…and I haven’t posted since last Wednesday, which means I’m a real slacker. I fall into this basic pattern of blogging where I show up on Monday, realize I’m a slacker, then because I have nothing more thoughtful to post, post a weekend update. Yawn. But since I’ve already fooled you into reading this far, here was my weekend:
Friday night Becky and I went and saw King Kong at the cheap theater. It was worth seeing on the big screen. It was pretty over-the-top; Peter Jackson would get you squirming, and then when you thought it should be about done, he’d make you squirm for another 10 seconds. The plot/story was OK, but pretty basic. The one part I really liked was the way the shots at the top of the Empire State Building were done; they had me fearing the heights even though I was safe in my seat. Well done that.
Saturday morning I headed over to Mount Vernon to accompany a young man from church who was trying out for a voice scholarship at Cornell College. It was fun to be on a college campus again, and even more fun to be on one that had good music facilities. If I were on campuses too often, I could definitely get bit by the college bug again and think about studying up enough that I could go back and teach. Sounds fun, but I think it’s unlikely.
Played a church league basketball game on Saturday and then headed home. Took Becky and Laura out for dinner and did a little shopping. Oh, and Becky’s mom headed home Saturday morning. It was great to have her visit, she was a big help to Becky, and she and Laura had soooo much fun.
Sunday led worship as usual at both services. We were without practice this week, which left us a little bit rough, but it turned out OK. That was about it for Sunday. Stayed home, just a lazy afternoon.
Now we’re to Monday and another week. It’s not too exciting so far. If it gets exciting, I’ll be sure to post about it.
…and I haven’t posted since last Wednesday, which means I’m a real slacker. I fall into this basic pattern of blogging where I show up on Monday, realize I’m a slacker, then because I have nothing more thoughtful to post, post a weekend update. Yawn. But since I’ve already fooled you into reading this far, here was my weekend:
Friday night Becky and I went and saw King Kong at the cheap theater. It was worth seeing on the big screen. It was pretty over-the-top; Peter Jackson would get you squirming, and then when you thought it should be about done, he’d make you squirm for another 10 seconds. The plot/story was OK, but pretty basic. The one part I really liked was the way the shots at the top of the Empire State Building were done; they had me fearing the heights even though I was safe in my seat. Well done that.
Saturday morning I headed over to Mount Vernon to accompany a young man from church who was trying out for a voice scholarship at Cornell College. It was fun to be on a college campus again, and even more fun to be on one that had good music facilities. If I were on campuses too often, I could definitely get bit by the college bug again and think about studying up enough that I could go back and teach. Sounds fun, but I think it’s unlikely.
Played a church league basketball game on Saturday and then headed home. Took Becky and Laura out for dinner and did a little shopping. Oh, and Becky’s mom headed home Saturday morning. It was great to have her visit, she was a big help to Becky, and she and Laura had soooo much fun.
Sunday led worship as usual at both services. We were without practice this week, which left us a little bit rough, but it turned out OK. That was about it for Sunday. Stayed home, just a lazy afternoon.
Now we’re to Monday and another week. It’s not too exciting so far. If it gets exciting, I’ll be sure to post about it.
And it’s about time. We haven’t had any snow since December 16th… that’s a full two months. But this morning it started about 6 AM, we even had some thunder and lightning! Becky measured 2 inches of snow by 8:30, and there’s more to come. Woohoo! A chance to use the new snowblower, and it’ll look like winter again! I just wasn’t ready for spring yet in February.
Now if Mr. Murphy has anything to say, Becky will go into labor this afternoon and we’ll have to skate our way down to the hospital through all the snow and ice… or maybe the kiddo can just wait another week or so. (Her due date is March 1, which is less than two weeks away…)
And it’s about time. We haven’t had any snow since December 16th… that’s a full two months. But this morning it started about 6 AM, we even had some thunder and lightning! Becky measured 2 inches of snow by 8:30, and there’s more to come. Woohoo! A chance to use the new snowblower, and it’ll look like winter again! I just wasn’t ready for spring yet in February.
Now if Mr. Murphy has anything to say, Becky will go into labor this afternoon and we’ll have to skate our way down to the hospital through all the snow and ice… or maybe the kiddo can just wait another week or so. (Her due date is March 1, which is less than two weeks away…)
And it’s about time. We haven’t had any snow since December 16th… that’s a full two months. But this morning it started about 6 AM, we even had some thunder and lightning! Becky measured 2 inches of snow by 8:30, and there’s more to come. Woohoo! A chance to use the new snowblower, and it’ll look like winter again! I just wasn’t ready for spring yet in February.
Now if Mr. Murphy has anything to say, Becky will go into labor this afternoon and we’ll have to skate our way down to the hospital through all the snow and ice… or maybe the kiddo can just wait another week or so. (Her due date is March 1, which is less than two weeks away…)
Fear, Complexity, Environmental Management in the 21st Century
This is a must-read article by Michael Crichton. His basic premise: we can make statistics say about anything, and so the trend is that the media and other organizations will try to build a big fear of a crisis. In reality, the environmental cycles are fairly normal. His conclusion:
Is this really the end of the world? Earthquakes, hurricanes, floods?
No, we simply live on an active planet. Earthquakes are continuous, a million and a half of them every year, or three every minute. A Richter 5 quake every six hours, a major quake every 3 weeks. A quake as destructive as the one in Pakistan every 8 months. It’s nothing new, it’s right on schedule.
At any moment there are 1,500 electrical storms on the planet. A tornado touches down every six hours. We have ninety hurricanes a year, or one every four days. Again, right on schedule. Violent, disruptive, chaotic activity is a constant feature of our globe.
Is this the end of the world? No: this is the world.
It’s time we knew it.
We haven’t had much snow this winter; we had about 16 inches in December, but then we’ve had nothing since December 16. It’s really kind of a bummer. I like the snow.
The current forecast, though, has 6 to 9 inches slated for Eastern Iowa tomorrow. Woohoo! And it’s another chance to use the new snowblower… 
I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
Just to tie up a few loose ends from previous posts:
1) The evening at the coffeehouse went well. I ended up doing a little more instrumental and a little less vocal than I had originally planned, since the place was so full and noisy during the first hour that any attempt at capturing their attention for a vocal would’ve been a disaster. Still, I got to sing some, got to play a bunch, and even got some tips! Good times.
2) Geof hasn’t posted the answer on his blog yet, but he declares (and I agree with him) that the answer to the evil brain teaser is that yes, the airplane will fly, since the engines are pushing against the air, and the air is unaffected by the conveyor belt. So kudos to Aaron, who almost immediately came to the right answer.
Well that’s about all the news from the home front for today. Becky’s mom is here to spend the week, we’ve been having fun with her, and also we’re enjoying having a babysitter for the week! We went and saw The Producers at the theatre on Saturday (good old cheesy Mel Brooks – gotta love it!) and we’ll probably go out again either tomorrow or Thursday, kind of a last-chance date before the baby is born. Officially there’s about 2 more weeks left… I guess we’ll take it a day at a time.
Geof posted this over on the Rumor Forum and it’s been so much fun I thought I’d share it with everybody. (Geof promises his solution tomorrow.)
Question:
An aircraft is on a runway. This runway is outfitted with a conveyor belt that has the capability to exactly match the speed of the aircraft landing gear’s wheels. Can the plane take off? Why or why not?
Victor Davis Hanson on the issues with Islamic Radicalism on National Review Online
I think I could link to nearly every column VDH writes… he has wonderful insights, and today’s column is no different.