The Austin Learning Ally studio closed its doors at the end of March. As I understand it, this was the last production studio to close and the Learning Ally organization is now a virtual community. All of the readers, checkers and the preponderance of staff members are working from home, connected online.
It was sort of a poignant moment when I finished up my last studio session; I've been showing up there a couple of times a week for more than 10 years, and on my first no-studio day, I felt slightly bereft. I had been leading a somewhat hybrid existence for a couple of months - working both from home and from the studio. Now it's all home studio.
And the home studio continues to be a work-in-progress. I have quieted the echo or "slap" in the room with foam panels, but the Eskimos living next door presented a bigger challenge. I'm sure they are Eskimos, because they run their air-conditioner 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. I swear I head that A/C unit during our hard freeze in January! Just glad I'm not paying that electric bill.
The air-conditioner is located right outside my "studio" windows, of course, and the noise it makes is clearly discernible in my recordings. First I stuffed foam panels in the window spaces, and that helped, but not enough. Barb was strangely dead-set against my bricking the windows, so, I took the scientific approach and began researching materials with the highest noise reduction coefficient that I could afford.
That material, it turns out, is "rockboard" - rigid panels made up of compressed rock wool insulation. I figured that I could make up some panels that were only semi-permanent and stuff them in the openings, so I ordered a big box of panel boards.
No home improvement project - or in my case - studio improvement project is without setbacks, and mine came when I opened the box of rockboard and was greeted with a big warning notice that rockboard was only slightly less dangerous than a runaway nuclear reactor, and that you should wear protective clothing, use a breathing apparatus, double wash your clothing afterwards and to be safe, burn them and junk your washing machine. Huh. You would think the company selling this stuff would have mentioned this.
So no raw, uncovered rockboard surfaces allowed, but unbleached muslin has a nice, tight weave and a few yards of that and a can of spray adhesive and all my panels are properly diapered and currently stuffed in the window openings.
Did it stop the A/C noise? Not completely, but I can live with what remains. Now if I can just get Barb to remain absolutely silent while I am recording.
Monday, April 9, 2018
Monday, April 2, 2018
Monday Meanderings - 4.2.2018
I blame Daylight Savings Time. The older I get, seemingly the earlier I rise - which is annoying, but but more about that in a moment. And with the time switch, it is now dark when I get up. So the other morning, I got up - in the dark; made my coffee - in the dark; poured my cup - in the dark; missed the cup and poured hot coffee on my hand - in the dark. Ouch. I am certain that would not have happened if we were observing "real" time.
Now about this early rising. One would think that this phase of my life would allow me to be a slug-a-bed whenever I wanted. That I could snooze as long as I wanted. But noooo. Some seven hours after I go to bed, I've enjoyed all I can stand, and its up to greet the dawn. Which is a while comeing, these days. See above.
Barb, on the other hand, does not share this affliction, so I have some quiet time to listen to podcasts, or music, for example before she gets up. I even got me some nice blue-tooth earphones for that. So the other morning, I'm getting all set to listen, and I realize that I had not "paired" the headphones to my iPhone, and rather than quietly enjoying my music, it is blaring away. I panic at this point, and I'm smothering my phone and pushing all the buttons on my phone, trying to get it to shut up.
Did you know that if you press the side button five times your phone automatically dials 911? Yes. Yes, it does. But first it alerts you with a piercing WHOOP WHOOP alarm! And then, a voice says, "Do you need police, fire or EMS?" According to Apple support, there was a countdown screen to allow me to cancel the call, but if you are clutching the phone close to muffle the loud music (which is still playing) you are unaware of this bail-out screen.
Now about this early rising. One would think that this phase of my life would allow me to be a slug-a-bed whenever I wanted. That I could snooze as long as I wanted. But noooo. Some seven hours after I go to bed, I've enjoyed all I can stand, and its up to greet the dawn. Which is a while comeing, these days. See above.
Barb, on the other hand, does not share this affliction, so I have some quiet time to listen to podcasts, or music, for example before she gets up. I even got me some nice blue-tooth earphones for that. So the other morning, I'm getting all set to listen, and I realize that I had not "paired" the headphones to my iPhone, and rather than quietly enjoying my music, it is blaring away. I panic at this point, and I'm smothering my phone and pushing all the buttons on my phone, trying to get it to shut up.
Did you know that if you press the side button five times your phone automatically dials 911? Yes. Yes, it does. But first it alerts you with a piercing WHOOP WHOOP alarm! And then, a voice says, "Do you need police, fire or EMS?" According to Apple support, there was a countdown screen to allow me to cancel the call, but if you are clutching the phone close to muffle the loud music (which is still playing) you are unaware of this bail-out screen.
Monday, March 26, 2018
Monday Meanderings - 3.26.2018
Indulge me here. Like most old-timers I like to reminisce from time to time.
On a regular basis, our minister has a couple participate in the worship service by reading the scripture for the day. Most often it is a husband and wife that does this; sometimes it's a mother and son. Yesterday it was Barb and I.
After church Barb remarked that there is a new edition of the Jim Bishop book "The Day Christ Died" - some 50 years after its original publication in 1967. She mentioned it because that is the book that started it all.
Fifty years ago we were living in Abilene, starting a family, and attending Highland. This was the Mid McKnight era, and Mid regularly had me "warm up" the audience by reading scripture 5 minutes or so before services began. Then I would step aside and spend the rest of the service in a small recording booth adjacent to the stage area (absent from my wife and young child - a fact that Barb still brings up from time to time).
One Sunday the verse was from Genesis - the section where the Serpent, in response to Eve's assertion that they must not eat from the tree, lest they die, responds, "You will not surely die" - and for some reason, I literally hissed that sentence. And a light came on. I realized that there was a dynamic in scripture that I had never heard growing up. And the fact that I got positive reinforcement from several only sealed the deal.
At some later point, Mid asked me to read a section of the Bishop book. It dealt with the execution itself, and it is raw and emotional text. And I read it raw and emotionally, to bring it off the page.
And that was the beginning of 50 years of reading scripture aloud, like it was meant to be heard.
Monday, March 19, 2018
Monday Meandering - 3.19.2018
Bluebonnets have appeared in significant numbers this week. Earlier, we had seen just a few scattered plants in St Mark's Wildflower Meadow. That's what the church up the street calls their expansive front lawn. I think it's really just an excuse for not mowing the area much of the year. Designate it a Wildflower Meadow and nobody cares that it's overgrown.
We are taking the appearance of the bluebonnets as a sign that spring is full-on in ATX, so all the plants got moved outside today, including Fred the Avocado plant/tree (and yes, Fred did a severe branch-ectomy - that's what happens when you over achieve). We trust that we (and they) will not get surprised, though I remember the April 1st that it sleeted on us.
When you eat at Chuy's as often as we do, it's not unexpected that we get to know the staff and management. One manager that has lasted a while is Marty from Duluth - a guy that moved south to avoid the Minnesota winters. We talk about Texas and kids and religion and life in general. This week we were chatting about favorite authors and I asked if he read John Sanford, an author whose stories play out in Minneapolis and the Minnesota area and he said that he did not because he didn't want to be reminded of the weather in that part of the country!
After he moved away, our very new, very nervous waitress came over to our table and hesitantly inquired if everything was okay. She had seen us talking to Marty the Manager and hoped that it was not about her service or something she had done. We assured her it was a non-Chuy's-related conversation, and she was doing just fine. Felt obliged to leave her a big tip to let her know that all was well.
Friday we were making our shopping rounds, which usually includes a trip to Central Market, where it is often hard to find a parking place. There was an open space, but there were a couple of grocery carts left in the way. I decided that if I nudged them just a wee, tiny bit, I would have enough room to park. The rule of unintended consequences reared its ugly head, though, and instead of moving the carts just a wee, tiny bit, I managed to disentangle them and one took off straight into the side of an adjacent pickup (to be sure it struck the step bar, and not the actual side) and the other took off for open territory.
I was cringing about how fast and far that cart was going to go, when it veered into a woman walking toward the store in the next aisle over. She snagged the cart without incident, but really gave me the stink eye. From my standpoint, I was helping her by putting a cart at her disposal. From the nasty look she gave me, she viewed it differently, however.
We are taking the appearance of the bluebonnets as a sign that spring is full-on in ATX, so all the plants got moved outside today, including Fred the Avocado plant/tree (and yes, Fred did a severe branch-ectomy - that's what happens when you over achieve). We trust that we (and they) will not get surprised, though I remember the April 1st that it sleeted on us.
When you eat at Chuy's as often as we do, it's not unexpected that we get to know the staff and management. One manager that has lasted a while is Marty from Duluth - a guy that moved south to avoid the Minnesota winters. We talk about Texas and kids and religion and life in general. This week we were chatting about favorite authors and I asked if he read John Sanford, an author whose stories play out in Minneapolis and the Minnesota area and he said that he did not because he didn't want to be reminded of the weather in that part of the country!
After he moved away, our very new, very nervous waitress came over to our table and hesitantly inquired if everything was okay. She had seen us talking to Marty the Manager and hoped that it was not about her service or something she had done. We assured her it was a non-Chuy's-related conversation, and she was doing just fine. Felt obliged to leave her a big tip to let her know that all was well.
Friday we were making our shopping rounds, which usually includes a trip to Central Market, where it is often hard to find a parking place. There was an open space, but there were a couple of grocery carts left in the way. I decided that if I nudged them just a wee, tiny bit, I would have enough room to park. The rule of unintended consequences reared its ugly head, though, and instead of moving the carts just a wee, tiny bit, I managed to disentangle them and one took off straight into the side of an adjacent pickup (to be sure it struck the step bar, and not the actual side) and the other took off for open territory.
I was cringing about how fast and far that cart was going to go, when it veered into a woman walking toward the store in the next aisle over. She snagged the cart without incident, but really gave me the stink eye. From my standpoint, I was helping her by putting a cart at her disposal. From the nasty look she gave me, she viewed it differently, however.
Monday, March 12, 2018
Monday Meanderings - 3.12.2018
Two apocalyptic events this week.
The first - well underway - is the annual ritual of inviting half the free world to come to Austin for SXSW and then trying to persuade them that no, they really don't want to move here! We can, for the most part, avoid the SXSW mayhem by staying north of 45th Street. Of course, if for some really strange reason we actually needed to go to South Austin, we could always loop around by way of Oklahoma City to Shreveport to Houston and come up that way.
Then there is Daylight Saving Time, that biannual exercise in insanity that I truly love so much. Enough! Not only do you walk around like a zombie for a week or so, you have to go around and change all the clocks. And who remembers how to change the clock on the car radio? Not me.
Changing the family heirloom clock involves advancing the hand a quarter of an hour, waiting for the clock to go through its chime repertoire for that time segment, then advance it another 15 minutes, etc., until you have moved the hands forward an hour. If you don't let it go through all its chimes, it gets confused. Setting it back an hour is worse. The experts say "never turn the hands backward on this clock" so you must stop it for an hour, the restart it and reset the time.
Speaking of, the clock is on probation. It kept stopping every few days and I finally took it back to the repair shop for more than just a cleaning, and they quoted both an outrageous price and a 6-month (at least) wait. I grudgingly left it, but after some research, I found I could send the mechanism to a shop that specializes in that repair for a fraction of the cost and time. So, we retrieved the clock (not without a bit of anxiety - they couldn't find it at the shop!) and when we got home I restarted the clock... and it's behaving very nicely at the moment. Maybe it doesn't want its innards shipped to Illinois. We'll see.
You know how you get those emails from Amazon suggesting things to buy - or buy again? Like the one suggesting that I might want to buy another copy of the TurboTax software for 2014. I admit I sometimes put off paying taxes until the last minute, but 2014? That would mean that those phone calls from the "IRS" that the sheriff is on the way if I don't pay right now might actually be legit.
And here's a photo I have been meaning to post for some time. I took it outside the beach house on Monterey Bay. That's in California, mind you, so that may have a bearing on this strange looking plant that I have been trying to identify. Perhaps it's not a plant at all, but an alien life-form that has taken up residence there. Blow it up and note the other-worldly organisms growing on the ends of those stalks.Any ideas?
The first - well underway - is the annual ritual of inviting half the free world to come to Austin for SXSW and then trying to persuade them that no, they really don't want to move here! We can, for the most part, avoid the SXSW mayhem by staying north of 45th Street. Of course, if for some really strange reason we actually needed to go to South Austin, we could always loop around by way of Oklahoma City to Shreveport to Houston and come up that way.
Then there is Daylight Saving Time, that biannual exercise in insanity that I truly love so much. Enough! Not only do you walk around like a zombie for a week or so, you have to go around and change all the clocks. And who remembers how to change the clock on the car radio? Not me.
Changing the family heirloom clock involves advancing the hand a quarter of an hour, waiting for the clock to go through its chime repertoire for that time segment, then advance it another 15 minutes, etc., until you have moved the hands forward an hour. If you don't let it go through all its chimes, it gets confused. Setting it back an hour is worse. The experts say "never turn the hands backward on this clock" so you must stop it for an hour, the restart it and reset the time.
Speaking of, the clock is on probation. It kept stopping every few days and I finally took it back to the repair shop for more than just a cleaning, and they quoted both an outrageous price and a 6-month (at least) wait. I grudgingly left it, but after some research, I found I could send the mechanism to a shop that specializes in that repair for a fraction of the cost and time. So, we retrieved the clock (not without a bit of anxiety - they couldn't find it at the shop!) and when we got home I restarted the clock... and it's behaving very nicely at the moment. Maybe it doesn't want its innards shipped to Illinois. We'll see.
You know how you get those emails from Amazon suggesting things to buy - or buy again? Like the one suggesting that I might want to buy another copy of the TurboTax software for 2014. I admit I sometimes put off paying taxes until the last minute, but 2014? That would mean that those phone calls from the "IRS" that the sheriff is on the way if I don't pay right now might actually be legit.
And here's a photo I have been meaning to post for some time. I took it outside the beach house on Monterey Bay. That's in California, mind you, so that may have a bearing on this strange looking plant that I have been trying to identify. Perhaps it's not a plant at all, but an alien life-form that has taken up residence there. Blow it up and note the other-worldly organisms growing on the ends of those stalks.Any ideas?
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