Suggested by JM:
“Life is too short to read bad books.” I’d always heard that, but I still read books through until the end no matter how bad they were because I had this sense of obligation. That is, until this week when I tried (really tried) to read a book that is utterly boring and unrealistic. I had to stop reading.
Do you read everything all the way through or do you feel life really is too short to read bad books?
I've almost always completed books that I've started. Maybe because I usually read books that have been well-reviewed or maybe because I'm generally an optimist and that even after a slow start I hope that it might get better, or maybe I have a stick-to-it-iveness that says if you're going to start something you might as well finish it.
Speaking of of finishing it, that does remind me of one of the few books I didn't finish -- "IT" from Stephen King. Clocking in at over a thousand pages and at the apex of his drug-addled, no-one-will-edit-him 80s long windedness (Steve: more isn't always better) -- I plodded along in this for about 400 pages and then said, "No mas!"
Oddly, I know several people for whom this book was one of their favorites, but I couldn't stand IT.
It was a big day for Penny yesterday as she completed and graduated from her Family Dog I class. For the past month and a half or so, we’ve been working on sitting and staying and heeling and coming when called – all the things that are needed to be a good dog citizen.
Good job, Penny!
Xkcd is usually pretty good -- but this is genius.
Happy Friday!
So, one of the things I’ve gotten to spend some more time with during my – err – sabbatical from gainful employment – is my piano.
For those who’ve been around here a while, you might recall that a couple of years ago, I was stressing about and then actually enjoying learning a little music theory in the last piano class I had before I started taking private lessons.
So, last year, after I’d settled in and developed a bit of rapport with my teacher, I’d described the things I’d liked and not-liked about the classes I had taken. One thing I’d said I’d appreciated (and that maybe it was my analytical-science side coming out) was the introduction to music theory that I’d had – how it helped shaped the way I heard and learned new pieces. She suggested that I start a series of workbooks on music theory for the piano.
I think this series is pretty good, and after a year or so I’m right in the middle of the set. I’ve really enjoyed learning the hows and whys of how a musical composition is put together. We’ve covered meter, scales, keys, intervals, chords, ornaments, motifs and have begun to analyze different compositions for melodic phrase structure. There are also sections for ear training and sight-reading. Altogether, I think they’ve really helped me be a better (and I use this word very generously) musician.
So, of course, reading and dissecting music naturally began to make me curious about how it gets created. Do you start from a motif and build? Do you start with a feeling and go? What are the “rules” that make something sound “good”? And so on…
And so, last month, I started another series: “The Craft of Music Composition”. This also has several levels and naturally I’m starting at the entry level, since I’ve never written music in my life. The first book has a sort of a lead-you-by-the-hand way that takes some of the intimidation out of the idea of putting notes to paper (or notes into Finale’ as the 21st century equivalent might be…) – while learning some of the common techniques used by composers.
I’ve never really considered myself a “creative” person. Insightful, maybe. Analytical, for sure. So composition is way out of my comfort zone – and maybe that’s good. I don’t know that there will be any critical successes coming from my brain, but it sure is fun to sit and plink-plunk-plink at the keys and decide what you think sounds good.
Wish me luck!
I’m still bummed, so I’ll keep this short. Great season. Good playoff run and lost to a very good team that got more clutch pitching and better clutch pitching in this Series.
Hideki Matsui (who had SIX RBIs tonight – holy crap -- and who hit the cover off the ball all Series) and Andy Pettitte were great examples of both of those tonight as the Yankees closed out the World Series at home, winning 7-3. Pedro Martinez was fair but really it was the Durbin-Happ tagteam that couldn’t stop the bloodletting.
Anyway – good job from the Yankees, they got it done when they had to. And at least as a silver lining, Noelle still owes me lunch for the NLCS…
Today, the NIH announced that they are spending $27MM of your Recovery money on creating a social network for scientists in the biomedical research community. You can read about it here.
The goal is summed up as follows:
These Web-based initiatives will bring the power of Internet-based tools, as exemplified by social networking, to biomedical research. Modern technologies for communication and collaboration have the potential to enhance interdisciplinary research, enabling individuals to connect with each other and with resources — irrespective of location — to address challenges in new ways.
That’s very nice – but I wonder if this is really necessary? Frankly, most of the social networks among scientists that I know involve a couple of pints. And though I don’t want to be a Luddite, I wonder if it can be successful. Do I really need a social network to help me solve scientific problems of a common sort (Hey peeps, I’m out of ammonium sulfate, anyone in 92121 got any in da house?)?
Because I’ll tell you, the first thing that popped into my mind when I heard about this was two little letters: “I” and “P” as in Intellectual Property. The who “owns” what question is always a contentious issue that plagues researchers from the --- whose name gets to go on a paper, or whose name gets to go first on the paper questions on the academic side – to the industry ones of who had an intellectual contribution worthy to be on a patent to which organization owns the rights to this new discovery and can license it out to the highest bidder(s)? Can you imagine “Hey peeps, I’m looking to cure Parkinson’s Disease with this new compound I made, anyone got a validated preclinical animal model in da house?” Somehow I don’t think so.
I think this also raises the question of how many social networking sites do you really need? I have three that I can think of – Facebook, Vox and LinkedIn – which seem to adequately cover the personal and professional sides of life. I’ve eschewed Twitter because I think it only enforces America’s short-attention span problem. Though I did just get a GoogleWave test-account (thanks, DeWitte!) – and I’m not really sure how to classify that. So – is this new endeavor supposed to be a less “career networking” and more a "work networking" site than LinkedIn? Perhaps.
I’m sure being supported by the government, they’ll come up with some terrible name out of committee – NerdNet, Science Communication And Networking Tool (SCANT), Fritter? Maybe the social network itself should organize and name itself.
What do you guys think? Good idea, bad idea, I'm not a scientist so who the heck cares and I want my $27 mil back?
Coming out of the fog of the flu this week (the reason for a lapse in posting – so much for NaNoBloMo), I was excited about the Big Halloween Sports weekend that was happening in Philadelphia with both the Phillies and the Eagles against rivals from New York.
The Phillies had left Yankee Stadium with a 1-1 split, which was really good. They had a masterful performance from Cliff Lee in Game 1 (a fairly easy 6-1 victory) and ended up on the wrong side of a pitchers’ duel between AJ Burnett and Pedro Martinez, losing 3-1. Games 3 and 4 would be this weekend.
The Eagles were facing their first tough game since a Week 2 McNabb-less slaughter at the feet of the Saints in facing the division leading NY Giants. Philadephians can sometimes be a little insecure when it comes to being compared to New Yorkers and their city -- and here were 3 huge make-or-break games in barely 24 hours.
The narrative for the World Series had been two heavy hitting line-ups against good starters and questionable bullpens. The first two games certainly didn’t fit that bill with dominating pitching, but Game 3 saw last year’s WS MVP Cole Hamels become unglued (as he did against the Dodgers) by questionable calls and bad breaks. He was cruising when Alex Rodriguez’ long fly down the right field plunked off a FOX TV camera that was inconceivably placed IN THE FIELD OF PLAY. After a short review, umpires decided hey-it-probably-would’ve-been-a-homer-so-lets-give-it-to-him. Uhhh—sure, okay. Regardless, Hamels never recovered, coughing up five excruciating runs over two innings, including an unacceptable inning extending hit to an AL pitcher. The Phils bats kept adding runs (including a mammoth shot by Jason Werth), but each relief pitcher Cholly trotted out kept the Yankees comfortably ahead.
And if you’d have told me that Joe Blanton and CC Sebathia would pitch about 6 innings and the score would be 4-2, I’d have taken it in a heartbeat. The Phils were en route to a storybook finish – scoring a run in the 7th and 8th each to tie the game at 4. In the 9th, closer Brad Lidge got two quick outs and the Phils were primed to go into the bottom of the inning with all the momentum – and last year, that’s would have happened. But like Hamels, this isn’t your 2008 vintage Lidge. He gave up a hard-fought single to Johnny Damon – who promptly stole 2nd and 3rd – and then hit Mark Teixeira and then gave up a career-highlight double to Alex Rodriguez to seal the game and take what could have been an anyone’s series 2-2 tie to a every-game is elimination 3-1 deficit.
World Series games like this are won on intagibles – the 10 pitch AB for hit, the diving catch made or not made, the perfect pitch made in a jam, the clutch two-out RBI double. Give the Yankees credit – they’re doing them all right now.
Perhaps as a little silver lining, the Eagles and Giants played the early card to Game 4 yesterday – and the Eagles came out slapped two 2 TDs on the board and never really looked back. McNabb was sharp and the offense moved, even with the absence of all-everything Brian Westbrook.
Personally, I’m glad to be feeling better and really glad that I can recoup from a tough 24 hours before World Series game tomorrow night.
Usually, NFC East rivalries are for hopefully good-natured trash-talking and for taking pleasure in another team’s defeats. For example, one of my favorite teams each week is the one that happens to be playing the Cowboys.
But schadenfreude has its limits, and that limit was reached last night as I got to watch the once very proud Redskins turn in about as bad a performance as you can get in a MNF loss to the Eagles.
The ‘Skins, of whom I count a number of friends as fans, looked terrible – have gone from struggling team to joke. This past week, they stripped head coach Jim Zorn of play-calling duties, bringing in several years-retired Sherm Lewis to call the plays. From what I could tell, Sherm did okay, but he’s got a collection of a) untalented, or b) unmotivated, or c) both players on his hand to work with. QB Jason Campbell looked lost all night—though not as lost as Zorn looked on the sidelines everytime they switched to a shot of him. Their sloppy play culminated on a 4th-and-goal botched snap that the Eagles gobbled up and removed any hope of last quarter heroics.
Which, of course, brings us to the Birdz. Even though they won pretty handily – racing out to a 27-7 lead, and cruising to the final of 27-17, you never got the feeling they were “in control”. They had big plays from DeSean Jackson for TDs and a deflected Campbell pass returned for a TD. They also converted two other turnovers into FGs, though they didn’t manage to get a first down in either of those “drives”.
After laying a huge egg against the clearly looked-past Raiders, the Eagles had something to prove and I’m not sure that they did. Brian Westbrook was out of the game early on with a concussion and McNabb exhibited that “hey, I’m excited, watch me throw the ball into the dirt” tendency that he’s never quite shaken over the years (Kudos though to #5 for passing both 30000 yards passing and 200 TDs in his career).
So, at 4-2 (knowing they should be 5-1) they enter a stretch against the Giants, Cowboys, Chargers and Bears that will likely define their season. Win three of those games, and I think they’re a legitimate playoff team, two and you could probably still scuttle into the post-season, less than that and they could just end up being a spoiler.
Last night, the Halos error-ed their way out of the ALCS in a horrific 8th inning, letting the NY Yankees capture their 40th American League Pennant, defeating the Angels 4 games to 2.
That brings up the 2009 World Series against the defending Champs, the Philadelphia Phillies. The Phillies surprised a lot of people in dispatching the supposedly improved LA Dodgers in five games (again). It was an interesting series, because neither team hit all that well – though the Phils put up a record number of runs in a five game series scoring: 8, 1, 11, 5, and 10 runs* -- due in large part to the number of bases on balls, hit batsmen and wild pitches allowed by Dodger pitchers – several of whom seemed to be doing their best Nuke LaLoosh impression. Also, the Phils hit well with 2-out and runners on, heeding the age-old advice of the great former Oriole manager Earl Weaver: Play for the 3-run homer.
And so, it’s on to face the Evil Empire. Most of baseball’s punditry have thought this season has been the Yankees’ to lose all year – loaded with their quarter of a billion dollar payroll. And yet – the Yankees hardly looked invincible against either the Twins or Angels, so we shall see. As a footnote, the Phillies and Yanks met in the WS in 1950 (NYY won 4-0) and this year the Phillies won two of three at Yankee Stadium this year during interleague play. The Series starts Wednesday.
Play Ball!
*Guess which game they lost?
On one of our other days in Northern New Mexico, we left Santa Fe with our friends and traveled about an hour to Bandelier National Monument, which is just outside of the town of Los Alamos.
Bandelier sits in the Frijoles Canyon and is the site of cliff dwellings from ancestral pueblo peoples that lived in the area for about 400 years – from about 1150 AD to 1550 AD. It is known that they moved down to the Rio Grande valley because of a prolonged drought that made living in the high, desert plateaus untenable.
The drive is beautiful and the canyon is breathtaking. The park has several places where the remnants of puebloan society can be seen. There is a large semi-circular construct that at one time was a large, multi-level communal site. It enclosed a natural amphitheater that was sort of the crossroads for the whole group.
We ran into a ranger (who have the best jobs ever) who described the agriculture of the Indians that lived there. They made connected, slightly raised beds – that were known as waffles, in which they grew corn and other crops. We also found out that in addition to Waffle Farming, they were also Turkey Herders – and anyone that knows me, knows how serious I am about my turkey. Also, the emblem for the park consists of a pair of “talking turkeys” and a sun petroglyph.
Speaking of petroglyphs, you can hike a trail up to where there are a number of cliff dwelling remains that have a number of inscriptions in the stone.
There are even a couple that you can climb up into. My friend Dave (and old college roommate) figured out that the cliff dwelling rooms were about the size of our old college dorm.
If you’re in good cardiac health and not afraid of heights or ladders, you can even climb to the highest large dwelling, the Alcove House – which was several hundred feet above the canyon floor. You could access it by climbing several ladders – some of which were quite long. The top contained a large open area and ceremonial kiva.
