Memorial Day Weekend - The Post That Wouldn't End

I hope everyone out there had a wonderful and relaxing Memorial Day weekend.

Friday I went and helped Amy, a friend (not just some person), prepare communion kits for all 3 church locations. I think they said in all we made over 600 kits. It was fun sitting around talking with the other 3 people helping put the kits together though. Then Friday night Amon was both free and in town so we went out. We had dinner on U street at Duke’s City (named after Duke Ellington I would imagine since it’s practically across the street from the Lincoln Theater) and dessert a few blocks down at Love Café (run by the same people who own Cake Love). I can heartily recommend the strawberry shortcake, oh so delicious.

Saturday I managed to meet up with Malcolm and Amy to see the Bartok string quartet perform a piece that was commissioned by the Library of Congress in the 40’s. It was the first time this piece has been performed in the Library of Congress’s Auditorium. Afterwards Malcolm helped me lug some furniture around, and then he and I went to Dpont Crcle to get a Krispy Kreme donut and watch some kids do the robot dance quite impressively.

Sunday was fun because I got to go to the 11:00 Union Station church service, then I met up with Wendell, Malcolm, and Amy to go to Wendell’s brother’s house and eat traditional Trini food. It was strongly influenced by (Western?)-Indian food and included Roti (a kind of flat bread), potatoes and chick peas in a curry based sauce, and chicken on the bone stewed in a wonderful blend of seasonings (including brown sugar). It was all cooked by Wendell’s mom who did an excellent job (they are from Trinidad). After dinner Wendell, Malcolm, Amy, Malcolm's sister and I sat around and played Scrabble.

Monday found me over at Malcolm’s to help with a Barbeque/pool party. Malcolm had invited one of his co-workers to help us cook and it was amazing. This guy brought his own grill and equipment, including real skewers (the flat metal kind you see at places that specialize in kabobs) and probably 15 or 20 pounds of good quality beef that had been marinating in something excellent for quite awhile. It turned out to be some of the best, most tender beef I’ve had in a long time. We supplemented that with barbeque chicken and some fresh fruit. Then of course there were some chips, delicious drinks, good friends, and a wonderful pool. It was a good day.

About the only thing missing from this weekend (Sat. through Monday, yes I realize Monday isn’t the weekend, but it was a holiday) was Amon. She flew back to Michigan to be with her family and should get back in town today. Her grandmother passed away last Monday and the service was Sunday. While it would have been nice to have her around, it is good that she was able to make it back and be with her family. Amon, my prayers are still with you and your family.

Now I’m back at work for today through Thursday. Next Monday I start my new job. I admit to being a bit nervous, but at the same time quite excited. It should be an excellent opportunity to build on the things I’ve learned here, as well as working on developing another skill set, and meeting new people. Wow, less than a week away.

Grillin up some chicken. Mmm...barbeque sauce. (Don't worry the sauce, being sugar based, was going on towards the end of the grilling process so as to avoid burning.) People seemed to be pretty satisfied. 

The Bartok String Quartet performing a work commissioned by the Library of Congress in 1941. This was the first time it had ever been performed in the Library of Congress Auditorium. 

Apologies and Treasures

Huh, so I’ve been chastised for not posting enough. I suppose that is fair. I’ve been doing good recently just to get a post in per week. In my defense though, I hate posting entries that simply read, “I washed my hair today, and I also went to work. I love lamp.” That may work for some people, but I can’t bring myself to do it. I feel like if I’m going to post something there should be a good reason such as keeping people I don’t get to talk to every week updated on events in my life, possibly posting some bit of writing to get feed back on it, commenting on some current event, or sharing newly discovered music or books.

I thought I would remedy my lack of posts by putting up something that was about how I haven’t posted in awhile (smell the silliness of that remark yet?)

Oh, and the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT PORTION OF THIS POST!!!

Check out this link:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=58151200

My Goodness!!! Alex, your songs, your voice, it’s just amazing. The range is nice as well, from BrokenPeacefulSleep to the Pumpkin Song, to Pitcher OK. Brilliant (even if The Pumpkin song does remind me of a certain song I heard an impromptu version of sitting in an Irish bar in the French Quarter). Still, Brilliant. Download these before he wises up and puts them on an EP and starts charging $14.99 for it. And then, because he deserves it, you should probably send him some money, just to be nice.

Changes

It's seems that anyone with interest enough to still be reading this blog deserves to have the following bit of information:

Over my lunch hour last Friday I had a follow up interview at another company. The possibilities over there are pretty exciting and after having taken this last weekend to pray, ponder, and repeat - I have decided to make a career change.

Not only will I be switching companies, but I will be altering my career path (if only slightly). I'll discuss in more detail later, but the new job will involve a more varied Architectural Engineering experience. I'll be involved with telecommunications, AV design, possibly security system design, and maybe some occasional in house acoustics jobs. Ultimately I will likely be taking on a project management roll and functioning as a sort of "jack of all trades" AE person. Could be fun. At any rate, I certainly won't be taking a cut in pay, the benefits are better, and the DC office is larger (offices in DC, Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, LA, Miami, London, Madrid, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Seoul-Korea).

As I said, more details will certainly follow.
Mike

New Music Monday

I’ve encountered some new music lately that I wanted to make a quick note of…These aren’t intended to be full reviews (I’ve only heard one album by each of these people), but rather notices to keep your eyes (or ears) open for these artists.

Denison Whitmer:
I’m really enjoying listening to the cd, “Are you a Dreamer”. The cover art seems to indicate he isn’t taking himself too seriously, but not in a, “Hey I think life is a big joke” sort of way, more in a “Hey I realize that life is too short to not enjoy the small things,” sort of way. The instrumental portions of the music remind me, ocassionally, of Sufjan Stephens on Illinoise (who I’m told he’s toured with). Whitmer’s vocals stand up wonderfully among the better singer song writers of today. Despite the fact that Josh Ritter makes a conscious effort to hark back to artists like Dylan, Whitmer pulls the whole package off better, in my humble opinion. I still love Josh Ritter’s sparse work on Bone of Song and other songs on Hello Starling, but that’s another subject.

Rosie Thomas:
Someone I know has called Rosie Thomas the match to Denison Whitmer. Lyrics from the song October on “When We Were Small”, “Some days when she is slightly down, tell her it is ok to frown, it makes you just fall more in love with her.” I lack the proper music library to discuss Rosie’s voice, but the ambience her music creates is undeniable. When you listen to her songs you feel like you’re alternately wearing your most comfortable sweater watching it rain outside, or sipping tea on a sun covered leather couch rereading your favorite book.

Brandi Carlile:
Ah Brandi Carlile. I first heard about Brandi Carlile when she opened for Jamie Cullum. I was so satisfied after hearing her that if Jamie had pulled a no show, I would have still felt great about the concert (he did play though and his energy was INSANE). Have you ever watched someone who is excellent at something? It could be as simple as watching an expert chef cut an onion, the sort of thing that happens in kitchens all over the world every night. But the way they do it reveals how many thousands of times they have used that knife, how well they understand the entire process they are involved in, and how supremely competent they are. Listening to Brandi sing Hallelujah was like that. Her combination of youth and talent (hey, she started EARLY in life) result in someone with an already well developed skill presenting life in a very fresh way.

Put some water on the Kettle...

...Let's just sit here and talk a little while.

Job update: Not much to report that I can mention on the internet. My company keeps on keepin' on. Supposedly I'm getting a promotion in June, so that will be interesting. They just hired someone to work on Audio Visual (AV) projects in DC. So at least there's another body in the office. Helps with the not slacking when there are other people around - no matter how well intentioned you are.

Church update: I've been switching services alot lately. I had been going to the 11:00 Union Station service, but I’ve also gone to the Saturday night Coffee shop service which is cool. Then last Sunday I went to the 10:30 Union Station service. I need to pick a service and keep going. The good news though, is that the reason I’ve been going to the different services is that I know people at each of them, which means I’m getting more plugged into the important part of the Church – Relationships. I owe most of that to the Small Groups I’ve been attending.

Small Groups: The Church History group is over, but I was glad to have been a part of that, and now I have an excellent book to go back and reread more thoroughly (you could say peruse if you wanted to use the correct definition). Narnia is going excellently. We are taking a “month off” but enjoyed discussing the books so much we are still going to meet twice this month to go over the two books we weren’t able to cover in the semester long group (Voyage and Silver Chair). In June we start Mere Christianity, officially making us Inklings Reloaded, Beyond the Lamp Post (Amazingly enough, I did not come up with that name). I’ve meet some great people at the Narnia group.

Meeting People: Yes, buried in the middle of this post is in fact the most exciting news…I met this really cool girl at the Narnia group. I don’t know how she feels about having her name on the internet, so I’ll just say that I’ve been extremely happy to spend time with her recently. Call me sometime and I can fill you in on a few more details, but only the details a gentleman can be expected to share.

Conclusion: Busy, check. Learning, check. Having fun, check. Challenging myself, check. Missing Lawrence and all those friends back in KS, sigh…triple check.

Update

I am now officially, as of today, the only full time acoustical consultant in the DC office. Hmm...hopefully this won't last too long.

Cool well outside the Museum of the Native American (you can see the Capital in the background). Kids seem to think this is just the coolest thing...and are then apparently compelled to lunge towards it. All my pictures of this with kids in the frame involve their parents having to hold them back.

Front shot of the Smithsonian Museum of the Native American. I guess the deal is there aren't supposed to be any right angles or something...? Allyn, do know anything about this? Do you file all the corners off your furniture? 

Perspective shot of the Smithsonian Museum of the Native American. I heard a few people just calling it "Allyn's House". 

Loved this side by side shot (yes they actually sit there like this) of the US Capital next to the US Botanical Gardens. 

Small Groups

I have now attended two different small groups that are sponsored by my church. The first is one you have already heard about, the Chronicles of Narnia small group. The second is a new one for me, Church History.

The Chronicles of Narnia group is an great fit for me for many reasons, it’s main topic being the most obvious reason. It has been quite fun though to get to know the other people in this discussion group, and I’m quite looking forward to getting together more with them. There have been murmurs of doing a general Lewis group next “semester”. That could be a fun way to continue the thread we’re on right now.

The second group I alluded to, the Church History group is lead by my friend Keelan. He has his doctorate in Church History, and as such has more than a bit of background in the area. I need to get the book we are using as our “text”, but that should be more of a delight than a chore. It looks like an interesting book.

I haven’t done a stellar job of putting myself out there and making zillions of new friends here in DC, but looking back on my life thus far – that doesn’t seem to be my modus operandi. In the past I have focused on developing deep friendships in lieu of broad reaching acquaintances. Whether this is a good thing, a bad thing, or a thing completely lacking in moral or ethical value, I don’t know. I also don’t intend to delve into that, at least not at this juncture. All that is simply to say that I see this happening again and find it interesting and that it is hard to change things that are a deep part of you. I’ve thought about intentionally making more friends and it just isn’t how I’m “wired”.

That would be a good topic for another blog, the subject of friendship. I think I’ll stop here and continue on with that later.

PS. Go read some of the Chronicles of Narnia, Lewis is a genius at British humor. So freakin hilarious. I just can’t stop laughing at some of the lines in Magicians Nephew (it helps if you read them out loud and see for yourself how absurd they sound).

That Minutia I Mentioned in the Header...

As indicated by the title, I just wanted to update with a few things that are going on in my life. Consequently, today’s post should be skipped by anyone wishing only to cull the fine strands of wisdom that are ever so carefully woven about this page.

JOB:

First announcement: I’m going to go ahead and let the cat out of the bag: I’m getting a promotion in June. My superiors have been telling me they appreciate what I’m doing, how I’m doing it, and the situation I’m in; and at my review I found out they are going to show me their appreciation as well. Certainly this makes my decision about what to do about my job just that much more complicated, though it is nice to see they can act when it is called for.

Every time I talk to people I get asked how my job is going, so to help minimize the frequency of this question…As far as the WORK itself goes, things are going swimmingly. I can look back on where I was when I started in January 2005 and am astounded by how much I have grown – in technical acumen, comfort in front of clients, and ability to manage projects. As far as the environment goes, things are a bit more gray. We are down to 2 full time people in my branch office, Abigail and myself, with the president of the company, Victoria, coming down to triage the situation until a more stable solution is secured.

Additionally our Marketing Assistant, Jen, has moved on to a larger company where she can focus less on administrative tasks and more on marketing. At this job she will have people to work with on marketing matters in her office. It was definitely a good choice for her. However, we had gotten to be really good friends and not seeing her every day at work is quite a downer. It hasn’t really hit me fully since this week (first week she has been gone) has been absurdly busy.

I co-led a presentation to the DC chapter of the American institute of Architects last night. It was part of a continuing education series designed to give AIA member the credits they need and educate them on the impact of acoustics in learning environments (classrooms mostly). Apparently it was one of the best attended lectures they have had recently. It was pretty exciting to be standing in front of all of them going through this presentation. Good times.

HOME:

I’m seriously considering vacationing in Lawrence again this summer. The only question right now is if I take a week in May or a Week in June. Any thoughts?

I was up until 2:00am Monday morning doing laundry, and putting together more IKEA shelving and storage. My room has been a disaster area, and the main culprit is clothes. I just have too many clothes. Oddly enough, I can never find what I really wish I had. Sigh…consumerism.

I’m attending a book discussion my church is sponsoring; it’s part of their small group program. We are studying the Chronicles of Narnia which has been immensely fun. Unfortunately I have missed the last two weeks, but I’m back full force tonight.

The Kennedy Center is putting on performances of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and I’m desperately trying to find people to go with.

One of my acquaintances/friends, Beth, is going to see an improve act in Gallery Place/Chinatown Friday and I think I’m going to check that out with some of her friends.

I still haven’t bought a laptop computer.

I still owe 10 billion dollars to the IRS (it’s close enough to 10 billion given the amount of money I have).

I still love where I live - so close to Adam’s Morgan, U Street, Dupont Circle, and Work.

If you made it thus far, congratulations. Any questions I didn’t answer or areas I didn’t update feel free to ask about in the comments section and I might answer them.

Faded Black and White

Previously written at the Hirshorn while contemplating ,”Plastic Construction of Noise and Speed”

She wants me to live like there is no absolute truth. He wants me to accept that our view of right and wrong is just evolved conditioning to promote survival of my species. They want me to cast aside the concept of Holiness and Evil, black and white in favor of their comfortable gray sweaters. I have to admit the idea of curling up on the couch in a well worn faded sweater is very appealing.

The problem is – as good as that sounds, I can’t accept that the idea of that gray sweater solves all my problems. Without a black and a white, all the grays are lost. What does it mean to say one is “darker” than another, or “lighter” than another. There is chaos.

I want to embrace the idea of grays because I look around me and they seem real. Every day people are faced with decisions that do not easily break down into an embracing of Right or a Denial of it. It seems that the problem is not in the existence of the grays, but in the banishing of black and white.

And so I ask myself which system seems more honest. A system that acknowledges a black and a white but scoffs at and derides the grays that appear everywhere? A system that sees the multitude of varying valued grays and disallows the ordering of them because to do so would be to recognize a black and a white? Or a system that recognizes a black and white as the organizing scheme by which we make sense of all the grays we see in this foggy world?

It is written that some day we will see Him even as He has seen us. I wonder if on that day we won’t say, “This is the white I have always seen hinted at but now realize I never saw. And that over there is the black I always felt pressing in but, Thank God, realize I never truly saw.”

1 Corinthians 13:12 (NKJV) For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

1 Corinthians 13:12 (MSG) We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

I went to a wizards game on Wednesday evening. My friend Malcolm had access to some extra ticketes. I don't think I'd ever buy a ticket to go see them but going once off a free ticket was a worth while experience. If nothing else I got to try my hand at being a sports photographer. And our seats were on the 2nd row, I was seat B-06. 

More Narnia?

Just a little note, there’s a new post on the Narnia blog I started. Anyone still interested in doing a discussion on the Chronicles of Narnia series should check it out. The short of it is that I’m attending a weekly book study here in DC and at the very least will post some of the stuff we talk about for further discussion with anyone else who’s interested. If this sounds appealing to you, leave a comment on the most recent post at:

http://friendsofnarnia.blogspot.com

I’ll probably make up my mind by next Friday, so try and add a comment by then even if you’re just curious.

Mike

But then when it rains...

6:00 PM Tuesday night: Did my taxes.
9:00 AM Wednesday Morning: Shredded my passport application.

I guess if I'm to look on the bright side...at least I hadn't already bought my plane tickets or payed for my passport yet. My only remaining hope is that my friends going to europe will take lots of pictures and I can once again see europe through someone else's eyes.

Sometimes life sucks. Here's to living in the real world, Cheers.

Random Rays

Have you ever had one of those days where:
You wake up and you aren’t really tired. Eh, you could roll over and snooze for another 6 hours, sure, but today…something just feels different. Despite your most sincere attempts at squeezing every last minute of sleep out of that juicy, juicy pillow your body just keeps telling you, “Nope, I’m ready to get up now.” So you roll out of bed, make your way to the bathroom, find the usual cloud of grogginess parted even before the scent of the soap tickles your nose. Huh, that’s odd. After your shower you find that while you haven’t done laundry in about a week and a half you somehow have just the right outfit starring you in the face.

You step out of your door only to be greeted by a brilliant sky and even though it’s the middle of February you’d swear you can hear birds chirping. To silence those nagging reminders of spring you plug into your favorite mp3 player and let loss a tidal wave of cheerful upbeat music (Beastie Boys…Girls?) instead of the sad bastard music you’d usually listen to in an effort to pump up for the day ahead.

When you get on the elevator to go up to your office you are followed by 3 girls in their mid twenties who look like they just stepped off a run way in Milan, and they are all going to the floor above yours. So wearing your positive attitude on your sleeve you uncharacteristically find yourself talking to them. You'd ask them if they all worked at the same office and, when they said yes you’d actually be so on your game you’d come up with the reply, “Man, I’ve got to change jobs!” delivered right as your getting off the elevator. If that happened to you I’m sure you’d hear them giggling pleasantly as the doors shut, and I’m sure it would feel wonderful.

Unfortunately I can’t remember the last time I had a day like that. Well, the last time before this morning anyway. It’s nice sometimes, to get a great beginning to the day in the midst of all the crappy ones.

Asthmatic Kitty

As sort of an in-between-posts post, I'd just like to say I've been listening to the Sufjan Stevens album "Come on Feel the Illinoise"

Pretty good album. I first saw it on a couple of Best Album's of 2005 lists on NPR, then I saw it in a couple of magazine reviews, then a friend (Malcolm, thank you very much!) loaned it to me. So I guess you could say it’s getting a bit of buzz, though I still think your average person has no clue who Sufjan Stevens is, let alone how to pronounce his name. The label he's on is called Asthmatic Kitty. That's great.

As far as the album itself goes, I must say I love his track titles, such as “A Conjunction Of Drones Simulating The Way In Which Sufjan Stevens Has An Existential Crisis In The Great Godfrey Maze” (a 19 second track). Sure, MAYBE it's sort of gimmicky, maybe if every artist on every album was as verbose about their song names I would want to burn all of my cd's. However, for a single album by a single artist, it works.

I started to review the album from a musical standpoint and realized after getting 3 paragraphs in, that this wasn’t what I wanted to do. I just wanted to tell you I’m listening to this album and enjoying it. THAT IS ALL. You are dismissed.