Everybody loves a party!

Yesterday was Laura’s second birthday. So, we invited a bunch of friends over to celebrate. Actually, this was her second birthday party this year; we had one with my family on Saturday, and now one with friends. Two years old, two parties. Don’t get any ideas about next year, kiddo!

So the Scotts, the Finleys, the Wilburs, the Garner women (freshly-minted First Officer Daniel was supposed to get home last night sometime after being gone for six weeks!) and my brother and sister came over. It was waaay to warm and humid in the backyard, but we sweltered through it and munched on hot dogs, salads, fruit, and the requsite cake and ice cream. Laura opened a few presents and then there were gift bags for all the kiddos that were a big hit. I think it’s safe to say that a good time was had by all.

We took a bunch of pictures, but I didn’t get them off the camera last night. I’ll try to remember to add them to this post when I get a chance. I still can’t believe she’s two already…

Happy Birthday Laura!

She’s too young to read this, but still, I can’t believe that my little girl turns 2 today! It seems like just yesterday we were bringing her home from the hospital, and now she’s a little fireball, talking a blue streak, playing with her little sister, and enjoying her new fishies. Scary to think that it only speeds up from here…

Random Thoughts on Classical Music

For those of you brave enough to read past the title, congratulations! Now instead of me talking about music by people my age, you get to hear me talk about music written by dead people. Well, they weren’t dead when they wrote it… but let’s not confuse the issue.

I grew up listening to lots of classical music. This was pretty much due to the fact that my parents listened to lots of classical music, and I was too young to buy records or run the record player. So classical it was. I remember Bach Cello suites, including a neat recording played by John Williams or Segovia or somebody on the guitar. Dad liked Stravinsky, so we heard some of that, too. And then there was the requisite Beethoven, and then some fun stuff by Prokofiev. (Though the title “Love for Three Oranges” sounds kinda kinky now that I think about it…)

Then I started taking piano lessons, and gained some more personal appreciation for composers. I think I initially got started playing Grieg because my friend Lydia was playing him, and I wanted to out-do her. However, he quickly became a favorite. Then I got my skill up to where I could tackle Chopin’s Ballades. They’re still some of my favorites. (How do I pick between No. 1 in G-Minor and No. 4 in F minor? Too tough to call!) And then there was Rachmaninoff. I hacked through his Second Piano Concerto during my first couple of years of high school. It was only after college that I picked up some of his Preludes, Etudes Tableux, and his wonderful arrangement of Kreisler’s Liebesfreud.

Oh, and any talk about my classical music history wouldn’t be complete without mentioning that tape of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture and Capriccio Italien that got played over and over and over and over in the van.

I don’t have classical music on that much any more; I’m going to have to make sure that I turn it on more often so Laura and Addison grow up with at least an exposure to it. Laura, though, already watches a Classical Baby DVD that has a bunch of good stuff on it; Mozart, Bach, Schumann, Bartok, and Villa Lobos, to name just a few. I guess that’s a good start. Next I’ll pull out some Mussorgsky…

A fun weekend...

It was busy busy busy, but it was fun. My brother Andrew is now officially a resident of Cedar Rapids. He’ll be down here at least for the fall, working at Menards and taking a couple of classes at Kirkwood. So he was/is in town.

Mom. Dad, and Aaron came down from Wisconsin to celebrate Laura’s birthday. It’s so hard to believe that my little girl is turning 2 years old this week! We had a fun time with them. Sunday our church had our usual service and picnic in the park. It’s a bit taxing for me, since it means I have to cart out all the sound gear, but it was special this year since Andrew and Aaron led music with me. They both played guitars, and I played bass. I think it went really well.

Oh, did I mention that Laura’s birthday is coming up? Becky and I decided to get her an aquarium this year. She just loves fish, and is glued to any fish tank she sees. So we are now the proud owners of a ten-gallon aquarium. Once we give the water another day to stabilize, we’ll become the proud owners of a few little fish to go in the aquarium. Hopefully she’ll enjoy it - I think I will, too.

Well, that’s the news from Lake Wobegon Hiawatha for the weekend. It’s now Monday and I’m back at work. Joy of joys.

Random Thoughts on Church Attire

OK, so Dan put me up to this. Pick a topic, and just start writing. So this topic came to mind. How did it come to mind, you ask? Well, I was thinking about our church’s service in the park this Sunday. And how much I enjoy it. And how one of the reasons I enjoy it so much is because it’s appropriate to wear a t-shirt, shorts, and sandals, even when leading the music. And that led me to thinking about church attire in general.

So what do you wear to church? I’m talking about Sunday morning, when you attend the regular weekly service. At Noelridge, I usually wear a pair of khaki pants and some sort of collared shirt. If I’m feeling sloppy I’ll wear jeans with the collared shirt. One time I even left the shirt untucked. But usually it’s khakis and a collared shirt.

Now, this isn’t a universal dress code for our church. Our pastor usually wears dress pants, but may match those with a golf shirt in the summer, other times a shirt and tie, and on rare occasion, add the jacket for the full formal look. On any given Sunday you will see lots of folks in jeans, and in the summer you will see a fair number wearing shorts as well. Given that our air conditioning doesn’t keep up very well in the summer, shorts seem like an attractive option at times.

Having said that, I just can’t bring myself to wear shorts to church. Why? I suppose part of it is thanks to my mother, who was firmly against wearing shorts to church, even for Wednesday night activities. Old habits die hard. Another part of it is that if I’m up leading music for the service, I figure not everybody wants to have to look at my bare legs. And I suppose another part of it is that I know there are people in the church who probably are against wearing shorts on Sundays, and as part of the leadership I don’t feel the need to push the point. I’m not caving in to their legalism, I just don’t feel like making an issue of it.

I had a discussion on this topic with my in-laws some time back when they were visiting. They come from the “dress your best to honor the Lord” school of church attire. Interestingly, they were also missionaries in Indonesia for a few years. So I wanted to ask if just going in a loincloth and other similar tribal garb would be OK. They didn’t bite. It’s based on culture, they said. We should look our best to honor God.

But what about that verse that says “man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart?” I asked. Well, yeah, sure, that’s true. But hey, we’d dress nicely if we were going to meet the President, right? So why do we dress sloppily when we go to church? Do we have more respect for the President than for God? At this point I’m shaking my head a little bit.

Then they noted that the youth pastor at their church (a megachurch in Charlotte, NC) got some very bad reactions from older folks in their church because he didn’t wear a tie to their formal service. He was wearing a jacket over a polo shirt for the “informal” service, which had just gotten over, and he just wore that to the “formal” service as well. And they mentioned this to me as an example of people being disrespectful with the dress code. I think about that time I asked how much improved the service would be if the pastor just left on his polo shirt but the old folks started thinking about God instead of worrying about the pastor without a tie. I think the discussion went downhill from there.

So if you happen to be in Noelridge Park in Cedar Rapids, Iowa around 10:30 this Sunday, you’ll probably hear me playing my guitar, leading some singing. Pretty much guaranteed I"ll be wearing cut-off shorts, a t-shirt, and my sandals. And having a lot of fun doing it.

And thanks, Dan, for the suggestion. It’s the most fun I’ve had blogging in quite a while. I’ll have to do it again sometime.

Bits and Pieces

I wait far too long between blog posts, and then I find myself searching for interesting things to write about. I guess my life, if not boring, is at a minimum mundane.

I’m adjusting to actually being in the office all week this week; it’s been about a month since I did an actual five-day in-office stretch. It’s not too bad.

Took Andrew and Rebecca out for dinner last night, then they watched the girls while Becky and I went to see the new Pirates of the Carribean movie. My take on the movie: parts of it were quite fun, comic even, and it certainly hearkened back to swashbuckling movies of old. My main grip with it was that it didn’t really resolve much; it was too directly setting you up for Pirates 3, which will come out next year. It felt much more like the end-of-season cliffhanger on a TV series than the satisfactory conclusion of a movie. But still… Johnny Depp is hilariously over the top.

I picked up a Virgin Wireless cell phone yesterday to be my travel phone. Roaming is horribly expensive on our current US Cellular plan, and we don’t really need it often. However, now that I’m traveling more for business, it’d be nice to be in touch for less than $0.69/minute. So I now have a pay-as-you-go phone that I’ll use for my travels. It has a Cedar Rapids number, which I’ll be happy to give you if you’re wanting to keep in touch with me while I’m on travel.

What else?. The folks and Aaron are coming down this weekend to celebrate Laura’s birthday. Andrew interviewed for a job here in Cedar Rapids yesterday; it sounds like he’ll be living here and taking some classes as Kirkwood this fall. I heard rumor that Aaron may be looking at moving to Florida… but haven’t heard anything specific yet.

So that’s the (mundane) news from Iowa today. When I think of something more interesting, I’ll be sure to post it.

Traveling Adventures

Tuesday through Thursday of this week took my on my first trip ever to Seattle, WA. Several of us from work were headed out to talk to the big airplane manufacturer from that area. And hey, Seattle was nice. Very nice. The trip there, however… well, it was an adventure.

I departed the Eastern Iowa Airport at 6:55 am and took a little turboprop up to Minneapolis. From there, we had a connection on Northwest Airlines to get to Seattle. At this point in our little drama, I"ll let the pilot handle our narration.

9:25 am

“Hi folks, this is your captain here from the flight deck. We have to wait just a couple of minutes for air traffic control spacing, then we’ll be on our way.”

9:35 am

“Hi folks, your captain here again. The ATC spacing wasn’t going to take this long… but while we were sitting here, the self-test on one of our electronic devices indicated a fault with a battery… so we’re going to have to turn back to the terminal and get maintenance to look at it.”

9:45 am

“Hi folks, your captain again. To do this repair, we’re going to have to ask that you all deplane while the maintenance crew works on the plane. You can leave your personal items here on the plane, but we’ll need to ask you to deplane for a little while. Thanks.”

10:30 am

“For those of you on Northwest Airlines Flight 171 to Seattle, we have some good news, the battery has been replaced and everything seems to check out, so we’re going to get ready to reboard the plane at this time…”

11:30 am

The airplane takes off en route to Seattle.

12:03 pm

“Hello folks, your captain here again… we’ve had a minor hydraulics issue, really nothing to worry about, it’s just a redundant system, but we’re going to have to turn back and land at Minneapolis.”

“I’d apologize, but that would infer that we did something wrong up here… so we’re going to have to fly around an hour or so to burn off some fuel so we can land. So sit tight and I’ll get back to you in a little while.”

1:37 pm

“Hi folks, your captain here again… it took us a little longer to burn off fuel than we thought. But now we’re headed back in to land at Minneapolis. When we land, you’ll probably see some fire and rescue units on the runway there waiting for us. It’s just a precaution. They’re very cautious there at Minneapolis and the trucks aren’t really needed but they’re going to have them out anyway, haha.”

“Now, one of the few things that was affected by this hydraulics issue was the steering on the nose wheel. That means that we won’t be able to taxi off of the runway, so they’ll have to bring a tug out to pull us in. So, it’s not a big deal, but it’ll take a little while. So sit tight, and thank you for your patience.”

At this point the plane comes in and lands, and it’s a very tough landing. Well, the landing is OK, but the thrust reversers don’t kick in on landing, and the pilots have to stand on the brakes to get the plane to stop. Finally the plane pulls to a stop and yep, there are the fire trucks.

1:53 pm

“Hi folks, about this little delay… one of the things that happens when we land like that is that we used our brakes quite a bit and so they got kind of warm. And it’s nothing to worry about, not a big deal, but the folks here at Minneapolis are very cautious, ha ha, and they want to watch them for a few minutes as they cool down. So sit back and relax, and they’ll have us to the terminal in just a few minutes. Thanks.”

2:02 pm

The tug attaches to the plane, and slowly and jerkily pulls it around to a gate on the far end of the Northwest Airlines terminal. Finally it slows to a stop.

“Flight attendants, disarm doors and prepare for arrival.”

2:07 pm

“Flight attendants, re-arm the doors!”

2:11 pm

“Hi folks… Those of you on the left side of the aircraft may be seeing a little bit of smoke out your windows. It’s OK, it’s not a big deal. The plane is fine. But it appears that the tug that pulled us in got a little warm and caught fire, so the emergency guys appear to have that under control, and we should be deplaning shortly.”

“Flight attendants, disarm doors and prepare for arrival.”

2:20 pm

“Hi folks, we’re about ready to get you off the plane here. If you’re a first-class passenger, when you get off, head to gate F7 for your courtesy package. The rest of you, we’ll have a courtesy package with some meal vouchers here at the gate. We are planning on having another plane ready for you to depart again here shortly, our current scheduled departure time is now 3:40 pm.”

At this point, the story becomes less eventful. A new plane is found, and we make it to Seattle at 5:30 pm Seattle time, only about 5 hours later than originally planned.

One of my co-workers on the plane was formerly a Delta airlines pilot and has thousands of hours in 757s. He spoke to our pilot afterward and found out that the main hydraulic system had totally failed shortly after takeoff. That means that in addition to not having nose-wheel steering, we only had electrical power for the flaps (allowing only 20 degrees of flaps instead of the usual 30 degrees), we didn’t have much in the way of thrust reversers, and there was an assortment of other pieces that were disabled. My co-worker said that there are about six pages of checklists that the pilots have to go through before landing in that condition. Yikes.

Here’s to hoping that our next trip to Seattle (scheduled for the first week of August) is slightly less eventful.

I had that dream again...

Yeah, that dream. The one where Andy Osenga and some other unidentified people are holed up with me in a house (not my house, dunno what house it is) when bad guys show up with guns. We call 911, but the cops are in on it, so no help there. We are tricky, though, and manage to escape out the back way. We run behind a little hill and hide and we’re laying in the water in this lake, peering over the hill, watching the bad guys search through the house.

Maybe the bad guys were looking for the automatic weapons that we had found hidden in the attic of the house; they were up there in the rafters next to the 100 baud modem. I don’t know the answer to that one.

What does it all mean? I report, you decide.

What A Difference the Shoes Make

I bought a new pair of Asics running shoes over the weekend and wow, what a difference they make! Beside the fact that they don’t tear up my heel like the old ones did, they also have a much greater amount of padding and bounce when I run. What a nice change! Here’s to hoping I stay disciplined with the running so that I wear this pair out sooner than the last pair. :-)

I love used CDs

Last night, FYE at Coral Ridge Mall. Hem’s Rabbit Songs. Used. Price: $4.99. But wait, there’s 20% off on all used CDs today. Final price $4.00. W00t!

A quick update: this is a terrific album. Beautiful music. Wowza.