Discuss their recent urological procedures with two friends. Get the willies.Play for offering at church. Cause long-term downward spiral, eventual collapse of church finances.Celebrate family members’ birthdays by eating enormous heaping piles of dead cow, turkey. Vow never to eat BBQ again.Eat BBQ again.Make stuffed jalepeños. Realize belatedly that wrapping saran wrap around one’s hands isn’t as good as having actual gloves. Endure fiery agony.Eat 52 stuffed jalepeños, partly because they’re delicious, but mostly as vengeance for aforementioned fiery agony.Finish reading Harry Potter. Lament having job, precluding going back and reading all of the books again over course of next week.
Author Archives: SeanMcTex
Attack of the Killer Porcupine
The other night, we had an emergency at work: the main Content Management Server has spontaneously rebooted, corrupting the database that contains about 90 of the University’s websites. Jeff and I rushed in at about 9:00pm and worked diligently, with only occasional breaks to watch Futurama, until 4:00am. Nearly hallucinatory with fatigue, we then stumbled out to the parking garage where our cars were, only to discover this guarding them:
“What on earth? Is that a possum? Or a racoon?”
“I think it’s a…holy cats…a porcupine!”
We continued to watch the critter, who was apparently dazed, as he alternately walked in counterclockwise circles, lay down on the curb to rest, and tried to climb the support columns. He seemed utterly indifferent to our presence, and was drooling prodigiously, which made us think he was probably pretty sick. We flagged down a passing campus security officer who was similarly bemused, but who eventually contacted his Sergent. “Leave it alone” was the Sergent’s advice, even though we’d expressed concern that it might be rabid.
After about 20 minutes of this, Jeff and I decided to go ahead and head out. We left the campus security office sitting in his golf cart, watching the critter wander around, still not doing anything about capturing it or getting it out of harms way.
I was rather miffed that they didn’t seem to be taking the rabies threat seriously, but was gratified to see three police cars racing toward the parking garage as we left. I like to imagine that the call went out on the radio shortly after our departure: “Aww, it’s cute. Come here, little guy. Want a bite of my sandwich? Hey, what are you doing? AARAAGAH! Officer down! Officer down! [static]” and that all those cars found on their arrival was the golf cart and an abandoned sandwich.
P.S. Thanks to Jeff and Fazia for the photo.
Bridge Over Jason’s Studio
Yesterday evening, I went up to Pflugerville to visit Jason Young and his delightful wife Erin. Jason is quite a polymath: he does commercial music, woodworking, film audio, set construction, and arranges much of the music for Baylor’s All University Sing each year. Since so much of his work is done in his home studio, he has long been mulling over how to best turn it into a good working space. Those dreams and plans finally came to fruition a few months back when he embarked on a massive remodeling of the studio, finally ready to make it exactly what he wanted it to be.
He anticipated the project taking 2 weeks. That span quickly came and went. The project stretched on to 3 weeks, then 4, and finally, by the end of week 7, the was room ready to use again. I applaud his tenacity, as I’m pretty sure around the end of week 3 I would have simply set fire to the house and moved to a Caribbean island to live out the remainder of my days wearing dreadlocks and selling shells to tourists.
And the results are wondrous. Not to overstate the case, but the room is a work of art. There’s an enormous amount of fit and finish that went into it, with beautiful, technically complicated details all over the place. From the routed veneered desktop, to the crown molding that has to be cut to accommodate corners in both the wall and the ceiling at the same time, to the hidden pipes and troughs that conceal all the wiring, to the isolation booth that is essentially an airtight room within the room, Jason did a meticulous, amazing job overcoming a ton of technical obstacles to create a space that’s a treat to work in.
To celebrate the completion of the project, he has been graciously inviting his friends to try out the studio. I disappeared into the isolation booth for a few minutes with a guitar, and then again to lay down a vocal track — both single takes with no punching in or out. I’ve been experimenting some with a much more raw, improvisatory vocal style than I usually sing with, and wanted to see what it sounded like. Thus, anything good in this recording is Jason’s doing. The rough bits, which are numerous, are wholly my fault.
[audio:bridge.mp3]It was really interesting to see Jason work and put the pieces together. Because we’re so used to hearing sounds with a certain amount of presence from reflections off of walls and other surfaces, the raw tracks from the booth sounded just dreadful to my ear. That is, however, by design, as the foam on the walls sucks up the sound before it can reflect back, leaving the engineer is left with a very straight, dry source to work with. He can then add however much presence or other processing he deems appropriate with more control that would be possible if there were already echoes on the recording. I asked Jason to keep things pretty raw, but it still amazed me just how much difference a light reverb made to the sound of the recording.
After enjoying a wonderful dinner of homemade bagel sandwiches and the 3 hours of fooling around in the studio, we finished off the evening with some time playing Wii, discussion of the musical ciphers in the Rosslyn Chapel, and a review of some of our favorite (or at least most-often-read) books. It was a great visit, as always, even though we didn’t get around to building anything destructive this time around.
Yahoo Pipes
Yahoo Pipes is a nifty service that Steve Ivy tipped me off to. It provides a visual programming language, like Quartz Composer or Isadora, to suck in data from the web, process it, and spit it back out again. It makes it pretty easy to do interesting mashups, like a search for apartments in your city that are near parks, or building a news feed that consolidates article on a particular subject from lots of news sources, or finding and linking to videos for the top 10 songs on iTunes.
Fun stuff, but still not for the technically faint of heart.
Stupid Guy Trip V: The Stupiding
One of the traditions I’ve enjoyed a great deal over the past six years has been the Stupid Guy Trip: an annual-ish assembling of several long-time male friends for a testosterone-fueled visit to some city or another for food, beer, and endless “your mom” jokes. Past trips have been to Las Vegas, Chicago, Santa Fe, and Seattle, and have included casino gambling, opera, architectural tours, visits to national historical sites, “Evil Dead: The Musical”, gnome theft, Blue Man Group shows, and baseball.
This year we decided that Boston would be the destination. Due to some scheduling difficulties, this turned out to be the most sparsely attended trip thus far, with only myself, Chris and Mike attending. We all set down in the Boston airport on Friday afternoon with 3 days the city stretching before us and absolutely no idea of how we would spend that time. Our first order of business was, predictably, to find some food, so after dropping $15 on a 7-day transit pass, we bought a guidebook, wandered up to the North End and enjoyed a really excellent meal in a tiny little restaurant with only 7 tables. We then hopped on the subway and a bus to get out to our hotel and settled in comfortably at the Sheraton Newton, which was, surprisingly, built directly over an interstate and had really helpful and friendly staff. A short trip across the street to Buff’s Pub capped our travel day nicely.
The next day we scored a hat trick of touring delights. The first was the Freedom Trail Walk with the Histrionic Academy, an hour and a half ramble through the parks, historic structures, and cemeteries of Boston led by a young woman with an surprisingly powerful voice and a penchant for bursting into song. We then enjoyed some clam and fish chowders at the famous Union Oyster Bar before proceeding on to board the Tall Ship Formidable, a square-rigged sailing vessel on which we had booked a tour around the harbor that included a mock cannon battle with her sister ship, the Poincare. While we were a bit disappointed that the cannons turned out to be miniatures, about 10 inches long, the weather was perfect and the sailing a treat.
We then enjoyed some excellent Pho at a nearby Vietnamese restaurant and headed for Fenway Park. Tickets for that night’s game with the Toronto Blue Jays had sold out months before, but we still had hopes that we’d be able to procure some. Official channels didn’t yield any results, so we resorted to the friendly folks selling tickets along the street and were, after much back and forth, able to get in to the game. The Sox thumped the Jays soundly while we goggled at the grandeur of the Park, the enthusiasm of the crowd, and the price of the beer. Particular highlights included the crowd participation when “Sweet Caroline” came over the P.A. and seeing a couple balls whacked clean over the Green Monster.
Sunday was a bit more tame: we started off the day with a jaunt up to Harvard, where we poked around the venerable campus and its surroundings for a while. We were entranced by the Carpenter Center, a building designed by Le Corbusier, and went in through an unlocked door to explore the interior. Unfortunately, the door locked behind us, and it took us 20 minutes of architectural appreciation alternating with panic to find a door that would let us out without sounding a fire alarm. Breathing a sigh of relief, we spent another hour enjoying the bookstores and an excellent lunch at Tamarind Bay before heading back in toward the center of town.
There we visited Trinity Church, an stunningly beautiful structure which has been on the Top 10 lists in architecture for the past century. The church features several windows by John La Farge, who pioneered various techniques for layering glass to create an amazingly rich dimensional look. After the church booted us out for their evening services, we headed to the Top of the Hub, a restaurant on the 54th floor of The Prudential Center, where we watched the sun drop over the city while peregrine falcons, which nest in the upper floors of the building, wheeled about us. Mike pointed out that we could actually see into Fenway Park from our stratospheric perch, and that since the beer was actually cheaper at the restaurant, we might do well to bring binoculars and a transistor radio there next time we wanted to watch the Red Sox play.
The final stop for Sunday was Paddy O’s for a show by The Gobshites, an enthusiastically profane “acousticelticore” punk-ish Irish band. They were a load of fun, super high energy, very friendly to their Texas visitors, and definitely not suitable for children.
Monday was departure day. We headed up to the Boston Commons to buy some bagels and watch people in the park while eating our al fresco breakfast. Once filled, we moved on to the Boston Public Library, home to some magnificent murals by John Singer Sargent and a miniature book exhibit. Mike and I then parted company with Chris, who had an earlier flight to catch. We headed over to MIT for a last architectural tour before leaving, highlights of which included Frank Gehry’s Stata Center, Simmons Hall, which was designed by Steven Holl, and the MIT Chapel, designed by Eero Saarinian, the same fellow who was responsible for the St. Louis Arch.
And then homeward bound! Mike and I both took advantage of the opportunity to switch flights from our original overcrowded one to another 45 minutes later, netting both a travel voucher and an upgrade to first class — only the second time in my life I’ve flown in the fancy section of the plane. This time was much better than the last, when the flight attendant spilled coffee all over me within 5 minutes of my arrival on the plane.
It was a super trip: lots of wonderful food, a chance to explore one of America’s great cities, excellent company, a delightful ballgame, and tasty beer. Thanks, Boston!
Does This Body Make Me Look Fat?
I’m considering two curiosities today:
Oddity The First:
I have a brother named Chris. He stands 6’4″, is quick-witted, has the McMains family good looks(!), and generally makes a significant and favorable impression on people. So it’s only natural that when people forget my name, they might come up with his once in a while.
The peculiar thing, however, is that people who have never met him — indeed, many who don’t even know that I have a brother — will also call me “Chris”. I get called by his name about 75% of the time when people call me something other than my actual name (discounting epithets). I would suggest that we perhaps got our proper names switched when we were younger, and the correct names left their mark, but nobody that I know of seems inclined to call him by name. Strange indeed.
Oddity The Second:
I bumped into Tim the Glassblower this morning. He asked me if I’d lost weight, claiming that I must have dropped at least 15 pounds since we met. Other people, including my own dear Abigail, ask similar things with a good deal of regularity. But I’ve hovered within a 5 pound range for three years now, a far longer period of time than I’ve known Tim. My friend David Barnard has also reported a similar phenomena: everyone seems to think we’re fatter than we are, and are then surprised by our actual physical presence. Baffling. Perhaps I should join Weight Watchers and rake in the rewards for my continual, though nonexistent, weight loss.
But How Much Longer Will I Be Able To Outsmart Them?
Just got a call from Shawn, a friend of mine. Here’s the reconstructed transcript:
- Maggie: Hello?
- Shawn: Can I speak with your Dad?
- Maggie: Who is it?
- Shawn: The President.
- Maggie: Daddy! It’s Mister Shawn!
- Me: Hello?
- Shawn: Dude, your kids are getting too smart.
- Me: Yeah, Maggie’s pretty much the brains of this operation.
Weekend To-Do: Post-Mortem
Help move refrigerator, stove. Use tools. Narrowly avoid self-inflicted injury.Help erect fence. Feel disproportionately manly.Lead music at church. Fail to drive congregants to apostasy or evacuation, in spite of usual fears.Endure three hundred twenty second continuous day of rain. Wonder who moved San Marcos to England without telling me.Watch fireworks from semi-illicit perch in top of library. Enjoy six-year-old’s observation: “I just saw a bird explode!”Carry projector and screen 1.5 miles on foot, resolving any lingering doubts about own sanity.
The Last Days of the Pool
A week ago I posted an advertisement on the San Marcos Craig’s List Free section:
We have an approximately 8,000 gallon above-ground swimming pool in our backyard. It’s shaped like this:
___ (___)It has served well for the seven years we’ve been in our house, but since we live only about 5 minutes from the river, we’ve decided to just go there when we want to have a swim instead of keeping up with a pool.
Thus, we’d like to give the pool to someone who will enjoy it. If you’re willing to come and break it down and take it, it’s yours. Skimmer, chlorinator, pump, lining, walls all included. We’ll also throw in any useful pool chemicals we still have around.
Please respond via email or call at 940 239 4202 if you’re interested so that we can give you the location and arrange a time. Thanks!
Once the advertisement went up, I had 5 responses within 10 minutes, and quickly yanked the ad back down. We did a little back and forth with a few people, and finally got things lined up for a family down in San Antonio with 3 young kids to come adopt it.
This was a hard decision for us, as we’ve gotten a ton of use out of the pool over the past several years. The kids all love to swim, and it made a great focal point for backyard parties. However, we had to run the pump pretty much continuously and dump in enormous quantities of chlorine to keep it blue during the hottest parts of summer. The electricity for that combined with chemicals and water added up to a goodly sum — money which seemed ridiculous to spend that way when we have a beautiful river so close by.
The father of the family that agreed to relocate the pool and one of his friends showed up on Sunday to tear the thing down. It ended up being a more formidable task than any of us had anticipated, and eventually required me to jump into the mucky swampwater that remained in it and scoop out the rotting leaf goop that had accumulated by hand. I kept expecting some sort of creature with an abundance of eyes and fins to pop out and strike up a conversation: “I say, what are you doing to my home? I’ve just got it set up the way I like it!”
Surprisingly, after about 5 hours of work, they decided that, since some of the metal bits were rusty, they didn’t want the pool after all. They toted away a fair chunk of the pool parts, but left us with a healthy pile of debris that we’ll be working on breaking down soon ourselves. Still, they contributed a long afternoon of free labor, so we’ve nothing to complain about!
Now the question is: what do we do with the space? Ideas floated so far: outdoor movie theater, garden, volleyball court, washers/horseshoes pit, and miniature golf course. Got any ideas? Let us know!
A Day with Liam
Yesterday was my day to take Liam out on the town for a romp. I had purchased tickets for a special event several weeks before, but had been keeping Liam in suspense until the day of the event.
“What is it Dad?”
“Do you really want to know?”
“Yes, yes, yes, yes!”
“We’re going to go see a 60 foot robot dinosaur that eats cars and shoots fire out of its nose!”
“Daaaaaaaaad! No, really, what is it?”
“Seriously.”
Long pause to reassess whether I was pulling his leg.
“Coooooooool!”
So we embarked, heading north to Austin. We stopped at Cabela’s long enough to visit the shooting gallery and to buy matching $5 multi-tools as a memento of the day, with which I fully expect at least one of us to slice off a finger before week’s end. Once to Austin, we stopped in HEB to pick out some snacks (orange soda, peanuts, and jerky — which is why I don’t get to do the grocery shopping), and then went on to Peter Pan Mini Golf.
Peter Pan has a reputation as the best miniature golf course in Austin. We had never been before, but were taken with its funky fiberglass figures, the friendly attitude, and the nicely laid out holes. Legend has it that most of the figures are the originals, constructed sometime in the early 50’s. (Even the owners don’t remember exactly when they opened the place.) I was further impressed when the fellow running the place, seeing that I didn’t have quite enough money for us to both play a second round, waved us on through anyway. Viva Peter Pan!
From there we moseyed on down to Zilker park. Unfortunately, due to the combination of a lost ATM card, my exhausted wallet, and a “Cash Only” policy, we were unable to swim at Barton Springs and ride the Zilker Zephyr as per my original plan. Curses! Liam wasn’t excited about hiking in the 90° heat, so we went over to the Alamo Drafthouse and got our tickets.
We still had an hour to burn before we could get into the theater, so we wandered around the shopping center, visiting a Mexican restaurant to cool off, play paper and crayon games, and rehydrate. We also stopped in at a music store and an electric bike store where Liam found an electric mini-ATV that he quite liked. He also took advantage of the opportunity to tell everyone all about the giant robot dinosaur we were going to see — news that surprised nobody, as it had been taking up 80% of their parking lot all day.
5:30 finally rolled around, and we trooped into the theater to enjoy 90 minutes of the Draftouse’s delightfully eclectic pre-show footage. Featured this time were a lengthy rhapsody on the blissful life of the future as imagined by filmmakers of the 1950’s, previews for a bunch of B-Grade, MST3K-worthy films, and several cartoons. Nearly all of it was funny, though only some of it intentionally so.
The film we were there to see was Transformers. I was keen to see it because John Rogers, who writes brilliantly and whom I expect to have an opportunity to meet later this year, had a hand in writing it. Liam was keen to see it because he’s an 8 year old boy. It was almost exactly what you’d expect from Michael Bay bringing an 80’s nostalgia property to the big screen, but a notch or two better.
After the movie concluded, we trooped on out to the parking lot for the Robosaurus show. The earlier show had been rained on, dousing Robosaurus’ nostril-mounted flamethrowers, but the announcer assured us that God loved us a great deal more than the people at the earlier show as demonstrated by the fact that the weather was clement and cooperative by the time we assumed our seats. (I also want nostril-mounted flamethrowers, as I imagine they would come in handy in quite a variety of situations.) After a bit of preparation, things got underway.
Rather than bore you with an inevitably inadequate description of the event, I took video and edited it together for your viewing pleasure. Behold, Robosaurus!
After the show, we piled back in the car, pointed our noses south, set the cruise control and napped our way back to San Marcos, dreaming happy dreams of giant robot dinosaurs.