These days, I knit socks in dribs and drabs -- a couple of rounds here, a few stitches there. This latest pair has taken me months to finish using this method, but they're just so pretty! The yarn is Noro Kureyon Sock, and the pattern is the old faithful Yankee Knitter "Classic Socks" pattern. It's way too warm to even try these suckers on, but I'm really looking forward to wearing them when things cool off.
Thursday, July 01, 2010
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Yarn and Music
I used to love having quiet Sunday mornings all to myself. I'd make a big pot of fresh coffee, and then slowly drink it while writing stuff and wearing my jammies. Not that those Sundays are gone, but they've become rare things these days. It's a rare and lovely treat these days to have a stretch of time in which I can just write.
Come to think of it, I haven't had much time in which to just knit, either. I was taking these photos for Fran's website and thought I'd share them...
The latest track to appear is on the disc Harmonious Dissonance, which will be released on June 29. Track 5, "Variations on 'Ongiara'," is a string piece using the themes from Greg's "Niagara" orchestral piece (now referred to as "Ongiara"), performed by the ensemble Vit Muzik. As soon as it has been released, you should be able to hear a preview on Amazon. At the moment, you can see the CD cover and pre-order it as a disc or an MP3 album only. You can hear a 30-second preview here.
The tracks are also available on iTunes, but I'm unable to dig up the URLs for you. You can always search on the disc titles and see what comes up.
The String Quintet, the one that began life as The Ugly Horn Quintet and emerged as a beautiful piece for strings, will appear on Navona Records shortly, too -- only I don't know what exact date corresponds to "shortly" yet. The Sax Quartets CD will also be issued this year -- we hope. 4 years in the making -- or maybe 5!
First, the Yarn
Come to think of it, I haven't had much time in which to just knit, either. I was taking these photos for Fran's website and thought I'd share them...
Isn't it pretty? This is K1C2 Crock-o-Dye sock yarn, wool/nylon with a little silk. The colors are lovely, and the yarn has the right combination of softness and springiness that make knitting with it a pleasure. It's just a smidge softer than Happy Feet, which is in the running to become my favorite sock yarn to knit. You can buy the yarn from Fran if you'd like. (Disclaimer: I don't get a commission, but I do get paid to put up the PayPal buttons and stuff on her site. You might say that I have an economic interest, though.)
I do have another pair of socks in the works -- one sock done, one just needing a toe. These are the ones made from Kureyon Sock Yarn. The yarn comes off the skein feeling like a Brillo pad, but I've had the chance to touch a sock that was washed after knitting with the stuff -- and it feels like real wool. The yarn is lovely (as is anything with the name Noro on the label), and I'll share photos once that last toe has been added.
I knit in dribs and drabs these days -- half an hour here, 15 minutes there. The fact that these socks have taken shape at all is pretty much a testament to what you can do if you have a spare minute. The fact that they've taken me months to knit says a great deal about how many spare minutes these things take.
Next, the Music
After months or years of waiting, Greg's tracks are finally beginning to appear on Amazon and iTunes. His "Water" Suite appears on Volume 15 of Masterworks of the New Era... on Amazon, these are Tracks 9 and 10.The latest track to appear is on the disc Harmonious Dissonance, which will be released on June 29. Track 5, "Variations on 'Ongiara'," is a string piece using the themes from Greg's "Niagara" orchestral piece (now referred to as "Ongiara"), performed by the ensemble Vit Muzik. As soon as it has been released, you should be able to hear a preview on Amazon. At the moment, you can see the CD cover and pre-order it as a disc or an MP3 album only. You can hear a 30-second preview here.
The tracks are also available on iTunes, but I'm unable to dig up the URLs for you. You can always search on the disc titles and see what comes up.
The String Quintet, the one that began life as The Ugly Horn Quintet and emerged as a beautiful piece for strings, will appear on Navona Records shortly, too -- only I don't know what exact date corresponds to "shortly" yet. The Sax Quartets CD will also be issued this year -- we hope. 4 years in the making -- or maybe 5!
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Google Voice: Lost in Translation
In Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, the residents of San Lorenzo build their entire lives and civilization around misheard words and concepts -- but in doing so, they manage to build a pretty decent lifestyle out of ideas they know to be glorious lies. One example of misheard words is their version of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," which goes something like this: "Tsvent-kiul, tsvent-kiul let-pool store..."
You can experience some of the same exotic style of translation with Google Voice. Its voice-recognition software transcribes telephone voicemail into email and sends you an email or text if you receive a call and the caller leaves a message.
Oh, I waited eagerly for a few months for my Google Voice invite. Google Voice promised to do some of the things that I was used to being able to do with the Accessline software we used to have on our phones at Sun. You could accept calls at your assigned phone number, and then set up rules to route calls to your office, home office, fax machine, or cell numbers -- or, after hours, direct to voicemail. You could set up temporary rules, permanent rules, and different rules for days and times. How great was that?!
Google Voice also offered some mighty nifty features beyond call routing. You could listen to a caller leaving a message before answering. Messages could be transcribed to email, and you could listen to the associated sound files via the Web.
Oh, and the best part: You're more or less allowed to pick your own phone number from the available area codes and number/letter combinations. One lucky friend of mine in NH was able to pick a Bay Area area code and a phone number that was his nickname. I wasn't quite so lucky in my choices -- I chose the Maine area code that all my other phones use, but spent at least an hour trying to find any combination at all that wasn't already in use under one of the two available exchanges. I did finally go with a number, but mostly out of exhaustion. SHIT and CRAP were still available. Oh, and if you choose SHIT and decide that you'd rather have CRAP, you may change once for $10.
With the difficult part done, I set about programming my home and cell phones to ring at prescribed hours, and to set "Do Not Disturb" after 11 PM. That part went easily enough. I then waited for my life to become more orderly -- at least as far as phone calls were concerned.
Things thus far haven't worked out quite as planned, though. People calling my cell phone number -- not my Google number -- got routed into the voicemail system without my being alerted that they were calling. Even if I had thought to screen my calls, I never had the chance.
The only notification I did get came from the email transcript -- which did arrive promptly after I never heard the phone ring. The first message came from the admin at a company for which I hope to do a little freelancing. Having reached my voicemail greeting, she began, "Hi Karen, this is Tiffany." The transcript, by contrast, read "Hi Janet Company." It's a good thing that Google Voice can at least capture phone numbers accurately. If I hadn't recognized the phone number in the message, I might have mistaken it for one of those horrendous spam emails with long lines of nonsense leading up to a link to buy "herbal Viagra."
Sometime during my apologetic call back to Tiffany, Greg beeped in. I ignored his call, so it went to voicemail -- Google Voicemail. This would have been great, if he had been calling my Google number, but he wasn't. He called my AT&T number.
The email transcript arrived. "Hi Lee, Almost all those things. Bang foot I want to repair with you R N. Bye." I will admit that sometimes it's like Final Frickin' Jeopardy trying to untangle all of the vintage TV references, nicknames, and private jokes to get the real meaning of some of his messages, but this one reached a whole new level of obscurity. There wasn't even a link to herbal Viagra. I called Greg at home and read him the message. He replied that he actually had asked me a couple of questions that would help him fill out a form for something, and that his foot was just fine, thankyouverymuch.
Okay, maybe I expect a great deal more than I should get for the shiny and fabulous price of Free -- but it's evident that Google Voice isn't quite ready for prime time yet. The product has a HUGE amount of promise, but don't count on it to handle anything critical, or to not handle things you don't want it to handle.
For starters, Google Voice should only handle calls made to the Google number, and leave all other calls alone. If a call comes directly to my cell number, I would prefer that 1. the phone should ring, and 2. messages should go to the voicemail I specify, or to my cell phone's voicemail.
The call screening feature either doesn't work at all, or it works too well. If no one can reach you because your phone doesn't ring, then you need not worry too much about answering, let alone listening to someone leaving a message.
And ah, the messages. While vastly entertaining to read back to the original callers, they can't be used to deliver anything of actual import. I've removed my cell phone for the time being. If a phone call should come in announcing that I've just won the Nobel Prize, I'd rather not have to try prying some meaning out of "Hi Janet Company. Boo bottle flies."
-- Post From My iSomething
You can experience some of the same exotic style of translation with Google Voice. Its voice-recognition software transcribes telephone voicemail into email and sends you an email or text if you receive a call and the caller leaves a message.
Oh, I waited eagerly for a few months for my Google Voice invite. Google Voice promised to do some of the things that I was used to being able to do with the Accessline software we used to have on our phones at Sun. You could accept calls at your assigned phone number, and then set up rules to route calls to your office, home office, fax machine, or cell numbers -- or, after hours, direct to voicemail. You could set up temporary rules, permanent rules, and different rules for days and times. How great was that?!
Google Voice also offered some mighty nifty features beyond call routing. You could listen to a caller leaving a message before answering. Messages could be transcribed to email, and you could listen to the associated sound files via the Web.
Oh, and the best part: You're more or less allowed to pick your own phone number from the available area codes and number/letter combinations. One lucky friend of mine in NH was able to pick a Bay Area area code and a phone number that was his nickname. I wasn't quite so lucky in my choices -- I chose the Maine area code that all my other phones use, but spent at least an hour trying to find any combination at all that wasn't already in use under one of the two available exchanges. I did finally go with a number, but mostly out of exhaustion. SHIT and CRAP were still available. Oh, and if you choose SHIT and decide that you'd rather have CRAP, you may change once for $10.
With the difficult part done, I set about programming my home and cell phones to ring at prescribed hours, and to set "Do Not Disturb" after 11 PM. That part went easily enough. I then waited for my life to become more orderly -- at least as far as phone calls were concerned.
Things thus far haven't worked out quite as planned, though. People calling my cell phone number -- not my Google number -- got routed into the voicemail system without my being alerted that they were calling. Even if I had thought to screen my calls, I never had the chance.
The only notification I did get came from the email transcript -- which did arrive promptly after I never heard the phone ring. The first message came from the admin at a company for which I hope to do a little freelancing. Having reached my voicemail greeting, she began, "Hi Karen, this is Tiffany." The transcript, by contrast, read "Hi Janet Company." It's a good thing that Google Voice can at least capture phone numbers accurately. If I hadn't recognized the phone number in the message, I might have mistaken it for one of those horrendous spam emails with long lines of nonsense leading up to a link to buy "herbal Viagra."
Sometime during my apologetic call back to Tiffany, Greg beeped in. I ignored his call, so it went to voicemail -- Google Voicemail. This would have been great, if he had been calling my Google number, but he wasn't. He called my AT&T number.
The email transcript arrived. "Hi Lee, Almost all those things. Bang foot I want to repair with you R N. Bye." I will admit that sometimes it's like Final Frickin' Jeopardy trying to untangle all of the vintage TV references, nicknames, and private jokes to get the real meaning of some of his messages, but this one reached a whole new level of obscurity. There wasn't even a link to herbal Viagra. I called Greg at home and read him the message. He replied that he actually had asked me a couple of questions that would help him fill out a form for something, and that his foot was just fine, thankyouverymuch.
Okay, maybe I expect a great deal more than I should get for the shiny and fabulous price of Free -- but it's evident that Google Voice isn't quite ready for prime time yet. The product has a HUGE amount of promise, but don't count on it to handle anything critical, or to not handle things you don't want it to handle.
For starters, Google Voice should only handle calls made to the Google number, and leave all other calls alone. If a call comes directly to my cell number, I would prefer that 1. the phone should ring, and 2. messages should go to the voicemail I specify, or to my cell phone's voicemail.
The call screening feature either doesn't work at all, or it works too well. If no one can reach you because your phone doesn't ring, then you need not worry too much about answering, let alone listening to someone leaving a message.
And ah, the messages. While vastly entertaining to read back to the original callers, they can't be used to deliver anything of actual import. I've removed my cell phone for the time being. If a phone call should come in announcing that I've just won the Nobel Prize, I'd rather not have to try prying some meaning out of "Hi Janet Company. Boo bottle flies."
-- Post From My iSomething
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Don't Bring Your Child to Work Day (Please)
Back in the ancient and halcyon days of the '90s, Take Your Daughter to Work Day was invented as a way of exposing young girls to various professions out in the working world, rather than just the traditional female-dominated professions such as nursing and teaching. In 2003, the idea was expanded to include all children, on the useful and logical premise that all children should see what options there are out there, and because all kids basically need parenting time.
When Take Your Child to Work Day comes around each year, many companies organize activities with balloons and games and such. After those activities conclude, the kids are released back into the custody of their parents. While anything that keeps kids busy, happy, and engaged is arguably a Good Thing, I can't help but wonder...
Is your job interesting enough that your child will actually learn something from the experience? If so, then why are so many kids allowed to run screaming around office buildings, grabbing objects in cubes whose occupants are elsewhere, and getting jelly fingerprints over practcially every surface? Is it even possible to keep an eye on your work and on your kids at the same time? Is it possible to bring your child to work without disrupting the labors of those in the nearby offices?
Tomorrow is Take Your Child to Work Day here, and I will be working from home. As a writer, my work is mostly solitary when I'm not in meetings, and I need a certain amount of quiet in order to think. This process does not include having to watch out for other people's unwatched kids, keep their sticky hands off delicate electronics that don't belong to them, or invest in a set of noise-canceling headphones just so I can navigate from the beginning of a sentence to the end with minimal interruption. I'm happy enough to skip the commute tomorrow, but resent the fact that I must be the one to leave in order to complete the work I'm supposed to be doing at work.
Please, unless you're sure that your child will find double-entry bookkeeping or program management absolutely riveting, declare a Stay at Home With Your Child day and teach your kid something instead.
-- Post From My iSomething
When Take Your Child to Work Day comes around each year, many companies organize activities with balloons and games and such. After those activities conclude, the kids are released back into the custody of their parents. While anything that keeps kids busy, happy, and engaged is arguably a Good Thing, I can't help but wonder...
Is your job interesting enough that your child will actually learn something from the experience? If so, then why are so many kids allowed to run screaming around office buildings, grabbing objects in cubes whose occupants are elsewhere, and getting jelly fingerprints over practcially every surface? Is it even possible to keep an eye on your work and on your kids at the same time? Is it possible to bring your child to work without disrupting the labors of those in the nearby offices?
Tomorrow is Take Your Child to Work Day here, and I will be working from home. As a writer, my work is mostly solitary when I'm not in meetings, and I need a certain amount of quiet in order to think. This process does not include having to watch out for other people's unwatched kids, keep their sticky hands off delicate electronics that don't belong to them, or invest in a set of noise-canceling headphones just so I can navigate from the beginning of a sentence to the end with minimal interruption. I'm happy enough to skip the commute tomorrow, but resent the fact that I must be the one to leave in order to complete the work I'm supposed to be doing at work.
Please, unless you're sure that your child will find double-entry bookkeeping or program management absolutely riveting, declare a Stay at Home With Your Child day and teach your kid something instead.
-- Post From My iSomething
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Has Anybody Seen the Month of August?
...and if you do, could you please tell it to come back? I'm not done with it yet.
This has been one funky summer, to be sure. The early part of the season was so cold and rainy that the mosquitoes and blackflies probably drowned. Now that we're finally seeing some decent late-summer weather, it's practically fall already. Aside from the lack of bugs, there's no justice in the world weather-wise.
Date Night at the Aggie Fair
Thanks to Sue for taking pictures and blogging about the Acton Fair -- and congrats to Sue, Sadie, Nate, Kelli, Tracey and Jay, and everyone else who won ribbons there!
Greg and I usually go after he's done with his church gig on Sundays. We love to watch the antique tractor pulls and sample the kinds of food that we can't even be seen eating anywhere else for the other 51 weekends of the year. He rhapsodizes over the Rotary Club's fried chicken livers and onions. I am continually torn between the fresh-cut French fries and the big honkin' onion blossoms. We both save room for the fresh-squeezed lemonade, and polish off our "meals" by splitting a funnel cake with heaps of confectioners' sugar.
Total: 4,028 Weight Watchers points. They'll probably throw me out on my well-padded derriere at my next meeting. Don't tell them that we tried the fried Oreos this time.
We couldn't figure out when to go to the fair this year, but decided on impulse to head down there on Friday night after one of his virtual piano gigs. Friday nights at the fair are so much fun that we plan to go on Friday night every year from now on! I ran into Sue, Nate and Kassy, the Petersens, the Barnabys, and my friend Pam from BCCME (who will eventually stay still long enough for us to get her Web site off the ground). Pam even introduced me to someone who needs maintenance done on his site, and I found a spinner/yarn shop there whom I can't wait to introduce to my friend Fran.
(It's interesting to contemplate that I couldn't buy a freakin' job as a technical writer these days, but I'm getting Web site work thrown at me right and left.)
For a kid from the suburbs who forgot all about horseback riding when she got her driver's license, I LOVE county fairs. I love tractors. I love farm animals. I love scrutinizing the handcrafts, the perfect apples, and the giant pumpkins. I petted friendly sheep, chatted about genetics in the Black and Red Angus with one of the folks from the local farm store, and was vastly entertained by the 4-H kid with the llamas who called out, carnival-barker style, "Come pet our llamas! Guaranteed not to spit!"
The sight that cracked me up most came after dark, so I'm sad about not being able to take a picture. Cattle judging had already taken place by the time we got to the fair, but sheep judging was scheduled for the next day. I caught sight of a Tunis sheep (a hair sheep) on a low grooming table, with someone clipping the stray hairs and neatening up his topline. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Bet it doesn't cost $30.00 to enter a sheep in a show.
This has been one funky summer, to be sure. The early part of the season was so cold and rainy that the mosquitoes and blackflies probably drowned. Now that we're finally seeing some decent late-summer weather, it's practically fall already. Aside from the lack of bugs, there's no justice in the world weather-wise.
Date Night at the Aggie Fair
Thanks to Sue for taking pictures and blogging about the Acton Fair -- and congrats to Sue, Sadie, Nate, Kelli, Tracey and Jay, and everyone else who won ribbons there!
Greg and I usually go after he's done with his church gig on Sundays. We love to watch the antique tractor pulls and sample the kinds of food that we can't even be seen eating anywhere else for the other 51 weekends of the year. He rhapsodizes over the Rotary Club's fried chicken livers and onions. I am continually torn between the fresh-cut French fries and the big honkin' onion blossoms. We both save room for the fresh-squeezed lemonade, and polish off our "meals" by splitting a funnel cake with heaps of confectioners' sugar.
Total: 4,028 Weight Watchers points. They'll probably throw me out on my well-padded derriere at my next meeting. Don't tell them that we tried the fried Oreos this time.
We couldn't figure out when to go to the fair this year, but decided on impulse to head down there on Friday night after one of his virtual piano gigs. Friday nights at the fair are so much fun that we plan to go on Friday night every year from now on! I ran into Sue, Nate and Kassy, the Petersens, the Barnabys, and my friend Pam from BCCME (who will eventually stay still long enough for us to get her Web site off the ground). Pam even introduced me to someone who needs maintenance done on his site, and I found a spinner/yarn shop there whom I can't wait to introduce to my friend Fran.
(It's interesting to contemplate that I couldn't buy a freakin' job as a technical writer these days, but I'm getting Web site work thrown at me right and left.)
For a kid from the suburbs who forgot all about horseback riding when she got her driver's license, I LOVE county fairs. I love tractors. I love farm animals. I love scrutinizing the handcrafts, the perfect apples, and the giant pumpkins. I petted friendly sheep, chatted about genetics in the Black and Red Angus with one of the folks from the local farm store, and was vastly entertained by the 4-H kid with the llamas who called out, carnival-barker style, "Come pet our llamas! Guaranteed not to spit!"
The sight that cracked me up most came after dark, so I'm sad about not being able to take a picture. Cattle judging had already taken place by the time we got to the fair, but sheep judging was scheduled for the next day. I caught sight of a Tunis sheep (a hair sheep) on a low grooming table, with someone clipping the stray hairs and neatening up his topline. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Bet it doesn't cost $30.00 to enter a sheep in a show.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Virtual Virtuoso and Other Stories
It's hard for me to describe the musical path Greg has been taking lately without ranging off into some musical technical terms so arcane that I don't even understand what I'm saying. Maybe the simple version is this: he's doing some exploration into pushing tonal harmony to its limits, and he's been doing much of that work through improvisation on the piano. He does record all of these works to MIDI, and I have no doubt that something of them will resurface when he gets back to good old-fashioned composition again. In the meantime, the best place to hear him do his thing is in Second Life. He plays 3-4 hour-long gigs in a given week, and he even has a booking agent who finds him concert venues and makes sure he gets paid. (Yes, the agent gets a percentage. Second Life is a reflection of real life, after all.)
I've created a tab on his Web site for Musical Improvisation, but it's up to him when he fills that page, and what he puts there. If I find out that he's uploaded something, I'll announce it in the blog.
Caffeine Makes It All Possible
On Monday, I'm taking off to New Brunswick (Canada, not New Jersey) with Dinah for a cluster of dog shows. We'll be joining our friends Val and Pat up there with Trav and Fiona -- and there should be plenty of fodder for my other blog.
As soon as I get back, I'll barely have enough time to switch out dirty clothes for clean and Dinah for Badger before it's time to jump back in the car and drive in the opposite direction to make Badger's AKC debut in Springfield. Just thinking about that schedule makes me tired already!
I've created a tab on his Web site for Musical Improvisation, but it's up to him when he fills that page, and what he puts there. If I find out that he's uploaded something, I'll announce it in the blog.
Caffeine Makes It All Possible
On Monday, I'm taking off to New Brunswick (Canada, not New Jersey) with Dinah for a cluster of dog shows. We'll be joining our friends Val and Pat up there with Trav and Fiona -- and there should be plenty of fodder for my other blog.
As soon as I get back, I'll barely have enough time to switch out dirty clothes for clean and Dinah for Badger before it's time to jump back in the car and drive in the opposite direction to make Badger's AKC debut in Springfield. Just thinking about that schedule makes me tired already!
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