Friday, March 30

Today's archival sound recording is my favorite. Remember, Edison invented the phonograph in 1877. He used tinfoil cylinders to record the sound...metal so soft that it could only be played a couple of times. A few months later, Frank Lambert decided to use Edison's "talking machine" to create a talking clock. But he decided to use lead rather than tinfoil, hoping it would last longer. It did. About 120 years longer. This is the oldest known playable sound recording. You have to wait until the middle until you can hear anything recognizable, but then you start to distinguish a voice reciting the time. It's believed that in the last section, they started cranking backwards, creating "backwards-masking". I like it because I can imagine how revolutionary this was at the time, and the fun they were having creating things like this.

Thursday, March 29

The rainstorm we had on Tuesday was the biggest I've seen since I've been here. I've heard they get bigger - I'm glad we live in "The Heights"! Yesterday morning I drove in to work using the route most likely to view flooding, and view I did. Here is what the normally pastoral park near Buffalo Bayou looked like. The bike and running trails we have used here are under at least 20 feet of water! For those who have been here recently, the building on the right is the American General building, the visual cue I use for navigation home (with the flag on top).

I had a crown and three fillings done today - but surprisingly not much pain.

Wednesday, March 28

Last night for Looking at Art, the gallery was the Harris Gallery, and the artist was Gary Faye, a photographer. Ed was excited because he not only had seen an exhibit of Faye's at Looking at Art six years ago, but he had bought one of his photographs. For those with good memories, it's the one in the butler's pantry (opposite wall from the bar) here. He was more excited when we walked in and were faced with a GIANT print of that very photograph, a pier in Galveston. And even more excited when Gary told us that a similarly sized print is about to be installed at the airport, in the main terminal. Gary Faye was an electronics engineer who took a class at the Ansel Adams Workshop in Yosemite, and quickly changed careers.

We skipped the second stop because Ed wanted to go out to dinner more than see the artist's studio, and once again the studio was right near our house and away from the restaurnants. It's just as well since it was pouring rain (more on that tomorrow).

As promised, here is tonight's ancient sound recording: Walt Whitman (it is believed) reciting four lines from his poem "America". This was probably recorded around 1889 (he died in 1892). Edison invented the phonograph late 1877, so this is pretty primitive. And, I downloaded it from Napster!

Monday, March 26

I'm still feeling rotten, plus work is very busy, so I won't be writing long entries this week.

I have gotten interested in very early audio recordings, so I will present one here. This is Lucretia Boria singing Mi Chiamano Mimi from La Boheme in 1910 - an Edison wax (Amberol) cylinder recording. This was recorded within 15 years of the opera's composition, which postdated the invention by Edison of recorded sound (on strips of tinfoil) by about 10 years. Unfortunately, tinfoil recordings were too soft and delicate to survive for more than a few playings.
I believe this is a public domain recording, so if I'm infringing on copyright law here, it's unintentional.

I'll post a new recording on Wednesday (we have Looking at Art tomorrow).

Saturday, March 24

I came down with Ed's cold today, so didn't accomplish much. I did plant some things in the beds between our house and the new house next door. This area is in the shade all day, but due to the light color of both houses, does get more light than expected. I found a camellia that likes shade, and put some ferns and double impatiens there. I'm sure we'll find other plants for that area as well. One thing I noticed while working is that that area is quite a bit cooler than other parts of the yard. Maybe we should set up some chairs there for the summer.

We bought some curtain rods and sheers for the living room and dining room today. I'm undecided as to whether I really like the fabric, but we went cheap, so can replace with more interesting things if we find them.

Friday, March 23

Today in karate we got to use Very Big Sticks.

Work is very busy....besides the usual development and design, we are having to manage the merger, which includes managing the split. In other words, we have to split from our parent (ignore the Hollywood hype), and spin off our brother (Canadian operations - which was not part of the sale), so that next week we merge with our new brother (Milgo Communications). I am the project manager of the Canada split within IT. It's quite eye-opening - parsing databases, tracking down licensing issues, etc.

Thursday, March 22

Note to self: first mosquito bite, March 22.

We are actively (well, not actively but twice an hour or so) tracking the progress of the Mir deorbit.

Wednesday, March 21

Butterman? Butterman?????

I haven't logged on to my computer for more than two days. Anyway, here is the new home of this site. I was going to just put it on RoadRunner, but there wasn't enough space without spreading it across a few sites. Just as well, I can get more creative here. But I haven't yet, so don't expect much today. I've indexed the site so the search should work, but if you notice any broken links let me know since I changed some file names.

Sunday, March 18

Well, I didn't move the site this weekend (it was bigger than I thought), and I didn't get the pictures posted (also bigger than I thought). It was a nice weekend, so I had fun instead. I went mountain biking today at the Ant Hills. I saw hundreds of fish leaping out of the water, and several different kinds of wildflowers. And rode really fast over some bumpy stuff. A fun day, especially since the whole weekend was supposed to be rainy - which is why I thought I'd get lots of web stuff done.

Saturday, March 17

You would think that St. Patrick's Day would be a stellar day here where the Doody's finally have a chance to be proud...but this Doody has a cold, a sprained ankle, and an injured back. So we're rather subdued. But Slainte anyway.

Friday, March 16

I passed my first karate test tonight, so now I am a gold stripe belt. I did much better in the test than in class. Also tonight, I broke my first board. Please note that it had a knot in it. They let us keep the board. Maybe I can make something from it!

Thursday, March 15

Beware the Ides of March. Our stock has been fairly unstable lately, I'm afraid to say. Anticipate layoffs.

Here is a picture from my window taken during yesterday's storm. This was about 3:30 in the afternoon.

I will be moving this site (finally) this weekend, and will also try to post some of the pictures from Mom and Dad's visit.

Wednesday, March 14

We had severe weather this afternoon, including tornadoes west of here, 9 inches of hail (people had to shovel) north of here, and thunderstorms here. It was kind of fun watching it from up high at work - we could see clouds that wanted to become tornadoes, and the sky turned green. Then things got really black, and there were even black clouds below us. But later things cleared up and the sunset was beautiful.

Tuesday, March 13

We went to Looking at Art tonight. The gallery portion was at the new Mackey Gallery in the Heights. The artist being shown there was Roberto Marquez, a Mexican "Magical Realist". He was a very interesting speaker, and his paintings were interesting, too, especially after seeing the surrealist exhibit at the Menil last week. The artist's studio we visited was at 1226 Heights, which if you've recently visited us, you know is almost exactly three blocks west of our house. The artist was Virgil Grotfeldt. I liked his paintings, which are done with a coal slurry, a lot. They looked like trilobytes, kelp, and chromosomes. Unfortunately we were too close to home when we finished up to go out to dinner (plus Ed is feeling sick), so it's TV dinners tonight.

Last week's LAA started at the McMurtrey Gallery, where we saw Renzo Barchi, a Peruvian artist, speak. The studio we visited (also in the Heights) belonged to J Hill and Hillevi Baar. I liked the artist at tonight's studio visit better, but last week's was interesting because they are a couple who both do sculpture.

There sure are a lot of artist's studios in this neighborhood. I need to get one!

Monday, March 12

Some guy was quoted in the San Antonio Express-News as saying, um, something about international banking or something. So, um, something and well, er.....

Saturday, March 10

We went to College Station today, home of Texas A&M. We met Mom's cousin Herman and his wife Linda, who flew their own plane down from Dallas. We did lots of neat things which Mom will probably mention on her website -- I will describe our lunch. Herman had wanted to take us to an Italian restaurant he likes, but it was closed. So we went to Cafe Eccel instead. Luckily it was open and not crowded. I was looking over Mom's shoulder, and right behind her was Lyle Lovett eating his lunch. He went to school there, so I guess he probably turns up all the time.

Friday, March 9

We sat in Mission Control today, and tonight we are watching the docking of STS-102 at the ISS live on the web. They are a little late, but should dock in about 40 minutes.

Cool pictures to follow, especially of the X-38 - gnarly roadster of the future.

Thursday, March 8

I haven't written much, but here are some pictures.....terra cotta army at the Forbidden Gardens, terra cotta guy, and Bayou Bend.

Sunday, March 4

We went to Galveston today, where we drove around and looked at the old houses, went on a tall ship, saw the Great Storm movie, took a trolley ride and did some shopping. On the way home we stopped at Goode Company Barbecue for some, well, barbecue.

Saturday, March 3

Mom and Dad arrived safely yesterday, only to find typical Pittsburgh weather here in Houston. Yuck. It's been raining for a few days now, but should clear this afternoon.

Last night we went to Liberty Noodles, a pan-Asian restaurant downtown in the Rice Hotel, for dinner. The Rice Hotel is a beautiful old place, very elegant. JFK spent his last night there before going to Dallas in November 1963. The hotel was closed in the seventies, and just sat there becoming more and more run down. It reopened in the late nineties as lofts, restaurants and meeting rooms. I just can't imagine how this great building sat neglected for twenty years in a major city's downtown. I'm glad it's been restored.