I think Christian bands should stop imitating the secular ones - you all sound the same - come up with something new! ... Explanation of why the Classical station is the only one worth listening to - ever. Irish Rhapsody no. 6 by Stanford is the awesomest I've heard in a long time.
The picture of a paramilitary school is somewhat frightening... At least I have a better idea of what I'm getting into. Not sure I like the prospect... However, I believe there's room in the dorms, and the ship cabins, for the cello. Because if the cello doesn't go, I don't go. End of story.
The cello needs a bridge job, and something funky is going on with the C string; the harmonic on the 5th doesn't tune to the rest of it - which is terrible terrible... A performance major is looking more attractive than usual at this point.
Sunday, 14 November 2010
Thursday, 21 October 2010
The Passion & the Beauty
Lately I've been blown away by the beautiful things that surround us - the blue sky, the redwoods, the ocean, the wind, the rain... and life itself. The world may be ugly, but life is beautiful. It's like a melody we are meant to sing through, carefully articulating each phrase, expressing every dynamic. It's a gift, a precious one, something we can't just throw away by searching for worldly securities. Our experiences shape who we are, where we are, and what we are becoming.
Every experience in your entire life has led up to this exact moment. -Jon Mahony
When you walk on the Path, instead of trying to run over the mud on one side or drown in the lake on the other, you start to love it. There are a lot of bends up ahead, but the Path doesn't end, and the views keep getting better.
Every experience in your entire life has led up to this exact moment. -Jon Mahony
When you walk on the Path, instead of trying to run over the mud on one side or drown in the lake on the other, you start to love it. There are a lot of bends up ahead, but the Path doesn't end, and the views keep getting better.
Tuesday, 7 September 2010
Career Advice and Robbing Trains
Do What You Love. That's what a lot of people tell me. I think it's true to an extent. But like most rules, there must be exceptions... what if you love more than one thing, and they're virtually incompatible? Mine aren't completely, but it would take some figuring out to make them both work at the same time. Thoughts to chew on... What if the thing you love is robbing trains?...
The Great Train Robbery - it was excellent! Having never read Michael Chrichton before, I was pleasantly surprised with his writing style. I could really believe he totally researched Victorian culture, the way he wrote about everything made me feel like I was in it, living it. Parts of it were grungy, but it made the Victorian underworld seem so realistic. And the antihero factor. You really got to admire Edward Pierce as a criminal and supermind. Always so cool and collected, outrageous... and terribly evil. The societal issues at stake were remarkable. On reflection, it was rather like reading a Sherlock Holmes novel from the backside, or the criminal's point of view.
The cello has been tucked away in the livingroom for about a week now, deprived and ignored. The piano and the Bach Chorales have been recieving most of the attention lately, because they're part of my class grades... However, I have a little time for more challenging work; mainly the rest of the first cello suite.....
Beauty is the expurgation of the superfluous.
-Michaelangelo
The Great Train Robbery - it was excellent! Having never read Michael Chrichton before, I was pleasantly surprised with his writing style. I could really believe he totally researched Victorian culture, the way he wrote about everything made me feel like I was in it, living it. Parts of it were grungy, but it made the Victorian underworld seem so realistic. And the antihero factor. You really got to admire Edward Pierce as a criminal and supermind. Always so cool and collected, outrageous... and terribly evil. The societal issues at stake were remarkable. On reflection, it was rather like reading a Sherlock Holmes novel from the backside, or the criminal's point of view.
The cello has been tucked away in the livingroom for about a week now, deprived and ignored. The piano and the Bach Chorales have been recieving most of the attention lately, because they're part of my class grades... However, I have a little time for more challenging work; mainly the rest of the first cello suite.....
Beauty is the expurgation of the superfluous.
-Michaelangelo
Sunday, 22 August 2010
Alice in Wonderland
Last week I was on an Alice in Wonderland trip, although I haven't seen the new movie. I cannot see any one thread of thought throughout the entire book, which makes it confusing, and when it ended I was like, "ok, well... that was interesting I guess." Not quite knowing what to make of it. Most books you come out of with a new perspective on life, or a different idea about some subject, but this just left me with feeling perhaps I could understand what hallucinating is like. Although I have heard that there is something in it to do with mathematical equations (I'll have to check into that), I must admit I've wondered about Lewis Carrol's sanity. From a writer's perspective, it would be rather fun to just write a book out of whatever happens to come to mind, which seems to be exactly what he's done. He must have liked white rabbits...
Thursday, 5 August 2010
Define the Blog...
A note to all concerned:
This is not a journal, it's a blog. It has a number of topics, mostly Ocean, Writing/Reading/Novel, Music - related. Explanation of deleting previous posts that do not fit the topic(s). Sometimes a random post will pop up about politics or a narrated piece of life I'm going to put in a story someday, but I'm just saying I'm going to do my best to stick to the BLOG part of blog. Here's a sentence I wrote a while ago that I like:
The rain still rains, the wind still blows, and the ocean hasn't dried up yet, so all is well with the world.
Relatively, I mean... In a bookworm- romanticist sort of way, "all is well with the world."
This is not a journal, it's a blog. It has a number of topics, mostly Ocean, Writing/Reading/Novel, Music - related. Explanation of deleting previous posts that do not fit the topic(s). Sometimes a random post will pop up about politics or a narrated piece of life I'm going to put in a story someday, but I'm just saying I'm going to do my best to stick to the BLOG part of blog. Here's a sentence I wrote a while ago that I like:
The rain still rains, the wind still blows, and the ocean hasn't dried up yet, so all is well with the world.
Relatively, I mean... In a bookworm- romanticist sort of way, "all is well with the world."
Tuesday, 3 August 2010
New Experiences
One of the newer things in the last 6 monthsish is my joining the Santa Cruz Sea Scouts, which has been an interesting ride so far. There are some things I like about it, and other things I do not, which I will not be specific about. Last Thursday through this Monday I went on their summer cruise; this year it was to Monterey (we have a green crew, so they decided against going to Catalina/So. Cal).
The ride to Monterey was pretty nice; I'm the appointed Navigator, so I taught a couple of scouts about how plotting a course etc. works; we also saw a couple of Humpbacks and a pod of dolphins go by. Not so nice was the fact that the radar is not currently working (although it was only light fog, its still a good safety), and, once we got over to the anchorage, the doubts about whether the anchor windlass was functioning... AHHH! Anyways, Monterey was nice and cold an' foggy, like it usually is in June, July and August. Some of the crew went swimming, and I think I took a nap, I don't remember... Day #2 I spent about 6 hours (morning till after lunch) learning about taking apart outboard motors, and I actually learned alot, so it was a good learning opportunity. After that I went ashore with Andy, our executive officer, and Brent, junior officer, and we walked to Sand City to get parts for a water line that busted, and look for some fuses for the radar, and Trader Joe's (always good :). Next day we decided to head for Santa Cruz, trip over etc., which is not really noteworthy.
Our second day in Santa Cruz (we anchored right off the wharf, in front of the Boardwalk) we walked through the Boardwalk and went on the Big Dipper (woooot!), stood around watching the salt water taffy machine (wooot!) and walked along the railroad tracks and did a loop to avoid the Boardwalk on the way back. Hiked along West Cliff Drive to the lighthouse/surf museum where I found some awesome postcards (hey, I was on a trip, okay, we had to act like tourists...) and headed back to the ship. This was all very entertaining, as we were in a sarcasticly humorous way. Yes, "sarcasticly" is a word. As of... now.
Back on the ship, Brent and I decide we need to take the Lido 14 (sailboat) out. No big deal, I'm the person in charge of sailing anyways. It's a pretty breezy afternoon with no clouds overhead, and there's some boats from the harbor out scooting around by the mile bouy. Brent is newer at sailing, but I put him at the tiller anyways, because that's how you learn; sails up, we cast off the Steeves and head out for some fun.
I explain a little about how the steering for sailboats works, and what angle to aim for with the wind. We get going pretty fast, and heel a little; I'm trimming the sails for optimum speed... Then we're sailing really fast, and we're almost standing up on the windward side of the boat, so I tell Brent we might want to tack.
WHAP! We tack, but we're still blasting along like snot, so I say let's head downwind a bit, but we're already heeling way waaaay over, and then we're going up into the wind (which gets you going even faster); I'm thinking I should let out the sails (the last chance to avoid capsizing), but it's those self-locking cleats that suck to undo when you're in a hurry, and I can't get on the other side of the boat 'cause we're heeling so much, and it's slow motion as some water comes over the gunnel, and then WHAP - we tack; at that point Brent loses all rudder control as she rounds up again, and -slooow motion- we heel waaaaaaaaay over, and its so far over we can't keep balance, then all of a sudden we're in the air, and SPLOOSH!
Luckily, we're both wearing life jackets. The boat finishes flipping completely over as my head pops out of the water and Brent gets untangled from the main sheet. The water actually didn't feel very cold, because we were both so shocked about actually capsizing the boat. I'd never flipped a boat before, so I didn't have much of an idea about how to right one, but we definitely learned how. We hauled ourselves up on top of the hull and stood on one side, standing on the gunnel. Andy came by and helped us out with three other people, and we finally managed to right it. We realized that because the bow of the Lido is a big cubby, it's the heaviest part and is super full of water, so to right it you have to stand close to the bow and kinda roll it on the bow, which lets the stern come up and over first.
Some lifeguards came by and were a huge hassle, even though they meant well. We bailed some of the water (there was SO much water) before the lifeguard boat came up and told us we couldn't... anyways, we managed to tow it back to the ship, and I believe that's the closest either of us have come to the first stages of hypothermia. Big excitement of the trip, and a good learning experience to boot. At first it was a shock, and I felt really bad about it, but later it was pretty funny. There were a bunch of people on the wharf taking pics of us, and we kind of regretted not having a video of us going over (our faces must have been comical to see).
That's the latest, and I thought I should try and write that out in story form for the explanation and entertainment of those who weren't present. In other news, I'm contemplating rearranging the shed for at least a study area, and feeling like I should try and do some creative writing... It's summer, after all, and I have till the 31st, and it's going by way too fast.
The ride to Monterey was pretty nice; I'm the appointed Navigator, so I taught a couple of scouts about how plotting a course etc. works; we also saw a couple of Humpbacks and a pod of dolphins go by. Not so nice was the fact that the radar is not currently working (although it was only light fog, its still a good safety), and, once we got over to the anchorage, the doubts about whether the anchor windlass was functioning... AHHH! Anyways, Monterey was nice and cold an' foggy, like it usually is in June, July and August. Some of the crew went swimming, and I think I took a nap, I don't remember... Day #2 I spent about 6 hours (morning till after lunch) learning about taking apart outboard motors, and I actually learned alot, so it was a good learning opportunity. After that I went ashore with Andy, our executive officer, and Brent, junior officer, and we walked to Sand City to get parts for a water line that busted, and look for some fuses for the radar, and Trader Joe's (always good :). Next day we decided to head for Santa Cruz, trip over etc., which is not really noteworthy.
Our second day in Santa Cruz (we anchored right off the wharf, in front of the Boardwalk) we walked through the Boardwalk and went on the Big Dipper (woooot!), stood around watching the salt water taffy machine (wooot!) and walked along the railroad tracks and did a loop to avoid the Boardwalk on the way back. Hiked along West Cliff Drive to the lighthouse/surf museum where I found some awesome postcards (hey, I was on a trip, okay, we had to act like tourists...) and headed back to the ship. This was all very entertaining, as we were in a sarcasticly humorous way. Yes, "sarcasticly" is a word. As of... now.
Back on the ship, Brent and I decide we need to take the Lido 14 (sailboat) out. No big deal, I'm the person in charge of sailing anyways. It's a pretty breezy afternoon with no clouds overhead, and there's some boats from the harbor out scooting around by the mile bouy. Brent is newer at sailing, but I put him at the tiller anyways, because that's how you learn; sails up, we cast off the Steeves and head out for some fun.
I explain a little about how the steering for sailboats works, and what angle to aim for with the wind. We get going pretty fast, and heel a little; I'm trimming the sails for optimum speed... Then we're sailing really fast, and we're almost standing up on the windward side of the boat, so I tell Brent we might want to tack.
WHAP! We tack, but we're still blasting along like snot, so I say let's head downwind a bit, but we're already heeling way waaaay over, and then we're going up into the wind (which gets you going even faster); I'm thinking I should let out the sails (the last chance to avoid capsizing), but it's those self-locking cleats that suck to undo when you're in a hurry, and I can't get on the other side of the boat 'cause we're heeling so much, and it's slow motion as some water comes over the gunnel, and then WHAP - we tack; at that point Brent loses all rudder control as she rounds up again, and -slooow motion- we heel waaaaaaaaay over, and its so far over we can't keep balance, then all of a sudden we're in the air, and SPLOOSH!
Luckily, we're both wearing life jackets. The boat finishes flipping completely over as my head pops out of the water and Brent gets untangled from the main sheet. The water actually didn't feel very cold, because we were both so shocked about actually capsizing the boat. I'd never flipped a boat before, so I didn't have much of an idea about how to right one, but we definitely learned how. We hauled ourselves up on top of the hull and stood on one side, standing on the gunnel. Andy came by and helped us out with three other people, and we finally managed to right it. We realized that because the bow of the Lido is a big cubby, it's the heaviest part and is super full of water, so to right it you have to stand close to the bow and kinda roll it on the bow, which lets the stern come up and over first.
Some lifeguards came by and were a huge hassle, even though they meant well. We bailed some of the water (there was SO much water) before the lifeguard boat came up and told us we couldn't... anyways, we managed to tow it back to the ship, and I believe that's the closest either of us have come to the first stages of hypothermia. Big excitement of the trip, and a good learning experience to boot. At first it was a shock, and I felt really bad about it, but later it was pretty funny. There were a bunch of people on the wharf taking pics of us, and we kind of regretted not having a video of us going over (our faces must have been comical to see).
That's the latest, and I thought I should try and write that out in story form for the explanation and entertainment of those who weren't present. In other news, I'm contemplating rearranging the shed for at least a study area, and feeling like I should try and do some creative writing... It's summer, after all, and I have till the 31st, and it's going by way too fast.
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