General – Zing Blog 2

Hot Summer Nights

Summer continues. Getting into the soft nougatey center of it all. After we came back from Buffalo it was time for another round of yardwork. This included edging the driveway, the walkway around the side of the house and the patio, and also weeding under the hedges and trimming the low-hanging fronds from the neighbor’s willow tree that intrudes into our yard. It was very hot out out last week, so I mainly waited until the evening to do this stuff, and I did my bike rides in the morning. Btw I’m up to a hundred rides, seven hundred seventy-seven miles for the year so far.

I discovered a wasp nest in the overhang above my garage door. I sprayed it but that didn’t take care of them, so the next step is to take apart the soffit and find the nest inside.

I also discovered my ’67 Mustang seems to have some electrical problems. The blinkers, wipers and stereo no longer work. My first guess is that one or more fuses need replacing, and indeed there’s two fuses that if blown would explain the failure. I bought some replacement fuses, but when I looked at the fusebox, it seems that there are extra wires in there, probably from when they installed the stereo, so I’m kinda afraid to mess with it, and I’m thinking it’d be better to have a qualified expert handle it.

We did get to the beach a week ago. Jeannie and brought our bikes and I did eighteen miles on the Ocean Parkway Coastal Greenway, then went for a swim in the ocean, while Michelle hung out on the beach and read her book. The water was perfect, very calm for the Atlantic shore of Long Island. Since I’m taking the summer off, I have as an explicit goal to the beach on a weekday. I’ve been talking with my friend Nick about this, and we’re targeting sometime in the first couple weeks of August, but there’s alot going on these days and the summer is flying by fast.

My friend Ginny, a former colleague at Consumer Reports Innovation Lab, had a party last week to celebrate our product Permission Slip, of which I was tech lead for a number of years, being sold to an internet privacy company and so will live on even after the Innovation Lab is no more. You may recall that I got laid off back in May, along with a handful of other colleagues, so it was good to catch up with everyone. Most of those left behind have split and found new jobs. Our former VP Ben is taking a sabbatical for the summer like me. Our former head of operations has joined the new company as a consultant. A couple others have joined NYC’s Pit Crew and are working to put up a web portal to report violations of the city’s new law mandating one-click cancellation for consumers, a worthy pivot. All in all it was good to catch up with everyone and get a feeling of closure.

We had planned to go camping with Kathleen and the kids this last weekend. Unfortunately, in the days leading up the trip, the skies all over New York State were brown and hazy from distant forest fires, making it unpleasant to be outside. This, combined with the forecast of heavy rain all day Saturday, led us to postpone our trip until August. Instead, we had a backyard barbecue Friday night, and used our firepit for the first time this season, while listening to tunes and enjoying some beers and cocktails. Saturday we went and saw Chris Nolan’s The Odyssey in the theatre. I must say the movie was epic in every sense of the word. Big, loud, fantastic, full of monsters and fights and heavy thematic material. Beautifully shot, great acting and story construction. In a word, totally amazing.

In music news, Spacecats continues to search for more and better gigs, even as we take a few weeks off because everyone is taking vacation at different times. When we reconvene, the focus will hopefully be on finally getting the recording sessions for our next record scheduled. Meanwhile, on the Spellbound project I’ve finished recording the organ parts for The Sailor’s Saga, and have moved on to the twelve-string guitar parts.

Now the Origami USA conference is only a few days away. As a special guest, I’m going to be doing alot this year. I’ve been busy practice folding the models I’m going to teach, thinking about what to exhibit, and maybe even folding a couple brand-new things for that, and generally getting prepared. Should be a fun time.

It’s Snow Fun

The temperature has actually gotten above freezing the last few days. Saturday it was up near fifty. But there’s still plenty of snow on the ground, and trying to break up the snow piles is mostly futile since it’s all fused into a solid mass of ice. On the plus side, Jeannie and took a day off from work Friday to go skiing. We figured it was the last day before President’s Day weekend, and the last cold day before things start melting. And, as I’d hoped, the mountain was not at all crowded and the conditions were great. Not at all icy until the very end. We left the house around 8:30 and were on the slopes by eleven. We did eighteen runs in total, all over the mountain. Stayed until after four. It was the best day of skiing I’ve had in a long time, especially for a day trip.

Did some shopping over the weekend. Got a backup hard drive for my new computer, as well as a mouse and some cables to connect various audio interfaces, and even a new desk chair. Things are moving ahead.

Last Thursday instead of normal band rehearsal for Spacecats, Ken and Rick came over to my studio to begin work on our new album (Josh being out of town). This was basically a tech session to see what it will take to use my studio for recording. It’s going to be a learning curve as I retire my old system which I know so well and move into the new one. So far I got my 8-channel audio interface hooked up to my computer and some of the software installed, including multiple DAWs and drivers for the outboard box. Rick played my drum kit, which I had mic’d up previously. Ken brought his bass amp and a very nice AKG condenser mic so we could record both direct and the output of his amp. I played sax into my trust Rode mic. It took an hour or so to get everything set up. We managed to get a great-sounding 8-track recording of the trio doing a handful of standards.

A few things we need to improve for next time. First is that I only had one audio interface plugged in, so the meant just five channels of drums to make room for two bass channels (mic and direct) and one for sax. Actually the kit sound pretty good that way. The mics are on the kick, snare, hi-hat and two overheads which are meant for the cymbals but also capture alot of the toms. The three mics are had to unplug were for close-mic’ing the toms.

For next time I’m going to add another audio input box. I have a space MBox, the same kind I use for my old studio, that has four inputs, including two XLR with nice peak limiters. This will get us up to twelve channels, which will do for next week. But the week after Josh is coming back and we’ll want another stereo pair for the keyboards and eventually mic’ing the piano. Ken has an eight-channel audio box he’s going to bring next week, so we’ll see how that goes, and Rick has a 16-channel digital mixer too. So we’re we’re trying it all to see what works best.

The other thing we need to work out is the arrangement of the musicians in the room for minimizing the bleedthru on the mics from the other instruments. This is going to be a live jazz album with no overdubs, but better isolation will make it easier to mix. For this session, Rick and I were fairly close together, but put Ken’s amp far away, and that worked out. We might have to invest in some longer cables and acoustic baffles too.

Meanwhile, I’ve been continuing to work on my home studio project Spellbound. I’ve been laying down a couple takes of the twelve-string guitar part every day, and I’ve finally gotten solid enough that I can cut together a take from tracks I laid down. Woo-hoo! This means I should be wrapping up this song soon. I also went back and did new mixes of the first five songs. All that remains is the big prog epic that fills up most of side two.

And lastly, there’s a bunch of origami events coming up. I’ve been asked to be a special guest for the upcoming Origami USA convention in July. I’m very flattered and honored, and now I have to level up my exhibit and teaching, plus submit a model the annual collection. There’s also CFC (Conference for Creators) in Ann Arbor, Michigan in May, hosted by my friend Beth. For that one I plan to give a talk on folding pentagonal symmetry, with examples from my own work including single-sheet polyhedra, and tessellations including fractals and Penrose quasicrystal tilings.

But the nearest one is CoCon in Chicago, just three weeks away. For this one I’m mostly prepared, but it’s always nice to have something new to exhibit. The most important one for me is to complete my single-sheet dodecahedron folded from a decagon. I have it all worked out except that the lock doesn’t hold tight. I’m thinking of folding it from a slightly larger sheet to have more paper left at the end for the lock. I’m also thinking of making a “Star Man” a simple human figure folded from a pentagon.

Big Wheel Keep on Movin’ Along

Well summer is coming to an end and fall is fast approaching. This is the first year in a long, long time that no one is going back to school in my household, since Michelle graduated last May. Already seems like a long time ago.

For Labor Day weekend we went down to Ocean City, MD and had a relaxing time swimming in the ocean, walking down the boardwalk, happy hour on the seaside, some nice dinners, and bicycling around the National Seashore on Assateague Island. All very relaxing but somehow we were very tired when we got home just the same.

Now back into the routine with work, music, the Global Jukebox, origami, and all. The weather had been beautiful, sunny and temperate (the rain this weekend notwithstanding) and I’m looking forward to doing lots more biking before the end of the fall.

Last night was the Buffalo Bills home opener, against the Baltimore Ravens, and wow what game! Both teams played great ball, but the Bills were behind fifteen points at the start of the fourth quarter and somehow came back and won by one point on the last play of the game.

Summertime Blues

It was a fairly low key long weekend. Traditionally Memorial Day kicks of the summer, but the weather has been mainly cold and rainy again. Sunday it got up to 65 and cloudy, and Monday was 70 and partly sunny, so at least we had a little barbecue. Jeannie and I went for a bike ride on the local trail. This time I did sixteen miles in an hour and ten minutes. My time does not seem to be improving much.

Mostly we spent the weekend catching up on our rest after all our travels, and doing random tasks. Michelle bought some new furniture, mainly bookshelves, and I help her set them up. She’s acquired a fairly extensive comic book collection in college, so I’ve been reading some classic X-Men comics such as The Dark Phoenix Saga. I’d forgotten how much then they are. Also I put a new battery in the Mustang because it wouldn’t start. Now it’s happily running again. And of course trimming the shrubbery and other yardwork.

Most years this time of year I put together a new playlist for summer backyard hanging out. This year I think the theme will be my Top 40 Favorite Prog Rock Songs. Fewer songs than usual, but it’ll probably be just as long.

One longstanding task I finally got around to was a video tutorial for an origami event I’ll being doing with CFC this fall. The model is my Semi-Sunken Icosahedron. I practiced folding it a couple times and really drilled down on the details to perfect the folding sequence. I’m pretty happy with the resulting model, and the video. This also got me back into doing origami, which I haven’t really done much of in the past year. It’s a good thing too, cuz there’s a convention coming up soon, and I’d like to have something new to teach and exhibit.

Continuing to defrag my studio. I’m up to the last major task: sifting thru and consolidating my many old boxes of origami. I’m throwing out alot of stuff, but also finding lots of cool ideas and works-in-progress I’d largely forgotten about.

I don’t have my drum mics plugged into my new DAC yet, but I’ve gotten up to rough mixes for the first batch of four tunes on the Spellbound project. I’ll be sharing those soon. Meanwhile, up next is another lyric.

In the Dead of Winter

We finally got some snow over the weekend, and then it turned really cold the last few days: in the teens in the daytime and single digits at night. Looks like the snow will stick around a while. Of course this meant we got to go skiing for the first time this season. We went Monday, which was a day for for me and Jeannie, and Michelle’s last day at home before going back to school. We got up early before sunrise, went up for day and got home again sometime after sunset. It was a good time, and we all had a good days skiing after getting used to it the first runs. The snow was mainly good, even great for the northeast, with just a little bit of icy patches here and there, easy enough to avoid. Only trouble it was pretty crowded, and by mid afternoon there were alot of kids taking lessons zigzagging all over the place, so we decided to call it day. All in all we skied ten runs, over four hours. Next time Jeannie and I are gonna play hooky from work and go up when the kids are all in school.

All our wintertime projects are coming along. Maintaining good health and good focus. I finished a major chunk of cleaning out my studio over the weekend, clearing the way for new origami and other projects (more on that later). Only downside is Michelle went back to school before we had a chance to watch Return of the King. The Bills are in the playoffs and have advanced to the ACF Championship (once again against the Chiefs, after beating the Ravens in an intense, high-drama matchup), so that’s cutting into our TV time. Ah well, I guess there’s spring break.

Aside: my friend Robert Lang, one of the most accomplished and creative origami artists of all time, lost both his house and his studio in the recent fires in L.A., including a lifetime of literally priceless artwork (much of it has been exhibited at galleries all over the world), all of his tools and his supply of high-end origami paper (I read that Michael LaFosse is coming out of retirement to make a new batch of origamido paper just for him.) and literally everything else except his pets and one origami cuckoo clock. My heart goes out to him and his wife. Amazingly, Robert seems pretty upbeat for the situation, or at least resilient and determined to get thru the current tragedy and rebuild.

Back here where things are more stable, our D&D campaign continues. True to their chaotic neutral alignments, the party decided to open a half-dozen doors at once at the end of the last session, revealing a captive dragon and whole host of goblins. Next session should be fun. I hope they figure out a way to get the dragon to attack the goblins, or that they can run fast. Also they’re on the verge of having enough XP for second level.

I’m also helping Charlie set up a Minecraft server on Martin’s linux box in the cloud. It turns out this is not exactly straightforward, since he wants a modded version, but we’ve made some good progress, and we’ll probably get there soon.

Most of the rest of the stuff I want to talk about has to do with music, and I think I’ll cover that in a separate post.

In the Year Twenty-Five Twenty-Five

The new year has arrived and we’re settling into the winter routine. I’m feeling pretty good for this time of year, I guess I finally found the right combination of vitamin D, activity and rest. I’m working out at full weight, and actually went out biking five days in a row last week in a spell of mild weather. I used to think fifty degrees was about as cold as I’d feel comfortable riding, but I got some gloves and a warmer base layer and now I’m good down into the forties. Today it was thirty-five when I got up and I thought I’d try that, but by mid-morning it started snowing and the temperature dropped. Ah well, maybe that means we can go skiing soon!

We also got out ice skating this weekend, which was fun except for the rink was rather crowded and people were skating in all directions, making collision avoidance a nonstop concern, with very few chances to get up to a good speed. We’re gonna check out the other rinks around here to see what they’re like. In other fitness news, Jeannie has decided she wants to run a 7k race in April and asked me if I wanted to join her. So we’re gonna figure out how to start training for that.

I’m back to work and off to a good start. Meanwhile at home I’m trying to beat back a long list of random tasks and new project, after slacking off for the holidays. Making steady progress and checking things off one by one. A big one we need to do a big round of organizing the house and throwing things away. This was set into motion when Jeannie asked me to into my closet and pull out some old legos for her to used in the toyland town she set up neat the Christmas tree. Things got jumbled up and there was no way to put everything back and make it fit, so there you go. One thing leads to another since we only have so much closet space.

As is tradition, we’re watching The Lord of the Rings movies again. I’m also re-reading the books, which I haven’t done since the aughts (I used to read it once per decade, but skipped the teens cuz I was busy). This time around I’m appreciating how much the filmmakers actually drew from the book in terms of dialogue and plot details, even if things were generally sharpened up and condensed for the movie. Also remembering how much lore and backstory there is, and how many songs in the book that got cut. So far my favorite was the one Frodo sings at the inn in Bree, an epic retelling of the classic Hey Diddle Diddle.

Also deep into some new music projects. More on that soon, I swear, but it will take more than one post to explain it all.

Hot Time Summer in the City

Just some quick updates here, major news in the next post. The hot weather continues. In the 90’s pretty much every day since the second half of June.

We went to Medieval Times last Friday with Denis and his family. Lots of fun. I haven’t been in about ten years. Last time Michelle was in middle school. How she’s old enough to drink. I tried to get everyone in our group to bet on who would win. The black and white knight looked he was a singer in a Van Halen tribute band, and so I picked him. And as luck (or however they determine the outcome) would have it, he won the day.

Been doing more biking, mainly in the mornings and evenings. This weekend we went to Jones Beach. I biked 18 miles along the trail there, all the way up to Cedar Beach and back. Jeannie did 13 miles, out to Gilgo Beach and back.

The Mustang needs work on its brakes. Last time I drove it they felt soft, like you had to press almost all the way to the floor. I looked at the owners manual, and there’s a few things it could be, but probably nothing I want to try and service myself. Unfortunately, it’s been so hot I haven’t really had a chance to check it out further in the daytime, but I’d like to get it taken care of before it gets worse. Ah well.

And lastly, the OUSA convention coming up next weekend. Been working on the model I’m gonna teach, hoping to have the time to get around to some others. Crunch time!

Tinsel Town

The new year is off to a start. Everything is going okay I guess. I’m getting things done and having some fun, but everything feels very slow and tiring. This is natural because it’s the wintertime, and there’s still lots of cold and dark. The days are starting to get longer, but there’s been lots of rainstorms and wintry mix. We’ve finally stared to get some snow. First time last week, but it all melted after a few days, and now last night into today. Hoping we can finally go skiing this weekend. We’ve been going ice skating as a local alternative, a good way to move the body when you can’t do much outside.

Working out has been actually been going well. Often it can be really tough in the winter, but I’ve add weight to my workout at the start of the year, and so far so good. I’ll probably put on a few more pounds again soon. Meanwhile I’ve dropped some body weight, which is also counter to the usual wintertime trend.

Of course winter break is over and it’s been back to work the last couple weeks, so getting anything else done requires planning around that to have a few hours of focus time on the weekend or at night. Just as I was getting into the rhythm of being able to do what I want when I feel like it. Ah well.

I’m trying to migrate my web site to a new host, but there’s just a ton of picky details to attend to. We wanted to get this done by the new year but had to let is slide. Next sub-project is migrating my blog. So soon you may be reading this at a new url, at least temporarily.

And I finished my new song Head Downtown. More on that in another post.

This last weekend we had a sort of make-up xmas, since Jeannie was down with Covid on Xmas day. Lots of good food, games, more legos, music and movies. Mary and Lou came over along with the niblings. And the Bills are in the playoffs, which is pretty exciting.

Visions of Sugarplums

We had a very nice and relaxing holidays this year. Well mostly anyway. Michelle came home mid-week after her finals, and started baking the cookies the next day. So far so good. Thursday I went into the city for an Innovation Lab holiday lunch. That was lots of fun and it was good to see my colleagues face to face. Ben, Ginny and I spent alot of time hanging around talking afterwards.

Lizzy was supposed to come home Thursday, but got into a fender bender pulling out of her driveway leaving Buffalo. She flew home the next day. Jeannie was delighted to see her. That evening we went out to dinner and played legos. I finished my Porco Rosso fake lego airplane. The design was kinda structurally unsound, so I had to improvise some reinforcements. Later we watched the Charlie Brown, Grinch and Rudolph specials.

Unfortunately, Jeannie came down with Covid the day before Christmas eve. The three of us tested negative and went to the family Xmas party on Long Island, this year moving into a new generation of cousins as hosts, at Megan and JJ’s house. Good to see everyone and catch up. They have a bar in their house, and JJ is into different kinds of rum. He’s also into different kinds of alternative and independent music, and wants to help me get set up on Bandcamp.

Xmas eve Jeanne was mostly sitting around or in bed napping. Lizzy was exiled to the sofa bed in the family room so Jeannie could isolate in her office, which was also Lizzy’s old bedroom. The girls did the last of the shopping and Michelle baked while I did the household stuff and we all did the wrapping. Listened to a bunch of Xmas music, best of which was Ella Fitzgerald.

Xmas day just the four of us; we had to un-invite Mary’s and Jeannie’s folks. We all slept in. Lots of legos, I got a pirate ship, Michelle got a zen garden, and Jeannie got an a-frame camp house. Lots of other gifts too. My new favorite game is Ticket to Ride: San Francisco. By afternoon Jeannie was feeling better, and supervised as the girls made Xmas dinner. Roast beast, very nice.

Boxing day morning Jeannie was over Covid but still testing positive. The three of us tested negative and decided to go up to my parents in Buffalo b/c Lizzy had to work the next day anyway. Martin and Kathleen and their kids were there too. Lizzy rented a car and went back to her apartment. She came back at dinner time with her boyfriend Josh. After dinner we opened gifts and facetimed in Jeannie. Afterwards we drank some wine, sat around and talked and played games.

Wednesday was very mellow. I talked to my mum awhile and took a walk around the lake in the morning and went shopping with Martin and Kathleen in the afternoon. In the evening Lizzy and Josh came by again and we all got pizza. Thursday Michelle and I went home. On the car ride we listened to a bunch of new music including Hozier and Noah Kahan, both of whom I liked alot. I turned Michelle on to the new Peter Gabriel record I/O, and some classic records including Chicago and Bowie. This led to me figuring out Lady Stardust on piano, a forgotten gem. I tried to listen to Cortez the Killer but Neil Young is still boycotting Spotify.

We got home in time for a four-day weekend. Unfortunately, Michelle came down ill, though not as bad a Jeannie. I tested positive for Covid too, although I never had any symptoms. So we didn’t get to see any friends, but it was relaxing to hang around, build legos, work on my song, play games and watch movies, and things like that. I’ve been reading alot. Before Xmas I read Geddy Lee’s autobiography My Effin’ Life, and Howl’s Moving Castle, which I like better than the movie. I’m in the middle of two other books now, recommended by Martin. One is about Columbus, John Cabot and Amerigo Vespucci, and the whole discovery of the new world thing. The other is the first of the Discworld series, which is alot of fun, sort of halfway between The Princess Bride and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

A Season of Darkness

It’s been a few weeks since my last post. Nothing really exciting going on. Been getting ready for the holidays. Put up our tree, sent out our Christmas cards. We saw the new Miyazaki movie. It was amazing but he’s totally lost his mind. Lizzy was home for a visit for a couple weeks ago with her new boyfriend. They saw my origami elephants at the tree in the Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. Both girls will be home for the holidays soon. I’ve been trying to wind down work for the year, and been thinking about old friends I miss, and how I’d like to make the time to see people. Luckily, the plan for the end of the year is pretty laid back, so it looks like there’ll be some time for that.

It feels like it’s been dark all the time the last few weeks. Only a few hours of tepid daylight before the sun sets in the mid-afternoon. At least the weather has been mainly pretty mild, even warm, and there’s been a handful of sunny days mixed in with the cloudiness and rain. Been trying the get psyched up for skiing, but it’s not time yet.

We did go ice skating the other day, which was lots of fun, and good exercise. I haven’t been on my ice skates in years, and neither has Jeannie. It’s good to know our skates still fit and we remember how to skate. We’ll have to do that again soon, hopefully when it’s less crowded. It seemed like I spent all my time maneuvering around a kid who fell over in front of me, pretty much every lap around the rink.

Even though my energy level has been up and down, my strength is up these days. Usually the winter is a difficult time for weightlifting, but it’s been really solid since we got back from California. My elbow, shoulder and back all feel great, and I just went up in weight on my last few sets of exercises, and I’m going to up on the rest in the new year.

I’ve been trying to lean in to the season by getting more sleep, and although I must say I’ve never been good at going to be early, I find it easier these days. But try as I might, I remain very busy at work right up to the end of the week, which makes it hard to slack off too much. We’re into a new planning season, and things are always in motion. I compare myself to water seeking its natural level as I slosh around to the most needful tasks from day to day. Good news, I may have just gotten approval to add another engineer to my team.

And, just in time for the holidays, The Global Jukebox 3.0.1 is now live. This release was basically a hardening of 3.0, with numerous bug fixes and usability enhancements, an a beautiful new splash screen when you enter the app.

I’ve also been working on a new song, called Head Downtown, and there may a Spacecats record in the offing. More on that next.