I have a 10 year old

It's hard to believe that Austin is ten years old today. Janet has been reminding him of his difficult delivery for the last 24 hours. THAT was a story.

What does this ten-year-old want for his birthday? His own email address and his own blog. He got what he wanted but his blog is invite-only so if you want to view it, email me and I'll send you an invite. (he is a kid, after all, grateful for the security built in to blogger.)

I also took him and a couple of his buddies to Adventure Landing today where they played arcade games for an hour, played a round of 18 holes of miniature golf, a game of laser tag, ate lunch, played a different 18 holes, and called it a day. Here are some pictures of their adventures.

Funny Picture Break

Here are some goofy things I've collected over the last couple of months for this purpose. Weird sense of humor, I know.

Blood and Thunder Review

Blood and Thunder: An Epic of the American West by Hampton Sides

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
I picked this book for no reason other than I loved the last book I read by Hampton Sides. His book, Ghost Soldiers, was so well-written and thoroughly researched that he became an instant favorite of mine as an author.


This book was no different. Scholarly, but not dry; dramatic, but objectively so; focused, but set on a broad landscape of the American west, while covering a range of years from the early 19th century through just after the civil war.


"Blood and Thunder" refers to the genre of twenty-five cent pulp fiction novels which were precursors "...to the modern western, briskly paced and packed with cliffhangers and hair-raising scrapes." The subject of the Blood and Thunder stories and the central character around whom this book is based is Kit Carson.


Yet this book isn't about the exaggerated way in which these novels portrayed Carson, this book was about the "real" Kit Carson. The loyal, meek, witty, intuitive, illiterate tracker of the West.


Though Carson is the central figure in the book, the book is paradoxically not exactly about him. It is a story of Manifest Destiny, of the Navajo nation, of General Kearny, of General Carleton's vision of a Utopian Indian reservation, and even the vast terrain of the west, from the Rockies to the desserts to the canyon homes of the Indians took form as an important character in this narrative.


And the narrative, expertly woven with historical and cultural backgrounds, explanations, quotes from official documents, diaries, and letters, brings the reader along as though the account given is a novel rather than actual history.


Hampton Sides has written objectively, giving the reader a good sense of the mood of the times related to western expansion, the perspective of various Indian tribes and their histories, attitudes of Mexicans, Indians, and white Americans towards each other, and the bleak hardships of life in the West in the 19th century.


I highly recommend this book, especially if your appreciation or knowledge of this time period and geographic region is lacking. After reading it, you will have received a comprehensive picture and a narrative of this era that is balanced and far more than simply anecdotal.


View all my reviews.

Augmented Reality

This is pretty amazing and doesn't even seem possible, but it is! This video is from this year's TechCrunch50 conference and I heard about this company on this week's TWiT.

House Review

House by Frank E. Peretti

My review

rating: 1 of 5 stars
How disappointing. I had heard such great things about Dekker and in fact, really wanted to read his color trilogy (Black, Red, White) but those weren't available at the library.



I have a solid history with Peretti, but I hadn't read him since college.



I've been in non fiction so much lately, I decided to take a break from it and get into something light and fun.



Here's the thing about this story. It's a little Stephen King, it's a little "I know what you did last summer," and it tries to be the Christian produced movie with not-so-subtle world-view mantras repeated by the characters as though people use Christianese to summarize their world-view.



I didn't care about any of the characters. I just couldn't get interested. I don't recommend it at all.



Back to my non-fiction, I guess.


View all my reviews.

What I've learned from selling and (almost) buying cars on Craigslist

This may be of some help to you if you ever find yourself in the situation we found ourselves in last month.

A not-quite-right sound began eminating from our 98 Sienna somewhere between Ohio and Iowa on our trek to the mid-west in July. As it got louder and louder, and through a series of other oddities, we were forced to take it to a dealer where we learned that a bearing was going inside the transmission.

This was unnerving, because in addition to the literally thousands of dollars we had dumped into the thing over the course of just 15 months that we owned it, we were in Waterloo, IA and needed to get back to Raleigh. We were advised to not make the trip by one mechanic. The other thought it would be ok and we could decide what to do when we got back.

We took our chances and made it back.

Shortly after that, I began to notice some odd things going on with my car (98 626). After having it examined I learned the following things were about to break: The radiator was just about rusted out, the transmission cooling lines were clogged (due to the rust, probably), the transmission fluid was (as a result) burnt, the bearings were shot in both front wheels, and the whole front end was rusting out and would need to be replaced soon.

So, two vehicles that were going to need some serious money to repair and upkeep, and in both cases, the amount of money needed for their survival was much more than they were worth.

Now, allow me to get to my point: Our decision was to sell both vehicles. Who's gonna take them? Carmax? They took them for a little spin and made their offers. Not too impressive, but at least we had something.

How about Craigslist?

OK--so here's where it gets interesting. if you peruse the auto for sale section of Craigslist, you will discover there are two types of sellers.

The first kind of seller has owned the car for a long time and it is in "mint," "perfect," or "like new" condition, even if it is five or eight years old. It has a lot of miles, but they're highway miles, which somehow is supposed to ease your mind about just how many there are. It's clean. He has all the maintenance records so you can see how much money he's already put into it. He may list a blue book value which is meaningless because it is only an average of what people are asking for that particular model, not what they're actually getting for it. These people have an emotional attatchment either to their vehicle or to the care they've given the vehicle and as a result, they expect you to acknowledge this and reward them by paying a little (or a lot) more than you would from a licensed reseller.

The second kind of seller (this was me in both cases) recognizes that their car is a piece of junk. It may be nearly falling apart, but those issues, though perhaps mentioned in the interest of disclosure, are de-emphasized while superficial qualities of the vehicle (leather, CD player, cruise, A/C) are exaggerated. "Please, yes, I know the puddle of oil in the driveway is not good, but hey, it has an antenna that goes up and down!" These sellers are happy to just get rid of it. They want something for it-- as much as possible--(and certianly more than Carmax), though they'll probably take just about anything you offer them before you walk away.

I was upfront about all the known issues with both of my cars, both in the ad and in person. I let people take them for a test drive and sold both vehicles within 24 hours of their listings, a week apart from one another. Neither of the buyers asked if they could take the car to a mechanic (which I would have certainly permittied--though I never suggested it), but both brought "a guy" who knew a little something about cars, looked it over, and gave his blessing to the sale.

I interracted with a guy who was "me" a week later, trying to sell a Honda Civic. It had over 200k miles on it. He was a mechanic and put some time and money into it. I think he really liked the car and hated to get rid of it. At least that's what he wanted me to think. He had replaced the timing belt, made some interesting alterations to the thing, and was pretty proud of it. He faultered when I asked him if I could take it to my mechanic to have him look it over. He eventually agreed. My mechanic strongly advised against me buying it. I didn't. Looking back, best $40 I ever spent.

The Lord provided us with a car my mechanic was about to sell that he had worked on for several years and I felt pretty good about: his mother in-law's car. So I've got the old lady car, a Buick Century, but it does what it's supposed to do, and I'm grateful.

The person-to-person transaction was a great experience each time. Unfortunately I had to expeerience it three times in two weeks, plus a dealer exchange (that's another post). Use Craigslist to buy and sell, it's a great tool, but I believe you will quickly be able to place every ad into one of the categories given above. This may help you in your negotiations.

What Hath Hanna Wrought

The tropical storm that flew through North Carolina the other day left us quite a bit of water. This is good because we have been in a drought for the last two years or so, but after this rain fall we may officially be out of it. Of course, the quantity of rain was not good for everyone as many communities in our area experienced flooding. This is the graphic seen on WRAL's weather page. It looks like the 5.19" reading was taken at RDU, which is on the other side of town from us.


Using our handy-dandy rain gauge, given to me by none other than the mayor of Boone herself (Sheri's mom!), we received 3.6" of water in our yard. That would have been over about an 18 hour period.

Practicing the Diminished scales

Time to geek out on a little music theory. I haven't done that in a while.

I've been spending some time working on exercises and scale patterns related to the diminished scales. You've heard of major and minor scales? Well, those are good to know for sure, and any good jazz player should be able to pull a few modes out of the hat--particularly Dorian modes for minor chord passages, Mixolydian for dominant chord passages, and even a Lydian scale mode for #11 passages. (And really, once you learn your major/minor scales, it's just a matter of displacing your starting point and you are instantly in a mode!)

Still with me?

The diminished scale is something I've always been scared of. Instead of seven notes in the scale, like all the scales listed above, the diminished scales have eight notes. This is odd because it is an adjustment for fingering (I still haven't found good fingering for the scales) but it's also an aural adjustment. The octave doesn't come when you expect it to. There's always one more note to go!

The diminished scale is based on an alternated whole step/half step pattern. Because of the way Western music has evolved over the centuries, this means there are only three of these scales before they start to repeat. Here is what they look like.


The reason I want to get to know them is because I have always struggled with how to handle long passages with prolonged diminished chords. More on that later. But I have recently learned that diminished scales are particularly useful over altered dominants. Chords with sharp 9ths, flat 9ths, sharp 11ths, and 13ths can all be embellished by choosing notes from the right diminished scale. Here is an example of how the notes line up over a G dominant harmony, and how each of the notes of the diminished scale play out functionally.

So back to the long prolonged chords of diminished harmony. Duke Ellington's "Caravan" is a good example of this. You can hear a 30 second clip of it on iTunes here. You can see that the entire A section is a prolonged Gdim7 chord. In F minor, this functions as the vii(dim) chord, or functions as dominant. Can you tell which scale from my first example above the melodic material is based on?

The Airplane's Destiny: Mass Destruction

Tomorrow Austin's reading will be from this book about the Wright Brothers. As I flipped through it tonight to determine how much to read tomorrow, I skimmed this paragraph:

"Although Wilbur died before the airplane's full potential was realized, Orville lived to see airplanes used to transport deadly atomic bombs in World War II and to commercially transport hundreds of thousands of people all over the world."

Good to know. I'm sure Orville is very pleased with the destructive legacy this author feels is so important to mention over commercial flight. In a kid's book, no less.

Don't mess with Natural Selection

We spent as much of the day as we could at the North Carolina Zoo today. It was a hot and humid day and the NC zoo is big and spread out. Lots of walking and an occasional creature to see.

Inside the amphibian exhibit was this display next to a couple of frogs.

Really? who are we to interfere? Isn't this anti-evolution? Maybe I missed something.

Wallet update

My wallet post generated quite a stir. I guess there's a lot of pent-up insecurities out there among guys trying to do the right thing with their money while feeling secure, but not looking like they've got a small print edition of Crime and Punishment in their pocket.

I glanced down my page at an ad that appear for thin wallets. Maybe this is something that can be a solution for us all!

The future of web browsing

Thanks to my cyber-friend Tony Steward for sharing this in his RSS feed. I am so impressed by this I can't wait to install it and start playing with it now!



Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

What's in Your Wallet?

A few weeks ago I made a decision to stop carrying a wallet. There were a couple of reasons for this. First, I fairly unscientifically concluded that while I think everything is ok, sitting on a lump of leather and plastic on one cheek, but not the other can't be good for the lower back over the long haul. Second, I had a fear, rational or not, that my wallet could easily slide out of my back pocket and could disappear all together. This would happen not in my office or in my car, but in some place like a food court at a mall, where I would likely never recover it again. Finally, I've noticed a specific kind of wear in my pants, right along the fold or edges of the wallet, where some of the fabric is beginning to tear. Fabric of my pants, not the wallet.

Wallets for most guys are a microcosm of most women's purses. Most guys, if they were to dig their wallets out of their pants right now, would find business cards, receipts, the phone number to the local Chinese restaurant, a couple pictures, a miniature day planner, calculator, various credit cards, drivers license, and maybe a stick of gum or something. Even if you don't carry a wad of cash around (and who does these days anyway?), some tri-fold wallets can mount to an inch or more in thinkness. Who needs that?

So back to my decision. After considering a money clip, I opted for a band. Not just any rubber band--but a band designed specifically to snugly hold items the size of credit cards.

So here is my question. Forced to be minimal, what items do you carry? For me, it is my key card to get me around the building at church, my drivers licence, a credit card, my ATM card and my heath insurance card. Other near necessities I've considered adding: my Qdoba card, Blockbuster card, and the AAA card.

What else should I be carrying?

Rachmaninoff had big hands

Anyone who has ever attempted Rachy's Prelude in C# minor will appreciate this the most...

Apps overrun Facebook

The idea of Facebook opening itself up to the world of developers so that little apps could be developed was a clever idea. It drove even more traffic, encouraged even more interaction, and became a stage for creativity and originality.

I have squandered hours of my life (and certain friends, you know who you are) using one app, which has been terminated under the threat of a lawsuit: Scrabulous. I haven't tried the reinvented version of it yet, but according to this article, something like Scarbulous will be reinstated soon if it hasn't already.

The downside to Facebook releasing it's API for developers is that a lot of nonsense apps have been created. Several weeks ago, I decided to begin my personal ban of them, saving up for just the right moment to hit the "ignore all" button. I figure a nice round number like 100 is a good time.
Here we go!

No posts=I've been gone

If you've been following my twitter, you know I've been gone for a while. We had a good time seeing friends and family, a little mechanical drama, but when everything is said and done, I have to say there's no place like home.

It's hard to read that GPS. I reset all the numbers before we left. The total miles driven in two weeks is 3087.3 miles. I know that's no record, but it sure did feel like one!

The Kids Join Me For some Laptop Time

Tools I use on the Mac (Part 1)

My status bar is getting full. I took a little snapshot of it to share some goodies that I have discovered that I find quite useful and most of them are free.


First I have the Plaxo sync panel. This is the little app that runs in the background syncing my calendar and contact info with their server so that I can eventually get that data to my phone as I've written about here.


Whenever a user in my address book joins Plaxo, the contact information they enter is automatically merged with the contact information I currently have, including pictures, job titles, etc.

The next tool is the very handy 1Password bookmark panel.


It allows me to access any bookmark I may have from any browser I use.

It is kind of handy, but I really only use Firefox right now, so I haven't had much need for it.

Next is this cool little app called Desktoptopia.


Every so many hours, depending on my settings it downloads a new desktop background which I can rate from 1-5 stars or reject all together. It's fun because it beats the OS-installed desktops that get a little old after a while. Plus once it downloads the picture, it not only resizes to fit your resolution, but it stores it locally.

Next is Spanning Sync. This little app is great because it syncronizes my iCal info with Google Calendars.

This allows Janet and I to share calendars and have our information almost instantly up to date, plus I can share calendars with the music staff, both internal and public and I can do all the editing I want right from iCal. Plus any of the changes any of the shared users make on their calendar will be reflected in my iCal, thanks to Spanning Sync. According to their blog, they are about to release version 2.0 which will also sync contact info the same way. There is a $25 annual subscription for this service, but I have found it to be well worth it for my purproses!

Next is "Caffine."


What does it do? When it's turned "off," it does nothing but sit in the status bar.

When it is activated, it keeps your computer from falling asleep. It keeps the screen from dimming and even keeps the back light turned on under the keyboard.

This is handy if you are doing something like watching a streaming video, or just want to keep the computer from going to the screen saver on you. Seems like a small thing, but it has become a really handy little app.

Next there's Quicksilver, a little productivity app that runs in the background and waits for you to evoke it using short cut keys like ctrl-space.


It is more than an application launcher, you can do things like create and send an email, create a to-do, launch a track in iTunes, etc, all from this little interface, without having to go into each individual application. You can watch these very useful introduction videos on how to use it here and here.

Finally, there are various computer status idicators, from iSlayer.


I could have activiated many more pieces of information, but I wasn't interested in seeing realtime updates of my memory usage or processor speed. What I have activated, however, in order of appearance, are my fan speed, hard drive capacity, network I/O, and processor temperature.
There are several more tools I use frequently on my PowerMac machines that do not reside in my status bar and I'll post about some other time.

What would You Do?

This evening, I began preparing for our annual pastor's retreat. This is an ironic event because I am technically neither a pastor, nor are we under duress such that retreating is required. Still, it is a staff get-away sanctioned by the elders as something healthy and even necessary for our team so we do it. Since I've been on staff we head to West Jefferson, a nice little community in the northwest corner of the state in the mountains far away from things like cell phone towers and the internet. That's not actually true (and as such, I'll try to keep you updated on twitter), but it is serene enough that it sometimes feels that way. In my office, I have a lot to do. At home, Janet and the kids wouldn't mind if I stayed around for the next few days, but I do genuinely enjoy the guys on staff, even if it means I have to play golf.

This leads me back to the part about the preparation. The last time I played golf, was on last year's retreat. And the time I played golf before that was on the previous year's retreat. You get the idea. Golf is fine if you have unlimited time, financial resources, and patience, and since I lack in all three, it receives very little of the required dedication from me.

So my preparation for this event entails removing my golf bag from the corner of the garage--where it has sat since--well, since I cleaned out the garage a few months ago--and literally taking a broom and brushing off the dust, cobwebs, a couple of spiders, and whatever other interesting stuff accumulates over the course of a year on an untouched item in one's garage.

I went through the pockets to check and see if I actually had any golf balls. I haven't lost them all yet, so I'm good. I even have a few tees and a glove.

I was surprised, however, to find in one of the golf bag pockets two snack items.

Before I go any further, I need to introduce you to my taxonomy of favorite snack items. There are three things that I will snack on at just about any time: peanuts (I prefer to crack them out of the shell), popcorn (butter doesn't hurt) and Doritos.

What do I find in my golf bag? A little Planters package of salted peanuts, and a small little Doritos bag. The expiration date on the the peanuts reads 2/17/08. That seams pretty clear. However, the Doritos bag has a slightly ambiguous "8/14" printed on it. No year.

You may not appreciate my struggle. I would really like to load up on those snacks tonight! In spite of the dates (they always go to the safe side by at least a year, right? plus the Doritos bag didn't give a year so it could be THIS year, right?), I could either

1. Eat them anyway
2. Feed them to my kids (see if anything happens)
3. Mix them with fresh items, see if I can tell a difference
   
4. Save them for a White Elephant gift exchange
5. Keep them for some of the neighborhood kids at Halloween
   
6. Throw them out

Any other suggestions? What would YOU do?

High Gas Prices Yield unintended consequences

I was reminded of Guy's post of a couple months ago regarding the high cost of gasoline when I saw a brief blurb today about how higher gas prices leading to fewer people driving are leading to fewer highway fatalities.

"...For every 10 percent increase in gas prices, there was a 2.3 percent decline in auto deaths. For drivers ages 15 to 17, the decline was 6 percent, and for ages 18 to 21, it was 3.2 percent."

Should I be gaining any increased sense of security heading into our Iowa trip later this summer?