Renewal

Real Life Statistics and Analytics

iTunes keeps track of how many times a song has been played. What if a computer had been keeping track my entire life to all the music I heard? What would that list look like?

When pee goes down the toilet it all gets mixed up, who from my life has mine mixed with the most? Someone from my family? Friends? Coworkers?

How many words a day do I say out loud? Which year of my life was the most vocal? What is spread on how many different words I use? How many words do I know?

How many books have I read? Which books have I read and reread the most in my life? What about movies?

How would my interactions with strangers be rated on a scale of 1-5 for all the strangers I have met in my life?

What is the relationship between the amount of bottles of beer I have drank vs those that I have had a hand in creating?

What would a pile of all the food I have ever eaten look like? How big would it be? What would the caloric count look like and how would it compare to yours? What would be the most common thing in there?

What about you? What do you wonder about?

Secret Chiefs 3

Last night I went to see one of my most favorite bands, Secret Chiefs 3. This was the third or forth time I have seen them and they never fail to impress me with their extraordinary music, presence, and mystery. If I were to describe their music it would be a combination of arabic-surf-metal with crazy time signatures and polyrhythm galore. I couldn’t point you to a specific video/song as no single song can pin them down. If you aren’t into “weird” music, then you might want to start with songs from their album Book of Horizons.

The first time I saw them play I had never heard of them before. They were opening for my favorite band Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. They came out dressed in cult-like cloaks and played their hearts out. There were a ton of musicians on stage and they never said a word, never used the microphone. At least half the audience was there just to see them, not the headliners. When they finished, the crowd demanded that they come out for more. This was the first and only time I have ever seen an opening act called out for an encore. They came back out and set up a microphone. I assumed they would say something like, “Thanks! We’re Secret Chiefs 3, up next…” but no…. they pulled out a trumpet and played that into the mic.
Side notes:

• I found out from talking with a guy on the train ride home that it was the drummers birthday and that is why they kept playing little snippets of the happy birthday song.
• I work with their tour managers wife. I was supposed to be on the guest list but it never got sent so I had to buy a ticket. I will gladly buy a ticket every time if that is how I can get in.
• Trey Spruance is the leader of this band, but is probably better known for his role in the band Mr. Bungle. I found out today that he was also in Faith No More for a little bit.

I know I said I couldn’t pick just one, but I did.

French Lazers

When I was a young lad I went on a journey to live with a family in Grenoble, France. It was pretty fantastic. Not only did my French improve dramatically but I learned how to say a lot of bad words in French, that drinking was okay and that they had the most awesome laser tag place in the world (at least the way I remember it).

The only other time I have ever played the game was in Buffalo, NY. The best part about that was that when we were signing up they made us pick a code name. When they were handing out the equipment later this came back into play. Since none of us knew what the code names were for the guy had to say some pretty rediculous things. Needless to say, if that was the best part …

The best part about the French place was lack of rules or even any supervision. Sure someone left bleeding every game, but it was worth it! Imagine this, a giant 2 story room where it is dark with strobe lights flashing, smoke everywhere and blasting music. You can’t trust your senses at all to tell you what is going on so you must rely totally on your reactions.

There was a spot where you could jump down from the upper level to the lower one, there was a tunnel that was pitch black and had bars randomly across it at chest, shin and face height. You only run down that hallway once. Lots of sharp corners and lots of people in the game, don’t tell your mom about this place.

I would go there again in a second. Probably by now though it isn’t there anymore. If you are ever in Grenoble … FIND THIS PLACE AND PLAY LASER TAG! You probably won’t regret it, even if you need stiches.

Peeking in Windows

Punting on the River Cam

Left for Dead

Country Ham

Years ago we bought half of a uncooked, salted, aged country ham from Virginia. It arrived at our house in a giant box. We opened it up and followed the directions: cut off the mold and soak it in water for a couple days to get the salt out, replacing the water every once in a while. Do you realize how big of a pot you need to soak a ham in a reasonable amount of water? Good thing I had my 5 gallon pot for beer brewing!

It made the house smell amazing. Probably just as good as warming up your regular old ham, but it felt better from the specialness of it and all the work that went into it. We invited a couple of friends over to eat it with us. One of them doesn’t even like ham (and he is Cuban too!) and he loved it. It was delicious. I highly recommend it. I have no idea where we bought ours from to recommend it, but I recommend doing it! It is worth the price.

No Cycles to be Fixed to These Railings or Against This Wall

Weaving

Beyond any lessons that can be found in the Wheel of Time, there are plenty of life lessons one can learn from weaving.

• Patience – Weaving takes a long time. If you try to rush it, you will make mistakes and will mess up the tension, resulting in more mistakes.
• Design – You better create/pick something that you are going to be happy with as executing that design take a long time. You want your patterns, colors, and textures to work together.
• Diligence – Again, this takes time. The only way to discover its worth is to work your way through it. Also, I always come up with new ideas for a project when I am in the middle of another. However, you can’t just stop and start a new one until you finish.
• Precision – When setting up a project on a 4-Harness Loom there are many chances to make a mistake that won’t be notices until it is too late to do much about it. Paying attention so that you do it right is important.
• Practice – The different stages can be very repetitive. You definitely get better as you go.

They also make great gifts for people.