showroom-new, but a huge improvement and what it had been. In fact it was so good I gave it a second coat this weekend. Had to wait for a day with no rain. The first coat took over four hours, including washing the car and doing all the little fussy bits like the fake vents on the sides, as well as rubbing out the large dead spots. The second coat went on alot easier and took only an hour. So now I feel a lot better about the car and the shape its in. Makes getting the resto done seem a bit less urgent and alot more fun.
Sun is shining in the sky, there ain’t a cloud in sight. Don’t you know it’s a beautiful day, hey-ey-ey?
The weather has been absolutely gorgeous the last week or so. I’ve been trying to spend as much time outside as possible. Trying to work from home more and take a long break in the middle of the day to do stuff and then come back an sit in front of the computer in the evening. It feels like just a few weeks ago it was still winter and now it’s no jacket required.
Last weekend we went to a fancy party for the parents of the kids’ school. It was a fun time, more than last year, mainly because we know more other parents now. Jeannie really rocked a new pair of really-high-heels she bought to stay ahead of Lizzy, combined with a new little-black-dress. Woo-hoo!
Also last weekend we went upstate to visit Martin and meet my new niece Abbie. She’s a very mellow baby. They’re doing great. My folks were over too. We all had alot of fun. Martin’s been making great progress on making improvements to his new house.
We’ve been making progress here too. Last week I tuned up the kids’ bikes and washed and waxed Jeannie’s car. It rained that night and the next morning the water was all beaded up on the paintjob. Michelle said “Ooh, that looks like a computer background.” I didn’t know exactly what she meant, but Lizzy snapped a picture of it an shaw’nuff if was her desktop background that night.
I also took the Mustang to a couple of local body shops. Neither of them wanted to touch the car because they specialize mainly in collisions, although they all agreed its a great car in great shape. It’s true you really don’t see may of them here in the northeast, although there’s a guy in my neighborhood who has a Model-A Ford, and another guy who has a banana colored Ferrari. Anyway, they say I want to go restoration not just a paintjob, that I want to “do it right”. I was a bit surprised; mainly the paint is dead on the roof and trunk, and there are a couple of minor dings and a tiny rust spot on one fender. I figured they could take care of that. They made the point that you don’t know if there’s more hidden rust, plus they’d want to re-align the doors and all, and in any event they’d want to take off all the chrome etc., and start with new primer on the whole car. Of course this won’t be cheap, but I’ll end up with a show-quality car and the money I put in will increase the car’s value by even more. This was never my ambition, but I guess it’s all or nothing, so I’m considering it. But I’m also considering just letting it be. If I go all-in, then if the engine every goes I’m already committed to fixing that.
The thing is, neither one knows a guy who does restorations. They both recommend I look away from the NYC area where the cost of labor ought to be cheaper. So this is back to being a research project. We’ll see if I get anywhere.
Oh, and Michelle spilled water on my computer and we had to take it apart and dry it out. Now the wifi doesn’t work and the fan sounds like the world’s tiniest jet engine.
Next up: the patio project!!!
Sounds like an exciting title for a post, eh? But no, this might be the most tedious one yet. The springtime random task agenda continues. I got some repairs done on my Mustang last week. I’m hoping to get around to getting the body restored this spring, but first I had to deal with a weird and rather nasty problem. The first time I took it out this season there was a little drippage coming from under the dashboard on the passenger side. Last time I took is out it turned into a pretty good leak, and it was radiator fluid, all over the floor mat! The leak was in the heat exchanger. My mechanic told me he’d have to take apart the whole dashboard to fix it, which was a really major job. But since I don’t drive the car in the winter I don’t run the heater. So we decided a much easier fix was to reroute the radiator hose to bypass the heat exchanger. Problem solved, fast and (relatively) cheap. He also recommended a body shop, so now I have two places to go for an estimate.
Meanwhile, I’m thinking about upgrading some of my furniture to replace the hand-me-down stuff I’ve had since college. A new sofabed downstairs for next time we have houseguests, maybe some end tables, that kind of thing. After all, they say living well is the best revenge, although I’m not sure who my vanquished nemesis is, which is probably not good. Somehow this led to the realization that our house is full again, to the point were we can’t even put things away, so before we can do anything we need to get rid of a few loads of accumulated stuff.
I sifted the thru the game closet and found some minor long-lost treasures: a bunch of wind-up balsa wood airplane kits. Michelle and I had fun putting them together and trying to get them to fly. Next I got rid of a shelf’s worth of old programming books. It’s amazing how books, CD’s, and even videos have become basically obsolete these days, because they’ve become virtualized. At least for some kinds like reference and pulp fiction; I’m sure glad I never got Game of Thrones as printouts. Instant future trash.
But for other kinds it’s still very much worth having the book. The three main categories for me are sheet music, origami books, and comic books, but I suppose it goes for any book where the layout and graphics are more important than the text itself and a bigger page works better than a tiny screen. I also sorted thru my pile of old Origami USA Convention Annual Collections. These are spiral bound and easy to take apart. I got rid of more than half the pages but also came across a lot of great stuff, some of which I want to fold, and some of which gives me new ideas for a subject or an approach.
As far as the CD collection goes, that was what motivated this whole thing in the first place. Most of the music I buy these days still is on CD. You can get pretty much album for $5 or so. But my shelf space is finite, and for the last year or more they’ve been piling up on the stereo, in my studio, and on the dining room table. Somewhere along the line I got in the habit or ripping CD’s and playing the mp3’s rather then playing them directly thru the stereo, so over time a good number of them have become ripped. So I finally sorted thru all the CD’s and put my favorites on the shelf, and put the rest in a box, which I put in the closet, completing the circle of clutter.
Maybe or maybe not an interesting data point, these are the bands for whom I have ten or more records: The Beatles, John Coltrane, Billy Joel (these are Jeannie’s), King Crimson, Led Zeppelin (they only ever had nine albums back in the day, but have since put out a few more), Steely Dan (they only had seven), Rush, and Neil Young. I guess you could say that these are my favorite bands who were also prolific and enduring.
Along the way found quite a few records I haven’t listened too in a while and ripped them for my commute. Now I’m enjoying rediscovering a lot of favorite music. I’m listening alphabetically and I’m up to Jeff Beck. Such great stuff I might just stay with it a while, but next up is Walter Becker.
Back to posting stuff about origami and/or making music soon, I promise.
I just got back from a trip upstate to visit family. The big event was that my parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. This was a big occasion that we’ve been looking forward to. Luckily they’re both still active and healthy, and they threw a big party that brought out lots of friends and relations I haven’t seen in a long time.
My brother Jim and his family came up from New Mexico with their monster truck and an RV trailer on an epic road trip. We all met up in Albany at my brother Martin’s house for the 4th of July. Martin’s in-laws were having a big ol’ barbeque picnic. Unfortunately, the power steering on Jim’s truck blew out when they arrived, but at least they had their trailer set up and were in a safe place. We all met up in Buffalo by Friday for the party the next day. It was great to see all my nephews and niece together with my kids. And, like I said, lots of cousins came out from Toronto, Ottawa, Chicago, and all over. It was great to see everyone. Really nice.
My folks hired a violinist and pianist, who were really good at Hungarian, German, Austrian, etc. music, plus a few jazz standards thrown in for good measure. It was perfect for the occasion. There was dancing and everything. My Mum was in high spirits and even extemporaneously sang a number.
I also saw my friend Mark C., who was the best man at my wedding, who I’ve lost touch with over the years and then remade contact. He’s also the best drummer I’ve ever worked with, in Infinigon, Event Horizon, and a few other groups. I wish he lived around here. He’s been in a metal band and a world beat party band the last few years, doing the summer festival circuit. He’s sporting a way-cool Zappa-esque goatee these days. It was great to catch up.
I gave the toast at my Mum and Dad’s party. I wrote a draft out ahead of time, and then paraphrased it (mainly to shortening it to fit the mood of the moment). This method has worked for me as well as an outline or bullet points, and one can always fall back on the text if winging it seems to be losing the thread at delivery time. So I thought I’d present my toast here, for my Mum and Dad.
…
A Toast
Mum and Dad, we’re here celebrating your 50th wedding anniversary. And it’s good to be here. A lot of people don’t make it to fifty, so you deserve to celebrate. And we here all deserve to celebrate too, having known you and seen your enduring love affect our lives. Thank you everyone for coming, family and lifelong friends, to help celebrate, some of you from a long way away.
Let me take a moment to express how, as a product of your love, how much you’ve meant to me. Dad, I want you to know how my admiration for you has deepened over the years. I don’t think I’ve ever known a more principled man. In my youth I mainly saw the uncompromising aspect of it, but over time I’ve come to appreciate the values and the strength behind it. You’ve given me a lot to live up to and to look up to. Your intelligence and vast practical knowledge have been in inspiration too. You speak and read several languages. You know how to build or fix pretty much anything. You’ve had a successful career as an engineer, and have been lucky enough to enjoy a long retirement. All your sons have gone on to careers in engineering, although in the field of software rather than machinery, some of us despite our efforts to do something else. Your passion for precise thinking has been an example that served me well. Another passion of yours is a love of nature and the outdoors. You’ve always kept the most wonderful fruit trees and vegetable garden.
Mum, my love and admiration for knows no bounds. Your nurturing, your industriousness, your fantastic cooking, your humor. Your commitment to education has been a big factor in my own success in life. But the thing I appreciate most is your creative side, and the creativity you fostered in me. Your love of music has certainly rubbed off on me. Growing up our house was always full of music, particularly classical music. Playing music is one of my great joys in life. You are an expert in needlepoint, sewing, and cross-stitch, and your work is beautiful and at a masterful level. My other artistic passion is origami, and I also credit this to you. Your example of patient dedication has been an inspiration.
Together you make a great team, and so have prospered and mellowed over time and grown in love and commitment. So we find ourselves here today. Like I said, It’s good to be here. All the family and lifelong friends, everyone who’s shared in their lives, now you’re to help make this a special day. Please join me in a toast to my Mum and Dad, Frank and Eva. Cheers!
Michelle’s Birthday was last week, so we had a party for Friday nite, with lots of her friends from school. All the parents were amazingly prompt, dropping the kids off at 6:00 sharp and picking them up at 9:00 exactly. It was a fun time and Michelle was thrilled. Plus she got a betta fish, her first pet. On Sunday was a party for Ella’s confirmation, with all the Blick people. My friend Bob is getting heavy into photography, and agreed to help me take pictures for my book. In between we finished up the spring cycle of yardwork. Garden planted, hedges and edges trimmed, and everything. So it’s good to have that done with. And, Jeannie’s started working out again after a long hiatus. She’s been at it a few weeks now.
But the main news is: every springtime I say to myself this is the year I’m gonna restore the Mustang. But then every year something big and/or expensive comes up that takes priority. For example, last spring I had to replace the Jeep, and find a new school for the kids. Well this year it looks like it’s happening. I sometimes feel hesitant about doing this, but Jeannie calls the car a national treasure. It still runs great, but the main thing is it needs a new paint job. Before I make that investment, however, I want to make sure it’s mechanically sound. I took it to the garage last week to get new shocks and a general inspection. I haven’t gotten shocks on it in the 15 years I’ve had the car, and figured it was time. The car checked out and all major systems are sound. The only thing is there was a rattle when the car was idling low. It turns out one of the hood bumpers was loose, and after I tightened it the car has never been quieter (at low RPM).
The only other thing is the car tends to hesitate when you stomp on the gas from a dead stop when the engine is cold, rather than instantly deliver that iconic roar of power. I’m not sure if there’s anything I can do about this other than let the engine warm up, but I’ll be I can adjust the carburetor to improve things. Once that’s dealt with, it’s off to the body shop to get an estimate. We found a good local body shop last year after Jeannie got in a fender bender (or a bumper thumper?) In addition to getting the body painted, I’m gonna see about getting and undercoating, and getting the air filter painted too. Plus I’m gonna replace the horn button in the center of the steering wheel.
A few things before I get to the main point of this post, which is about shopping for a new synthesizer. First, thanks to everyone for the enthusiastic response to the publication of my first origami book, Zing Origami, on kindle, android and iOS formats.
Next, just to bring you up to date in the life-and-times department, I’ve been pretty focused on work the last month, and we just had a big demo/review session Friday. In some sense, however it’s a losing game. The better the code I write, the smaller and weirder the bugs that rise up to bother me on the one hand, and the larger and deeper the strategic problems I have to beat my head against on the other. Ah well I guess that’s what I’m there for, and I should be grateful things are on an even keel. Next week starts summer Fridays!
Thursday nite was a carnival at the kid’s new school where they’ll be going in September. It was really nice, with high class midway carnival rides (the kind that roll in on a tractor trailer), games, food, etc. It goes on for four days, and is apparently the major fundraiser for the school, and the local police and fire department get involoved and everything. The first night was largely for families of the school, so they sent out an invite to families of new students. The kids had a great time and we met a bunch of new patents and students. So it was a very positive scene. The kids are gonna be in for a shock come September when the find out they gotta do math homework just like any other school. Speaking of which, Lizzy placed out of her math final, which was the following day, on account of her having an “A” average.
Today was a street fair in our neighborhood that included a classic car show. Lots of 60’s and 70’s muscle cars, and a few souped-up 80’s cars, and a few from the 50’s and before. The was a ’71 Boss Mustang, a giant 60’s Lincoln Continental and a Model A Ford, but I think my favorite was a white 1960 Jaguar V-12.
Yesterday we spent the whole day on yardwork, the big trimming and weeding session. We seem to need to do this about 3x/summer and this was the first. It was also big trimming day for the neighbor’s landscaper, and he saved me a bunch of time and effort by doing all the hedges on the border of our property. This is a job he’s technically supposed to do, but usually skips if he thinks he can get away with it, but since I was out today and talked to him about it, he was very friendly and helpful.
Since my new book is out, I need to add a new page to my website to promote it. I went to go ahead and start making it, only to discover that the web server on my computer wasn’t working (macs these days run an Apache server). After some spelunking, Jeannie and I determined that there was a problem with Apache, namely that the directory for the log files didn’t exist. We figured this was a side effect of my recent hard drive upgrade. The next problem was that when we went to create the log directory in the Unix shell the command failed (silently). After some more spelunking, we determined that the problem was sudo didn’t work becuase my system password was blank. So once I changed my password to something with more than zero characters I was able to crate the directory and Apache started working again. Then we had to get my PHP going again, and next is my MySQL instance. Yeesh. Stupid computers.
We had exactly a week of pleasant weather a week ago, and now its been back to cold and rainy every day for a week once again.
My next-door neighbor put in a new driveway. It looks really nice, but it sidles up right against the property line, and is edged with stone blocks that make it a good deal higher than his old driveway. I was concerned about the possibility of the watershed patterns changing, creating the potential for flooding on the side of my house, where I re-concreted the foundation a few years back and re-graded the earth. But seven days of solid rain have pretty much shown it’s not going to be a problem. Still, it motivated me to do a bit of landscaping on the shrubs on that side of the house.
I finished a few longstanding tasks. For the first time in a while there’s no big pressure to get stuff done. Even work is at an even keel these days. Summer’s coming soon.
We finished the project of painting the trim in the house: all the baseboards, door frames and window frames. Started back in February, the whole thing took eight sessions. Now everything is clean and shiny. Starting the fall we’ll paint the doors that need it.
Jeannie helped me put a new hard drive in my computer. I bought the drive last December but I’ve been too busy to get around to it. Then once we got into it, what was supposed to be a simple task took three days because of difficulties doing the backups.
Got my Origami e-book done. Hooray! Look for announcements about its availability soon.
Been continuing to get to know the Pilot Hoban. Lots and lots of buttons for the heater and the radio. Last week for the first time we took it further than the train station or kids’ school. Had fun with XM radio working my way thru a zillion station. They have about 20 rock stations, cracked into subgenres like petroleum distillates, but apparently no prog station and no steely station. I noticed an Elvis station and a Grateful Dead station. I want a combination of the two. “Fire – fire on the mountain, where you can be lonely, uh-uh-huh, yeah-eah!”
We watched The Blues Brothers movie with the kids, since Lizzy had done the song Soul Man in honor band, and I’d played her some of the Blues Brothers records. She was surprised it wasn’t a documentary. Michelle was upset that Jake and the rest of the band ended up in jail since it was Elwood was doing all the driving and Jake was just in the passenger seat. And besides, the light was yellow in the first place!
Back to the ol’ grind grind. Turmoil at work. Ah, the impersonal slings and arrows of working for a large corporation. I lost my private office recently in yet another reorg, and moved to a new location. Which is fine as far as it goes: I’m in an open area now with my actual colleagues, so the arrangement makes sense and is more social and congenial than it was before when people were scatted all over several floors. And we’re on the sunny side of the building. The thing is, my location has a built-in desktop that was several inches too low (I’m 6’6” tall). Before I left on spring break, the building services people came by and said they’d raise my desk, but when I got back they’d done nothing and closed the work order, declaring the problem solved. So I had to go after these people, which was a drag. When pressed they refused to fix it as a matter of policy. Picking up a screwdriver would cross an uncrossable line it seems. So I moved to another location nearby with an adjustable desk, causing lots of annoyance to my neighbors I’m sure.
Some good news: it was a lovely weekend. The first really warm weekend of the spring, with hint of summer. The girls had their dance recital on Saturday, and both did really well. The studio puts on a really nice show every year with acts and costumes and music. Sunday we did some more yard work, planting and edging, and I went skating and took the Mustang out for a ride, and we made a barbecue.
Also: getting used to the new car. At first I was just relieved to be done with the car shopping ordeal, but now I’ve driven it a few times, mainly to the train station and am starting to get a feel for it. It’s certainly much quieter and less falling-apartish than the old car. Plus the color is really nice. Blue with hints of purple and green when the light strikes it the right way. The stereo is weird. It has subwoofer, so the bass tends to be muddy and indistinct. Also all the bass is coming from the back of the car. It took some time, but I adjusted it to sound better. Next up is figuring out how to set the clock and the radio presets.
I figured out “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” on guitar. Don’t ask me why. The song’s been stuck in my head since the 70’s. Needed to get it out. Lizzy asked my why all songs about disasters are so long (she’s heard me play American Pie too). I figured out the secret for WotEF: it never resoloves. The first and last chord is an A sus, so you never know if it’s in a major or minor key. There’s not a C or C# anywhere in the tune, just a void.
Another mainly rainy week. We’ve been on spring break, such as it is. Took a few days off of work because the kids were off school. Manly catching up on our rest and doing odd jobs. Last Wednesday I worked at home and the kids did art all day. Thursday the rain stopped and I got a bunch of yardwork done. Turned over the garden, laid down cedar mulch under the hedges. Pretty much done with the spring cycle.
We finally retired El Jeppo last week and replaced it with a shiny Pilot in a very attractive shade of blue. Yes, our quest is at an end and good riddance to the whole ordeal. On the way back from negotiating the deal I was say to Jeannie it would have been nice to get a better trade-in price. But then back windshield wiper stopped working and I remembered why I needed to get rid of the old bucket o’ blots, and considered it was probably a fair deal. We named the new car Hoban after the famous starship pilot Hoban Washburne.
Last Friday I took the kids into the city for a visit to the Guggenheim museum. It’s been years since I’d been there, before I moved to California. Lizzy has been getting into abstract and impressionistic art. This was the perfect exhibit for her. It was all about the birth of Modernism, 1910-1918, plus a side exhibit on the Bauhaus. Lots a Picasso, Mondrian, Kandinsky and others all in one place. Modern art’s greatest hits. It’s been a while since I checked in with this stuff and it struck me how deeply the language of modernism has come to permeate every day pop culture, media and industrial design, to the point where it’s almost invisible. It’s always interesting to image a time an place where ideas we now just accept were new and radical and challenging. Plus the gallery itself is a most excellent space, with it’s snail-shell spiral main hall.
Jeannie has been making Lego robots to solve a Rubik’s cube. More on that later.
