Punctuating The Silence

Last week was one that could very well be looked back on as a turning point for the band I’m in: after learning that our lead guitarist and bassist wanted out, we got word that our drummer was leaving, too. Fortunately, all the “important” people (sorry, guys!) are left: my friend, Dan, and I. Yup, reverential is now a duo. Which is fine: a lot of the artists I listen to are either solo acts or duos, so this can work. And, thanks to a little technology, we’re going to make it work.

Dan is the creative force behind this endevour. He’s on vocals and guitar, but he’s also the songwriter, and is a wizard with Live, Reason, and putting songs together. As the keyboardist in the group, it was sometimes hard to find that sonic space in the song to put my stuff, but that just got easier, even if it’s more demanding. To that end, I’ve been working on changing my live setup. It’s not finalized yet, but in addition to the Karma and the UF7, I’ll be adding a 25-key controller/synth of some sort (very likely either a Novation X-Station or XioSynth), and a laptop with softsynths. By the time I’m done, it will look a little different from the past.

Stay tuned for updates, pictures and gear/software descriptions!

Although this is probably the first time I’ve blogged about it (mostly due to procrastination), it was exactly one year ago today that our solar panel array went live. It took some doing to get to that point, but looking back over the collected data (note: I don’t have all the numbers right now – I’m working on compiling them, and I’ll update this post when they’re available on the website), it was definitly worth the hassle. The system has performed very well (beyond our expectations, but to size the system we had to rely on electric bills from the previous owners, who had a different lifestyle from ours, so we suspected it might perform better than projected), and there were no problems with the system at all in the first year. Not that it would have been a major issue: the company that installs it supports the system for the first five years: something that tells you right off that not too many problem tend to occur. The best part of the year was discovering that the spring months are so optimal for power generation, that we built up a credit with the power company large enough that we should have at least one free summer month.

According to techdirt, my previous preparations to add some of the criminal element to my life can now be safely done away with, as the ever-magnanimous RIAA has now said that it’s OK to rip a CD that I own and listen to it on my iPod! Too bad, too, as I was this close to picking out my fear-inspiring criminal underworld nickname: “the ripper”. Huh? What do you mean it’s taken?

As someone once said, “it’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden stop”. Today my favorite work mug, seen here – a nice big dark blue latte mug with “/dev/mug” (unix joke – go ask your sysadmin) emblazoned on the side – decided to give me a practical demonstration of the hazards of gravity (weak force, indeed…). The two dozen-or-so resulting pieces are now sitting at the bottom of a trash bin. Annoying, yes, but not half as much as realizing that I’ve only had this one a month and a half, after purchasing it to replace the one that gravity claimed shortly before that, which I had successfully kept from gravity’s cruel clutches for four years!

I don’t think I’m getting more clumsy, so I can only conclude that gravity is either getting stronger, sneakier, more malevolent, or all three. Watch your mugs!

As tempting as it is to simply order another for round three (annoying and massively unfair that these rounds only seem to end when gravity wins), I’m not going to. At least not right away: if a lesser mug suffers the same fate, it might as well be getting ones I like…

My wife and I, both Canadian citizens, came to the U.S. in January of 1999 when I was offered a position at Princeton University. We came down under the NAFTA visa, as it was the quickest way to get into the country, and Princeton’s intention has always been to work toward our permanant residency. Seven years later, and we’re still waiting, and the way things look, it could very well be another seven. Here’s where we are. Read more »

From an 80° day in February (and temperatures in the 70′s just a week ago), we now have…snow!  Yup, it’s currently snowing (near white-out blowing snow) in Princeton.  This has got to be one of the craziest years for weather in some time.

This moment of weather musing brought to you by the Steve’s-not-dead-just-resting blog department.  As you were…

Well, I really wanted to post entries last weekend, during the gig, but the place we were at had only spotty cellular signal. Oh, well. We had an amazing weekend: we were happy with the way the music went (a couple of minor glitches, but hey, that’s live music, right?), the speaker was great, a bunch of kids were really impacted by the whole weekend, the location was beautiful, and we had a blast. What more could you want?

Oh, yeah, my new keyboard worked wonderfully. More on that next.

Back in April, Michelle and I were in Amsterdam (and other parts of the Netherlands) for 10 days (mostly for a conference Michelle was attending, but I have family there so it was also part vacation). Back in August, I was at the O’Reilly Open Source Conference in Portland, and I had a blast.

I really miss Amsterdam – it was probably the first city I thought I could feel at home living in (not a city person), but on top of that, the Euro version of OSCON just started, and it’s being held in Amsterdam…

Really wish I was there right now…

Over the summer, our pool developed a tear in the liner (fortunately, above the waterline), and that meant it was time to replace it. Not a cheap endevour, but necessary, and besides, there was a hard-metal stain in the shallow end that we inherited when we bought the house that I won’t be sorry to see gone. Anyway, the company we hired to do the work set up the pump yesterday to pump all 19,000 gallons of water out into the sewer system, and now that the work’s done, we’re busy dumping another 19,000 gallons back into the pool. I wish there had been a better way…

OK, you’re probably not going to believe me, but I’ll tell you anyway: we actually had a positive experience at the New Jersey Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV).