• all streets | ben fry
  A map of all the streets in the USA, in one screen-sized picture. Very cool. Thanks, Jason Kottke!
  (tags: map America)

Last night was the start to our church league softball season. For most of the day it looked like we might not even play a game; the weather was quite nasty in the morning, with near-freezing temperatures, strong wind, and sleet. But the bitter morning gave way to a merely blustery evening, and so we made our way out to Noelridge Park to another season like the rest, save that this time we were bundled in multiple layers of shirts, sweats, and stocking caps.

Looks like we might have a good team this year. We’ve added a few new guys (and one older guy) from Noelridge who have skills, a catcher who managed to catch a foul fly for an out in her first-ever game (hi Bridget!) and our defense looks passable. I switched around from my usual third base last night to play first, and that worked out just fine. Not a lot of action, but managed to catch everything and make one stretch to get a bang-bang double play called our way.

In theory we’re starting up another league on Friday night with some folks from work, but right now the forecast says rain on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday… so I guess we’ll see. Sure is fun to get back to playing softball.

One of the things that just fascinates me is observing the girls’ learning - not just what they learn but how they learn. Sure, I’m a nerd, but thinking not just that “hey, she used a funny word” but realizing how that particular word reflects the fact that she’s learning about verb tenses (without even knowing it!) just blows me away.

Recent highlight: Laura, looking at a book of nursery rhymes in the van yesterday on our way home from the mall. It’s not a book we’ve read to her very many times. And she’s not reading yet, so what she does is look at the pictures in the book, recite from memory as much as she can, and then improvise based on what she understands from the pictures. So Becky and I are sitting in the front seat talking, and soon we hear this:

“Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker man, bake me a cake as fast as you can. Pat it, and roll it, and mark it… um… with some frosting…”

Hilarity ensued.

So I’m rather a new-music junkie. Granted, it’s gotta be in a genre I’m interested in, but hook me up with a new artist and I’ll go whole hog. This week, on the recommendation of Daniel, I’ve been exploring the music of composer Philip Glass. I didn’t know much about Philip Glass before this week; if you’d asked me I would have remembered that he was very into minimalism and possibly 12-tone music, but that’s about it. I would’ve guessed that he’s not my cup of tea whatsoever. But, having been promised that his newer works were more accessible, I decided to give it a shot.

My first stop: Glass’s personal website. It has a nice overview of his stuff and also… an audio player! The player gives a pretty nice sampling of his stuff. It includes cuts from his music for the movie The Hours, which is beautiful stuff. It also has a sampling of his Etudes for Piano which I found to be very nice. Then there’s some weird stuff - for instance, the soundtrack for a very weird independent art film called Koyaanisqatsi. Definitely enough good stuff to get me interested, though.

My next stop: the local library. I currently have checked out to me nearly every Philip Glass CD that’s in their system. While it’s not an extensive collection, it’s enough to get a sampling. There’s the recording of his String Quartets - fairly nice. Then there’s Einstein on the Beach, which is a whopping four (four!) CDs of “opera”, though it’s not like any opera you’ve ever heard or thought of. It’s either brilliant or totally bizarre… maybe a bit of both. Following that I’ve been listening to his Symphony #4, Heroes. It, too, is pretty good. I still have Dance Nos. 1 - 5 and music in twelve parts to sample, though I doubt I’m going to find them as enjoyable; I know from some online reading that twelve parts is his serious work in the twelve-tone motif, which is too far down the esoteric path for me.

I still want to get my hands on Symphony #1, which Daniel highly recommended; the little samples on Amazonmp3.com sound good. Other than that, I feel like I’ve at least given Glass a good shot this week.

My conclusions: The soundtrack from The Hours is a keeper and will get regular play time. The piano etudes probably will as well. Symphonies 1 and 4 are probably worth having and will get played semi-regularly. The older, more esoteric stuff is somewhat interesting, but probably not something that I’d listen to much. But hey, it’s a new musical discovery, and one that found me some good new music, at that. Thanks, Daniel!

[tags]music[/tags]

The onus of defense isn’t on the proponents of new media; it’s on the antagonists who would limit how the gospel spreads.

Abraham Piper gets it right on 22 Words (one of my new favorite blogs!).

Signs that spring is finally here:

• Warmer weather, finally. high temps in the 70’s for the majority of this week. Woohoo!
• The grill has been retrieved from its exile in the shed and is being prepared for some cooking. We’re gonna use it for the first time this season tomorrow.
• The snowblower has been exiled to the shed, taking the grill’s place.
• We’ve sown grass seed in our annual attempt to get grass to grow under the oak tree on the west side of the house. I will try to be consistent with watering this year and see if we can get something going.
• Softball! We had our first (and probably only) softball practice last night. This morning my throwing elbow is quite sore.

Along with spring comes my list-making of all the house tasks that need done now that the weather’s warmer. The driveway is in sad shape and needs patching - this winter was really hard on it. (Really, we’ll need to replace the driveway within the next few years.) The trip and soffet on the house needs scraped and repainted. We need to keep replacing windows. The garage door really needs replaced, but it can wait one more year. On the smaller list, I need to clean out and organize the garage, and get the pegboard hung in the basement. And the list goes on… and I’m sure I’m forgetting things.

Still… the weather is warm, the sun is shining… I’m not gonna complain.

• Hearing and Heeding God’s Word - Challies Dot Com
  “It seems that God’s job in training me is at least as difficult as mine in training my children.” Tim C gets it right.
  (tags: sin, children)

For a family that didn’t travel a whole lot when I was growing up, we have certainly made up for it in the past half-dozen years: Ryan spent a semester at St. Andrews in Scotland, Aaron, Andrew, and Rebecca all spent significant amounts of time with YWAM in Panama, and Mom and Dad (and Ryan, too, come to think of it) took at least one trip down there to visit them. Oh, and Rebecca went to China with YWAM while she was doing her DTS, too. Which leaves one person in the family who has yet to leave the country: little ol’ me. The grief I get is multiplied when you realize I’m married to a missionary kid who spent time in Indonesia.

But today is the first start in just a little change in that regard; I got travel booked to go to Montreal for a week in May for a industry committee meeting. Now, in some senses, Canada shouldn’t even really count; it’s not that far away, they mostly speak the same language, I mean, come on, it’s Canada. But since a) the ridiculous US Gov’t now requires a passport to travel there (well, technically, just to come home, but, yeah) and b) I’m going to Quebec, where they speak French, well, I’ll reluctantly count it as an out-of-country experience.

I got an automated email from the company’s travel agent reminding me that I would need the passport when traveling internationally, and they linked me to the US Dept of State’s page on traveling to Canada, which I dutifully visited. I did find this bit regarding traffic to be amusing:

Highway 401, from Detroit to Montreal, is one of the busiest highways in North America. It has been the scene of recurrent, deadly traffic accidents due to sudden, severe and unpredictable weather changes, high rates of speed, and heavy truck traffic. There have been numerous incidents involving road racing and dangerous truck driving, which have caused injuries to Americans. Drivers tend to be aggressive, often exceeding speed limits and passing on both sides, and police enforcement is spotty.

Somehow, that doesn’t sound too different from interstates I’ve been on in the US. Still, I’ll probably stay off 401.
The trip isn’t for a month yet, so I’ve got plenty of time to obsess over the little details that tend to drive my nerves crazy. I’m sure it won’t be that bad… I just like to have my bases covered.

• FINALLY with some warmer weather here in Iowa. Softball is supposed to start in two weeks and it’s been too cold to get out to practice. Tomorrow, though, we’re supposed to hit 70. Hallelujah!
• I drove to Naperville, IL last Friday to see Andy O, Eric Peters, and Jeremy Casella play a concert. Hung out with them before and after the show (with the “after” including pizza at Giordanos!), had a great time. What a great group of guys, and so darn talented to boot.
• I posted a bunch of pictures from the concert on Flickr.
• My Flickr Pro account (gifted from Geof last year) is about to expire. I want to pay to continue it for another year, but for some reason when I go to pay it won’t accept my password… the same password it just accepted for me to log in. It happens on two different browsers. Something funky is going on.
• What, you say, it’s tax day today? Somehow April 15 is a lot less exciting when you’ve had your taxes filed and refund in hand for a couple months already.
• And to come full circle, back to softball. We’re actually going to be playing in two different leagues this year: our usual Monday night church league, and then on a Friday-night city league team to which we were invited by a friend of mine from work. Becky had to think all of about two seconds before agreeing to play in the second league… should be a lot of fun.