“Full use of your powers along lines of excellence.” – Happiness, Greek Definition
I find false blogging promises one of the saddest things in the world. There are billions of half-hearted blogs out there that started out with such enthusiasm, only to end in embarrassing, continually promising misery.
I do not want to go that route. It’s plainly evident that this blog is no longer a real priority for me. Perhaps it will be in the future.
I plan on leaving this site up, mostly for myself. There’s some good writing in there, way back.
Thanks for reading.
I’m stopping the twitter digest posts. Even I was getting really annoyed by that.
I’ve also been writing more of late. So there’s stuff coming, some of which some of you may even like. I still don’t really know what this website is and what I want to do with it. In some senses I’m plagued by former success: there was some real readership (i.e. not just my parents) for this blog back in the day, but mostly while I was traveling. Now that I’ve moved to San Francisco, the novelty of the experience makes me feel a bit like I’m traveling again. It’s touched that ancient nerve and I’ve given in to the urge to write.
So there you go. I hope this is a not-totally-worthless place on the web from now on. My general apologies for my lack of literary ambition these last two years or so. It’s been an interesting time in my life.
I swear, I must have listened to Wagon Wheel by Old Crow Medicine Show about 20 times in the past 24 hours.
The song is amazing. It never gets old and it hits a particular, subtle emotional note with me every single time. It probably goes without saying that this is not exactly my one of my normal genres of musical comfort, but, as I’ve noted before, a challenged reality is a more enlightened one.
Also, credit The Creekbusters for getting me hooked on it in the first place.
I have to run a lot these days, as I’m training for a Navy PRT. I’ve been running a lot in Providence, with decent results, but I hate it.
Today I went running in San Francisco, and I nearly died. Here‘s the exact route (give or take a few feet) that I ran today. I started off on Page Street, and ran up it’s moderate incline after Divisidero with no problem. I took a left on Lyon Street and thought, hey, that’s a nice park with a nice little hill (it was very foggy). I need a challenge, I’ll just run right up it. So I started up the stairs of Buena Vista Park. I ran well until what I evetually realized was only been the half-way point. I slowed to a pitiful pace from the halfway point to a point that I judge to be about 3/4 of the way to the top. And there I stopped.
It’s less than a mile from where I left, but I was totally burnt out. I walked to the very top, stopping multiple times to check if my heart-attack had passed. The views, though apparently incredibly beautiful when clear, were less than una buena vista. I jogged down the back side and around Buena Vista East back to Haight, to Page and back to where I started. This list bit felt great and I ran it well.
A note to self, then, for further exercise: the stairmaster back at the gym is not to be made fun of. You’d think I would have learned my lesson making fun of dudes that use the elliptical, when now I’ve lost about 35 pounds by using it consistently. Regardless, there’s running, and there’s running up hills.
I’m going to try the same route tomorrow to see if better pacing, the fact that I’ve done it once, and a knowledgable defiance will have any effect. I’ll let you know what happens.
Fenway Park is ancient. This is part of its appeal. It’s the oldest ballpark in major league baseball, it’s built like no other, and we Red Sox fans are so rabid and so engrossed in our traditions that we are rabidly conservative about changes to it. The pars of it that are ancient we rightly think give it its charm.
But there are aspects of its ancientness that are less than charming: just ask anyone who ever used the left-field mens bathroom up until about 1995. (Think circular firing-squad.) The plumbing and drainage are apparently ancient, but not even in a good way: at least the Roman water works worked for thousands of years. These are lucky if they make it to the all-star break. It’s also a comparatively tiny ballpark, though no longer the tiniest. And while its small size does give an intimate feeling that you might not get at, say, Olympiastadion in Berlin, the upper limit on this feeling would not be reached by adding another 15,000 seats to the place.
So how to do it?
New host, new look and, hopefully, new energy to actually write here. It’s not like I’ve not had anything to say these last few months. I dabbled with a tumblelog, but it wasn’t really my deal.
More soon. Promise. In the mean time, check out my Uncle John’s new blog. It’s sure to be interesting.
Tip’o the hat to svn.
For me, they are Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major (K467) and Beethoven’s 5th Symphony in C Minor. You’ll know them when you hear them, and they are just… perfect. If those two do not convince you to delve deeper into the cavernous genre of Classical music, I’m not sure what will.
Anyone disagree? Any better suggestions?
New, Awesome Music
Sarah Harmer
Sarah Harmer is a bluesy/folksy/bluegrassy/acoustic-guitar-oriented, environmentally and socially conscious, lovely, tender artist. I happened to run into her fantastic song I Am Aglow while listening to BSR one night and I’ve been following her ever since. I recently downloaded another song from her called Escarpment Blues, which has an interesting story behind it:
“Escarpment Blues tells the story of a current land-use conflict in Southern Ontario on the Niagara Escarpment, a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve. I grew up on the escarpment on the farm where my family still lives, within a long green corridor that is prized for its fresh water resources, its endangered species habitats, its prime agricultural soils and its wetlands and forests. These lands are under serious threat from the aggregate (sand, gravel, shale) industry. The problem is that large multinationals companies want to open new quarries on top of the escarpment and extract the rock below these ecosystems, thereby removing and destroying them. So, after writing the song, I got the idea for the “I Love the Escarpment” Tour and set out in June 2005 with some of my best musical mates to hike the escarpment and make music along the way.”
She’s highly recommended.
Teddybears – Different Sound
On occasion, I hear a song in a commercial and it just sticks. Sometimes this is terrible, like the time I walked around for 4 days with “Bu-da-ba-bah-dah – I’m lovin’ it” stuck in my head. Sometimes the song is actually good and I’m intrigued, like that new Intel Core Due Processor commercial. I wanted to know who sang it and where I could get it. This used to be an idle daydream, as even googling for “music in X commercial” rarely turned up anything good. Now there’s Splendad.com, to satisfy just that desire. It can be sorted by advertiser and by artist, so I looked up Intel commercials from 2006 and boom: I got my info. The background song is Different Sound by Teddybears. It’s a slammin’ techno song. As it is techno, it’s not for everyone, but I really dig the beat and can listen to it repeatedly with no problem.
Tom Petty – Saving Grace
Tom Petty’s new single is, quite simply, the perfect rock’n roll song. You really feel that deep core of blues in there, but it’s got a rock edge. Talk about perfectly evoking an album’s title (Highway Companion). I would none-too-subtly add that it’s been conveniently placed on my Amazon wishlist, if anyone’s interested. 
Gomez – How We Operate
Gomez is one of those bands that’s been floating off in the rock/blues/country/bluegrass/acidrock wilderness for far too long. I’ve loved them since my buddy Leo gave me a copy of Liquid Skin when I was in Sydney. I’ve psyched myself up and bought every album of theirs since then, and the experience has gone downhilleverytime . There was a ton of great music in there, but it was uneven and confused and confusing. So when I heard that Gomez had finally put out a new album this year, I sort of shrugged and put it out of my mind. They weren’t dead to me; far from it. They were just not as inspirational as they had been in the past. Then a few reviews of this new album, How We Operate, passed my way and they were generally glowing. That was enough for me to acquire the album and I have not been disappointed. Gomez has come in from the wilderness and put out abadass album that tied together– intelligently–all the disparate musical strands they’d been playing with for the past few years. I’m elated and you should be, too. If you don’t already own Liquid Skin, just do yourself a favor and get it as soon as you can. Ask for it for Christmas. Whatever. But both it and How We Operate are classic must-haves.
The Killers – A Great Big Sled
A Christmas song from The Killers? I laughed too, but it’s a damned good song. I haven’t heard the new album yet, but from the singles they’ve released it very well could be as good as their first one. (The second one was classic terrible sophomore effort, in my humble opinion.) The single they just put out, A Great Big Sled, is notable not just because it’s a good song and it’s seasonal; it’s also a (Product)Red track, which means a hefty percentage of the revenue from every track goes to The Global Fund. You can read more about it here, but, suffice it to say, if you can buy (Red), buy it.
Keyboard shortcuts…
make the whole world go ’round. I would be 10 times less efficient if it were not for easy-to-remember, useful keyboard shortcuts. They’ve been a staple in regular computer programs since time immemorial, but they’re now starting to be utilized in ajax-y web applications like Google Documents/Mail/Reader, rememberthemilk, and the beautiful 37Signals applications.
Newsfire
NewsFire is not a web program, per se, in that it’s not run via some scripting language inside your web browser. But it is most definitely a program for the web. It’s an RSS newsreader for MacOSX and it is beautiful. It’s fast, intuitive, and just slick overall. If you’ve got a Mac, are interested in increasing the quality and quantity of your knowledge of the world around you, it’s highly recommended. (N.B.: It, too, has excellent keyboard shortcuts.) Don’t know what RSS is? This introductory article in CNET might help you on your way.