New beginnings

I've rejoined the corporate world. For the past year and a half I've been a consultant, chiefly working with the companies under one umbrella organization. In that role I took over a recently vacated developer position to tie up some loose ends. Of course, as is often the case, that work wasn't really about that work per se; rather, it was about the larger question of build vs. buy. The circumstances of my arrival facilitated a choice in the latter, and a year later my main work has been to transition two companies over to a new operations systems that they use day to day to perform the key work of their business. Of course, along the way the graphic artist left, too, and so another part of my work was to identify vendors to take over that work. Oh, and the network/system administrator left, too, so I took on those tasks as well. Oh yeah, there was the data center move, too - did I mention the new building? And the new line of business. And the hiring of a 1/2 FTE, thankfully, too. Not that I'm complaining, mind you - it was all good work, and good people to work with, too. But there are those times when you learn of opportunities and people that you've thought would be good to work with or for (in fact, I maintain a list), and too many factors lined up and said it was time to pursue a chance before it disappeared.

And then suddenly I knew

Perhaps you've seen a post on the last lecture of Randy Pausch, a CMU professor dying of cancer. I was just watching the 2nd part of his lecture on YouTube, all the while thinking, "Why is this guy so familiar?" Virtual Reality? I attended a VR conference in 95.

Around 5 minutes into the 2nd lecture is when he talks about his family's visit to Disneyland, and he says about the photos on his slide, "There I am in front of the castle, and there I am on a ride. For those of you into foreshadowing, the ride is Alice." So the ride is the Mad Tea Cup, inspired by Alice in Wonderland, but that doesn't really matter, because what I figure out in that instant is how and I know him, and why, and where: Alice.

I attended and talked with him at the Special Interest Group in Computer Science Education (SIGCSE) conference 2006 in Houston, and I recall how wonderfully vital he was then. The very idea that this man is dying while so young seems so absolutely awful and cruel and wrong. So it may seem strange for me to say that I in spite of that, I still recommend watching the videos of his last lecture. They are sad and poignant, but inspirational and uplifting, too. This isn't some dry CS lecture. This is a wonderful summary of the dreams of his life and he went about trying to achieve them.

Subiaco

Subiaco Abbey Courtyard
Originally uploaded by jbgreer

This past weekend my wife and I traveled to Subiaco, Arkansas, home of an Abbey and Academy and four hundred and some-odd residents. There we joined some members of our church including a priest and his wife, and another couple from a nearby congregation. We spent the weekend in a guest dormitory at the abbey, eating our meals in a church dining room and saying the daily office with the resident monks of the abbey.

In between we read readings that our clergy handed out to us and then gathered together to discuss what we thought about them. One of the most interesting questions raised was "When is the Sabbath?" Not in the literal sense of which day of the week, mind you, though that did get talked about a good bit, if only because of the modern collision of Sunday and that the Sabbath to many. Instead, the focus was more on the qualitative nature of Sabbath - what are the characteristics of Sabbath time. So I had a great surprise today in learning that an acquaintance of mine has decided to start taking Friday off as her 'Sabbath' time and that, coincidently, she had also been to Subiaco, though many years ago.

I do think that the pace of modern life does push us into very narrow and carefully considered rest. I think that many, myself certainly included, feel guilty when we are not working. I also think that that technology can have a positive effect and can reduce stress in our lives, but I don't seem to be around many people who share this opinion. Rather, I hear people complain about email and blackberries and other devices. They seem to forget that, paraphrasing the NRA, blackberries don't send emails, people do, and that email is the natural extension to the hand-written letter and the telephone. I wonder where the line is with such people, and I want to ask, "Are you okay with the wheel? Is fire adding too much stress in your life?"

Certain companies whose stock prices has fallen rather a lot in the last few days

A friend sent me a email regarding the ruling on a legal matter between a certain software company and another software company in which a judge had ruled that the former company did not own the copyrights to a certain set of works that they claimed and that in fact the latter company still owned those copyrights.

As a result, it would seem that the former company's stock price has fallen rather a lot.

I have nothing to say about this matter. Really.

Software, Computing, and machines

Inspired by a nice rant on being asked to fix computer problems, I thought I'd add my 2 cents.

I have an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering. I am not, however, a practicing engineer, or Professional Engineer, if you prefer. That said, I do know a fair amount about machines in general and computers in particular, and I've built the main machines that I use for personal/professional use for the last 10 years or so. I do so because it's fun, though I admit I am particular about some components. A computer is somewhere between a toaster and a nice stereo to me - it should be far simpler than it currently is, it should be reliable, and it should do what it's supposed to do well.

I have the better part of a master's degree in computer science; I've yet to finish and defend my thesis. I have been developing software for the last 25 years or so. In recent years I've gotten somewhat better at it, to the point that I often know what I'm doing or at least recognize when I am doing poorly.

Now, I admit that my home city is a bit of a technological backwater, a few exceptions aside, but still: stating that I am a software developer at a party or gathering of non-developers invariably produces the same response, something along the lines of, "Oh, I have a computer at home.... I just don't know how to do X", where X is something to do with email or document preparation or some use of some application on the machine. Or, better yet, the response is, "Can you fix Y?" where Y is some problem related to their ISP or network or mouse or anything really.

From which I've deduced that most of the people I meet have no idea what software development is as an activity or what that activity produces, and certainly no idea what sorts of process produces software. Which is maddening, really, because I've been doing this for 25 years and I want to ask them each time, "Where the %$*&&^ have you people been?"

So. You've read a book right? Not hard, really. Admittedly some are more difficult than others, and they have to be written in a language you understand, but the general procedure for reading a book of any size is largely the same. Start at one end, read the first page, read the next, repeat until the book is finished, close the book.

You've written a book, right? No, you likely haven't. You understand, though, that writing a book is harder than reading a book, in most cases. Yes, there are simple books. Still: writing takes a bit more creation, if you will, than the reading part.

Software development is like writing a book.

Software development is like writing a book for a computer to read, except the book is some crazy self-help book that tells the computer what to do and the computer has no choice but to do it.

I like that part of what I do. I do not like fixing computers for much the same reason that I am not an auto mechanic; it's not bad work, but it's not something I like or want to do unless it is absolutely necessary. And fixing applications, in as much as that is possible, isn't really enjoyable to me either. I use other people's software chiefly because it saves me time. Perhaps a lot of time, but, at the end of the day, it's all the same: it saves me time. So, and perhaps this is being uncharitable, but I don't like a lot of software that I have to use. On the otherhand, that's why I like open-source software; I like to be able to see how it works. That's a selfish concern, at one level, because most of the people that I meet could care less how software is made, even though I think they should care about someone's ability, perhaps not their own, to be able to see how the software they use is made. That's really a topic for a different conversation, though.

Ingmar Bergman

Those who have read my profile will observe that I have a twin sister. Let me set the record straight, then:

• Since we are of different genders, we are not identical. I've been asked that a lot, but the person who surprised me the most was an medical intern.
• We do not have some sort of psychic connection, despite my sister's comments to the contrary regarding awareness of pain, etc.
• We are not alike.

The last point is not a bad thing - it is simply a fact. I can't begin to cover the many ways in which we aren't alike. Today, however, I'll use another fact to illustrate this dissimilarity: my sister does not like Ingmar Bergman films. I seem to recall some episode during high school or early college when I picked up The Seventh Seal and somehow she ended up watching it. I think that choice led to a ban on what she called 'weird films' that I liked.

Today Ingmar Bergman died; he was 89. Meryn Rothstein's column in the NY Times quotes him as having said,

“I am very much aware of my own double self. The well-known one is very under control; everything is planned and very secure. The unknown one can be very unpleasant. I think this side is responsible for all the creative work — he is in touch with the child. He is not rational, he is impulsive and extremely emotional.”

I don't think this is a weird statement; I think it is the admission of an artist. I often like concrete art because I can sense the thought behind it, and I enjoy allegorical or metaphorical art because of the connections that are drawn in the work, but my perception of an artist is still of one who is irrational - one who is able to tap into a subconscious or other state of being that allows something visceral to be expressed. On the other hand, perhaps I want artists to be mystical because I don't want to understand the process too well.

A Pilgrim is not a tourist

I'm reading Conrad Rudolph's Pilgrimage to the End of the World: The Road to Santiago de Compostela. While the book has a somewhat secular tone, I do think he makes some good observations (where good is generally defined as 'things that I somewhat agree with but haven't reconciled completely'.) Here's a snippet that I find interesting:

A pilgrim is a not a tourist. You have a deeper experience precisely because you are not an observer in the traditional sense of the word. Something changes. You are not exactly the same person you were before. The locals look to you as a special experience, authentic. Despite the distance, you are a participator, an authenticator, even more than the locals themselves. You are part of the cultural landscape, part of the original reason for being and the history of many of the towns through which you pass. This is the pilgrimage route, and it is a deeply ingrained part of the identity of the towns and people along it. Yours is the experience of a fully reconciled alienation: the pilgrim at once the complete insider, the total outsider. This is why the pilgrimage is not a tour, not a vacation, not at all a trip from point A to point B, but a journey that its both an an experience and a metaphor rather than an event. This is why the pilgrimage must be done on foot, never on a bicycle; why you must stay in refugios, not in hotels, and why the journey should be long and hard. And this is why you then experience a place and culture in a way vastly different than as a traditional visitor or even as a local.

When reading 'pilgrim' literature, I often find it useful to re-read passages substituting 'Christian' for 'pilgrim', if only to see whether my opinion of the passage changes.

Desktop, Sweet Desktop

One of the great disadvantages of my most recent stint in grad school is that I had to switch my main home desktop machine over to Windows XP in order to run some of the tools that I used as part of my NSF fellowship work. So I made some backups of my existing system, bought a copy of XP (these guys tend to have pretty good pricing and you actually get what you pay for), and installed. Sigh.

I will say this: of all of the MS environments I've used, I like Windows XP Pro the most. My use of MS produced or influenced OSes includes

• Xenix on the main processor of the Intel Scientific Hypercube.
• Not bad, really.
  
• MS-DOS in various versions
• Adequate, I suppose, but I prefered CP/M (Xerox 820 model II), and even Apple's DOS on my ][e
  
• OS/2
• starting with 1.1 I think. I do recall that the TCP/IP stack up to around 1.3 was abysmal and crashed the entire machine.
• Windows 3.1
• Surely you're joking. I had used a Lisa and a NeXT Cube years before this.
  
• Windows 95
• Really. It's a joke, right? I mean, sure, it looks better, but ....
• Windows NT
• At this point I actually took notice of MS' OSes. Here was something that had legs. Legs with thick ankles, but legs.
  

XP was functional. I sorta knew where somethings were in XP. The truth of the matter is, though, that I had been running Linux (or GNU Linux, as some would prefer) for many years before that. So last weekend I bought a new hard drive, dug out my backups, downloaded a copy of Ubuntu, and re-took my desktop from the capitalistic forces that would seek to destroy... erm, nevermind. I re-established a desktop that I enjoy and can be productive on. Or at least that's the hope. I'm still remembering things, some in my fingers and some in my head.

Famous for the back of his head

Maybe one day that will be my epitaph, when Sybil MacBeth is famous for her book and potential participants view her website and see the photo of past workshop.

The Seven Deadly Sins: Envy

I've met a fair number of people I admire. I'm even related to a few of them. :-) I haven't met that many people that I envy, though. Don't get me wrong - I know plenty of people who are more talented, smart, wise, witty, etc., etc., etc., but at the end of the day I can't say I have a bad life at all. Pretty good, actually. Every once in a while, though, I meet someone who is willing to pursue their dream so faithfully and fearlessly that I'm awestruck and, well, envious.

World, meet Rebekah Scott. Rebekah, readers. Rebekah and her husband pulled up stakes and moved to Spain, right along the Camino Frances in Moratinos, Palencial, Spain. Read her blog sometime for a story of someone who has realized that life is too important not to do some living.

Resurfacing

It seems like almost every blog that I have ever read has at least one entry wherein the writer says, "Sorry I haven't written lately. I've been really busy."

Well, I've been really busy, but today was a turning point. On Monday, the Good Lord willin' and the Creek don't rise(?), one of my clients will 'go live' with a new software system.

School of the Pilgrim

My copy of Brett's new book, School of the Pilgrim: An Alternative Path to Christian Growth, showed up yesterday. I wrote him a quick note to which he replied, "You know most of the stories in the book. Hopefully the framework BEHIND the pilgrimage makes sense."

Even in a citation in the book I've already found a comment I like very much: "Huston Smith writes that since we are embodied souls, we have to act out our faith with our bodies as well as our minds and spirits."

I still struggle with my personal definition of a pilgrimage, and I don't yet completely understand Brett's thesis of the Christian life as pilgrimage, but I do believe that Brett's core notions are good ones. To say that you are a pilgrim is to say that you are seeking God.

2nd Concert of the Season

Well I am late posting about it, but we did have our second concert of the season on June 2nd. We sang two pieces from our repertoire

• Spaseniye Sodelal, by Pavel Grigorievich Chesnokov and
• Song of Peace by Vincent Persichetti

I thought we did well on both pieces, but once again we evoked very strong comments from the audience regarding the Chesnokov.

Afterwards, Mike R (another 2nd tenor), my wife and I walked to a nearby cafe to have a celebratory cocktail and to discuss the performance. I think we are doing well on the Chesnokov because we are singing in Russian, not in spite of it. That is, since almost all of us are singing phonetically, I think we are focusing heavily on the dynamics of the individual syllables, rather than focusing on how we should sing them rather than how we normally say them. Since we know only one pronunciation, we skip all the vowel complexity and concentrating on making good sounds.

Or at least that's my working theory.

1st Concert of the Season

Today was a great day for singing. The group did two of our new works for the 2007 season:

• Spaseniye Sodelal, by Pavel Grigorievich Chesnokov, and
  


• The Last Words of David by Randall Thompson

We sang the former in Russian; luckily, one of our 2nd Tenors got his PhD in Russian, so he taught us how to pronounce the text, which translates to "Salvation is created in the midst of the earth, O God. Alleluia." What I didn't know about the piece until a little while ago is that:

"When communism fell years after his death, and the Russian Orthodox church opened its doors again, Chesnokov's Salvation is Created - a piece he had never heard performed himself - became the unofficial anthem of the church. Salvation is Created is one in a cycle of ten Communion Hymns, Op. 25, and is based on a cantus firmus chant taken from Obihod notnago peniya, the codex that contained the major musical components of the Russian Orthodox liturgical repertoire." [1]

The latter piece is based on 2 Samuel 23:3-4. It is a very dramatic piece with a very forceful entrance. The initial verse says, "He that ruleth over [all] must be just."

Despite this being Memorial Day weekend, we had a good turnout and were well covered in all the voices, and I think we did an excellent job, especially on the Thompson.

[1] Wikipedia contributors, "Pavel Grigorievich Chesnokov," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pavel_Grigorievich_Chesnokov&oldid=84721467 (accessed May 28, 2007)

Memphis in May meets Camino Frances

Last night my wife and and several other couples made our way down to Joysmith Gallery in downtown Memphis to catch an art exhibit featuring the Camino de Santiago. The camino - caminos, really, since there are multiple routes, are a set of pilgrimage routes to the city of Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain. My wife and I undertook a partial camino in May of 2004; my friends Eric & Joan walked the entire Camino Frances (480 miles) that same year.

The exhibit is a touring display of photos and paintings by American pilgrims. The tour started at The College of William & Mary; Memphis is the 2nd exhibition. Last night all the attendees were honored to have the curator of the collection, George Greenia, on hand to describe the Camino and answer questions. George is a former Franciscan monk who now teaches in the Medieval and Renaissance Studies department at W&M, where he leads groups of students on pilgrimage. He also helps coordinate the Annual Gathering of Pilgrims when it meets in Williamsburg, VA. and edits the American Pilgrim magazine.

It was great to talk to a fellow pilgrim, especially a more experienced one. My friend Eric got to talk to him about his own Fulbright studies in Belgium. George invoked Goethe's statement that 'the Camino created Europe', which appeared to please Joan. My wife is going to see about arranging another Memphis visit for George to speak at our church.

Grayston Ives' Missa Brevis

Today was Grayston Ives' Missa Brevis, including yours truly in a double quartet for the Agnus Dei. Very nice. It was only after performing the piece that I learned of Ives' participation in the King's Singers.

Ghosts of Spain

I've been reading Ghosts of Spain by Giles Tremlett. I wouldn't call it a novel; it's more a set of linked essays that discuss post-Franco Spain, and even then not so much what happened as what has not happened. From what I've read so far, the author feels that a real political integration of opposing forces still hasn't taken place - that the Spanish approach to much of the Franco-era history has been to forget much of what happened. Of course, we're talking about a book written by a British ex-pat journalist who I think wants to see something along the lines of South African reconciliation tribunals, and who wonders aloud how Spanish judges can pursue Pinochet while ignoring their own issues.

Good reading so far. I admit that I am almost entirely ignorant of recent Spanish history.* I mean, I knew a little of Franco and the larger divisions within Spain, but not why such divisions exist (even still, hence the book). I imagine I need something even more recent to cover the current social scene.

* I still l recall the first time I heard of Franco. Unfortunately, I was in my early teens. At the time there was a fairly famous line regularly repeated by Chevy Chase on Saturday Night Live: "Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead." I had no idea what that meant, though I did find the idea of someone "still dead" pretty funny on the face of it.

Life as Pilgrimage

Today my wife and I traveled down to Canton, MS to meet Brett Webb-Mitchell, author of several books including Follow Me and the newly published School of the Pilgrim: An Alternative Path to Christian Growth, and founder of The School of the Pilgrim. Brett was actually meeting with Rev. Rob Hill and several members of Broadmeadow United Methodist Church. While I don't want to steal any of Brett's thunder, I will say that Brett is a man who gets pilgrimage - as a physical act, but also as the subject of metaphor of Christian living, in a way that I haven't seen expressed before.

The Tale of the Pirate

Once there was a pirate. Being a pirate, he loved treasure. In fact, the only thing he liked better than treasure was buried treasure. He sailed the seven seas searching for buried treasure. He found treasure beneath the waves. He found treasure on distant islands. He found treasure in the many ports that he called home. The pirate found more treasure than any pirate alive, but he still wasn't satisfied. So one day he started hiding his own treasure. He buried treasure here, there and everywhere. He even buried treasure on his own ship! The other pirates said, "Arrrr, there be a fine pirate who be willing to share his booty!"

But then a funny thing happened: the pirate started finding his own treasure and re-claiming it as his own. Now that is a funny thing for a pirate to do, with so much treasure in the world.


I leave it to my friends to find the moral behind this tale.

Men's Retreat, Party, and the Photo Shoot

It has been a busy weekend, starting Friday afternoon. The men's group at my church held a retreat at an event center not far from a great caching park. The spiritual leader of the weekend was John Baker, who is now in Alexandria, VA, but was at my church when I first starting attending. [ He also used to own a car repair shop that is still open and still called by the original name - Baker Auto. ] It was a great weekend for all, but especially for me, I think, because one of the greatest disadvantages to being in a church choir is that you don't get a chance to meet a lot of the other folks in church, in spite of the fact that you're often there more often (or at least more consistently) than many of the members. So I enjoyed actually meeting a lot of familiar faces.

Today (Sunday) was also the day for the 'other' singing group that I'm in. We elected to have a professional photographer shoot our promotional photo that we will use in our advertisements and other marketing collateral. I am curious as to how the photos will turn out; we certainly did spent quite a bit of time arranging the members and selecting a variety of locations.

After the shoot we gathered at the director's house for a potluck supper that ended up being quite a feast. Hopefully this (sans the photo shoot) will become a 5th Sunday tradition!

GeoGreeting

BDD posted a link to a fun url - GeoGreeting. It's a yet another site that allows you construct personalized messages, but in this case the letters are actually overhead shots of buildings.

Here's an example.

My Personal Blog

For those of you reading along at home: this is my personal blog. Since I am independent consultant, I don't need to say this, but the opinions expressed herein are mine and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employers.

Since it is my personal blog, I feel entitled to write whatever I want. In fact, that's the only reason that this blog exists: to allow me a public forum in which to state whatever I want to say. To suggest otherwise is ludicrous.

By extension, I have no qualms about moderating any comments left on this blog (though I have yet to do so). Visitors have no first amendment rights here. If you have something to say, say it, but if I don't like it, tough. Start your own blog and say whatever you want to say there if you have a strong desire to make yourself heard. It's cheap and easy.

It is only in the Commons, such as community forums and the like, that anyone should have any expectation of privilege.

Geocaching & People

I am a geocacher. To those of you unfamiliar with the term, suffice it to say that I use billion-dollar military satellite technology to find tupperware containers hidden in the woods. Hey, everybody needs a hobby. I belong to several geocaching organizations, including the Geocachers Of West Tennessee, founded by my friend Steve Spencer aka spencersb and the Jackson Area Geocachers, founded by my friend Damon Mays, aka BigDaddyD.

There is some tension between the two organizations, which is strange when you consider that belonging to a geocaching organization is optional and of little real value. Really, there appears to be some tension/dislike/animosity/hate between specific individuals in the two organizations. The situation is not pleasant, and occasionally it is difficult, especially when you hear or read people from one side say ugly things about the other. All of which is to say that I've determined that my geocaching experience, at least as it regards to cachers, is a lot like my work experience, as it regards to workers. To wit:

1. There are people that I like that I like to work with.
   
2. There are people that I do not like that I like to work with.
3. There are people that I like that I do not like to work with.
4. There are people that I do not like that I do not like to work with.
   

Substitute geocache for work and the axioms hold. Some of my feelings are driven by differences in opinion on what geocaching means. The first and the fourth are obvious, but the second and the third have made work - and geocaching - more interesting. I've had co-workers who were interesting, kind, good-hearted people, but who were completely inept in their jobs. I've had co-workers who were skilled professionals, but unethical, callous, and rude.

For those who haven't geocached, trust me when I say that there is quite a variety of opinions about the trivia of geocaching: what it means to claim the finding of a geocache, what is the intent of placing a geocache, where should they be placed, even what size container is appropriate. Ultimately these are petty distinctions, though. Geocaching is voluntary, and the specifics of hiding and searching for geocaches enjoys remarkable liberty. These differences aren't what are driving the the GOWT vs. JAG feud, though. I think the reasons for those fights are more universal and rooted in fear, mistrust, greed, and lust.

Cache Maintenance and the Felling of Trees

This morning I got up early and went out to do a little cache maintenance. A friend from grad school has recently started caching; he told me that the log for Arc d' Memphis was full, so I replaced it. I then drove over to do a little work on In the Middle of East Memphis.

Recently I had visited IMEM to check on the container, which had been reported missing. Sure enough, the container, which was suspended 20 feet up in a tree and attached by wire cable, was gone. Fortunately, there were plenty of clues as to who took it, as the surrounding area was filled with pot-smoking kids, some sitting in the tree next to where I was standing. They had driven a vehicle back into the park and had the doors wide open, playing the stereo. Did I mention that there was a park picnic table mounted up in one of the trees?

This morning I returned to the park to find a new situation. Shortly after walking back to the original container site, a park service vehicle drove by, followed shortly thereafter by two dump trucks and a front-end loader. The real change, though, was that the park commission has cut all of the lower limbs off of the magnolias and is cleaning up the debris.

On one of the trees youths had already nailed 2x4's to re-create the steps provided by the branches. They had even painted a message on them, something like "Patrick and Drew will find a way" and "why did you do this to our trees" and some insults for the park commission. Maybe they will get to enjoy the trees. I hope that this is the beginning of a better Audubon park.

CITO and #800

Yesterday I woke early, dressed in some old clothes (including my favorite long sleeved shirt), and drove out a little past Jackson, TN to Natchez Trace State Park. The park is the largest state park in TN and home to several lakes, lots of trails of the equestrian and hiking kind, several campsites and less rustic places to stay. It was also the site of the first Jackson Area Geocachers CITO event, which was the reason for my visit. The 2 hour drive was uneventful except for the threat of rain and the chance encounter (!) of cgeek and Mackheath making their way to Jackson for a day of caching. I, on the otherhand, encountered a couple of turkeys on the road into the park, and was followed closely by the event organizer, BigDaddyD, and his wife Mrs. T. We were joined shortly thereafter by LilLuckyClover, Dalls, and Yogi. With various implements of destruction in hand we traversed a couple of the local trails and removed encroaching plantlife and trash. Along the way I picked up a couple of caches. After completing one trail, LLC and I hitched a ride and were driven to a couple of cache sites in the park; it's always handy to be riding with the cache maintainer, and BDD is also on the board of the 'Friends' association of the park. After lunch Yogi led/followed me as I picked up 5 more caches. A low total for the day perhaps (10), but just enough to bring my total number of finds to 800, which was my other goal for the day. I still have plenty of caches to find in the park, and what I've learned about the amenities is enough to convince my wife that she and I need to plan a visit during the summer.

What I get out of caching

Recently I had occasion to talk to a bunch of fellow geocachers. I asked them a bunch of questions, but the most interesting point of the exchange was when one of them finally turned the tables and asked a question of the form, "What do you expect to get out of X?", where X is a geocaching group. I hadn't really considered the question before, though I had a fair idea, inspired, in part, by GOLUM, a Linux user group I formed years ago. A friend of mine even joked once that "[I'm] an organization man" and, in some ways, I guess I am. Perhaps this will be repetitious to some (all) of the readers of this entry, but I'll repeat myself if only to preserve my thoughts. My central premise is this:

I believe that most clubs are social in nature.

When I organized GOLUM, I formed it chiefly to help draw out like-minded individuals in my community. I assumed that some of them knew more than I did about a particular subject of interest - Linux - and I thought that by providing a group I could meet them, facilitate an exchange of ideas, and teach myself and others a few new tricks. The Linux part was useful - it gave the group a common purpose - but I really expected a much broader benefit. I'm happy to say that I was right in that regard, as GOLUM members are diverse, bright and eclectic. Some of the members have had a tremendous impact on my life.

Now, I started caching because I thought the idea of a high-tech treasure hunt was cool - and it is. The very idea that orbiting satellites are providing real-time location information to a tiny, handheld radio is wonderful. Geocaching searches have taken me to obscure, interesting, dangerous, even beautiful places that I likely would never had seen. Still, at the end of the day I prefer caching with a friend to caching alone, and I think that talking about caching with other cachers is an important part of the game. I hope, though, that caching extends beyond that, in truly useful ways. I'm a believer in CITO for that reason: I think it extends geocaching to the surround community is a socially beneficial way. The caching crowd is another social/business network, but most of the cachers that I actually know go beyond trying to assess "who's who" or "who can do what for me." Yes, some of the sharing is superficial, but some of it is real, not for all, but for those who seek it.

So, what do I want out of a geocaching group? I want a chance for these sorts of interactions to occur. Real life bleeds into hobbies. Groups are a good way to take advantage of that.

Sunday

Singing updates: last Sunday was Hoiby's Let This Mind Be in You, because of the associated NT reading. All in all it went well.

Later that afternoon was a Happy Birthday that doesn't quite count.

Chorale rehearsal focused on Down by the Salley Gardens, Persichetti's Song of Peace, and Lennon and McCartney's Yesterday. The Salley Gardens is coming along, though it is a bit sentimental for my tastes. Song of Peace still needs a little work, but I think it will be a very strong piece for us. Yesterday was suprisingly difficult to sing the first time, chiefly, I suspect, because so many of us were familiar with it. I, for one, kept singing what I expected (from years of radio exposure) rather than what was written. The second pass was markedly better, though, as the quarter vs. dotted quarter rhythms were corrected.

Engraving

I guess you could say that I have odd hobbies. During my most recent stint in grad school I came to appreciate typesetting since I produced a number of manuscripts intended for publication. For this I used LaTeX. LaTeX is about as far away from WYSIWYG "Word Processing" as you can get these days [there are editors to help with that, but I prefer text editors] , but I think the results are superior, and it is certainly easier in my opinion to do scientific publication preparation in LaTeX than, say, Microsoft Word. But I digress...

As you might have gathered, I like to sing, and I do sing in a couple of choirs. Without naming any names, suffice it to say that one of my choir directors hand-writes descants and the like for use with certain hymns we perform. Admittedly his fist is better than mine, but I still prefer a typeset look, or, as I recently learned, an engraved look. So I've taken up engraving, in part to reproduce his work in a more legible form, but also because I get some kind of (perverse?) pleasure in doing it. As a sample, the picture is of Breedlove's I'm Going Home. I've transformed it from shape-notation to a more modern form. [There are likely errors in transcription; use at your own risk. ]

Garmin POI loader

Another neat garmin utility that I hadn't played around with before is the custom point of interest (POI) loader. This is another free download from the Garmin site. It allows you to upload comma-separated value (CSV) and gpx files to your Garmin unit.
[ Check the Garmin site for POI Loader compatibility with your unit. ]

On X units (i.e. those with microSD cards), these files are stored on the card rather than in the unit's memory. While this isn't a replacement for the built-in geocache functionality, it does offer some interesting options.:

• the number of POIs is limited only by the size of the microSD card, rather than the hard limit (<1000?)>
• each entry can contain a latitude/longitude, name, and description (though there is a limit to the amount of text each entry can contain)
  
• Some people are using this feature to generated expanded listings, including difficulty/terrain - even decoded clues - for their geocache waypoints.
  
• custom POI's can be searched for and even used in auto-routing
• several different POI files (databases, according to Garmin) can be loaded at once, and the user can select which is displayed
• according to the documentation, custom waypoint icons can be associated with each POI file (though several people are having difficulty with this feature, and I have not tested it)

There is a GSAK macro that produces entries in a useful CSV format, though some are simply uploading custom GPX files. I'll write more after I have used this software.

Garmin xImage utility

While surfing the 'net the other night I came across a couple of articles describing utilities that work in conjunction with several models of Garmin GPS units. One is a utility called 'xImage' that allows you to send/receive screenshots and waypoint images(?) to/from your Garmin GPS. xImage is a free download from the Garmin site. To use it, you

• install it on a computer that already has the Garmin GPS USB drivers
• connect your Garmin GPS to the computer
• turn on the GPS and wait for your computer to recognize the device
• run the xImage utility

By default, xImage will capture a screenshot of whatever is currently on the Garmin GPS display. You can then save the image as a bit-mapped (BMP) file. The image above is a test that I just downloaded.

Nevada

An old buddy of mine from my college days (the second time, not the first or third) has seen fit to join the blogging and the caching world. No - not Uncle Mack - he already belongs to both. I'm talking about Nevada Mouse, "the World's Greatest Mouse Adventurer." Yawn.

Sorry, where was I? Oh, right, Nevada. Of course, in typical Nevada fashion he's doing it completely backwards, having decided on his caching name first (well, see below), having created a blog to boast of his exploits, and soon to be signing up for the Geocachers of West Tennessee forums. We'll see if he actually manages to find a cache. Mackheath has promised to take him out soon, I think, and I may drag him out for a little cache maintenance that I have do around town. [ I have a side bet stating that he will become completely disenchanted before he hits 100 finds, but you never know. ]

Nevada has been known by that name for some time now; as you might guess, it has some loose connection to a certain archeologist movie hero, which, coincidently, is his profession, and how we first met as grad students back in the day. Admittedly he's spent a lot more time outdoors than I have since then, including a few exotic locales. Thankfully he's given me authoring privileges on his site so that I can add some, ahem, realistic perspective on his exploits.

Nothing to see here

Until recently I didn't know there was a picture of an event that I'm famous for - the breaking of a chandelier at a Mexican restaurant in Jackson, TN. Thankfully BigDaddyD grabbed this one, taken shortly after I had uttered what has become one of my taglines - Nothing to see here. The restaurant was very nice about the whole thing, which is good, because I really did give that light fixture a good knock.

Vehicle repair

At a recent CITO event I noticed the tale-tell signs that my vehicle needed some brake work. Today I followed my wife downtown and dropped off the cachemobile at Reed's Auto Safety Service, Inc., at 711 Monroe Ext. A while back they patched my wife's tire for free (courtesy of an intro from a friend); for payment they asked that she remember them if she ever needed additional repairs. I've been a fan of that sort of policy from my AutoZone days. I'll let you know how things go.

Follow up: Good service, reasonable price. Recommended.

Okay, I lied.

I said that would post more. Obviously, I didn't, given that it is now 6 months or so since my last post. In fact, the greatest continuity between my last post and this is that now I'm entering that period of the year when I yearn to shave my beard off. At least this year I won't be reading the 'Jesus' portion of the Passion according to St. Luke; last year I shaved prematurely, it seems, and disappointed the head of the lectors.

Singing today was Petrarch's Ah Jesus. Unfortunately, Joe wasn't in attendance, which meant that the sounds that have been in my left ear for all of the rehearsals was missing and replaced with a different voice. Not a bad voice, either, but, still, different, which tends to throw me off a little. The whole piece was tentative, both temporally and harmonically, made worse by the fact that the piece had odd, minor chords that don't come readily to the ear or voice. I loused up Section IV, though I did make a strong entrance on III. Oh well, we get another try during the Vigil.

I've just done a query on Geocaching.com and see that there are 20 caches within 3.3 miles of my house, including several that I have no good reason not to go for. I need to dig out the scraps of paper that have solutions for several of the puzzle caches - I would be much further along if I didn't keep losing my work. I hope my new GSAK scheme helps that.