Archive for category Me

Duel of the Playlists

I managed to snag a six month (free) trial subscription to Spotify Premium – it was some tech giant’s way of thanking me for putting them on my permanent payroll. I didn’t set out to see what freebies I was getting but as I was trying to navigate a miserable website I just sort of stumbled across it, kind of like de Vaca and the Seven Cities of Cibola. I got six months of free Disney Plus through Verizon last year, so this back scratching by the big boys seems to be a thing.


Consequently, I have spent the last couple of days looking for and listening to new music, and by new music I mean old music I know but don’t already own. The more intimate I’m with the song the better. The older I get the more I treasure music with an emotional resonance from my youth. And so I turned to sound tracks and thus re-discovered the theme to On Her Majesty’s Secret Service by John Barry and the theme to Duel at Diablo which unfortunately does not have a version from the movie, but a version by the Ersatz Orchestra from their album Cine Magic 66 which suffers from the brass not being as brassy nor the strings as stringy as the original. This life is a vale of suffering.


My hopes were raised by the existence of playlists on Spotify, but as per usual they were dashed because while I love my playlists, I don’t love your playlists. Musical tastes, like so many tastes, are very individual. Despite the right playlist name, the songs themselves just weren’t right. And most sadly, there is no KSHE classics playlist. This life is a vale of suffering.


Before playlists there were mix tapes – those were heady days when you could pick the exact songs in the exact order you wanted. Live Free or Die! I even had this little attache case full of them so I could bring them with me wherever I went. Sometimes there would be complaints, and I would point out the the mix tape was titled “Long, Boring, and/or Weird” so at least I was accurate (I am not making up the name). If I made new playlists with my newly (re-)discovered music they would be “There Will Be Brass” and “Music to Invade Poland By”.


Another one of the songs I rediscovered and have put into the weight lifting rotation (AKA Music to Invade Poland By) is “Duel of the Fates” from Star Wars Episode One or the fourth one, the one nobody wants to see again. It’s the music that plays during the climactic duel between Darth Maul and Qui-Gon and the only four minutes of the movie worth watching. The song itself is an homage to (such a polite way of saying theft of) “O Fortuna” of Carmina Burana fame which you’ve heard in a zillion movies and TV shows. I suppose John Williams thought to himself he could write something just as good and by golly he did. Even better. Except that for some reason he made it about corndogs. I’m not sure if it’s in praise of the corndog, or a lament you just can’t get a good corndog in the Star Wars universe – maybe Darth Maul thinks Qui-Gon has a corndog hidden somewhere in those flowing robes. Think of the suffering that would have been averted if Qui-Got had just given him a corndog.

I may not recognize any of the other words, but they sure say “Corndog!” a lot. It’s one of those words I suppose that you can’t translate. German would just concatenate corn battered meat tube on a stick into one word, so they aren’t singing German. Corndog is just so American that any other language simply borrows it lock, stock, and barrel. Even Sanskrit.

Therapy Peacock Wanted

I’m holding a fundraiser so I can get this magnificent bird as a therapy animal for me and the better half. I think I’d like it better than the therapy chihauaha that did a handstand to pee we saw the other day. At least the lady with the dog claimed it was a therapy dog when the restaurant told her no dogs allowed. So if you have a few extra bucks send them my way please, it’s for a good cause.

Starting My Weight Loss Regimen (Again)

I have gone back on a low carb diet which I have found to be an effective way for me to lose weight (although I have to be careful, sometimes I think I have lost some weight and I turn around quickly to find it following along behind me).

I read Gary Taubes “What It It’s all Been a Big Fat Lie” in the New York Times in 2002 and it completely changed my perspective on dieting.  He came out with “Good Calories, Bad Calories” in 2008, and I recently re-read it to help me recommit to a low carb regimen. On page 454 he offers what he calls his “inescapable conclusions” based on fifteen years of research:

  1. Dietary fat, whether saturated or not, is not a cause of obesity, heart disease or any other chronic disease of civilization.
  2. The problem is the carbohydrates in the diet, their effect on insulin secretion, and thus the hormonal regulation of homeostasis—the entire harmonic ensemble of the human body. The more easily digestible and refined the carbohydrates, the greater the effect on your health, weight and well-being.
  3. Sugars—sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup specifically—are particularly harmful, probably because the combination of fructose and glucose simultaneously elevates insulin levels while overloading the liver with carbohydrates.
  4. Through their direct effect on insulin and blood sugar, refined carbohydrates, starches and sugars are the dietary cause of coronary heart disease and diabetes. They are most likely dietary causes of cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and the other chronic diseases of civilization.
  5. Obesity is a disorder of excess fat accumulation, not overeating, and not sedentary behavior.
  6. Consuming excess calories does not cause us to grow fatter, any more than it causes a child to grow taller. Expending more energy than we consume does not lead to long-term weight loss; it leads to hunger.
  7. Fattening and obesity are caused by an imbalance—a disequilibrium—in the hormonal regulation of adipose tissue and fat metabolism. Fat synthesis and storage exceed the mobilization of fat from the adipose tissue and its subsequent oxidation. We become leaner when the hormonal regulation of fat tissue reverses this balance.
  8. Insulin is the primary regulator of fat storage. When insulin levels are elevated—either chronically or after a meal—we accumulate fat in our fat tissue. When insulin levels fall, we release fat from our fat tissue and use it for fuel.
  9. By stimulating insulin secretion, carbohydrates make us fat and ultimately cause obesity. The fewer carbohydrates we consume, the leaner we will be.
  10. By driving fat accumulation, carbohydrates also increase hunger and decrease the amount of energy we expend in metabolism and physical activity.

Back to Blogging

Maintenance Free: When it breaks, it can’t be fixed.

I’ve moved my domain to a new host and switched blogging platforms, but I’m getting the old blog back together.  Yes, the outcry has been so overwhelming that after a year away I’m ready.

It’s hard to make a comeback when you haven’t been anywhere.

And what a year it’s been.  Hope has given way to disappointment, I’m busier than ever, and blogging may be out of fashion what with Twitter and Facebook.

An optimist is someone who tells you to cheer up when things are going their way.

So bear with me as I try to get back into the groove, rebuild the blog (thanks Gate for eating my database and backup) and resume what started Christmas newsletter in August over ten years ago.

I finally got my head together, now my body is falling apart.

In the early 90s I persuaded my wife that by getting a modem, I could avoid working late or on weekends because I could work from home.  When she tried the same thing, the insurer she worked for thought that was a huge security risk, unlike the defense contractor I worked for.  I could also log into a little thing called GEnie, which was a pre-web online service.

I tried to get a life once, but they were out of stock.

From there I went to this other service, America Online because it had a much more Mac-like interface and that appealed to me and my SE.  And they started this thing called Hometown when the World Wide Web came along – I still remember my brother asking if I’d heard of this thing called mosaic.

It was all so different before everything changed.

So when I got this one particular wild hair to do desktop publishing and send out a Christmas letter, a good non-bragging, witty Christmas letter.  That was in July.  In August I actually created and mailed a full color Christmas letter.  I can state with certainty it wasn’t obnoxiously braggy.

I started out with Nothing … and I still have most of it.

And then I got a second wild hair, and that was to put the Christmas letter on the web (back then the web was not synonymous with the internet, it was just one little part of it.  I think more people saw it in their mail than online.

The only time the world beats a path to your door is if you’re in the

bathroom.

The only time the world beats a path to your door is if you’re in the bathroom.

The only time the world beats a path to your door is when you’re in the bathroom.

But I kept adding to it, and I got to the point I often hand tagged instead of using Pagespinner.  And I kept adding until one day I started a blog using Greymatter.  And so I moved off AOL and bought my own domain.

A closed mouth gathers no feet.

October 3, 2002 was the day.  Three posts that day.  I haven’t had a three post day in …

Funny, I don’t remember being absent minded.

And I blogged for years, years, without pause.  I can remember if I missed a few days I figured I had to have a really good post the next time I posted so that missing a few days would be worth it.

I was going to procrastinate, but I put it off.

At some point Greymatter was no longer supported, so I made the change to  Movable Type, which all the cool cats were using.  And I didn’t have any trouble porting over.

Experience is a wonderful thing.  It let’s you recognize a mistake when you make it again.

Then I started having trouble with my provider.  Posting could be agonizingly slow.  Settings would somehow change and I’d have to contact them to get them reset.  And one of the support guys admitted that they pretty much ignored email but hey I could always call.  And wait on hold.

All reports are in.  Life is now officially unfair.

Then one day my database stopped working.  At all.  So foolish me I un-checked the mySQL setting, waited, and re-checked.  Yes, I backed up the database.  And then I fooled around some more, and finally got through.  Hey presto, they claimed that while they didn’t know why it stopped working, they had it working again.

If at first you do succeed, try not to look too astonished.

So I figured I’d take this opportunity to switch from MT 2.x to MT 4.1.  So I made another backup (because you can’t be too careful) and installed MT 4.1.  And then I discovered the awful truth – my database had been purged when I un-checked mySQL (which they didn’t warn you about).  And when I made that can’t be too careful back up, well, you can be, because now I had a null backup.

Shin: A device for finding furniture in the dark

At least I still have all the original files, which you can visit in their unformatted glory.  And now, after a hiatus far too long, I’m back blogging again, with a beautiful WordPress installation (it’s the default at my new host).  Go Me!

Many people have the gift of gab.  Some just don’t know how to wrap it up.

I’m A Mad Scientist – The Bulletin Says So

You may have noticed (and probably not cared) but I’ve been busy lately. Most recently I was asked to provide a science demonstration for the VBS wrap-up party at church (yes, we did Power Lab this year). I think it was because I was free. I mean, doesn’t everyone have their own homebuilt trebuchet and hovercraft? I left my acetone behind which disappointed my son since we ran long (the kids loved the vortex generator) and didn’t get to set anything on fire. He was forced to use denatured alcohol instead. Ah, the sacrifices we are forced to endure.

I got off to a rocky start when I was asked to announce seconds were available just as I was about to begin. I had gone over everything in my head but somehow making an announcement wasn’t something I foresaw and it just put me off my opening patter. And then when the paper wouldn’t stay lit in the bottle that I was trying to suck an egg into, the wheels really came off the wagon. When I did get the egg in, there was so much wet paper (note – don’t let the wife wash out the bottle before sucking an egg into it) paper wrapped around it that it wouldn’t come out by blowing back into the bottle – it wouldn’t seal. I am glad I tried crushing soda cans at home before hand since all I was able to do was suck water up into them so I was spared the embarrassment of a demonstration that didn’t work at all. Oh well, once I moved on from the egg everything else worked really well except my time management so people actually thanked me for a great show. If only they knew how well it had gone in my head before hand!

Note to anyone else asked to put on science experiments for kids under 10 – don’t talk, just play the theme from Mission Impossible while performing the experiments. Children of that age don’t listen to the explanations and you wind up not doing some things when you run long.

Left Out, As Always

I feel so left out. I slept through the first quake at 4:30AM. I was jamming to Joe Satrioni at work and so missed the big aftershock. But I can be part of today’s big story by directing you to this story that details how republicans are responsible for midwest quake. Thankfully, no one was hurt and damage was minimal.

Situation Normal, All In Flux

Back when the family was away and I had more time, I started the upgrade to MT4.1. Between poor documentation and outdated documentation on the part of MT and my web host, I had the wrong idea about what my problems were with the upgrade. Once I got current information from my web host, all I had to do was remember how I got MT2.x running manny moons ago when I switched from Greymatter to MT. So I finished the upgrade when I don’t have a lot of time to get everything squared away. I hope to have it all squared away soon, time permitting, so please bear with the ongoing state of flux.

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Home Alone – Kevin’s Story

My wife and daughter are off looking at colleges in the Carolinas, my son is off in the Tetons going to school, and I’m at home all alone except for the dog. Let me say he isn’t much of a conversationalist but he sure is happy to see me. Back in my bachelor days (a long, long time ago) being home alone was normal. Now it’s weird and creepy. Not to mention a lot of work.

More Of My Wisdom

I have another revamped aphorism I like to say:

Rome wasn’t built without deadlines
——–  Kevin Murphy

Okay, I’m a procrastinator, but I still think it’s right.

An Aphorism Of My Own

My son was giving me grief about using aphorisms, and asked me if I had anything original to say. I reminded him of one of my very own (at least as far as I know) aphorisms, or more accurately an aphorism with my own twist:

Time flies whether you have fun or not, so you might as well have fun

Okay, maybe it doesn’t rank up there with

Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana

but at least it’s more than a funny line.