Earlier this year, Rush released a new CD, Snakes and Arrows. The Canadian rock band's latest album of thirteen songs again make the willing listener think. One song in particular will even educate a little if the listener reads the lyrics sheets and has a modicum of curiosity.
The song is "The Larger Bowl". The title came to lyricist Neil Peart (according to his website) during a dream he had while recovering from dysentary during a cycling trip across Africa several years ago.
The song is written in a form of a Pantoum. (See the link for a description of this form of poetry.) By the way -Pantoum would be a great name for a sailboat - Dibs on the name!
The lyrics are available here.
In part because of this song, and in part because of some discussions of poetry in Patrick O'Brian's works, an interest in the mechanics of prosody has awakened in me. Probably a passing interest, since I have no skills at writing verse, I'm sorry to say. But, I've developed more of an appreciation for it at least. And perhaps that's the first step in education - developing an appreciation for something as opposed to simply dismissing it.
With each album, Rush has always introduced me to new ideas and concepts. So I'd say they are an educational rock band, which is almost an oxymoron. No wonder they aren't in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They are too cool for it.
I had heard somewhere a while back that Al Gore had been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. I was puzzled by that since I never understood what he has done to further the cause of peace. When I heard he won it I was again puzzled. I'm not able to understand why.
Nobel's will said that the Peace Prize was to go to "the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."
I had some commentary on this, but instead, I found what is written at the American Thinker to sums it up much better than I ever could.
In late June, I was employed again at NASA/JSC, this time in the Engineering Directorate. I've been working to develop a set of computing systems for an inflatable habitation module that NASA and the National Science Foundation are cooperating on. It will be deployed sometine this Austral summer to McMurdo base on the Antarctic Continent. My job has been to build up a computing system based on the PC104 form factor
I've also written some software in C++ and Visual Basic .NET which I taught myself in the course of doing my work. The purpose of the systems are to monitor and collect data on the habitation module systems. There are pressure chambers in the inflation system we will monitor. There are also power systems, a weather station, and other interesting things we will collect data on. We will transfer the data and do some simple control over the computer systems back in Houston. I won't be traveling to Antarctica, unfortunately, but that's okay. I'd go if I had the opportunity, but the opportunity is not there for me. It's been interesting, fun and challenging work.
In July I was able to break away from work for enough time to go to the Day Sailer North American championship in La Crosse Wisconsin. K. and I won 7th place, which was gratifying, but it was just fun to go and meet the nice folks in the Day Sailer Fleet up there, and see folks who share my enthusiasm for the Day Sailer.
In September, I finished sailing the Wednesday night races on Clear Lake. I sailed in the championship series, and if it had not been for three very stupid mistakes in short sucession, I would have advanced to the finals.
We were sailing in Flying Scots, and after three of four races, we had a second and two thirds. We got a good start on the last race and found ourselves in second place rounding the weather mark. We had it in the bag, except that on sailing downwind to the finish I didn't jybe from starboard to port. The angle to the finish was very deep. We were almost by the lee. I was trying hard to steer to the left of the pin, but too late I realized I had not lowered the centerboard enough to give me some tracking. The boat spun as I saw that we were going to hit the pin. I was frustrated, tired and a little dehydrated at the time so I wasn't making the best of decisions. We took the spinnaker down, and did a 360 degree turn to exonerate our foul. Then we sailed above the finish line and re finished. I didn't realize until much later that I needed to sail upwind of the finish line, do the turn and then re finish. I was far enough ahead of the competition to have done that properly. As it was, I threw away second place and ended up third over all, and didn't advance to the finals. It was painful, and for a day or so, the blue devils haunted me. I've since gotten philosophical about it and so maybe next year I'll get another shot. Who knows.
The thing that really concerns me about the Wednesday night races is the venue. A lot of places on the north shore of Clear lake are begin torn down and will be replaced with high rise condominiums. Apart from the possible changes to the wind, the location we have used for the last 9 years will be torn down after November 1st. Locations on the lake are becoming more scarce because of the "gentrification". Time will tell what will happen.
I again ran the CLSC's Waiting for the Great Pumpkin regatta in October, and I was the Race Committee this year. It was fun running the races, but it was very challenging since on Saturday we had light and variable winds. Sunday, however, we had much better wind.
In November, I'll go to the Wurstfest regatta. I've never been to Wurstfest. It should be fun!