Lesson 10/08/03

I hadn’t had much time to practice this past week (migraines Thursday, Friday, and a near one on Sunday, and we spent Saturday at the Renaissance Festival, so I could only practice Monday-Wednesday), so I was just sure this lesson was going to suck.

After I set up my horn, I reminded Fred that I’d gotten the new mouthpiece last week, so rather than starting on new material, I practiced some old stuff to get myself accustomed to it. He had me play a few things — mostly scales — to hear how I was coming along with it. His comment was something like, “You’ve only had that mouthpiece a week?” To which I said yes, but that I really only was able to practice with it since Monday because of migraines.

He seemed quite thoughtful about this, and said that we were at a point where we needed to think about moving into longer pieces or something (I can’t remember exactly what he said, but it was along those general lines). I’ve expressed some interest in doing more classical type pieces, which may take some research, since there isn’t a proliferation of classical music written for saxophone. Then he seemed to get an idea, got up and started out of the room, and turned to say that he knew what we could do, and that I would find it a bit scary. When he returned, he had a book of sax duets. He opened it up to the first page, and said that we’d try a couple right now. And he knew that I found sight reading scary.

After we got ourselves in tune with each other, we started on the first piece. After one false start (I was supposed to be playing lead, but true-to-form, I was playing quietly because I wasn’t sure of myself), we played through the first two lines. And frankly it sounded pretty darn good if I do say so myself.

Fred turned back another couple pages to another piece. This one was a bit more complex, and we weren’t playing the same thing as much as the first piece. Unfortunately I got lost after the first line or so, and had to wait another line to jump back in. But when I jumped back in, I was playing the wrong notes (reading a C as an E for some reason).

This week I’m going to look through the book and pick a couple to try next time. I’m also going to continue through my old book, because I still have several scales to learn, but I’m looking forward to continuing with the duets.

Weird Dreams: Astronaut and a Mammogram

Dream 1: I was chosen to be an astronaut on a mission. This decision seemed to be made like a lottery, with names drawn at random, and the winners had to be ready to go right then and there. I got suited up, and the started to fasten myself to my station on the ship. This consisted of attaching a bunch of magnet-like things around my feet and strapping my torso in to the wall. However, when I got done, I was standing, but everyone else was in a squatting position. One of the other astronauts came over and suggested that I might prefer sitting, but there was nothing to sit on. I unstrapped myself, and went searching through this large warehouse-like building, trying to find something to sit on. I finally found two small ramps that I could put together to form a box-like thing to sit on. By then I realized that I really needed to use the bathroom, and thought it would probably be a good idea to go before getting myself strapped back in. So then I went in search of a bathroom, and started thinking about how astronauts use the bathroom in space. I also started worrying about how many Gs I’d be experiencing during take-off, and wondering if I’d be able to handle it. I started to think that it was a bit weird that they were sending several of us out without any testing or training. I woke up at about this point, and needed to pee very badly.

Dream 2: I decided to get a mammogram, and since I’m too young, according to the prescribed ages of my health plan, I went to the mammo-van when it came by my area. I wanted to do it earlier than prescribed because I had a cousin who developed breast cancer in her 30s, and I was nervous (this part is true). So, I went to the mammo-van, and got a number. Oddly enough, the van was more like a building with long hallways. I found that I was constantly in the wrong place, and when they were ready for my mammogram, I still had my shirt and bra on, so I started undressing there in the hallway. The nurse or technician did drape a paper vest over my shoulders, but it did little to cover me up. Then I went into the room and woke up.

Maryland Renaissance Faire

We decided to skip last year’s Renaissance Festival, because we’d burned out a bit the previous two years. But this year, we were ready to go back! Mushi brought along a new costume that she had sewn, and the rest of us wore our old costumes.

We didn’t end up spending as much time at the shows as we have in past years. I was worried that this would bore Andrew, but he seemed to have a good time shopping with us. The shows we did see were Renaissance Man: Stand-up Tragedy – Act I and Hilby the Skinny German Juggle Boy. I recommend both shows, but particularly Hilby. I think the best part of his act were his facial expressions — they reminded me a bit of my brother David when he and I used to practice funny faces together in front of the mirror. His finale was on a 9-foot tall unicycle, juggling a knife (with gum on the end that he was supposed to grab at some point and chew), a plunger and something else (can’t remember).

Melissa had never seen a joust, so we also went to one of the three jousts. The MD Ren Fest’s jousting arena is far from ideal, though. It’s only about two-thirds as long as it should be, causing the riders to have to stop short at either end. Of course, I love watching the horses — I’ve been a horse lover (though without the means to actually have horses, or the time to take care of any) for as long as I can remember.

Much of the day was spend shopping. We bought Andrew a print of an old map, which even I thought was really nice. The map is done in the shape of a lion, with the eastern-edge as the lion’s back (so north points to the right). We also got a new lamp for our guest room — the base has stars and moons carved into it, so will fit in with the decor perfectly. I got a new barrette for myself at a brass dealer, with a fairy and moon on it.

Mushi and I also catapulted frogs in one game, and threw knives at another game. Though, frankly we weren’t playing to win anything — just for the joy of throwing things.

I took only one picture the entire day — here is Mushi getting burned at the stake:

Beyond Monopoly

We had tried signing up for the September 18 section of this class, but were moved to the September 25 section. Then Isabel came through DC, and disrupted the September 18 class, and ultimately caused our section to be moved to today.

Totally worth the wait!

The class introduced us to board games designed for adults. Especially those types of games that require strategy over luck to win. We started by playing “Through the Desert,” a German game in which you try to build up caravans. You earn points during game play by taking over water holes and reaching oases. Once game play has ended, you also earn points by having the longest caravan of various colors. The game was quite engaging, and I found that I wanted to pay attention to what everyone was doing, rather than just being interested when my turn came around. I think Andrew and I will end up buying this game soon.

The second game we played was “Trans America”, which is a railroad building game. Each round, you have a set of cities, one each from the south, east, midwest, west and central US, which you need to connect with railroad. I don’t think either Andrew or I found this game as engaging as “Through the Desert”, though still far more interesting than other chance-based games.

The final game was “Wooly Bully”. In this game you lay down tiles with town, pasture and/or forest (and sheep) to enclose the largest number of your sheep as possible (in one enclosure — I missed this point, so totally missed the point of the game). This one was also fun, and the teacher mentioned that it can be quite fun with just two players (the other games wouldn’t be as good for two players). I think I liked this one more than “Trans America”, though “Through the Desert” was my favorite of the evening.

Most of these-type games come from Europe. American games tend to be more in the category of luck or party games. This can make these more engaging board games hard to find in American game shops. A good web site to find these types of games is Fun Again. Some games to look for are those that have won the “Spiel des Jahres”, Germany’s Game of the Year award or Deutscher SpielePreis. The Germany award tends to be more family-oriented while the Deutscher award tends to be more strategy games, though for many years the same game has won both awards.

Migraine on the Beltway

I was commenting to Andrew yesterday that the current weather changes are perfect for triggering my migraines.

I shouldn’t have said anything.

Tonight, on my commute home, I started sensing my pre-migraine aura while on the Beltway. Since I’ve been seeing white fuzziness from scar tissue on my retina recently, I wasn’t certain that it was the beginnings of a migraine. But when I hit I-66, my vision became even more patchy. I had two choices: I could pull over at the emergency pull-off a mile off the beltway, or I could drive two miles past that and be home in a warm bed. I chose to drive home. The whole way I was moving my eyes around a lot to make sure that I was filling in all of my patchy spots.

The bad thing is that Mushi and Jeff are coming into town tomorrow, and we still have some cleaning to do. So, after sleeping for an hour or so, I forced myself out of bed. I had gotten some Excedrin and into a dark room before my aura ended, which puts me in a good position not to get the full-blown migraine. Generally I’m still dizzy and “stupid” for the rest of the day, but that’s way better than the headache.

Andrew had cooked dinner (yay), and then I went to the basement to clean up and iron our Ren Fest costumes. Andrew took care of the (loud) vacuuming, since I knew I couldn’t handle it. I was still dizzy, and had a doozy of a headache, but it was at least not the headache. I can force myself to function, if necessary, as long as I don’t get the headache.

DC Snipers – First Anniversary of First Shooting

It’s hard to believe that the sniper attacks were only a year ago. At times it seems like a different lifetime.

As much as I hate to admit it, the attacks did change the way I behaved and thought while the perpetrators were still at large. I knew perfectly well that the chance of being shot by the sniper were slim. There were other murders in the region, numbering more than the number of sniper victims. There were fatal car accidents on the beltway. I was more likely to die in some freak accident. And yet, I was afraid to gas up my car. I was afraid to walk through a parking lot into a store. I found myself changing where I got gas — I chose a station that had fewer hidden access points were a sniper could hide. I was tempted to find one of the stations where the guardian angels were pumping gas for people who were too afraid to pump their own. In the end, I didn’t let the sniper attacks keep me from activities I wanted to do; though, I will grudgingly admit that fear pervaded much of the activities that required me to be outside the comfort of either my house or my car.

Happy 45th Birthday, NASA!

On October 1, 1958, NASA was created! Yay for me, since they currently employ me.

I’m not going to go through all of NASA’s history , but it seems that lately people can only focus on NASA’s failures. While I don’t want to minimize the fact that at least two of these recent failures (meaning, those that have happened in my lifetime) cost human lives, I do want to point out that NASA has had far more successes than failures.

NASA’s great observatory program has successfully launched four observatories into space that have advanced our knowledge in the regions of gamma-ray, x-ray, visible and infrared astronomy.

• The first great observatory launched was also the one the public connects with the most: the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), launched in 1990. There were a few problems with Hubble, but even with the warped mirror, HST was sending down images that astronomers could use. Once the optics were fixed, HST’s science output was enormous. Hubble is still operating today, and will hopefully continue for another several years. One of the benefits of HST is that it’s in a low enough orbit that astronauts on the space shuttle can retrieve it for repairs when necessary.
• The second one launched was the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory (CGRO) in 1991. This is one that the public heard little about. It observed the sky in gamma-rays, and while the pictures and results were not nearly as pretty as Hubble’s, they were the best that had ever been done. CGRO’s instruments advanced gamma-ray astronomy more in it’s nearly 10 years in operation than any other gamma-ray telescope in the 20 years before CGRO>
• In 1999, NASA launched Chandra , one of the top X-ray observatories so far. Like Hubble, it has produced many pretty pictures, though unfortunately, the public doesn’t seem to connect with them the way they connect to the HST images. (Probably because the human eye can see X-rays, whereas we can pretend that what HST is what we might see if we had really, really good eyes.)
• Finally, NASA has just recently launched the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTIF). I’ll confess that I don’t know much about SIRTIF, but it launched this past summer, and is currently undergoing it’s 90-day in-orbit checkout period. In a few months we should start seeing cool results.

Those certainly aren’t NASA’s only major achievements over the past few years, but I thought it might be nice to remind everyone that just because the news media prefers to dwell on what’s gone wrong doesn’t mean that NASA isn’t still setting and reaching major goals.

Lesson 10/01/03

For months, Fred has been telling me that I should think about a new mouthpiece for my sax. When I was just starting, I bought the cheapest they had, figuring that when I started getting more serious, I would probably have a teacher to help me decide which of the myriad mouthpieces to buy.

Well, the mouthpieces that Fred had had the store order finally came in today. Fred got one ready for me to try, and put in on my sax. Then he had me just play a G. I played like I always play, with as much air as I usually use and with the same embouchure. Holy crap! With that one note, I could tell a world of difference! Not only was the sound louder (which Fred has been pestering me all along to play), but the note was clearer than I’d ever played, and more in tune.

Fred said that I could try the mouthpiece for a month if I wanted, but I decided to take it then and there. I can hardly wait to try playing some of my old pieces with it to see how they sound.

Making Soap

Last weekend I bought some soap-making materials, so I tried making them yesterday and today. They look great! I’m using clear glycerin soap, blue and yellow dyes, honey almond scent, and star and moon shaped small soap molds. Making them is incredibly easy, and I don’t think it should be too much trouble to make enough for all of our guests.

For one tray I used 5 soap cubes (there are 32 cubes in the 2 pound brick of soap that I bought). I melted them for 40 seconds in the microwave, stirred and then cooked for 10 seconds more. Then, while the soap cools a bit, I applied a thin coat of petroleum jelly to the molds. For the blue soaps, the best color mix seems to be 6 drops of blue and one drop of red (making it fairly close to navy-blue). For the yellow soaps, 9 drops of yellow and one drop of red (for a slightly goldish yellow color). I also used 3 drops of scent, and for some of the soaps, I used a small “shake” of glitter. I poured this in the molds, and let it sit for 30-45 minutes. To aid in removing the soaps from the molds, I put the molds in the freezer for 2-4 minutes, and the viola, the soaps came out easily with constant, even pressure by my thumbs on the back. They still need to cure for a while, but the bulk of the work is over!

Now I just need to see if I can get the supplies for less from an online vendor.

Whale Rider

4/5 stars

According to legends among the Whangara people, Paikea rode on the back of a whale, leading his people to New Zealand, where the tribe still resides today. Modern times, though, are difficult on such an old tribe. The chief is always the first born son. However, the first born son of the existing chief, Koro, has only one living child — a girl, Pai (acutally Paikea, after the ancient whale rider). Koro refuses to see that Pai could be a wise leader, simply because she’s a girl.

I must confess that part of the reason I wanted to see this film was because I love whales, and was hoping for gratuitous whale footage, and I got it (though it wasn’t really gratuitous). Whale Rider is an excellent story, and one that can be applied to so many different areas. Women continue to struggle to prove themselves in every profession, including that of tribal chief. And I must admit, that even after the film was over, I was still angry with Koro. He represents the worst obstacles that so many women have had to overcome just to do what they know in their hearts they are meant to do.

[Odd note — IMDB says that if I liked Whale Rider, I might also like The Godfather Trilogy. Hmmm. Methinks there’s something seriously wrong with their recommendation system.]