My Long Christmas and Newyears Week

Well. I ran the sound system for the Christmas eve service. It was a mess! A funny one in retrospect, but rather bothersome at the time. I set most of it up with the help of a techie from SIS (my school, and where we had the service) on the 23rd, but there was this irritating buzzing noise from one of the mics. So, on the 24th, I went hunting for a way to get rid of it. I knew where the school kept the extra mics and equipment, unfortunately, they were all behind a locked door. Well, no problem. Locked doors are only a minor problem out at SIS, there are dozen ways by one. However, I didn't have my normal school equipment with me (my ruler) so I couldn't get in. However, you can climb over the back wall of the sound room from the boys bathroom and get in. Problems involved: wall is very high, around 4 meters. No problem. The walls in the shower block are two meters high, easy enough, and there is a ledge half way to help with that as well. Problem two: nobody ever cleans the tops of the walls. I mean, who ever looks there? The tops of the walls were very dusty, and I was wearing black pants and a black shirt. I assessed the situation and decided to take off my pants and climb over (here I must comment in gratitude to boxer shorts). I got my shirt dusty, but it was heavily patterned, so with a quick few brushes It was invisible. So I scrambled up and over the first wall, and then up and over the second, and faced a four meter drop down into the sound room, with very weak shelves to catch me on one side, and light bulbs sticking out of the wall on the other. Needless to say I did it very carefully. I got down safely, found the mics, and opened the door (all doors at SIS, when locked, do not open from the outside, but will open from the inside. This door was no different) and then stoped. Wait. The entire orchestra is sitting up on the stage, and I don't have my pants on, and I need to get back to the boys bathroom to get them. I looked up to analyze the reverse climb. Yes, the shelves were stable on the outsides, they were basically just a pile of cement bricks. I didn't exactly care to do the reverse climb (which was a sight harder than the first climb) while carrying a box of mics, so I set the mics outside on the floor and then started to climb back over. This is where things should have gone wrong, however, I got lucky. I managed to get back over the wall, only getting marginally more dusty than I was already, find my pants again and retrieved the mics. I live for crazy things like that, and nobody even noticed any dust! At any rate, Fate decided that I hadn't done enough in the service of the church that night: The entire sound system was up, running, beautiful, and clear. (I mean crystal clear, except for all the echos, which were unavoidable because of the design of the room. It was not designed with auditorium in mind. The ceiling is composed of several large triangular panels that incidentally reflect everything I have been able to launch at them with the exception of several very sharp darts (One of my friends' darts is still stuck up there, 7 meters off the ground. This is a big room) Including sound waves. Alright, so everything works well, but the sound is a little goofed from the acoustics of the room. Oh well, nothings perfect. This is where Fate kicks in. In marches the Ethiopian choir. All well and good. They sing a song or two every Christmas for the edification of the rest of the church, despite the fact that nobody understands what they are singing about. Then this bozo with a keyboard shows up and demands to be plugged in. Only one problem: no cables. So I rerouted some things and told him he could plug in to my equipment, that I was letting the orchestra use as a monitor. He wanted complete and total control, so he blasted the sound on his organ thing, and nearly cracked my amp open. I turned the master volume down, but my monitor was not connected to the sound system controls. Bad. At any rate, despite all that, the service was relatively clear, I got several compliments for the clarity of the sound. If it wasn't for my uncle it might have been much worse. My uncle runs the sound for his church, and I get to sit in the sound booth when I visit his church, where I learned how to do some things clumsily.

Anyway, that was the sound system mess. This is not where the story stops. Christmas dawned bright and early, and I had a wonderful Christmas. I am using the wireless mouse my brothers gave me even as I type. Well I would be, but I'm typing. But it is a really nice mouse. Ergonomic and everything. It works really well with age of empires, as it has two extra buttons that are very useful for idle villager and town center, for those of you who have played the game. What I want to play now is Mechwarrior 4 Mercs, but Jeremy up and went to college, so I can't. Ah well.

Camping at Hodeida has fallen apart. This year the Erskines, Kappers, Pahls, Libersomthingorothers (German name, unpronounceable), Mufurahs, Hudsons and McCulloughs went. Of those families five actually had youth group age kids, and only two had high school age kids. It was also short, lasting three days, and it rained. Twice. There is a long story about that, however, this post grows to ponderous lengths, so I will not include it here. The raft this year was a success! We went from being the only people not to make the wreck, to being the only people to make the wreck! We were not the only raft either. Tal is going to have a fit. He leaves and Abe and I beat the V's, and then we make it out to the wreck without him! I can't see that I blame him either. It took us an hour and seventeen minutes to go 4.4 km with the wind, and 4 hours to do it without it. Mr. Erskine designed the raft for us, and Jonathan and Timothy went on it, and I must say that I was skeptical, but it worked, and well. It was a brick! square and hard. It worked though! 9 truck inner tubes, 19 meters of 4cm by 4cm lumber, a huge pipe, a 2x3 meter tarp, and a kilometer of rope, and we made the wreck. The last 400 meters was purdy nasty. The water was choked with seaweed: the prickly type. Jonathan was howling. Good (if a tad nasty) fun. The wreck has disintegrated to the point of dangerousness though, so despite the fact that I have actually gotten to the wreck, I have never been on it. Bummer.

The way back was interesting. We had gotten very wet the night before, (it rained for 4 hours or so), and the mountains were full of fog. We were only going about 30 km an hour, and at that rate it was going to be dark by the time we got to Sana'a, so we decided to stay at a hotel. This was the 31st of December. The Coxes were having a new years eve party, and it was going to be good, but instead we spent it at a hotel with a bunch of Australians who got drunk to the sound of an Aud and drums. (pronounced sorta weird with a guttural in the first syllable Aood, or maybe Auood. Whatever). The Yemenis did their traditional synchronized knife dancing for us, and I abandoned the cause and went to bed. There is a lot of knife dancing here. (People who have been in Yemen and seen these dances will laugh at the description I gave.)

At any rate, this post is now at ridiculous lengths, so I will briefly conclude. Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!

Faster Than a Speeding Car...

Today we went carolling. Cool factor of maybe a 2. I'm feeling generous. However, that isn't what I am going to write about. If you don't like hearing about peoples impressive (or not so impressive feats) this post is not for you. However, all you other people: I managed to outrun a car. In city, and on pavement. Light traffic. 1.2 km. Well, not quite out run. I got onto the street first, but our house was at the other side of it, so the car pulled up first, but that's not bad! I was at our gate before anyone could have gotten out of the car. Any way, its nearly bed time, I just thought I would spread my happiness on the web. Sing with me all you neohippies! Come on! Come on! Everyone, all together now: Kumbaiya...

Techno, Asimov, & Beta Blogger

Ok, for the sake of...stuff, I am going to address these things backwards. Firstly, I got upgraded to Beta Blogger!!! Like it? Google is amazing, simple and beautiful. My praise is never ending. I have only ever had one problem with any website put together by them, and I figured a way around it, so it wasn't even really a problem.

Secondly, I have taken it to my head to try to follow in Asimov's footsteps. Sort of. There is no way that I could write 400 boks before I die, inspired or no, neither are my skill sufficient for the task, or my mind acute enough. However, I figure that I have to start somewhere. If anyone would really like to see what I have done, send me an email at gmail.com. My address is the same as the URL in this blog.

Lastly, I have inundated myself with techno. It is a wonderful feeling. I didn't think it was possible to get hi off of music, but let me tell you it is. I have gotten one adrenaline rush after another listening to this stuff. It may even be addictive. The feeling of energy I get from it is just great! Where do I get it you ask? Answer: iTunes. Podcasts. Techtronic sound is amazing, I think there are some other good ones out there as well, but I will have to do some exploring to find out. Anyway, its getting late here, nearly midnight, I should hit the sack. Night dudes.

The Godfather

I have just discovered the second song worth memorizing! (on guitar that is) It is "Speak Softly Love": the love theme from The Godfather (incidentally, a movie I now want to see.) The first song worth memorizing was "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" but that one was a bit long, so I have parts of it all jumbled up. I should go back and work on it again. However, "Speak Softly Love" is purdy cool. I nearly have it, and I just got the music today. One of the great things about it was that to get it I had to learn a new key, but hey, this is exactly what I have been looking for: a piece of music that is quite a ways beyond my skill level that intrigues me, and I found it, and I got it and it was cool! I should record it and set it as my new song, but not tonight. I still sound terrible, and I have another 1000 words to write on my very large paper tonight if I am going to keep up with my quota... I think I am going to need more data by the end of this mess.

A Hair Straightening Experience

I finally have time to update! Cool. This last week I quite literally had a hair straightening experience. My hair was straight. You want the story? Ok. It all started in Economics several days ago. A girl I know decided that she wanted to see what I looked like with straight hair, so she announced that she was going to straighten my hair the next day in British Lit (we were watching some Shakespeare thing). So the next day I wandered into class, and she pulls out all this freaky equipment and starts clipping it all together. Eventually, she was up and running, and she got all my hair straight. The result?
Funny, huh? I should get a perm. It is perfect rock god hair.

What a Day!

Weekend rather. Wednesday was school, school was good, played volleyball after school, worked on spiking, came home, led youth group, went to bed. Slept in. Woke up late (ten or so) worked on homework and such for five hours. Played Ultimate Frisbee for two hours. Came home with a friend (Jeffrey). Worked on a RPG we are making together. He spent the night. Next morning is church. After church is church picnic, with another game of ultimate and a game of volleyball. Get home with six friends. Test our RPG game for two and a half hours with friends. Update blog. Go to bed. I am all sore from all this running and jumping and throwing and catching, and my brain is dead from one hard core thinking session after another (my calculator program that is supposed to calculate die rolls for me is still not working, four versions latter...) and several major revisions have been made to our RPG. I can't think straight anymore, so if you want an analysis of how the RPG test run went, you can go to Jeffrey's blog, which is fortunately already linked. I hurt all over. Good night.

I'm Flying!

Whee! 256kbps internet! (Be though silent all you people with mad fast internet.) everything goes twice as fast as before! I am feeling the inexorable call of research...gotta run. Sorry people.

All Alone

Well, Abe went to Bab al Mandab for 10 days, Mom and Dad went hiking with some visitors for the next day and a half, Peter and Lydia are spending the night elsewhere, and I've got the house. I am considering moving my amp downstairs and really blaring pieces of my music collection over it. I could play some of the really heavy ones that the rest of my family doesn't appreciate too with out any complaints... Demon Hunter, here we come. I am looking forwards to being a bachelor. Hahaha! I could also make an addition to Xebec... We shall see. The day stretches full of possibilities before me...

Violin Run In

Well, I forgot my guitar to band class today, so I had to make due with a violin. Curious things them. First you get this thing and you put it under your chin. Then you look at it. Then you take this stick thing with more strings on it, and to produce horrid noises, you rub the strings on the stick thing on the strings of the violin thing.

Half an hour latter, I was able to quasi sight read the simplest of songs. If you gave me an hour and a half or so in a quiet place with a stick thing, a violin, and some music, I should be able to figure the basics out. My intonation was terrible, but I have a great ear for that kind of thing. It was one of the things I was born with: the ability to hear these really irritating out of tune things that nobody else can hear. It drives me mad. I was nearly ready to beat the violin thing against a wall and break the stick thing over my knee by the end of it all. (out of tune noise is one of the best ways to irritate me.)

Something May Be Wrong...

I just finished taking a shower, and instead of trying to put my shirt over my head like I'm supposed to, I for some reason tried to wear them like pants. I was busy fantasizing about beating up robbers in a break in. I woke up when I realized that my foot wasn't fitting. I then began to worry about the state of my mind. I tried math. Things seemed to be working, but then, has two plus two always equaled four? I asked Dad. He said yes. However, he then said, "but if you had said five I think I might have said yes to that too," which got me even more confused and worried, so I called after him, "so is it four or five?" no response. This is where you can help. Is two plus two five, or is it really four after all?

A Holiday from Heck

That about sums it up. I have done a large amount of school work on almost every day of this week off. Tomorrow school starts up again, and I still have a 1200 word paper to write that is due tomorrow. The econ project that has been killing me for the past several days is mostly out of the way now, all I have to do is rehearse my lines and wave pieces of paper around now before I give the presentation. If we don't get an A on this project I am going to go postal. The type in a school. The one day that I did nothing was the very first day of this crazy "vacation." I have done more work this week than on a normal week that had school. Largely school is when they teach you stuff, you don't actually work, its the homework afterwards, of which I have been doing an inordinate amount. The goal of teachers is to kill seniors. I am convinced.

Ultimate Dinosaurs

I just got back from ultimate Frisbee, where I ran around in circles for two hours straight, attacking my team with a piece of plastic. I hit Keith's hand today. Most people don't come back for seconds... I throw fairly hard. I love that game, but for some reason nobody was playing very well, so it was a sort of muted fun.

Ok, I just finished listening to "kingdom of the Dinosaurs" by five iron frenzy. However, it is far too stupid to update. This guy just yells "kingdom of the Dinosaurs" again and again to this stomping tuba music in the back that is not all that well orchestrated... I have no idea why I just listened to that. Don't listen to it unless you need a sanity check. If you think this is good music, you failed. This is kinda like the insanity test: http://www.owenrudge.net/various/insanity.htm I crack up every time... Legally insane.

Engine Error

Well, dad has been fooling with his internet security things again, and there is now this big huge bar that usually says "Fraud monitoring is on" across the top. However, whenever I go to my blog, it says Engine error. From this I can make paranoid conclusions:

Something has hacked into my blog and now steals everyone's credit card number.

Norton is messing up again.

The Aliens are after me again.

Speaking of different things on the computer, we got iTunes 7. I love it. It has this lovely album art viewing mode that is just downright gorgeous. I should upload all my album art just so that I can enjoy it. Apple has some zen masters designing their products. Nobody can use anything else with them, but they just work so well. (for the most part. I have this ability to crash apples just by sitting down in front of them, but then Jeffrey can crash a windows in exactly the same way.)

I am in the process of downloading Csound. I have no clue what it does just yet, however, I hope I can do some sound synthesis with it, and if it meshes with Audacity I will be most pleased. It is 18 megs (a big file for my connection). Be quiet all you people with mad fast internet. I have very little talent in the realm of music, I mostly like to make noise. I recorded one thing and turned it into mp3 using iTunes, and one day it came up when I had it randomly playing through the library. Mom came in and said, "Turn that noise off!" maybe its me, maybe its my family, or maybe I need to find a whole bunch of people who are as musically stupid as I am and make noise together.

Bab Al Yemen

Wednesday, I went to the old city with some of my friends. It is Ramadan, so we went at about 10 pm. It was packed. We wandered around Bab Al Yemen for a while, and bought a cake of sugar (the red kind is best) looked at silver antiques (don't get me wrong here, they were like silver swords and guns from before the civil war and stuff like that) Then I bought fireworks. I am physically incapable of entering the old city without buying fireworks. I just can't. Unfortunately, they didn't have any corsairs... I had to make do with double charge explosives that are nowhere near as powerful... Oh well, I guess you can't have your kiyak and heated too.

YEAH!!!!

I GOT ACCEPTED TO PURDUE!!! YEAH! And as a result, after a dull day full of computer failures, I am now hyper. Once I got off of those abominable Apples everything seemed to work fine, so I am feeling good, and I can no longer type. At all. In celebration, I am going to download some more stuff by RED. I just can't get over the brilliance of their music. Regardless of my new prestige in my life as a senior in high school, I still have to take the confounded SAT again, and on Saturday, so pray that I don't batch it any worse than I already did.

Flames

In, well, my hair. I'm fine, no one seemed to notice whatever missing hair there is and Mom and Dad don't know yet. Here's what happened so you can all laugh at me with me. (I don't doubt that Jeffrey will laugh loudest). Last night the power was out and I was working on posting calculator code on my physics blog with what remaining battery power was left to me, and I had two candles lit sitting right next to my calculator so I could see what I was doing. I heard a snapping sound, and thought, 'The candles are popping.' I looked up. Sure enough, they were snapping happily away. I looked down again, as the thought, 'my hair might be burning,' passed through some dark recess of my mind (of which there are many). Suddenly, ash began to drift downwards ever so slowly and covered the desk with blackened curled up hairs. A feeling of intense alarm swept through me as the aroma of burnt hair swept past my nostrils. The next cognitive thing I did was reach up and see if it was still burning. It wasn't, so I went back to studying in a room that didn't smell quite as good as it did before and with a little more "dust" so to speak, laying around.

On a more serious note though, I have a lot of work to do for the day after tomorrow (the ninth of whatever month it is...I really should get myself a watch that tells me the month as well as the day... Unfortunately, Casio builds stuff for smart people who can keep track of things like months, and Casio is the only brand of watch I can't shred within six weeks...I should get a job working for a watch company. If the watch survives me for a year its well worthy of being sold.) And I have no clue how I am going to get it all done, so I will log off and get back to work. Prayers would be appreciated.

Math at its Muddiest

Today several fun and interesting things happened, but first and foremost we played Ultimate Frisbee as a youth group again. People are learning. Fast. Today there was much more running, throws were lower and faster, catches were more consistent, and there was more movement, less endzone sitting. We will have a Frisbee game by the end of the year, and I am looking forwards to it. In fact, despite how I hate running, I have started, so I can be in shape for Frisbee. But I digress. This is not math. Later this evening, we had a "Quiz" random facts about just about anything. We had one "Joker" we could place as we like, and being a calculus student I was saving our joker for math. What happens? Instead of being limits and derivatives and functions and all that fun stuff, its how many earrings does Denese wear, times the number of stars on the Australian flag. Irritation. Intense irritation. Not being so observant we go 20% right out of 10. Mega bad. Bleah. It was not math it was simple arithmetic and observation. Oh well. Next time I won't put it on math.

So Thats why Lawyers are rich...

My dad sent me this really funny thing about salaries I got a kick out of it.

Dilbert's "Salary Theorem" states that "Engineers and scientists can never earn as much as business executives, sales people, accountants and especially liberal arts majors." This theorem can now be supported by a mathematical equation based on the following two well known postulates:

Postulate 1: Knowledge is Power. Postulate 2: Time is Money.

As everyengineer knows: Power = Work / Time.

Since: Knowledge = Power, then Knowledge = Work / Time, and Time =Money, then Knowledge = Work / Money.

Solving for Money, we get: Money = Work / Knowledge. Thus, as Knowledge approaches zero, money approaches infinity, regardless of the amount of work done.

I'm Not Alright

Just today I got this amazing cd from a good friend who is now in America: X 2006. I loved this song so much, plus I figured it was about time to change it. I have heard this song somewhere before, but I have no clue where...This is bothering me. At any rate, wherever I have heard it, it is by Sanctus Real. Aurellentia is still open to exploration should anyone be feeling ready for what I hope will be a fantastic journey.

Aurellentia

I am trying out beta version of blogger, and it is interesting. Very simmilar to Blogger, and you have to have a gmail address to try it, but I am trying it all the same. While fooling with it (before I put all my blogs over) I am going to follow the life of a fictional character through a war in Antarctica from before the last ice age: the magical land of Aurellentia. I have linked it if you care to follow.