the think system

Tonight we watched “The Music Man.” (Public TV -- no commercials, the whole movie uncut!)

I know the story, we have the LP of the sound track and I’ve seen the movie a few times. I still like it.

It is a story of a film flam salesman who set out to take advantage of people by selling band instruments to young boys on the premise of a band. His habit was to get the money and run. That worked until he met the gorgeous unmarried Librarian, and all things changed.

It has good music and a weak plot, I suppose.

But the premise off the fake Professor Harold Hill’s system what he called “The Think System.” You think the notes and out they come. Having played a brass instrument since I was 10, I know it is not that easy.

Still, there is a lot to be said for the premise. If you think evil it affects your head. If you think good it also affects your head and your view of others.

In the final scene, the boys band, boys who have never played an instrument and it was not hard to tell, imagined of themselves as a real band, and it happened, if only in their head.

The wise man said that as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. If it was true then it is true now, Professor Harold Hill notwithstanding!

But a band with 76 trombones! That is a lot of brass.

It ran at 25 MHz, had 4 MB of RAM and a 9.5 inch display.
We have come a long way.

RIP

My first Apple computer was a 1994 PowerBook 520.

Purposely I choose the black and white version, mostly because the battery would go longer. The top of the line color version sold for an amazing $4840, plus $1000 for an upgrade of the RAM, but I bought mine used. It was a couple years old. I think I paid $600 for it.

I still have a 540c, the top of the line book of its era. It is way to old to get batteries, but plugged in, it does run at an amazing 25 MHz. In those days hard drives were calibrated in Megabytes, RAM in kilobytes. 1995 was a dozen computer lifetimes ago.

That was my introduction to Apple and by extension to the Steves. (Apple was founded by two Steves in case you forgot). Since then I have owned other PowerBooks, a Quadra or two, settling down finally to a series of iBook and now MacBook notebook computers.

Jobs was just a couple years older than my oldest daughter. That makes me an old guy. But for an old guy with very limited resources, my high tech equipment is fairy extensive and I am reasonably savvy about it!

I use an iPod, a MacBook and an iPhone. I text. I email. Hardly cutting edge, but somewhat unusual for an old guy, I am told.

There are a few true geniuses around. Some have the numbers, but there are so few who have all of the skills and lay them all in a straight line. I have heard it said that at best there is one of them per century.

It may be little early to lay that heavy load on Steve, but at the least he is a candidate.

David Pogue in the New York Times says it well: “What are the odds that that same person will be comfortable enough — or maybe uncomfortable enough — to swim upstream, against the currents of social, economic and technological norms, all in pursuit of an unshakable vision?
Zero. The odds are zero.”

ants

This bus (Newell) that we call home is infected.

Not in the usual sense. Newell are no snakes in the basement (but it live most of it’s life in the warm part of this country) and there are no bees in the vents (yet).

But in the 34 years of its life, since it rolled (or “rattled” since it is powered by a big diesel engine) off the line it has sat empty most of the time.

It did not come from the factory with a bed (only couches), so while someone could easily sleep in it, there is a doubt that anyone until Dave and David, have actually lived in it.

So, along the way, it attracted a few outsiders along the way.

There are some big black wood ants here and there. They are souvenirs of time on the Oregon Coast. Not a lot of them, I dispatch a few now and again, but are there more?

Then there are the little ants that seem to be pretty much everywhere. Dry food has to go into tight fitting bags or canisters, or the little guys will pay a visit. They don’t eat much, and I do not begrudge them that pleasure, but it is a wee bit annoying to see them swimming around in your cereal bowl.

But, like the storage under the bed, one learns how to adapt. Daughter 4 owned a house once that was really full of the little beasties. They would get into any food item that was not seriously sealed. Newell’s little zoo is tame by comparison.

Life is like that sometimes. We adapt.

A fortress?

my music

I am sort of a musician and music lover.

Maybe more of a music flirt. Hmm.

Went to an organ concert the other evening. One of the best organists on a fabulous organ. “Mostly Brahms” the program said. It was good, I enjoyed it.

But mostly I like music to be a background. The fact that I was in church and couldn’t read or watch or do something with my hands made me concentrate on the music, which was wonderful, but largely wasted on my sensibilities.

Now I am as big a music snob as anyone out there. Dead white guy music. That is my thing and I listen to little else. But, I know the names and composer of precious few pieces, considering the multiple decades I have been listening. I know a few of Ludwig’s pieces and here and there are a few of Wolfgang’s efforts I can identify. There is even one by the frenchman Gabriel Faure that I recognize.

Not too much of a list I fear.

We go to hear old time fiddlers every June when we are in Idaho. Pretty pure bluegrass, with a unique twang. Good listening. The music starts about 7 and goes to midnight, but about 9 or 9:30, we are ready to go home (it is a 40 mile drive).

As friend David says: “When all the tunes sound the same it is time to go home.”

I still do enjoy the sound of good music. I admire the skills of good musicians and the incredible dedication to their instrument, and even if I can’t name many tunes, I continue to listen and to occasionally attend real concerts.

Guess I am just a rather lame but ardent appreciator. I can live with that.

routine

Routine is good, I am told.

As much a free spirit as I have been in this life, there still is some routine that is really dear to my troubled heart!

The galley (kitchen in a house) in the bus just has to have a certain amount of organization, some routine and a lot of discipline.

In the house we had a small pantry, as well as an actual pantry that held bulk foods, the flour grinding mill and our fruit jars, both full and empty.

The galley in the gus has no such riches. There is a 6” deep cabinet about 18” wide that is the main pantry, plus a little space over the small refer. There is a cabinet over the built in toaster and a long, very narrow space above the dinette. And, under the couch is a drawer that can hold some bulk items, as long as it is not too bulky.

So, rather than buying groceries for a month, once a month. Now I buy every week or so. I try to not buy cans of stuff I won’t use for a while, the can storage gets full very quickly.

And talk about routine. When we have a meal I jump up from the table and put all the stuff away that has a home, put the teakettle on the range to heat dishwashing water and clear and organize.

I found a plastic box that is sold as a shoe box. It is about 5” high, 6 or 7 wide and about 13 long. It is my dishpan. I some soap in the box, some cold water and add the hot water from the teakettle.

It is easy and fast to get the dishes all washed and stacked.

In this size space, there is no room for last meal’s dishes. Besides, probably I will need to use the same dishes for each meal!

It is fun though.

Charlie the fish scientist and fisherman.

memory keepers

I was watching Antique Roadshow.

I know, but there is not too much going on here in this evening, and I did read a book today.

Someone came to the Roadshow with a coat that they thought came from the Civil War. Turned out it was made just after the war for the Confederate Veterans.

Which got me to thinking of my great great grandfathers, who were alive during the civil war era.

One was an officer with the Union Army, one was a soldier in the Confederate Army, I don’t actually know what the third was doing during that time, but he probably was in the war somehow, and he was from the south and the right age.

But tonight I was thinking of my mother’s grandfather. There was a war going on between his country and the one next door. That is between Germany and Denmark, Grandpa Jens home.

Guess he was not really mad at the Germans. Any way, he copped the draft (I think there was one) and came to America. He sent for his girl friend later.

I remember Grandpa Jens. He came to live with my grandmother (his daughter) for a while when I was young. Earlier, during what Grandpa Howard (grandmother’s husband) would always call the “hard times” and what we would call “The Great Depression” Grandpa Jens came to Idaho, bought a few acres on the edge of Boise and seriously grew vegetables which Grandpa Howard sold door to door to the better homes in the area.

It wasn’t a big living, but it did keep the wolf away during those rough times.

My friend Charlie is a fish biologist. He has been invited to talk this week about what has happened in the fish farming industry in the last 50 years. Those are the years he was working in the fish business.

We are the old guys, the keepers of the memories, if they are kept at all.

I always admire these artists aerial views of perfect farmsteads.
Unlike my place, these are always perfect.

statements

Artists are frequently asked to provide an “artist statement.”

In it the artist describes his or her viewpoint or points about his art, how those points fit into his or her larger view of life and the world, and maybe touch a bit on the technical system used to produce the artwork.

Done well it is extremely enlightening, revealing the intellectual part of the art work, as well as a few hidden motives. Done poorly it can be full of nice words with little insight.

It seems such an “statement” would be good discipline for non-artists as well.

I don’t have an art show coming up any time soon, and I have not written a real “artist statement” in a while, but I need to write and rewrite my “life statement,” from time to time. Now seems to be the time. Done well it will help me in unmeasurable ways. Done wrong it still has merit!

Lately many of my values have come into question. Not the kind of question that will result in my abandoning those values, but maybe I can and should shuffle them a bit, raise a few in the bottom third of the list up a bit and demote a few that I thought were very important, but may have lived their useful lives.

One reason I keep a journal is to help put thoughts and ideas and concerns into words. That still is not easy.

My major professor in art school used to scold the sculptors. Get a bunch of us in a room together and it is not long before we are talking shop (the how’s of our work) rather than the big concepts of the why’s of our work.

Pat Robertson made some comments the other day about Alzheimer’s disease. Pat often says things that rattle others, and this time was no exception. He did, however, bring up some really important questions.

No answers, but good questions.

up with down

We did some tile work for my sister a few years ago.

She wanted ceramic tile on her office floor so we went over and spent a few days doing the job. Miriam helped. She would run the water saw (Ceramic tile is cut with a saw blade that has industrial diamonds imbedded in the steel. To keep it all cool, so those precious diamonds won’t wear out prematurely, water is constantly running over the blade, hence the name.)

I would mark where I wanted the cut to go, and I had to mark which piece I wanted returned. Often she made a nice cut and brought me back the wrong piece. It was a good system.

So, we did this job for my sister.

I wouldn’t take her money for the job, but she bought us a big down comforter for our bed. Actually she intended it to go in the Teardrop trailer, but it never quite made it that far.

Down is a wonderful material. We sleep under the comforter in the dead of summer, it is just barely there. In the NW we have cool temperatures every night, and even in winter, it is our primary covering -- until it gets pretty cold.

It was on our bed in Idaho, but last trip I took that bed apart, loaded up the drawer boxes under the bed and brought the comforter to the motor home.

Ahh, such joy. Such wonderful sleep and dreams!

It may not just because of the down, but I like the idea.