Boycats: August 2005 Archives

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August 29, 2005

Back to work

Well, it’s pretty much time to get going on the lab once again. More and more I’m feeling as though this will be my last year in the Calc Lab, come what may. The funding for the lab is set to expire at the end of 2006, and while we’re doing everything we can to extend that deadline, even if we’re successful I don’t think I want to be there for much longer anyway. At some point I’ll write a longer entry on the politics behind the funding issues for the lab; I think it’s pretty interesting stuff, actually.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve enjoyed my time there, I’ve learned a lot, and I think it’s been a valuable experience, but it’s starting to feel like it’s time to move on to something a bit better suited to me. What exactly that will be, I don’t know—any ideas?

Posted by alex at 08:49 AM | Comments (1)

August 21, 2005

Sac Lunch CD is done!

On Friday, I picked up the final audio masters for the upcoming Sac Lunch CD. I think it sounds awesome, and I hope y’all do, too. The CD isn’t ready for sale yet—we still have to create the artwork (hurry up, A-bex) and then send it off for duplication. But what you hear below is how it’ll actually sound. :)

N.B. For optimum sound quality, these are .WAV files, so they’re pretty large; about 40-50 MB each.

Posted by alex at 12:35 PM | Comments (3)

August 16, 2005

Manual labor rocks

It’s been a week of manual labor, but honestly, it’s been a lot of fun. Wednesday through Friday, plus yesterday, I worked in Carol Ann’s basement helping her to convert it into a studio. Saturday was my second day at Habitat For Humanity. I know it must seem strange to say this, but I really enjoyed it after these years of sitting inside at the lab all day. And it makes a big difference that these are projects I really believe in and want to do; I guess the motivation is pretty important.

Carol Ann’s studio is coming along nicely. After cleaning and painting the basement, we hung some pegboard on the walls and cleaned, painted, and assembled some shelving for storage. Over the weekend, Ben installed a new lighting fixture—he did a really impressive job, much better than I would have done—and now it’s mostly a question of installing some flat surfaces and tools. I’m so excited about this project, I’m really glad she’ll have a space in which she can do her work. She was so miserable working at Art Mart, and I’m hoping that with a creative outlet, she’ll be much happier.

Habitat was both better and more frustrating than the last time I worked there. Better in that I had a single project on which to work—I worked with two other guys, Paul and Gary, to build a shed onto the side of the house. But we ran into so many obstacles that we weren’t even close to finishing it. We didn’t have enough materials, so we had to scavange from other parts of the house, and that took a long time. The concrete slab on which we were to build the shed had been poured too close to the corner of the house, so we had to alter the design of the shed, and the house’s siding had been installed already, so we had to cut it away. Add to this our basic incompetance which cost us some time and do-overs as well. The upshot is that I’ll go back next week and continue working on it.

Anyway, it’s been good to use my hands and muscles for a while. I mean, I wouldn’t want to do this every day for a career, but once in a while on a volunteer basis, I really feel good.

Posted by alex at 10:00 PM | Comments (0)

August 11, 2005

Oof… so hurting

You know what’s a really bad idea? Buying $20 worth of supermarket sushi on Sunday with the intention of eating it while sitting at the computer doing work, then getting invited to a barbecue, thus forgetting about the sushi until Thursday morning, realizing that if you don’t eat it, it’s $20 down the drain, and thus rationalizing its subsequent consumption. While washing it down with Cran-Grape.

To recap: 4-day-old supermarket sushi. Ugh. Very dumb, Basson.

In more pleasant news, I’ve been helping Carol Ann convert her basement into a studio for her artwork. It’s been fun and productive, and I’m really excited about getting it done, because I think she’ll really get a lot out of it. Yesterday was the scrubbing-and-painting phase; today it’s shelving and storage.

Ok, I need to go drink a lot of water right now.

Posted by alex at 11:47 AM | Comments (0)

August 10, 2005

Forget Seven Steps — he uses all twelve

I started to learn Miles Davis’ solo on “Seven Steps To Heaven” last night. It’s friggin’ hard for me to transcibe, not just because it’s fast, but because it’s hella chromatic. Take a listen:

I hear solos like this and I wonder how on earth he thought of doing something like that. It reminds me a bit of a pointilist painting, in the sense that Miles uses all sorts of chromatic notes and colors that, when examined closely, sound strange or maybe out of place. But when you step back to listen not just to the notes but to the phrases and the whole of the solo, a coherent picture emerges. The effect is tremendously exciting, like a roller coaster that feels about to vear out of control but comes back onto the track just often enough so that you know it knows what it’s doing.

I don’t know what the Seven Steps refer to: can anyone enlighten me?

Posted by alex at 10:13 AM | Comments (0)

August 06, 2005

Jeff and Erin’s wedding

I just got back from the recepiton for Jeff and Erin, which was held in the same glassblower’s studio where Sac Lunch had its first gig. What a great time, and what a nice reception. Not at all stuffy or formal, in fact it was really relaxed. Lots of people talk about wanting their reception to be basically just a party for their friends and families, but this achieved that goal better than most.

J&E hired a combination bluegrass/rockabilly/cajun band which set a really fun tone. People were up and dancing, clapping, hoe-downing, and generally getting their groove on. The food was buffet-style barbeque and the seating was open, which really leant itself to moving from table to table to talk to different people.

And, of course, the people were great. J&E have exceptional taste in friends, and I enjoyed seeing many quality people who I don’t often get a chance to run into. In particular, I reconnected with some old Cristo Rey teachers, including Bridget and her husband Rob and Nardy and her husband Matt. Bob and Grace Sweeny were there as well of course, and I had a fascinating conversation with Bob about the state of things at De La Salle, the school that he basically founded and where Jeff worked while he was living here in St. Louis.

I should make a concerted effort to keep in touch with these people. They’re all of them truly high quality folk.

Posted by alex at 11:51 PM | Comments (0)

Breaking even

I played poker last night, the first time I’ve ever played for real money. I must be the last person on earth to get into poker, but hey, better late than never, right? It was a lot of fun, and since I broke even, it turned out to be a night of fun for free. :)

I didn’t actually know the people there—I had been hanging out with Jon over at Liz’s place, and he got wind of this poker party over in the basement of a friend of a friend of his. But everyone was cool, and they were really patient with me, considering I didn’t really know what I was doing. The buy-in was only $5, so it’s not as though there was much at stake.

I have to give credit to Jacob for keeping me from losing money. Almost everything I know about poker (the sum total of which could fit in this parenthetical) I learned from him, including the most important lesson: as long as you don’t have the blind, you’re playing for free, which means: fold early, fold often. I hardly played any hands at all unless I felt as though I had a decent chance at winning the hand.

Only one time did that really burn me. I had ~~a Queen and a ten, and the flop had both a Queen and a ten~~ pocket Queens, and the flop had a pair of tens, so already I had two pair. The river was a third ten, and so at this point I figured I was in the clear. So I slowly raised the pot until the point where Jon went all-in… only to find that he had the fourth ten. Do’h! Thank god I had more chips than he had at the time.

Anyway, I wound up finishing second, which I attribute mostly to dumb luck. I won a few hands I probably shouldn’t have, but so it goes, right? In any event, I had a great time, lots of fun, and now I’m hoping I’ll be able to find a semi-regular game.

Posted by alex at 11:37 AM | Comments (2)

August 05, 2005

Back in the Lou

I have to confess that not too much is going on since I’ve been back. Monday brought Nicole’s monthly pot-luck, which was fun, partly because it was so small. With Ben, Carol Ann, Patty, and Josiah all gone (the latter two for good), the only people there were me and Jon, Nicole and Paul of course, and Greg Wade. Both Jon and Nicole made pasta salad with canned fish, which seemed like a pretty strange coincidence. But they were both delicious, so no worries.

Tuesday I went to the Cards game, and it was truly satisfying. It was Cards-Marlins, Chris Carpenter vs. Dontrelle Willis, and the good guys won 3-1. Great pitching, especially from Carpenter, who appears headed towards his first Cy Young award and the first for the Cards since I don’t know when. With the regular lineup as battered by injuries as it has been (four starters are currently on the DL), the pitching has been a godsend.

I guess the biggest thing going on is I’m making a concerted effort to clean and organize my apartment, including throwing out the ton of crap that has accumulated. It’s going slowly, I admit, but it’s going. Today I cleared off my entire desk—by which I mean I threw everything onto the couch, but that means that I’ll be forced to address it.

With Greg having lent me his monitor, I decided to splurge a bit and purchase a new computer—a Mac Mini. It should arrive next week. This is nice for me because it means I’ll be able to leave one of my computers (right now I’m thinking the laptop, but that may change) at school so I won’t have to bring it back and forth. And that, in turn, means I’ll be more inclined to walk or bike to school; when I was sans car and I had to walk to work, carrying the bag was a major hassle.

Ok, I guess it’s back to cleaning… *sigh*. I couldn’t possibly be worse at this particular chore.

Posted by alex at 04:28 PM | Comments (2)

August 03, 2005

Beverly Hills 01915

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