A thanks goes out to my Aunt E
One of my Aunts, sent me a very nice Pen and Pencil set. It has on the top the image of my Alma mater’s icon (Pitt) They are nice, and will be nice to use here at home.
National Bike to work Week
Well this week is officially national bike to work week. And according to noaa, it not going to be a good week to bike to work, since they are prediction it to rain all week. Today was the first day since I started at Union Switch and Signal that I woke up and saw that I would have to bike in the rain. I had been dreading this day for a while, I really did not want to do it, but I had no other choice since biking to work is the fastest way for me to get there. April of 2004 I ditched my car, so I don’t have a car, and to walk to work would take 50 minutes, and the bike ride is only 15 minutes. Well it was not as bad as I thought biking in the rain would be, in fact it was half way refreshing. Well I have a whole week to get use to it.
Music and the church
The church has such wonderfully music, in it rich collection of Hymns. And what I am finding great now, is that now that I am learning an instrument, after I get home from church, I can try my hand at some of the tunes from the service that same day. It is not that good, but it does help me remember the tune for the hymns we sang. Today in church the last hymn we sang was titled “When in our Music God is Glorified” and it was sung to the tune of “Sine Nomine” (This is the tune the music was set to. The Hymn in the Hymnal that is 463 is a different hymn, but the tune was the same)
It is nice to be able to come close to recreate the music I hear in the church.
Again lets guess the number of storms this year.
Last year I posted near the beginning of the Hurricane Season for your guess as how far we would get into the names for last year. Well since we are about 2 weeks away from the “official” beginning of the Hurricane Season, lets do it again. You can see a list of the names for this year at http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutnames.shtml. So what do you think will be the last name for a storm will be this year. I am guessing Sandy. Also I hope that the storm Michael is a nice cat 5 Hurricane, OK I am sick, but I would love to turn on the TV and hear, “Michael has demolished the city of …” OK I know that is just wrong, but that is the old Adam in me.
I don’t know if I should do this but . . . Here is a recording of me trying to play the Tin Whistle
OK as I have posted in the past I am trying to learn the Irish Tin Whistle. Well today, I tried recording one tune. It is not very good, in fact it is just down right wrong the way I killed the tune on the Whistle but here goes. Click here if you want your ears to bleed it is the tune I tried to play. If you want you can leave some criticisms about it, but posts of “you suck” and the like will be deleted, since 1) I know that already, 2) they don’t help me get better.
But do remember I am a beginner and an adult (They say it is easier for a child to learn an instrument then an adult) trying to learn an instrument, not the easiest thing to do, but some day I might be half good.
Mac, reboot after reboot after reboot (yes I am talking about a mac not windows here)
On my make I am trying to do something on my mac that should take only 2 minutes, but since the latest update from apple I can not expect my mac to work at all, I have had to reboot it 20 times in the last 30 minutes to do anything, there is something wrong with what they have done with the video drivers on the last update. Before the update things were working fine, now I get one of two thing happening. First the computer will just freeze, or Second the image around the mouse pointer will distort (this is usually when I try to open up a menu) then freeze. Heck not even windows was ever this unstable, and apple controls the hardware, this should (as they advertise) “just work” heck at this point I am beginning to believe that windows is more stable then OS X, and that is not saying much since windows is so unstable. At this point if I leave my mac on with any screen saver (other then blanking the screen) the mac will freeze up when it enters into the screen saver, it freezes when I use the F9 key (or for that matter F10 and F11) I have looked in the logs, and it does show some massive dumbs from the kernel module about the ATI video card. I hope that if apple releases a new fix, that they fix the video card issue, at this point my mac is useless, utterly useless.
I am just glad that Linux is still the work horse it has always been, stable, reliable, and just works, you set it up, it stays setup.
I finished going thought the 2 hymnals
Well I finished looking though the hymnals that I own to find hymns that I in theory could play on my Tin Whistle. I really like this one that I found “Lord Jesus Think on Me” (the lyrics linked to here are from The Lutheran Hymnal Web site, to hear a mid of it just click here)
I would like to get some paper to write them out on so I don’t have to keep looking in the hymnal, since they are so bulky.
Becoming co-dependent on my Palm Pilot
Back when I was in Pitt, I was co-dependent on my Palm Pilot, After collage, I was able to stop being co-dependent on it, but now with my new job, I am again becoming co-dependent on it.I have a much better Palm Pilot then I did when I was at Pitt, and I can do more with it, but do I really want to download my schedule from my brain to my Palm Pilot. In collage I had a Palm IIIe, I now have a Palm Tungsten T3, the TT3 is a marjory different one from the IIIe, I have owned 5 different Pilots from 1999, the IIIe lasted the longest (3 years), and this one is the second longest one (at about 2 years).
The last thing I want to put here, is something my pastor says about Palm Pilots: “The good thing about a Palm is you never forget an appointment, the bad thing about a Palm is you never forget an appointment”
Lack of posts
I know, I have not been putting many posts up, I have been busy, busy, busy. I hope to be more attentive to my blog. Maybe if I put it in my Palm Pilot like I have almost every other thing I try to attend to, it will get more attention.
Hum lets see my evening schedule
8:00pm, the SWPA Ham Radio Traffic net
8:30pm, Practice Irish Tin Whistle
9:30pm, Prayers.
maybe I can add it at 9. Heck while I am at it maybe I should add at 7pm an hour to do some reading, I am behind on my reading too. So that puts me well to 10 at night, and I been trying to get to bed by 10 (as you can tell by this post, I am not being that successfully at that)
I am such a stick in the mud
I must be a major stick in the mud, I have a friend that I am debating music in the church with, also debating hymnals and the new up comming hymnal for the LCMS. God have mercy on me.
Passed the point of no return on the Tin Whistle
Well I think I passed the point with the Tin Whistle where I can see myself some day being OK on it. Right now I am going though my 2 hymnals. Yes I own 2 hymnals, I got them a few years back so I can use the liturgy sections, Matins and Vespers. I am now starting to go looking though the hymn sections for hymns I can in theory play on the Tin Whistle, I have to find ones that are in either the Key of G or D. I do not know as of yet how to transpose music from one key to another, so I can only look for music that is written in the key that the Tin Whistle can do. Also I am now able to look at the notes and know what holes on the Whistle to cover, I don’t need the crutches that the other books I have give. I am very happy with this, there are still some of the higher notes that I still have some trouble with, they would be the high E, high F, and high G. So right now I am going though the hymns looking for hymns in those keys (G and D) and marking them down in a separate note book for future reference. I still need allot of practice on the 1/8 notes and timing, but I believe that will come with time.
I also ordered on line a new Whistle, it was $30, I got a chance to try one like it before I went to get it, so I know it is better, the one I have now is ok to start out with, it is cheap ($8) and gives you an idea, and you can start to learn on it, but I think it is time for me to take a step up to a little bit better one.
Notes about the blog
Sorry I have not been updating as much as I had in the past. There is a reason for this. As I have started a new job, that is further from where I live, and I am trying to pick up a instrument, I have really cut my free time down. I will update as much as I can, but I have other things I have to do, I had originally planned on only 30 minutes a day, but some days the practice does take a bit more time. But I believe the loss of the time that I am experiencing is well worth it, the stuff I am doing is good stuff and well worth it.
Cell phones and manners
Is it me, or don’t people seam to have manners when they are on their cell phones? First, here is what brought it to my mind, the other day I was in a public rest room, this guy comes in talking on his cell phone, and goes. I would not want to be the person that he was talking too. After he finished (using the facility’s, not on the phone) he just walks out with out washing his hands. Or the people that will talk on their cell phone while checking out at a store just ignoring the casher.
Some one does not like my anti-spam stuff
The other day I got the following email:
I wrote you a nice comment on your printer post but your jerky software told me it was spam and deleted my text. How do you expect to get any useful comments?!
The person had in the subject: your jerky anti-spam thing on your blog
Well to this I say the following, I don’t have the time to filter out 1000’s of spam comments (and I did say 1000’s and I am not joking here) so I just keep a bit of a mental track of what words are being used by spammers and filter them out, if you want to know what not to use check out my list of reject words
Well that is 3 out of 3
In the last decade I have tried ink jet printers,I tried 3 of them, all of them lexmark. All of them failed in less then a year. about 6 months ago I got a lexmark for about $40, it was cheap and I though I would give them one more try, well 6 months later it failled yet again. So that tells me one of 2 things eather ink jet printers are a worthless thing to use, or lexmark is a worthless company to buy from, eather way, I will not waste any money on ink jets or lexmark. I am going to save up for a good Laser Jet printer (a good one for home use) Any one have any good suggestions for a good home use Laser Jet printer.
Issues Etc
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Welcome , today is Saturday, May 9, 2026