BilikFamily.com

Digital Piano - After waiting several weeks to think things through, we decided yesterday to go ahead with the purchase of a Yamaha Clavinova. I went down this morning before work to do the paperwork and it was delivered around 6PM tonight. For a general overview of this Yamaha line, look here and here. The particular model we bought is the CVP 206 in a mahogany finish -- I think it's a nice middle of the road in this line (the 202, 204, 206, 208, and 210). This line of Yamaha piano is a cross breed between their traditional pure digital piano line and their electronic keyboard line. So, like their digital pianos, the keys feel like a real piano (not just an organ/keyboard) and the sounds are incredibly similar to the concert grand piano that the samples are derived from. Like Yamaha's electronic keyboard line, you can interface with a computer, use different instruments, record music, download music, etc. I'm rather eager to delve into it over the next several months. The kids were also very excited. They were surprised because it arrived while they were out taking Abigail to gymnastics lessons. I'm hoping that digital music will re-inspire the piano playing of my youth in much the same way that digital photography rejuvenated my pre-teen amateur photography bug.

[ Clavinova update (Nov 25) - This page gets a number of hits via search engines as people look to research Clavinovas before they buy. We've had the piano for several weeks now. It's been a lot of fun for both me and my kids. I still haven't plugged it into my laptop via USB and am somewhat concerned since I use Macintosh's running Apple's recent MacOS X 10.3 (aka Panther) rather than Microsoft Windows based machines. The CD that came with the piano leads me to believe that the software may only run under MacOS 9. I hope to figure that issue out over the Thanksgiving break. The Clavinova's guided play has been very useful in re-learning for me. It may for my kids as well in the next couple of years. The wide variety of voices is amazing! There's so much to this piano that it could take quite some time to completely "peel the onion" with respect to its capabilities. That's part of why I got it. I wanted something that would continue to be interesting to tinker with for years to come. There's also some useful support at the CVP Users Group. Look over some of their FAQs if you are contemplating a purchase. ]

Weekend wrapup - I really feel bad for my folks. I knew it would happen. No sooner do they leave when the autumn colors really go into high gear. I've been trying to take a few pictures where I can. We briefly went to the Milford pumpkin festival but the crowds were not comfortable for a large family. We ended up taking the kids to Keyes field where they played for a couple of hours. Sunday was rather rainy, so I rented a bunch of movies. Among the non-Dora, non Barbie movies that we watched this weekend was Bend It Like Beckham . What content there might have been that was inappropriate for children was mostly masked by the fact that Claire couldn't comprehend British accents and slang as well as the US counterparts. I really liked it. We also caught an old 1947 classic on TiVo: The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.

Catholic events - Just in case you weren't paying attention, this week will mark the silver anniversary of John Paul's pontificate -- 25 years as pope. Also this week, Mother Teresa will be beatified -- the first major step towards being officially recognized as a saint. On a somewhat lesser scale, this week also marks the 14th wedding anniversary for Tom and Alyssa. 14 years already?! That's a long time! Oh wait, that's how long Michelle and I ... (flashback to the late summer of 1989)

SPAM - Just as in email, spam is starting to appear on weblogs in the comment fields. I've been working on a few tweaks to the content management system so that it's not exactly like every other MovableType weblog. Having your system be just a little different from others is often enough to stop the bulk of spam. It's not unlike preventing the spread of computer viruses. These guys who do these types of things (spam, viruses) rely heavily on automation and the similarity of the systems. If you make things a little different, it cuts down on an enormous amount of this junk because the author has to customize for your system or make his script a lot smarter in parsing. Most of these scum don't consider it worth the effort. They're looking for who they can hit with the least effort. Note: If you try to add a comment and by some chance it doesn't work, please drop me an email by clicking on my name on the front page under 'Posted by...'. I've tried to do what I can to not break anything.