Taste of winter - It's been rather cold the past few days. The romance of autumn is starting to wear off because most of the trees are brown or just bare. Sunday ranged from a low of 24° to a high of 36°. Yesterday was a bit warmer, hitting high of 46°, but I was at work and couldn't appreciate it.
Birthday - Happy birthday to Gerrit James Chinni who turns 8 today. Your card went in the mail a couple of days ago, but with the weekend and Veterans Day, it may be a bit delayed. We all hope you have a nice birthday!
Piano practice - With mom back home, it's been the usual chaos. We had a taste of cabin fever this last weekend due to the colder temps. I've been trying to take some time to practice the piano when I can. It's amazing how much I've atrophied. It's not that I expected to pick it back up in a couple of days, but I can barely play anything that requires both hands to hit notes at the same time. Luckily there are some songs in the piano that require both bass and treble clef but in an alternating fashion. I'm also lucky that the piano has an optional "cheat" mode where it prints the letter of the note next to it on the sheet music because my note recognition is also pretty bad once they start floating above and below the staffs.
Wedding rings - As I mentioned earlier, Michelle has her replacement ring. Last week I got my wedding ring back from the jewelers. They polished the ring and inscribed "Eph 5:25" on it. I had been in Santa Cruz without my ring and it felt a bit odd. It's been on my hand for years.
Panera bread - I'm thrilled that the Panera Bread restaurant on Amherst Street has finally opened. Of course, I think it opened on the day my mom flew back to Chicago -- sorry mom! It's yet another place to tempt me on my drive to and from work. So far I've been there twice after my lunch time YMCA workouts to have their warm panini sandwiches. They also have a wide variety of coffee drinks and bagels -- as if J Beaners, the A&E Coffee Roastery, and Santos Dumont weren't enough.
Mac updates - The battery on my iBook was pretty shot. It had gotten so used to being plugged in 90% of the time that it didn't run long on battery anymore. I guess even lithium batteries can get a memory effect in that way. I went back down to Nashua's MacEdge and picked up a new battery. Ah, life is good again. It lasts about 4 to 5 hours on a charge. I'm now trying to not plug in the laptop if it doesn't need it so as to let it cycle more deeply from full to empty charge.
I also picked up a copy of Mac OS X version 10.3, aka Panther. I haven't installed it yet due to time requirements and a bit of nervousness. I'd feel better if Apple had a 10.3.1, but most reports have been pretty positive about the stability of the new major release. [Update: (2:30pm) Yes! The 10.3.1 update did come out yesterday!] I'm eager to see what it's like to use their Exposé feature. My laptop is intentionally a 12 inch screen model (for portability reasons) but this feature for managing multiple open windows might really help with the clutter that you get with a small screen. Exposé looks so cool that you just know Microsoft is going to copy that feature for its next Windows release.
It's been cold here, but today it is around 50, which is nice because the kids are home from school. Uncle Brian took the older two to play football, and Andrew and William are trying the best two antagonize each other- we may have to go outside soon.
Regarding your piano, Tom took lessons until Will was born, and then he found he really had no time to practice anymore. TJ practices all the time. I just found a book of sheet music I am going to order him for Christmas with all the Weird Al songs in it at a website call activemusician.com. I love shopping through Yahoo!, I can find anything!
We had parent teacher conferences last night, and all 3 are doing great in school. It's always nice to listen to other people tell you how wonderful your kids are, but a bit uncomfortable too.
Kyle has to go back for one more shot tonite (he just got 3 last week). For some reason, the doctor didn't want to mix all 4 shots last time, so we have to go back. Fun, huh? Kyle has become a little monkey. This week, his crawling has really sped up, and now he is pulling himself up on furniture- he loves the kitchen stools! I need to go buy some gates ASAP!
We have Panera Bread, but I think I've only been there once- I'm too cheap and prefer greasier food, I guess.
I better go make the kids some luch. Talk to you soon! Alyssa
I remember a little while after I stopped taking lessons I sat down and tried to play something I had been fluent in and failed miserably. It certianly goes away quicker than it comes back.
We spent over 2 hours at the Doctors and Kyle recieved 2 shots, fun night.
The wind picked up here tonight, it's really brutal.
Tom
Posted by: Tom at November 12, 2003 09:48 PMYes, my piano fingers are feeling rather rusty. The Clavinova has a nice feature called guided play. It was one of my main reasons for going with this line. The sheet music is shown on the screen and there a sort of "follow the bouncing ball" (like in those kids sing a long videos). It progresses along at the proper tempo for the song. As it goes, LEDs above the keyboard light up if you get even a smidge behind. And until you hit all the appropriate notes, the "bouncing ball" will not advance through the sheet music. Thus you are motivated to keep up and if ever the ball stops moving, you can look down and see which note(s) you've messed up on. The moment you hit the right keys, those LEDs are turned off.
Of course, if you just want to listen to music, you can turn off the guide mode. Then it's like an old player piano, except the keys don't physically move.
Michelle had to take Timothy to the doctor last week. She was sort of bummed because there _was_ no shots involved. It was a lot of driving and coordinating with the kids all so that the doctor could give him a once over and effectively say, "yep, he's doing fine".
When I got back from Santa Cruz, he had a few nights where he slept all night without interruption. Lately, though, he's been getting up once around midnight and then again around 4am. The 4am one is more difficult because he has a harder time falling back asleep -- often moaning/crying for half an hour or so. It puts a bit of a damper on the morning.
That wind was ripping through late last night and early this morning. I think we'll see more of it over the next few days. Wind gusts today are supposed to hit 50mph.
Posted by: Scott at November 13, 2003 09:55 AM