Today was a bit of a low powered day. I woke up, did the morning stuff, and immediately took a nap. I woke up in time for lunch. It’s been that sort of day. Also, I’ve been nursing a mild headache.
I’ll make up for all of that this weekend. You’ll have plenty to read about on Monday, I’m sure. Or at some point next week. They can’t all be low power days.
But, hey, hastily made some more cuff links.
I have supplies to make 20 more sets of cuff links this go around.
There are two problems with this process. One of them is the hot dogs / hot dog bun problem. The math never works out. I will never, ever run out of all of the supplies at the same time. And there’s also the issue of storage. I have some nice cheap little jewelry display cases to keep this whole mess organized, but when I make these next 20, I’ll still have space for 60 more. And need a closet full of reasonable shirts for them.
Anyway, more next week, when my batteries are better charged.
cycling / Friday / photo — Comments Off on I put screws into something and called it a day 23 May 25
Some days are productive in the smallest ways. Maybe those are the best days. My alarm went off promptly, I ignored it for a moment, and then read my way through the morning, had a bite to eat, typed up a few things. Normal stuff. And then I worked on a shelving solution.
We need a place to put bike stuff, and so I picked up a second-hand shelf that will fit in a corner. It’s a two-piece deal, a cheap little MDF fixture that probably belongs in a bathroom. It’s going to hang in a corner in the garage. The first step was today, joining the two shelves together. I think they were designed to just sit on the floor, but one little wooden dowel isn’t going to hold it all together. So I added a second dowel. And then I joined them the old fashioned way, by screwing it all together.
The shelves are rounded, so this took ingenuity; I was immediately out of my league. But, eventually I did it. Two cheap little shelves have been joined into one piece. They’ll hold the weight of shows and elements and things.
And right about here you’re wondering if I’ll go self-deprecating or literary next. The truth is, I’m wondering, too.
To hang the shelf on the wall, I’ll make a french cleat. But I didn’t do that today, because I have the whole weekend ahead of me.
This is where I realized this wonderful little problem. How can I accurately that on two walls simultaneously. And then another, how to do it for the top and bottom shelves, as a little added security. I think I have it all figured out. It doesn’t require ingenuity, not really, but it does require some simple carpentry problem solving where I’m really deficient.
Let’s assume my solutions work. It shouldn’t take too long to make it happen. Then it’ll be on to all of my other little projects. And there are a lot of them. I’m eager to get to them. Well, most of them.
Late in the afternoon, or early this evening, or both, I set out for a little bike ride. I was thinking about how I could find new roads, and this is what I settled on. I did the reverse of one of our regular routes, the first regular route we established here, in fact. It’s a simple rectangle to the southwest. But, instead of turning right to head back home, I decided to find out what would happen if I just kept going.
What happens is you ride in the wind the whole day. Also, I pedaled my way through three-plus miles of empty roads and fields. I slid through an old neighborhood, and then crossed the interstate, which was when I realized where this road wound up. There are two truck stops and a hotel on the outskirts of a little town, and I didn’t want to be around of that today, so I doubled back. There was another promising road to check out.
So instead of turning left on the road that I knew, I turned left on a different road. It took me through four-and-a-half miles of views like this one.
Finally, it dumped me onto a road I knew, and so I took an indirect way home. It was a good ride, except for the wind. It was slow, because of the wind and also my legs. But it was pleasant. The weather was right, the traffic was non-existent, and there was a lot to see.
It was a nice, casual 34-mile ride that I finished with a smile. As I got home there was a car in the drive. Who had come to visit? We weren’t expecting company. As I got closer I realized, it was my lovely bride’s ride. She’d left it out of the garage as I worked on those shelves. So we had company, and it was us. This was a thing I said as a kid, when there was a car in the drive at my grandparents’ home, when the car belonged to us. “We’ve got company.”
Rides take you places. They bring you places. Sometimes the kid-in-you-ride takes back.
I wonder where tomorrow’s ride, and the 29 mph wind forecast, will take me.
So it was a literary allusion, in the smallest way, after all. Who could have seen that coming?
Friday / photo — Comments Off on Hello summer 16 May 25
With all of data entry errors corrected, my grades were carefully submitted. I stayed close to my email to field any questions, but none have come my way. So, in a driving rainstorm, I went outside and spun around the sign.
A big handful of meetings in the next few weeks aside, it is official.
Now, to rest, take a deep breath, cut my inboxes in half, trim my open browser pages by 2/3rds, work on projects I’ve been putting off (like cleaning that siding) and … start designing a brand new class for the fall.
It’s Friday, you should always do something fun on Friday. Some of us might not have conventional work weeks, and that’s great. Your Friday could be any day of the week. That just means you have two Fridays. Mark them both accordingly. And, today, we’re going to do that with a bit of music.
So we’ll return to the Re-Listening project, in which I am very behind. The Re-Listening project, if you haven’t been paying the closest attention, is where I am listening to all of my old CDs in the order of their acquisition — well, mostly, I’ve got some of the CD books confused. It’s a great trip down memory lane. And, I figured, I could write about it here. It seemed like a good idea at the time! Pad out the site … add some music … have a memory or two. And mostly it is a good idea. Unless you don’t like my music. Some of it is a little obscure. Some of it regional. Some of it is very obvious. None of it is astounding. So let’s just assume you like some of it, that it was a good idea when I started this a bunch of years ago now.
You know what has always been a good idea? This next album, which not a lot of people heard, and that’s a shame. The band Mr. Henry released two records, their debut in 1998 and “40 Watt Fade” in 2000, each on minor labels. Their blend of Americana was at the right place at the right time for alt radio. And while it was released in 2000, I picked it up in 2007, and it has never, ever disappointed.
I think I listened to it three times in the car this go-around.
This is the first track, sneaking that organ in there was pretty genius. The chorus here is probably the most reductive thing on the record.
By the third track, the choruses get much better, but the lyrics throughout are pretty generously full of imagery.
At which point it would be easy for me to embed the entire album. Here’s the brilliance of the fourth track, for instance. If you ever needed a ballad for hurtling down the highway in the middle of the night, they’ve got you covered. Once you get around the distortion in the twangy guitars they’ve really got something here. Though it feels like it needs another lyric.
It’s weird how I append that to non-specific memories of so much music: there I was, speeding up the interstate from here to there …
Just to prove I’m not playing the whole tracklist, we’ll skip ahead to the seventh offering, which is fundamentally a perfect song for the period, plus it has an unironic accordion.
In a similar vein, but somehow even better, if that’s possible, is this one, which trades in cliches, lends the record it’s title, offers an acoustic guitar driven chorus and more of those nice little harmonies the band was figuring out. Also, it sounds like a bunch of motivational posters.
Don’t worry, I’ve found the pattern on some of my musical preferences. I haven’t named this one, but maybe I should call it the Tim O’Reagan genre. He’s not in this band, but this sound, a sort of wearily optimistic traveler’s lament, is his sound. Also, there’s a lyric in here that’s so obvious, but still blows me away, decades later, and typies the album for me.
U-Haul chases big county lines
No FM reception
just a box of B-sides
There’s a real lament in there somewhere, and an obvious word play. Maybe the only one you can make there. But it surely does work for me.
So Mr. Henry split up sometime after 2000. There’s not a lot out there. The lead singer, Dave Slomin is now working on a new project, which is called Waiting for Henry, in a not-at-all confusing way. Waiting for acknowledges Mr. Henry. The bassist is playing with The Gravy Boys, which have released four Americana records. The drummer, Neil Nunziato, just published an Instagram post saying the band will play a one-night-only show in New York next month.
Maybe it’ll go well and they’ll figure out something for the future.
The next album is a Hootie & The Blowfish disc, a band which I enjoy mostly un-apologetically. Their South Carolina sound appeals to my South Carolina sensibilities. Anyway, “Musical Chairs” debuted in 1998. For some reason I didn’t buy it until 2007, apparently. It peaked at number 4 on the Billboard charts and was certified platinum, but music people were disappointed. Music people are only interested in unit sales, and have no appreciation for the come down that the hottest acts experience. And Hootie and the Blowfish came down somewhat. Their 1994 debut was certified platinum 22 times. The 1996 followup went platinum three times. So I guess the writing was on the wall with the music execs. But, come on, how can you expect anyone to even approach that again?
Anyway, they hadn’t tinkered with the formula, and if you liked it in ’94, you would have enjoyed this in ’98. Or ’07, or today.
This might be my favorite song on the record. Every time it plays, I will play it again. And maybe more. That’s the memory: the re-plays. There’s just a lot going on there to appreciate in two minutes and 21 seconds.
Any song that name-checks an Aunt Inez will get my appreciation. Especially if you just casually drop in where she’s from. I think that’s just a rule in our part of the world.
This could also by my favorite song.
I feel like a dare was involved here. “What if we put Darius in a leisure suit and gave him a lounge act vibe?” It amuses me.
The hidden track could also be my favorite track on the disc. So there are easily three favorites, and some other strong stuff on here, too.
I think I saw Hootie and the Blowfish when they were touring supporting this album. Probably an ampitheatre show, maybe in Atlanta. (Why is 1998 suddenly so fuzzy?)
And so are we. Touring that is. Lower New England, specifically. It’s a quick Mother’s Day trip for us. And a happy Mother’s Day to all those who celebrate, as well!
It’s Friday! Right? Friday? Yeah. Sometimes you have to check a calendar, just to be sure. I wrapped up the week’s grading in yesterday. And I have done the updates to my computer, cleaning a month’s worth of files, creating subdirectories for May, updating site statistics in the site statistics spreadsheet.
And, hey, we’re well ahead of last year’s numbers here, so thanks for that. I don’t know why people come here, but I’m glad you do.
So one class wrapped up this week, and their final is due next Monday. My online class has another week-and-change to go, with a lot of work still to come. And a lot of things to grade, and then grades to submit. The next two weeks, then, are busy. A lot of sitting here staring at computer screens, plenty of little study breaks, but then right back to it.
I never learned that skill young, but there’s nothing like impending deadlines to teach new skills.
I set out for a 25-mile ride after a day of sitting in front of the computer. One of the regular routes I established last year. It is a route that, on the map, is roughly shaped like a bullet, though I am not nearly as fast as.
I went into town and through it, doubling back and through a crossroads that has the word “town” in its name, but it is nothing more than a red light, a farmer’s market, a gas station and a small car dealership. Then, out into the countryside.
I took a turn that sends me back to the river, but crops, woods and a few houses and developments in between. Usually this is a road that gives me five or six miles without any cars. And, once you’ve done this for a while, those experiences stand out, and you make note of them, so that you may ride them again.
When the road ends, it is time to turn right. You have a nice wide shoulder-slash-bike-lane-but-mostly-shoulder, where you can do four miles super fast, which you also make note of, and visit as often as you can. And then back on the road for home, a seven-mile stretch … into the wind.
This is a mistake. The conventional wisdom is that you start into the devise a route that puts you into a headwind first, and then the tailwind on the way back. Economy of efficiency when you’re more tired. Because I was doing a rectangular route, a squishy bullet, I should have had a tailwind to start, and a tailwind to finish.
But, if you live in a place like we do, this is a challenge. Nearly an impossibility. Today, on that same road, a straight line with flags flying at regular intervals, the wind blew from every direction on the same road within 80 minutes.
