The last few months, I've been playing piano in a big band, playing mostly 40's music in the manner of Glenn Miller, Woodie Herman, Duke Ellington, and so on. It's about 21 pieces most of the time, consisting of 6 saxophones (3 alto, 2 tenor, 1 baritone), 5 trumpets, 4 tenor trombones and a bass trombone, and rhythm section (piano, bass, drums, and 1-2 guitars.) I was invited to join the band by my friend Scott Miller. Scott and I, along with a drummer named Don Main, had a trio in high school - The Blue Notes. The previous pianist apparently was a classical pianist who, though a fine pianist, just wasn't used to playing from a lead sheet or in the jazz style.
One of our trombone players, Lee Shuster, provides a lot of sound equipment for our gigs, and recently recorded the band at a dance we did for a church youth fundraiser. Here is a slide show of the band and some of the dancers over our rendition of "Yes, Indeed," a classic from Tommy Dorsey's band. Lee (who does not usually sing) and Katrina Madsen are the vocalists. Enjoy!
Monday, May 25, 2009
Friday, May 15, 2009
Cleaning the Conference Center
On Tuesday night, Vickie and I filled an assignment from church to 
help clean the LDS Conference Center in downtown Salt Lake City, across the street from Temple Square. The building seats 21,000 people, with no interior pillars at all. As you can see from the pictures, it looks something like the Starship Enterprise. 
Vickie ended up cleaning brass railings for 2 1/2 hours (our shift was from 9:30 pm to midnight!) I was assigned to vacuum carpets in two of the seating sections on the main floor, using a back-pack vacuum.
My best guess is that I vacuumed a swath of carpet approximately 3 feet wide and a mile long! Will we do that ever again? Well, maybe...
help clean the LDS Conference Center in downtown Salt Lake City, across the street from Temple Square. The building seats 21,000 people, with no interior pillars at all. As you can see from the pictures, it looks something like the Starship Enterprise. 
Vickie ended up cleaning brass railings for 2 1/2 hours (our shift was from 9:30 pm to midnight!) I was assigned to vacuum carpets in two of the seating sections on the main floor, using a back-pack vacuum.
My best guess is that I vacuumed a swath of carpet approximately 3 feet wide and a mile long! Will we do that ever again? Well, maybe...
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Arizona Natural History Museum
While Vickie and I were in Phoenix watching grandkids, we decided to take them to the Arizona Museum of Natural History in Mesa, which has a great collection of dinosaurs, which are usually a big hit with the kids. It started outside 
the museum, where they all posed in front of one. Once inside, though, Ivy was absolutely terrified by the mammoth skeleton, and it took her a while to allay those fears. After a while, during which time nobody was attacked by the skeletons, she decided that maybe they weren't so scary after all.Besides the dinosaurs, a big draw was the outdoor
gold-panning stream. As you can see, everybody got to try 
it - and get a bit wet. The sand was spiked with gold (OK, fool's gold), so that everyone came home 
with some sparkle.Finally, after all this fun, Lizzie, Eli, and Ivy presented us all with a play - so here it is!
Friday, April 3, 2009
Grandparents at work...
Vickie and I are in Phoenix as I'm writing this. We came down to watch Adam and Aimee's three children (Lizzie, Eli, and Ivy) while they are in Costa Rica celebrating their 10th anniversary. Check Aimee's blog for details.
Before Adam and Aimee left, we went to an exciting school carnival.
Later the same day, we also went to the first of three of Eli's baseball games for the week. While Eli was listening to the coach, in the field or at bat, Lizzie and Ivy practiced their cheering. It's amazing how quickly Ivy picks up on the cheers that Lizzie designs. Here
is a picture and a video clip for your enjoyment.
Of course, April Fool's Day just happened to fall when we were here, so Vickie and I had to put together a suitable menu. For breakfast, we made fried eggs and bacon on toast. Nothing too unusual there, except that the toast was pound cake, the eggs were whipped cream and half apricots, and the bacon was fruit leather!
Of course, the kids had to take snacks to school, so we sent them off with rocks and wormy apples (rock candy and apples with gummy worms added:
The kids had a relatively unexciting day at school. It turns out that elementary school kids just aren't as inventive on April 1st as, say, high school kids or even older (say 60-ish) semi-juvenile delinquents, so the little ones didn't have a lot to report.
On the home front, though, creative cooking was under way. Dinner was cupcakes (meat loaf cooked in muffin tins and frosted with tinted mashed potatoes, then put in paper cups and topped with a cherry tomato), mixed peas and carrots (from the candy store - unfortunately, the peas were mint flavored!), and fruit salad (also from the candy store, including such fruity things as orange slices, peach rounds, and candy raspberries and blackberries.) They all seemed to enjoy the dinner.
Dessert was a slightly different matter: the menu was dirt, mud, and worms. (Actually, crushed Oreos, chocolate pudding, and gummy worms, respectively - but it looks pretty bad! And the reaction was decidedly mixed, at least until they tried it.
Before Adam and Aimee left, we went to an exciting school carnival.
Later the same day, we also went to the first of three of Eli's baseball games for the week. While Eli was listening to the coach, in the field or at bat, Lizzie and Ivy practiced their cheering. It's amazing how quickly Ivy picks up on the cheers that Lizzie designs. Here
is a picture and a video clip for your enjoyment.Of course, April Fool's Day just happened to fall when we were here, so Vickie and I had to put together a suitable menu. For breakfast, we made fried eggs and bacon on toast. Nothing too unusual there, except that the toast was pound cake, the eggs were whipped cream and half apricots, and the bacon was fruit leather!
Of course, the kids had to take snacks to school, so we sent them off with rocks and wormy apples (rock candy and apples with gummy worms added:
The kids had a relatively unexciting day at school. It turns out that elementary school kids just aren't as inventive on April 1st as, say, high school kids or even older (say 60-ish) semi-juvenile delinquents, so the little ones didn't have a lot to report.
On the home front, though, creative cooking was under way. Dinner was cupcakes (meat loaf cooked in muffin tins and frosted with tinted mashed potatoes, then put in paper cups and topped with a cherry tomato), mixed peas and carrots (from the candy store - unfortunately, the peas were mint flavored!), and fruit salad (also from the candy store, including such fruity things as orange slices, peach rounds, and candy raspberries and blackberries.) They all seemed to enjoy the dinner.
Dessert was a slightly different matter: the menu was dirt, mud, and worms. (Actually, crushed Oreos, chocolate pudding, and gummy worms, respectively - but it looks pretty bad! And the reaction was decidedly mixed, at least until they tried it.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
A Fun Anniversary
Vickie and I celebrated our 8th anniversary on Tuesday the 17th. We had been planning to just hit dinner and a movie, but those plans changed markedly for the better. Here's the story.
Vickie is involved with planning a yearly women's retreat. A few weeks ago the ski resort where the retreat has been held for a couple years called and said that they were not going to have a summer season this year, so the retreat would have to find a new site. Slight panic ensued, since the retreat draws about 70 women, and involves meetings and seminars, not to mention meals and a place to stay overnight. So Vickie sent out feelers to all kinds of places, including several in Park City. If you're not familiar with Utah, Park City is about 30 miles from Salt Lake, and was the site of many Winter Olympic events in 2002. It's a terrific and funky ski town. Click here for some more information on the place.
Tuesday afternoon, the meeting consultant for a motel in Park City called and invited Vickie and her committee to come up and take a look at their facility. Vickie said that she would love to, but that it was hard to get the committe together, and anyway, it was our anniversary. The response was, "I've got a hot-tub suite with your name on it if you'd like to come use it tonight." So we ended up taking a quick ride
up the canyon and spending a night in the Honeymoon Suite at the Best Western Landmark Inn in Park City.
I don't know if the committee will decide to hold their meeting there, but it was certainly a wonderful place for an anniversary. We first went out to dinner at the Red Rock, a brew pub close to the motel. This place has a great reputation, and based on our meal, it's justified.
After dinner, we went back to the motel and took a tour of the place to see if it would be suitable for the meeting (I think it would be terrific, but I'm not the one who decides.) Then we took out the DVD we brought, started filling the hot tub, and settled in for the night. What a place! Here are some pictures:
Vickie is involved with planning a yearly women's retreat. A few weeks ago the ski resort where the retreat has been held for a couple years called and said that they were not going to have a summer season this year, so the retreat would have to find a new site. Slight panic ensued, since the retreat draws about 70 women, and involves meetings and seminars, not to mention meals and a place to stay overnight. So Vickie sent out feelers to all kinds of places, including several in Park City. If you're not familiar with Utah, Park City is about 30 miles from Salt Lake, and was the site of many Winter Olympic events in 2002. It's a terrific and funky ski town. Click here for some more information on the place.
Tuesday afternoon, the meeting consultant for a motel in Park City called and invited Vickie and her committee to come up and take a look at their facility. Vickie said that she would love to, but that it was hard to get the committe together, and anyway, it was our anniversary. The response was, "I've got a hot-tub suite with your name on it if you'd like to come use it tonight." So we ended up taking a quick ride
up the canyon and spending a night in the Honeymoon Suite at the Best Western Landmark Inn in Park City.I don't know if the committee will decide to hold their meeting there, but it was certainly a wonderful place for an anniversary. We first went out to dinner at the Red Rock, a brew pub close to the motel. This place has a great reputation, and based on our meal, it's justified.
After dinner, we went back to the motel and took a tour of the place to see if it would be suitable for the meeting (I think it would be terrific, but I'm not the one who decides.) Then we took out the DVD we brought, started filling the hot tub, and settled in for the night. What a place! Here are some pictures:
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Aphorisms - IV (and end)
Here are the last of my collection, for now:
It is one thing to show a man that he is in error, but quite another to put him in possession of truth. - John Locke
Few sinners are saved after the first twenty minutes of a sermon. - Mark Twain
If you add to the truth, you subtract from it. - the Talmud
Judge talent at its best and character at its worst. - Acton
A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops. - Henry Adams
The primary danger of the TV screen lies not so much in the behavior it produces as the behavior it prevents - the talks, the games, the family activities, and the arguments through which much of the child's learning takes place and his character is formed. - Urie Bronfenbrenner
You don't always have to solve problems; sometimes technology enables you to bypass a problem. - E. E.David, Jr. , scientific advisor to Presidents Nixon and Johnson
Canned thinking, like canned meat, is not dangerous, providing that fresh thinking has preceded it.
The paradox of time - few people have enough, yet everyone has all there is.
Be sure, when you think you are being extremely tactful, that you are not in reality running away from something that you ought to face. - Frank Medlicott
The growth of wisdom may be gauged accurately by the decline of ill temper. - Nietzsche
We must interpret a bad temper as the sign of an inferiority complex. - Alfred Adler
He who learns but does not think is lost;
he who thinks but does not learn is in danger.
- Confucius
On losing one's temper - It's like a sharp nail that tears the threads of something durable and lovely. We may use every bit of patience and skill in mending it, but we cannot make it like new again. The darned place will always be conspicuous. - Margaret E. Sangster
There is time for everything. - Thomas A. Edison
Those who do the least always seem to have the least time. - Arnold Glascow
No hour is to be considered a waste which teaches one what not do to. - Charles B. Rogers
Tradition means handing on all that is valuable to the next generation.
The obscure we see eventually; the completely apparent takes longer.
Work is a great blessing; after evil came into the world, work was given as an antidote, not as a punishment. - Arthur S. Hardy
Nothing would be done at all if a person waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault with it. - John Henry Newman
Wisdom is special knowledge in excess of all that is known. - Ambrose Bierce
The wise avoid evil by anticipating it. - Publilius Syrus
Work fascinates me; I could sit and watch it all day. - Mark Twain
Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labor wears, while the used key is always bright. - Benjamin Franklin
Many of us spend half our time wishing for things we could have if only we didn't spend half our time wishing. - Alexander Wollcott
There are two things needed in these days: first, for rich men to find out how poor men live; second, for poor men to find out how rich men work. - Edward Atkinson
All I want is less to do, more time to do it, and more pay for not getting it done.
Cease from the folly of metaphysical speculation...and pursue one end alone - how you may do what your hands find to do and go your way with never a passion, always a smile. - Lucian
Only those who have the patience to do simple things perfectly will acquire the skill to do difficult things easily. - Schiller
Knowledge is proud that it knows so much; wisdom is humble that it knows no more. - William Cowper
Work is the refuge of people who have nothing better to do. - Oscar Wilde
An ounce of application is worth a ton of abstraction. - Booker T. Washington
If your luck is good, you get credit for wisdom.
True wisdom comes from the overcoming of suffering and sin. All true wisdom is therefore touched with sadness. - Whittaker Chambers
Nothing is work unless you would rather be doing something else. - James M. Barrie
Diligence is the mother of good fortune, and idleness, its opposite, never brought a man to the goal of any of his best wishes. - Miguel de Cervantes
Experience has shown that success is due less to ability than to zeal. The winner is he who gives himself to his work body and soul.
It is usually better to do the wrong thing than to do nothing. - Winston Churchill
There is no greater cause of melancholy than idleness. - Robert Burton
Work is dull only to those who take no pride in it. - William Feather
Concentrate on your work and the applause will take care of itself. - B.C.Forbes
It is one thing to show a man that he is in error, but quite another to put him in possession of truth. - John Locke
Few sinners are saved after the first twenty minutes of a sermon. - Mark Twain
If you add to the truth, you subtract from it. - the Talmud
Judge talent at its best and character at its worst. - Acton
A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops. - Henry Adams
The primary danger of the TV screen lies not so much in the behavior it produces as the behavior it prevents - the talks, the games, the family activities, and the arguments through which much of the child's learning takes place and his character is formed. - Urie Bronfenbrenner
You don't always have to solve problems; sometimes technology enables you to bypass a problem. - E. E.David, Jr. , scientific advisor to Presidents Nixon and Johnson
Canned thinking, like canned meat, is not dangerous, providing that fresh thinking has preceded it.
The paradox of time - few people have enough, yet everyone has all there is.
Be sure, when you think you are being extremely tactful, that you are not in reality running away from something that you ought to face. - Frank Medlicott
The growth of wisdom may be gauged accurately by the decline of ill temper. - Nietzsche
We must interpret a bad temper as the sign of an inferiority complex. - Alfred Adler
He who learns but does not think is lost;
he who thinks but does not learn is in danger.
- Confucius
On losing one's temper - It's like a sharp nail that tears the threads of something durable and lovely. We may use every bit of patience and skill in mending it, but we cannot make it like new again. The darned place will always be conspicuous. - Margaret E. Sangster
There is time for everything. - Thomas A. Edison
Those who do the least always seem to have the least time. - Arnold Glascow
No hour is to be considered a waste which teaches one what not do to. - Charles B. Rogers
Tradition means handing on all that is valuable to the next generation.
The obscure we see eventually; the completely apparent takes longer.
Work is a great blessing; after evil came into the world, work was given as an antidote, not as a punishment. - Arthur S. Hardy
Nothing would be done at all if a person waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault with it. - John Henry Newman
Wisdom is special knowledge in excess of all that is known. - Ambrose Bierce
The wise avoid evil by anticipating it. - Publilius Syrus
Work fascinates me; I could sit and watch it all day. - Mark Twain
Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labor wears, while the used key is always bright. - Benjamin Franklin
Many of us spend half our time wishing for things we could have if only we didn't spend half our time wishing. - Alexander Wollcott
There are two things needed in these days: first, for rich men to find out how poor men live; second, for poor men to find out how rich men work. - Edward Atkinson
All I want is less to do, more time to do it, and more pay for not getting it done.
Cease from the folly of metaphysical speculation...and pursue one end alone - how you may do what your hands find to do and go your way with never a passion, always a smile. - Lucian
Only those who have the patience to do simple things perfectly will acquire the skill to do difficult things easily. - Schiller
Knowledge is proud that it knows so much; wisdom is humble that it knows no more. - William Cowper
Work is the refuge of people who have nothing better to do. - Oscar Wilde
An ounce of application is worth a ton of abstraction. - Booker T. Washington
If your luck is good, you get credit for wisdom.
True wisdom comes from the overcoming of suffering and sin. All true wisdom is therefore touched with sadness. - Whittaker Chambers
Nothing is work unless you would rather be doing something else. - James M. Barrie
Diligence is the mother of good fortune, and idleness, its opposite, never brought a man to the goal of any of his best wishes. - Miguel de Cervantes
Experience has shown that success is due less to ability than to zeal. The winner is he who gives himself to his work body and soul.
It is usually better to do the wrong thing than to do nothing. - Winston Churchill
There is no greater cause of melancholy than idleness. - Robert Burton
Work is dull only to those who take no pride in it. - William Feather
Concentrate on your work and the applause will take care of itself. - B.C.Forbes
My little sayings - III
Here are some more of my aphorisms - enjoy!
If priesthood were perfect, all the world would be converted. - from Piers Plowman, ca 1340, John Langeland
I have nothing but contempt for the kind of governor who is afraid for whatever reason to follow the course that he knows is best for the state; and as for the man who sets private friendship above the public welfare - I have no use for him, either. - Sophocles, 495-505 BCE
A man need not extol his virtues nor comment on his failings; his friends know the former and his enemies will search out the latter. - Charles B. Rogers
Praise is like perfume: it's fine if you don't swallow it. - Dwight D. Eisenhower
Pollution is of three types: 1 - Actual, 2 - Political, 3 - Emotional
Essential steps in any program:
Reading with reflecting is like eating without digesting. - Edmund Burke
Unlike the movies, real life provides no musical background to help us recognize the climactic moments.
We are judged by what we do - not what we claim we do. - William Feather
The inevitable law of results: Cheap, Quick, Good - pick any two
Repentance makes a man live longer. - The Talmud
The problem is not shortage of data, but rather our inability to perceive the consequences of the information we already possess. - Jay W. Forrester
If resolutely people do what is right, in time they come to like doing it. - John Ruskin
I forget the greater part of what I read, but all the same it nourishes my mind. - Georg C. Lichtenberg
The real steps of research:
Children see major events reported in 90 seconds of a newscast. If a shooting war can be covered in less than two minutes, then a 200-page book seems just too long to read. - Dr. Nicholas Long
The price of greatness is responsibility. - Winston Churchill
All that mankind has done, thought, gained, or been - it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books. - Thomas Carlyle
Facts are of slight value unless they are intelligently interpreted. - William Feather
It is no paradox to say that in our most theoretical moods we may be nearest to our most practical applications. - Alfred North Whitehead
Knowledge is the only instrument of production that is not subject to diminishing returns. - J.M.Clark
The element of the unexpected and the unforeseeable is what gives some of its relish to life and saves us from falling into the mechanical thralldom of the logicians. - Winston Churchill
Reverence for life does not allow the scholar to live for his science alone. Reverence for life does not permit the artist to exist only for his art, even if he gives inspiration to many by its means. Reverence for life refuses to let the businessman imagine that he fulfills all legitimate demands in the course of his business activities. Reverence for life demands for all that they should sacrifice a portion of their own lives for others. - Albert Schweitzer
A team is where a boy can prove his courage on his own; a gang is where a coward goes to hide. - Mickey Mantle
One of the charms of the scientific enterprise is how deficient we can be and still play some meaningful part in it. - Robert Oppenheimer
Science has its cathedrals, built by a few architects and many workmen. - G.N.Lewis
Sleep is the golden chain that ties health and our bodies together. - Thomas Dekker
Whatever one may call the Creator, his only authentic revelation is the universe. Science is the study of the work of the Creator, a kind of divine service, a search for truth, searched with uncompromising honesty. - Albert Szent-Gyorgi
History shows that, no matter how generous others may be, those who have been helped the most are those who have helped themselves. - William Simon
Man seeks his own good at the whole world's cost. - Robert Browning
Failure is harder than success. Who works harder, the man who saunters down to the train ahead of time, or the one who misses it by 15 seconds after running three blocks? - William Feather
It took TV soap operas to get sex education out of the schools and into the home, where it belongs. - Linda Ellerbee
Seriousness is the final refuge of the shallow intellect.
The only conquests that are permanent and leave no regrets are our conquests over ourselves. - Napoleon Bonaparte
The most significant data are the most elusive. - Hugh D. Crone
Science is a process that seeks truth;
politics is a process that seeks survival.
There are seven sins in the world:
wealth without work
pleasure without conscience
knowledge without character
commerce without morality
science without humility
worship without sacrifice
politics without principle
- Mahatma Gandhi
There are hundreds who can stand failure to one who can stand success; the good loser is far more common than the good winner. - Franklin P. Adams
Endurance is the best success insurance. - Arnold Glascow
He who is master of himself will soon be master of others. - H.G. Bohn
Only a few men can be counted on to rise to the occasion. Even fewer know when to sit down.
If priesthood were perfect, all the world would be converted. - from Piers Plowman, ca 1340, John Langeland
I have nothing but contempt for the kind of governor who is afraid for whatever reason to follow the course that he knows is best for the state; and as for the man who sets private friendship above the public welfare - I have no use for him, either. - Sophocles, 495-505 BCE
A man need not extol his virtues nor comment on his failings; his friends know the former and his enemies will search out the latter. - Charles B. Rogers
Praise is like perfume: it's fine if you don't swallow it. - Dwight D. Eisenhower
Pollution is of three types: 1 - Actual, 2 - Political, 3 - Emotional
Essential steps in any program:
- Wild enthusiasm
- Disillusionment
- Panic
- Search for the guilty
- Punish the innocent
- Reward and promote non-participants
Reading with reflecting is like eating without digesting. - Edmund Burke
Unlike the movies, real life provides no musical background to help us recognize the climactic moments.
We are judged by what we do - not what we claim we do. - William Feather
The inevitable law of results: Cheap, Quick, Good - pick any two
Repentance makes a man live longer. - The Talmud
The problem is not shortage of data, but rather our inability to perceive the consequences of the information we already possess. - Jay W. Forrester
If resolutely people do what is right, in time they come to like doing it. - John Ruskin
I forget the greater part of what I read, but all the same it nourishes my mind. - Georg C. Lichtenberg
The real steps of research:
- Interest
- Preparation
- Incubation
- Illumination
- Verification
- Exploitation
Children see major events reported in 90 seconds of a newscast. If a shooting war can be covered in less than two minutes, then a 200-page book seems just too long to read. - Dr. Nicholas Long
The price of greatness is responsibility. - Winston Churchill
All that mankind has done, thought, gained, or been - it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books. - Thomas Carlyle
Facts are of slight value unless they are intelligently interpreted. - William Feather
It is no paradox to say that in our most theoretical moods we may be nearest to our most practical applications. - Alfred North Whitehead
Knowledge is the only instrument of production that is not subject to diminishing returns. - J.M.Clark
The element of the unexpected and the unforeseeable is what gives some of its relish to life and saves us from falling into the mechanical thralldom of the logicians. - Winston Churchill
Reverence for life does not allow the scholar to live for his science alone. Reverence for life does not permit the artist to exist only for his art, even if he gives inspiration to many by its means. Reverence for life refuses to let the businessman imagine that he fulfills all legitimate demands in the course of his business activities. Reverence for life demands for all that they should sacrifice a portion of their own lives for others. - Albert Schweitzer
A team is where a boy can prove his courage on his own; a gang is where a coward goes to hide. - Mickey Mantle
One of the charms of the scientific enterprise is how deficient we can be and still play some meaningful part in it. - Robert Oppenheimer
Science has its cathedrals, built by a few architects and many workmen. - G.N.Lewis
Sleep is the golden chain that ties health and our bodies together. - Thomas Dekker
Whatever one may call the Creator, his only authentic revelation is the universe. Science is the study of the work of the Creator, a kind of divine service, a search for truth, searched with uncompromising honesty. - Albert Szent-Gyorgi
History shows that, no matter how generous others may be, those who have been helped the most are those who have helped themselves. - William Simon
Man seeks his own good at the whole world's cost. - Robert Browning
Failure is harder than success. Who works harder, the man who saunters down to the train ahead of time, or the one who misses it by 15 seconds after running three blocks? - William Feather
It took TV soap operas to get sex education out of the schools and into the home, where it belongs. - Linda Ellerbee
Seriousness is the final refuge of the shallow intellect.
The only conquests that are permanent and leave no regrets are our conquests over ourselves. - Napoleon Bonaparte
The most significant data are the most elusive. - Hugh D. Crone
Science is a process that seeks truth;
politics is a process that seeks survival.
There are seven sins in the world:
wealth without work
pleasure without conscience
knowledge without character
commerce without morality
science without humility
worship without sacrifice
politics without principle
- Mahatma Gandhi
There are hundreds who can stand failure to one who can stand success; the good loser is far more common than the good winner. - Franklin P. Adams
Endurance is the best success insurance. - Arnold Glascow
He who is master of himself will soon be master of others. - H.G. Bohn
Only a few men can be counted on to rise to the occasion. Even fewer know when to sit down.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Favorite little sayings - II
Here are some more of them:
A fanatic is simply a person who does what he thinks the Lord would do if He knew all the facts. - F.P.Dunne
To believe is to learn to think like God. - Andre Frossard, French theologian
The wise man will want to be ever with him who is better than himself. - Plato
If businessmen took their jobs for granted in the same way that many of them neglect their wives and children, they'd be looking around for another position. - George Penn
Liberty is a luxury of the self-disciplined. - Montesquieu
People who try to do something and fail are infinitely better than those who try nothing and succeed. - Lloyd Jones
Anyone who believes that business runs on fact rather than fiction has never read old five-year projections. - Malcolm Forbes
When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship. - Harry Truman
God should not be judged on the basis of this world - it is just one of his rough sketches. - Vincent Van Gogh
An elephant is a mouse designed to government specifications.
Everyone is always in favor of general economy and particular expenses. - Anthony Eden
Central government is the most efficient agency for the collecting of money, and the most inefficient for spending it. - E.G.Schumacher, British economist
No duty is more urgent than that of returning thanks. - St. Ambrose
Unless you know where you are going, any road will get you there. - Theodore Levitt
No wind favors him who has no destined port. - Michel de Montaigne
He who is not liberal with what he has deceives himself when he thinks he would be liberal if he had more. - William S. Plumer
Rocks have been shaken from their solid base, but what shall move a firm and dauntless mind? - Joanna Baillie
Beware of what you set your heart on, for it shall surely be yours. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
When we hate our enemies, we give them power over us. - Dale Carnegie
The first condition of happiness is a clear conscience. - David O. McKay
It is just as hard to break a good habit as a bad one, so get good habits and keep them. - William McKinley
There can be no happiness if the things we believe are different from the things we do. - Freda Stark
A healthy body is a guest-chamber for the soul; a sick body is a prison. - Francis Bacon
The greatest thing in the world is to be able to do something well, and say nothing about it. - E.W.Howe
The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts. - Marcus Aurelius
One can endure sorrow alone, but it takes two to be glad. - Elbert Hubbard
Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. - George Santayana
There is something in humility that strangely exalts the heart. - St. Augustine
To know is science; merely to believe one knows is ignorance. - Hippocrates
An intellectual is a person educated beyond his intelligence. - Fulton Sheen
Innovation consists of seeing what everyone has seen and thinking what no one else has thought. - Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
More of us might live up to our ideals if we knew what they were. - Arnold Glascow
The smallest good deed is better than the grandest intention.
Men, like nails, lose their usefulness when they lose direction and begin to bend. - Walter Savage Landor
Every invention goes through three stages: doubt of its existence, denial of its importance, credit to someone else. - Alexander von Humboldt
Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them to become what they are capable of being. - Goethe
Good judgment comes from experience; experience comes from bad judgment. - 'Kingfish' on Amos n' Andy
Never carry your shotgun or your knowledge half-cocked. - Austin O'Malley
People are born to kindness as a wind is born to movement. - Neil Miller
Since we cannot know all there is to be known of everything, we ought to know a little about everything. - Blaise Pascal
Diligence is the mother of good luck. - Benjamin Franklin
Life is made up not of great sacrifices or duties, but of little things in which smiles and kindnesses and small obligations, given habitually, are what win and preserve the heart and secure comfort. - Humphrey Davy
Some folks believe liberty is doing as they please, but with controls on others. - Arnold Glascow
Love your enemies; not only does the Good Book say so, but it will make them madder than anything else you could do. - Mark Twain
There are no chances so unlucky from which clever people are not able to reap some advantage; and none so lucky that the foolish are not able to turn them to their own disadvantage.
Leadership is the ability to get people to do what they don't want to do - and like it. - Harry Truman
A great deal of the joy of life consists in doing perfectly, or at least to the best of one's ability, everything which he attempts to do. There is a sense of satisfaction, a pride in surveying such a work - a work which is rounded, full, exact, complete in all its parts - which the superficial man, who leaves his work in a slovenly, slipshod, half-finished condition, can never know. It is this conscientious completeness which turns work into art. The smallest thing, well done, becomes artistic. - William Mathews
There is a difference between the casualness of mastery and the carelessness of ignorance. - Charles B. Rogers
Marriage teaches you loyalty, forbearance, self-restraint, meekness, and a great many other things you wouldn't need if you had stayed single. - Jimmy Townsend
I am opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position. - Mark Twain
The first hour of the morning is the rudder of the day. - Henry Ward Beecher
Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, and half-shut afterwards. - David O. McKay
To live is good. To live vividly is better. To live vividly together is best of all. - Max Eastman
When there are no other values, money counts for everything. - Digby Baltzell
Management: When in charge, ponder. When in trouble, delegate. When in doubt, mumble.
Mathematicians are a species of Frenchmen: if you say something to them, they translate it into their language and presto! it is something entirely different.
A good musical comedy consists largely of disorderly conduct interrupted occasionally by talk. - George Abe
Without music, life would be a mistake. - Friedrich Nietzsche
Concentrated preparation for musical performances should be tempered with physical conditioning. - Eugene Fodor, concert violinist
Our life would stagnate if it were not for the enexplored forests and meadows which surround it. We need the tonic of wilderness. We can never have enough of nature. - Henry David Thoreau
We are faced with great opportunities, brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems. - John Gardner
If you're going to have strong opinions, you can't be intimidated by facts that don't fit. - Malcomb Forbes
A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.
Every man has a right to his opinion, but he has no right to base it on the wrong facts. - Bernard Baruch
Philosophers learn less and less about more and more until they finally know nothing about everything. Scientists, on the other hand, learn more and more about less and less, until they finally know everything about nothing.
Let us not fall into the trap of doing that which is important at the expense of that which is most important. - Thomas S. Monson
Procrastination is just another form of fear.
The person who thinks he has no faults has at least one.
I shall tell you a great truth, my friend. Do not wait for the last judgment: it takes place every day. - Albert Camus
No man can guess in cold blood what he may do in a passion. - H.G. Bohn
Professionalism means consistency of quality. - Frank Tyger
A man progresses in all things by resolutely making a fool of himself. - George Bernard Shaw
Politeness is good nature regulated by good sense.
You can't pray with your fists clenched. - Geoffrey Bocca
Practical prayer is harder on the soles of your shoes than on the knees of your trousers. - Austin O'Malley
The first mistake in public business is the going into it. - Benjamin Franklin
Knowledge in depth and in breadth are virtual prerequsites for significan invention. Unless the mind is thoroughly charged beforehand, the proverbial spark of genius, if it should manifest itself, probably will find nothing to ignite. - Paul J. Flory
A fanatic is simply a person who does what he thinks the Lord would do if He knew all the facts. - F.P.Dunne
To believe is to learn to think like God. - Andre Frossard, French theologian
The wise man will want to be ever with him who is better than himself. - Plato
If businessmen took their jobs for granted in the same way that many of them neglect their wives and children, they'd be looking around for another position. - George Penn
Liberty is a luxury of the self-disciplined. - Montesquieu
People who try to do something and fail are infinitely better than those who try nothing and succeed. - Lloyd Jones
Anyone who believes that business runs on fact rather than fiction has never read old five-year projections. - Malcolm Forbes
When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship. - Harry Truman
God should not be judged on the basis of this world - it is just one of his rough sketches. - Vincent Van Gogh
An elephant is a mouse designed to government specifications.
Everyone is always in favor of general economy and particular expenses. - Anthony Eden
Central government is the most efficient agency for the collecting of money, and the most inefficient for spending it. - E.G.Schumacher, British economist
No duty is more urgent than that of returning thanks. - St. Ambrose
Unless you know where you are going, any road will get you there. - Theodore Levitt
No wind favors him who has no destined port. - Michel de Montaigne
He who is not liberal with what he has deceives himself when he thinks he would be liberal if he had more. - William S. Plumer
Rocks have been shaken from their solid base, but what shall move a firm and dauntless mind? - Joanna Baillie
Beware of what you set your heart on, for it shall surely be yours. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
When we hate our enemies, we give them power over us. - Dale Carnegie
The first condition of happiness is a clear conscience. - David O. McKay
It is just as hard to break a good habit as a bad one, so get good habits and keep them. - William McKinley
There can be no happiness if the things we believe are different from the things we do. - Freda Stark
A healthy body is a guest-chamber for the soul; a sick body is a prison. - Francis Bacon
The greatest thing in the world is to be able to do something well, and say nothing about it. - E.W.Howe
The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts. - Marcus Aurelius
One can endure sorrow alone, but it takes two to be glad. - Elbert Hubbard
Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. - George Santayana
There is something in humility that strangely exalts the heart. - St. Augustine
To know is science; merely to believe one knows is ignorance. - Hippocrates
An intellectual is a person educated beyond his intelligence. - Fulton Sheen
Innovation consists of seeing what everyone has seen and thinking what no one else has thought. - Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
More of us might live up to our ideals if we knew what they were. - Arnold Glascow
The smallest good deed is better than the grandest intention.
Men, like nails, lose their usefulness when they lose direction and begin to bend. - Walter Savage Landor
Every invention goes through three stages: doubt of its existence, denial of its importance, credit to someone else. - Alexander von Humboldt
Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them to become what they are capable of being. - Goethe
Good judgment comes from experience; experience comes from bad judgment. - 'Kingfish' on Amos n' Andy
Never carry your shotgun or your knowledge half-cocked. - Austin O'Malley
People are born to kindness as a wind is born to movement. - Neil Miller
Since we cannot know all there is to be known of everything, we ought to know a little about everything. - Blaise Pascal
Diligence is the mother of good luck. - Benjamin Franklin
Life is made up not of great sacrifices or duties, but of little things in which smiles and kindnesses and small obligations, given habitually, are what win and preserve the heart and secure comfort. - Humphrey Davy
Some folks believe liberty is doing as they please, but with controls on others. - Arnold Glascow
Love your enemies; not only does the Good Book say so, but it will make them madder than anything else you could do. - Mark Twain
There are no chances so unlucky from which clever people are not able to reap some advantage; and none so lucky that the foolish are not able to turn them to their own disadvantage.
Leadership is the ability to get people to do what they don't want to do - and like it. - Harry Truman
A great deal of the joy of life consists in doing perfectly, or at least to the best of one's ability, everything which he attempts to do. There is a sense of satisfaction, a pride in surveying such a work - a work which is rounded, full, exact, complete in all its parts - which the superficial man, who leaves his work in a slovenly, slipshod, half-finished condition, can never know. It is this conscientious completeness which turns work into art. The smallest thing, well done, becomes artistic. - William Mathews
There is a difference between the casualness of mastery and the carelessness of ignorance. - Charles B. Rogers
Marriage teaches you loyalty, forbearance, self-restraint, meekness, and a great many other things you wouldn't need if you had stayed single. - Jimmy Townsend
I am opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position. - Mark Twain
The first hour of the morning is the rudder of the day. - Henry Ward Beecher
Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, and half-shut afterwards. - David O. McKay
To live is good. To live vividly is better. To live vividly together is best of all. - Max Eastman
When there are no other values, money counts for everything. - Digby Baltzell
Management: When in charge, ponder. When in trouble, delegate. When in doubt, mumble.
Mathematicians are a species of Frenchmen: if you say something to them, they translate it into their language and presto! it is something entirely different.
A good musical comedy consists largely of disorderly conduct interrupted occasionally by talk. - George Abe
Without music, life would be a mistake. - Friedrich Nietzsche
Concentrated preparation for musical performances should be tempered with physical conditioning. - Eugene Fodor, concert violinist
Our life would stagnate if it were not for the enexplored forests and meadows which surround it. We need the tonic of wilderness. We can never have enough of nature. - Henry David Thoreau
We are faced with great opportunities, brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems. - John Gardner
If you're going to have strong opinions, you can't be intimidated by facts that don't fit. - Malcomb Forbes
A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.
Every man has a right to his opinion, but he has no right to base it on the wrong facts. - Bernard Baruch
Philosophers learn less and less about more and more until they finally know nothing about everything. Scientists, on the other hand, learn more and more about less and less, until they finally know everything about nothing.
Let us not fall into the trap of doing that which is important at the expense of that which is most important. - Thomas S. Monson
Procrastination is just another form of fear.
The person who thinks he has no faults has at least one.
I shall tell you a great truth, my friend. Do not wait for the last judgment: it takes place every day. - Albert Camus
No man can guess in cold blood what he may do in a passion. - H.G. Bohn
Professionalism means consistency of quality. - Frank Tyger
A man progresses in all things by resolutely making a fool of himself. - George Bernard Shaw
Politeness is good nature regulated by good sense.
You can't pray with your fists clenched. - Geoffrey Bocca
Practical prayer is harder on the soles of your shoes than on the knees of your trousers. - Austin O'Malley
The first mistake in public business is the going into it. - Benjamin Franklin
Knowledge in depth and in breadth are virtual prerequsites for significan invention. Unless the mind is thoroughly charged beforehand, the proverbial spark of genius, if it should manifest itself, probably will find nothing to ignite. - Paul J. Flory
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Favorite little sayings - I
For years, I've been collecting sayings of all types, usually aphorisms giving sage advice in interesting and memorable language. So I thought I might share a few. There's not particular theme, just some that I remember or had written down. This is the first posting in a series (I've got a LOT of these.)
It's not necessary to understand things in order to argue about them. - Caron de Beaumarchais
We cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once. - Calvin Coolidge
Never ask of money spent
Where the spender thinks it went.
Nobody was ever meant
To remember or invent
What he did with every cent. - Robert Frost
The angry man always thinks he can do more than he can. - Albertano of Brescia
When funds are limitless, the only economy is usually in thinking. - Parkinson
Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you an automobile. - Laurence J. Peter
The world is divided into people who do things
And people who get the credit. - Dwight Morrow
The only unchangeable things in nature are either fossils or will soon become extinct.
Christianity is not something that has been tried and found wanting, but something that has been found difficult and left untried. - G.K.Chesterton
Words were given to man to enable him to conceal his true feelings. - Voltaire
Confidence is what you feel before you understand the problem.
Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen. - Winston Churchill
The virtue of a man ought to be measured not by his extraordinary exertions, but by his everyday conduct. - Blaise Pascal
Conscience is the voice that tells us what other people should do.
Try not to become a person of success, but rather a person of value. - Albert Einstein
Nothing tells more about the character of a man than the things he makes fun of. - Goethe
History is full of examples of lonely thinkers who were belittled by the established figures of the time and who, it now turns out, were deservedly neglected. - Leon Lipson
Not a change for the better in our human housekeeping has ever taken place that wise and good men have not opposed it. - James Russell Lowell
Courage consists in equality to the problem before us. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Satisfaction of one's curiosity is one of the greatest sources of happiness in life. - Linus Pauling
The composer Max Reger wrote the following rebuttal to a critical review: "I am sitting in the smallest room in my house. I have your review in front of me. Soon it will be behind me."
I read in a book that a man named Christ went about doing good. It is very disconcerting to me that I am so easily satisfied with just going about. - Toyohiko Kagawa
It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world, and moral courage so rare. - Mark Twain
A creative mind merely has ideas; a resourceful mind makes them practical. - Georges F. Doriot
Debt is a trap which people set and bait themselves, and then deliberately step into. - Josh Billings
It's not that people value money more, but that they value everything else so much less - not that they are more greedy, but that they have no other values to keep greed in check. - Dee Hock, former president of VISA
Scripture for dentists: "...open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it." - Psalms 81:10
To give great attention to details is one mark of genius - to putter with trifles is not. - Charles B. Rogers
Our doubts are traitors and cause us to miss the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt. - Shakespeare
The liberally educated person is one who is able to resist the easy and preferred answers; not because he is obstinate, but because he knows others worthy of consideration. - Allan Bloom
A great many of today's problems are caused by a tremendous surplus of simple answers, coupled with a horrible shortage of simple questions.
If God could have sons, all of us were his sons. If Jesus was like God, or God himself, then all men were like God and could be God himself. - Gandhi
There is no solution to any crisis that can allay an infinity of fears while assuming zero risk. Attempts to satisfy these two impossible constraints are responsible for the lack of positive action. Our current policy is enmeshed precisely in this zero-infinity dilemma. - Bernard S. Lee, President, Institute of Gas Technology
An economist is a person who, when he doesn't have a clue, will always come up with an estimate.
Education - that which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding. - Ambroise Bierce
Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence. - Robert Frost
Anyone who promises you a return to the days of cheap, abundant energy is either naive, stupid, or blind to the realities of life. If this country had reacted to Pearl Harbor as we have to our energy problem, we would all be speaking Japanese today. - Robert Robel, Kansas State Univ. (from 1976!)
An expert doesn't necessarily know more than you do, but he has it better organized and shows slides. - Paul Harwitz
How many fancy they have experience simply because they have grown old! - Stanslaus Lee
It is essential that the student acquire an understanding of and a lively feeling for values. He must acquire a vivid sense of the beautiful and the morally good. Otherwise, he - with his specialized knowledge - more closely resembles a well-trained dog than a harmoniously developed person. - Albert Einstein
Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him. - Aldous Huxley
It's not necessary to understand things in order to argue about them. - Caron de Beaumarchais
We cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once. - Calvin Coolidge
Never ask of money spent
Where the spender thinks it went.
Nobody was ever meant
To remember or invent
What he did with every cent. - Robert Frost
The angry man always thinks he can do more than he can. - Albertano of Brescia
When funds are limitless, the only economy is usually in thinking. - Parkinson
Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you an automobile. - Laurence J. Peter
The world is divided into people who do things
And people who get the credit. - Dwight Morrow
The only unchangeable things in nature are either fossils or will soon become extinct.
Christianity is not something that has been tried and found wanting, but something that has been found difficult and left untried. - G.K.Chesterton
Words were given to man to enable him to conceal his true feelings. - Voltaire
Confidence is what you feel before you understand the problem.
Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen. - Winston Churchill
The virtue of a man ought to be measured not by his extraordinary exertions, but by his everyday conduct. - Blaise Pascal
Conscience is the voice that tells us what other people should do.
Try not to become a person of success, but rather a person of value. - Albert Einstein
Nothing tells more about the character of a man than the things he makes fun of. - Goethe
History is full of examples of lonely thinkers who were belittled by the established figures of the time and who, it now turns out, were deservedly neglected. - Leon Lipson
Not a change for the better in our human housekeeping has ever taken place that wise and good men have not opposed it. - James Russell Lowell
Courage consists in equality to the problem before us. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Satisfaction of one's curiosity is one of the greatest sources of happiness in life. - Linus Pauling
The composer Max Reger wrote the following rebuttal to a critical review: "I am sitting in the smallest room in my house. I have your review in front of me. Soon it will be behind me."
I read in a book that a man named Christ went about doing good. It is very disconcerting to me that I am so easily satisfied with just going about. - Toyohiko Kagawa
It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world, and moral courage so rare. - Mark Twain
A creative mind merely has ideas; a resourceful mind makes them practical. - Georges F. Doriot
Debt is a trap which people set and bait themselves, and then deliberately step into. - Josh Billings
It's not that people value money more, but that they value everything else so much less - not that they are more greedy, but that they have no other values to keep greed in check. - Dee Hock, former president of VISA
Scripture for dentists: "...open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it." - Psalms 81:10
To give great attention to details is one mark of genius - to putter with trifles is not. - Charles B. Rogers
Our doubts are traitors and cause us to miss the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt. - Shakespeare
The liberally educated person is one who is able to resist the easy and preferred answers; not because he is obstinate, but because he knows others worthy of consideration. - Allan Bloom
A great many of today's problems are caused by a tremendous surplus of simple answers, coupled with a horrible shortage of simple questions.
If God could have sons, all of us were his sons. If Jesus was like God, or God himself, then all men were like God and could be God himself. - Gandhi
There is no solution to any crisis that can allay an infinity of fears while assuming zero risk. Attempts to satisfy these two impossible constraints are responsible for the lack of positive action. Our current policy is enmeshed precisely in this zero-infinity dilemma. - Bernard S. Lee, President, Institute of Gas Technology
An economist is a person who, when he doesn't have a clue, will always come up with an estimate.
Education - that which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding. - Ambroise Bierce
Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence. - Robert Frost
Anyone who promises you a return to the days of cheap, abundant energy is either naive, stupid, or blind to the realities of life. If this country had reacted to Pearl Harbor as we have to our energy problem, we would all be speaking Japanese today. - Robert Robel, Kansas State Univ. (from 1976!)
An expert doesn't necessarily know more than you do, but he has it better organized and shows slides. - Paul Harwitz
How many fancy they have experience simply because they have grown old! - Stanslaus Lee
It is essential that the student acquire an understanding of and a lively feeling for values. He must acquire a vivid sense of the beautiful and the morally good. Otherwise, he - with his specialized knowledge - more closely resembles a well-trained dog than a harmoniously developed person. - Albert Einstein
Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him. - Aldous Huxley
Friday, February 27, 2009
Organs I have played
Just thought it might be interesting (for me, anyway) to put in some pictures of pipe organs I've played over the years, listed more or less chronologically.
To begin with, a little information is necessary. If you're a rank beginner, like most people, Wikipedia's treatise on the pipe organ is a good place to start. Speaking of ranks, organs are classified by the number of ranks, or complete sets of pipes they have. How many pipes is that? Since organ keyboards have 62 keys, or about five octaves, a rank is generally 62 pipes. However, the number of stops (i.e., different sounds) is often less than that: "combination stops" blend several different ranks in the high register of the organ to add brilliance, and "celeste" stops blend two stops that are deliberately tuned slightly differently to produce a pleasant vibrato-like sound. Of course, the ranks that are used in combination stops may also be used simultaneously for other purposes, but there are usually fewer stops than ranks. For example, the Salt Lake Tabernacle organ has 206 ranks, but only 147 stops. Look at Wikipedia's article on the Tabernacle organ for a list of stops.
Now, how big is big? For me, anything over about 60-70 ranks is big. This makes the Tabernacle organ a VERY big organ. If you're interested in that sort of thing, several people have made lists of the world's biggest organs. You can find links to those on Google or in Richard Elliott's wonderful site describing the organs on and around Temple Square.
Finally, you need to know something about how organs are put together. Basically, you have a wind chest, pipes, and something that connects the manuals (keyboards) with the valves that let air into the pipes. In the early days, there was an elaborate system of wooden rods and levers that connected the console to the pipes. This system is called a tracker action. In many modern organs, the action is electric (i.e., electric valves under each pipe) or electro-pneumatic (electric control of pneumatic valves under each pipe.) These electric-based systems allow the organ console to be moved around, which can be convenient. However, most organist prefer tracker actions because trackers are much more responsive to the organist's touch and the offer tighter control over exactly how the music sounds. It's worth noting that pipe organs were the highest technological accomplishment of Western society from the Late Middle Ages until the Industrial Revolution.
So why all the different keyboards? Well, different stops can be accessed from each of the keyboards. This allows the organist to quickly change from one sound to another. It also facilitates playing the kinds of polyphonic music that characterize much of the organ literature. For example, one hand would play on one manual, the other hand on a different manual with a different registration (set of stops), and the feet on the pedal keyboard, allowing three melodies to be played simultaneously, each with a different sound. This gives clarity and definition to the music. Obviously, the larger the organ (i.e., the more ranks and stops) and the more manuals (keyboards), the greater the possibilities for variations in sound. One famous organist, on first trying out a new instrument, said, "You have not presented me with just an organ - this is an orchestra!"
Also, organs differ in general sound, depending on when and where they were built. For example, the German Baroque organs that Bach played tended to use fairly low air pressure in the wind chests and had rather severe, plain-sounding pipes. The purity of this sound is well-suited to the music written by Bach and other German composers; whether the organs or the music came first is a matter of debate. On the other hand, the so-called French Romantic organ (like most of those I played in France) is characterized by very rich and varied stops, with lots of aural color and warm reed stops. The Salt Lake Tabernacle organ is a French Romantic-style organ at heart, though its huge size also allows it to be used for German Baroque music as well. There are whole books published on organ stops and how to use them, so I won't go into that here. Suffice it to say that choosing the registration for a given piece of music is one of the biggest challenges to an organist. You have to match the demands of the music to the resources of the organ, and to your own abilities. It's always an interesting process.
The ward chapel in Salt Lake where I grew up has a small 14-rank organ (which is actually pretty big for a Mormon chapel), and was the first pipe organ I ever played. In high school,
our mostly-Mormon choir sang High Mass at St. Ambrose Catholic Church in Salt Lake, and I played the organ for that. After that experience, the choir director asked me if I had ever had organ lessons. I'm sure it was painfully obvious to him that I had not! So he offered to line me up with a friend who taught organ. That is how for the ensuing summer and my first year of college, I studied with Dr. Robert Cundick, chief organist at the Salt Lake LDS Tabernacle. My lessons were actually at a little practice organ in the basement of the Assembly Hall, on Temple Square like the Tabernacle, but he did take me over to play the big organ in the Tabernacle a few times.
The actual practice organ that I played on had some pipes from Joseph Ridge's original Tabernacle organ built in Pioneer times. It was replaced by this 8-rank organ during a renovation of the Assembly Hall.
The big organ at the Tabernacle is well-known, of course. Here are shots of the organ and the console.
After my first year of college, I spent 2 1/2 years in France as an LDS missionary. One of the real highlights of my mission was the opportunity to play some wonderful and huge pipe organs in France. My fir
st town was Orleans. One day my missionary companion and I got caught in an unexpected rainstorm. We happened to be close to the cathe
dral Ste. Croix and ducked inside to get out of the weather. Just as we entered the church, the organist practicing in the loft hit a big full-organ chord. The reverb time in there is on the order of 5-6 seconds, quite long, so the effect was magnificent. It's easy to see how the combination of such music and the stained glass can lift people's spirits heavenward - it certainly affects me that way. The upshot of that visit was that I was able eventually to get to know the organist and play the organ. Here is a link to a view of the interior of Ste. Croix with the organ at the rear, in front of the main rose window, the usual place for cathedral organs. By the way, the organ in Ste. Croix was built by Aristide Cavaille-Coll, probably the greatest organ factor (builder) of the 19th century. The organ in Orleans is a virtual duplicate of the Grand Orgue in Notre Dame de Paris, shown here.
After Orleans, I was transferred to Bordeaux, a much larger city with numerous churches, including the cathedral St. Andre. Like many churches in the Southwest of France, the main tower is not attached to the cathe
dral, but stands by itself. The first time I heard the entire Brahms Requiem was at a performance here - you cannot imagine the effect that the reverberation of a large cathedral has on such a work. It's something I'll always remember. I met one of the organists here, and was able to play this magnificent organ two or three times.
From Bordeaux, I went back to Paris but was stationed out in the far Western suburbs, a town called Nanterre, which was dominated politically by the French Communist P
arty and was thus not very friendly to Americans. Since the Viet Nam War was in full swing in 1967-68 when I was there, I heard all kinds of obscene terms that they don't teach you in school! We missionaries were very fortunate that the mission president encouraged us to get immersed in French culture, so we all went to Midnight Mass at Notre Dame on Christmas Eve, among other things. I also had the exceptional opportunity to play the 102-rank tracker organ at the church of St. Sulpice, where Charles-Marie Widor, then Marcel Dupre were the organists for years and years. There is a long-standing tradition that anyone who wishes may play the organ at certain times of the week, so I took advantage of that. The outside of the church is totally unremarkable, but the organ! It is regarded as Cavaille-Coll's masterpiece. Having heard and played it, it's hard to disagree.
After Paris, I was transferred to the small city of Perigueux, 
the capital of foie gras and truffles. It's an old town, as you can see from the picture of a street near our apartment, and still has the remains of a temple to a Gallic goddess that was 400 years old when Julius Caesar conquered the town! We lived in a building built in 1415, and could see the original hand-hewn beams in our ceiling - wonderful place to live. The cathedral there is built in a Byzantine style, and really towers over the town, as you can see in this view from across the river. One day, my missionary companion and I were near the cathedral and could hear the organ playing, so we went in. It turned out that the console was on the floor rather than in the organ loft, so I went up and started talking to the priest playing it. We eventually became friends, and he allowed me to come in an hour a day at noon to play the organ. We also became what must be a very small set of Mormon
missionaries who regularly ate lunch with the priests in the rectory of the cathedral!
My next stop after Perigueux, and my last town in France,
was La Rochelle, a beautiful port city on the Atlantic Coast. La Rochelle was one of the Protestant "refuge cities" established by the Edict of Nantes, which allowed Protestant churches in France and set aside a number of cities to be governed by Protestant city councils. Unfortunately, that tolerance didn't last very long; eventually Cardinal Richelieu and his troops besieged and conquered La Rochelle (one of my apartments there was about 50 yards from where Richelieu's headquarters had been) and the resulting departure of many of the French Protestants, known as Huguenots, enriched many other places of Europe and North America with talented people now unwanted in their own homeland. Somehow I met the organist at the chief Calvinist Temple (church) in La Rochelle, and again ended up with their pipe organ (a medium-sized one, as it turned out, about 40 ranks) for an hour a day.
The last organ I played in France was one of the best. On the way back to Paris to catch the plane home, I stopped in the city of Poitiers for several hours, having gotten a letter of recommendation to the organist of the Cathedral of St. Pierre. The organ there was built by Francois Clicquot in 1781, and is substantially unchanged since then. It is a four-manual tracker; it's possible to couple all the manuals together and still be playable - an amazing feat of engineering! The building has a reverberation time of about seven seconds, so it sounds just incredible! Here are a couple pictures:
After college and graduate school, I moved to Bartlesville, Oklahoma and played virtually all the church organs in that city. I also had the opportunity to play perhaps the most interesting organ in that part of the world, the 105-rank Moller organ at the Boston Avenue Methodist Church in Tulsa. The church itself is built in a style best called Skyscraper Neo-Gothic. The organ is terrific, and balanced very well the 120-voice multi-state LDS choir that I was accompaning at a concert there.
I moved back to Salt Lake in 2004, and am anxiously awaiting an opportunity to play the organ in the new Conference Center downtown. We'll see.
To begin with, a little information is necessary. If you're a rank beginner, like most people, Wikipedia's treatise on the pipe organ is a good place to start. Speaking of ranks, organs are classified by the number of ranks, or complete sets of pipes they have. How many pipes is that? Since organ keyboards have 62 keys, or about five octaves, a rank is generally 62 pipes. However, the number of stops (i.e., different sounds) is often less than that: "combination stops" blend several different ranks in the high register of the organ to add brilliance, and "celeste" stops blend two stops that are deliberately tuned slightly differently to produce a pleasant vibrato-like sound. Of course, the ranks that are used in combination stops may also be used simultaneously for other purposes, but there are usually fewer stops than ranks. For example, the Salt Lake Tabernacle organ has 206 ranks, but only 147 stops. Look at Wikipedia's article on the Tabernacle organ for a list of stops.
Now, how big is big? For me, anything over about 60-70 ranks is big. This makes the Tabernacle organ a VERY big organ. If you're interested in that sort of thing, several people have made lists of the world's biggest organs. You can find links to those on Google or in Richard Elliott's wonderful site describing the organs on and around Temple Square.
Finally, you need to know something about how organs are put together. Basically, you have a wind chest, pipes, and something that connects the manuals (keyboards) with the valves that let air into the pipes. In the early days, there was an elaborate system of wooden rods and levers that connected the console to the pipes. This system is called a tracker action. In many modern organs, the action is electric (i.e., electric valves under each pipe) or electro-pneumatic (electric control of pneumatic valves under each pipe.) These electric-based systems allow the organ console to be moved around, which can be convenient. However, most organist prefer tracker actions because trackers are much more responsive to the organist's touch and the offer tighter control over exactly how the music sounds. It's worth noting that pipe organs were the highest technological accomplishment of Western society from the Late Middle Ages until the Industrial Revolution.
So why all the different keyboards? Well, different stops can be accessed from each of the keyboards. This allows the organist to quickly change from one sound to another. It also facilitates playing the kinds of polyphonic music that characterize much of the organ literature. For example, one hand would play on one manual, the other hand on a different manual with a different registration (set of stops), and the feet on the pedal keyboard, allowing three melodies to be played simultaneously, each with a different sound. This gives clarity and definition to the music. Obviously, the larger the organ (i.e., the more ranks and stops) and the more manuals (keyboards), the greater the possibilities for variations in sound. One famous organist, on first trying out a new instrument, said, "You have not presented me with just an organ - this is an orchestra!"
Also, organs differ in general sound, depending on when and where they were built. For example, the German Baroque organs that Bach played tended to use fairly low air pressure in the wind chests and had rather severe, plain-sounding pipes. The purity of this sound is well-suited to the music written by Bach and other German composers; whether the organs or the music came first is a matter of debate. On the other hand, the so-called French Romantic organ (like most of those I played in France) is characterized by very rich and varied stops, with lots of aural color and warm reed stops. The Salt Lake Tabernacle organ is a French Romantic-style organ at heart, though its huge size also allows it to be used for German Baroque music as well. There are whole books published on organ stops and how to use them, so I won't go into that here. Suffice it to say that choosing the registration for a given piece of music is one of the biggest challenges to an organist. You have to match the demands of the music to the resources of the organ, and to your own abilities. It's always an interesting process.
The ward chapel in Salt Lake where I grew up has a small 14-rank organ (which is actually pretty big for a Mormon chapel), and was the first pipe organ I ever played. In high school,
our mostly-Mormon choir sang High Mass at St. Ambrose Catholic Church in Salt Lake, and I played the organ for that. After that experience, the choir director asked me if I had ever had organ lessons. I'm sure it was painfully obvious to him that I had not! So he offered to line me up with a friend who taught organ. That is how for the ensuing summer and my first year of college, I studied with Dr. Robert Cundick, chief organist at the Salt Lake LDS Tabernacle. My lessons were actually at a little practice organ in the basement of the Assembly Hall, on Temple Square like the Tabernacle, but he did take me over to play the big organ in the Tabernacle a few times.
The actual practice organ that I played on had some pipes from Joseph Ridge's original Tabernacle organ built in Pioneer times. It was replaced by this 8-rank organ during a renovation of the Assembly Hall.
The big organ at the Tabernacle is well-known, of course. Here are shots of the organ and the console.After my first year of college, I spent 2 1/2 years in France as an LDS missionary. One of the real highlights of my mission was the opportunity to play some wonderful and huge pipe organs in France. My fir
st town was Orleans. One day my missionary companion and I got caught in an unexpected rainstorm. We happened to be close to the cathe
dral Ste. Croix and ducked inside to get out of the weather. Just as we entered the church, the organist practicing in the loft hit a big full-organ chord. The reverb time in there is on the order of 5-6 seconds, quite long, so the effect was magnificent. It's easy to see how the combination of such music and the stained glass can lift people's spirits heavenward - it certainly affects me that way. The upshot of that visit was that I was able eventually to get to know the organist and play the organ. Here is a link to a view of the interior of Ste. Croix with the organ at the rear, in front of the main rose window, the usual place for cathedral organs. By the way, the organ in Ste. Croix was built by Aristide Cavaille-Coll, probably the greatest organ factor (builder) of the 19th century. The organ in Orleans is a virtual duplicate of the Grand Orgue in Notre Dame de Paris, shown here.
After Orleans, I was transferred to Bordeaux, a much larger city with numerous churches, including the cathedral St. Andre. Like many churches in the Southwest of France, the main tower is not attached to the cathe
dral, but stands by itself. The first time I heard the entire Brahms Requiem was at a performance here - you cannot imagine the effect that the reverberation of a large cathedral has on such a work. It's something I'll always remember. I met one of the organists here, and was able to play this magnificent organ two or three times.From Bordeaux, I went back to Paris but was stationed out in the far Western suburbs, a town called Nanterre, which was dominated politically by the French Communist P
arty and was thus not very friendly to Americans. Since the Viet Nam War was in full swing in 1967-68 when I was there, I heard all kinds of obscene terms that they don't teach you in school! We missionaries were very fortunate that the mission president encouraged us to get immersed in French culture, so we all went to Midnight Mass at Notre Dame on Christmas Eve, among other things. I also had the exceptional opportunity to play the 102-rank tracker organ at the church of St. Sulpice, where Charles-Marie Widor, then Marcel Dupre were the organists for years and years. There is a long-standing tradition that anyone who wishes may play the organ at certain times of the week, so I took advantage of that. The outside of the church is totally unremarkable, but the organ! It is regarded as Cavaille-Coll's masterpiece. Having heard and played it, it's hard to disagree.
After Paris, I was transferred to the small city of Perigueux, 
the capital of foie gras and truffles. It's an old town, as you can see from the picture of a street near our apartment, and still has the remains of a temple to a Gallic goddess that was 400 years old when Julius Caesar conquered the town! We lived in a building built in 1415, and could see the original hand-hewn beams in our ceiling - wonderful place to live. The cathedral there is built in a Byzantine style, and really towers over the town, as you can see in this view from across the river. One day, my missionary companion and I were near the cathedral and could hear the organ playing, so we went in. It turned out that the console was on the floor rather than in the organ loft, so I went up and started talking to the priest playing it. We eventually became friends, and he allowed me to come in an hour a day at noon to play the organ. We also became what must be a very small set of Mormon
missionaries who regularly ate lunch with the priests in the rectory of the cathedral!My next stop after Perigueux, and my last town in France,
was La Rochelle, a beautiful port city on the Atlantic Coast. La Rochelle was one of the Protestant "refuge cities" established by the Edict of Nantes, which allowed Protestant churches in France and set aside a number of cities to be governed by Protestant city councils. Unfortunately, that tolerance didn't last very long; eventually Cardinal Richelieu and his troops besieged and conquered La Rochelle (one of my apartments there was about 50 yards from where Richelieu's headquarters had been) and the resulting departure of many of the French Protestants, known as Huguenots, enriched many other places of Europe and North America with talented people now unwanted in their own homeland. Somehow I met the organist at the chief Calvinist Temple (church) in La Rochelle, and again ended up with their pipe organ (a medium-sized one, as it turned out, about 40 ranks) for an hour a day.
The last organ I played in France was one of the best. On the way back to Paris to catch the plane home, I stopped in the city of Poitiers for several hours, having gotten a letter of recommendation to the organist of the Cathedral of St. Pierre. The organ there was built by Francois Clicquot in 1781, and is substantially unchanged since then. It is a four-manual tracker; it's possible to couple all the manuals together and still be playable - an amazing feat of engineering! The building has a reverberation time of about seven seconds, so it sounds just incredible! Here are a couple pictures:
After college and graduate school, I moved to Bartlesville, Oklahoma and played virtually all the church organs in that city. I also had the opportunity to play perhaps the most interesting organ in that part of the world, the 105-rank Moller organ at the Boston Avenue Methodist Church in Tulsa. The church itself is built in a style best called Skyscraper Neo-Gothic. The organ is terrific, and balanced very well the 120-voice multi-state LDS choir that I was accompaning at a concert there.I moved back to Salt Lake in 2004, and am anxiously awaiting an opportunity to play the organ in the new Conference Center downtown. We'll see.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Bach the Magnificent
You have to know that I play the organ as well as the piano. There is nothing quite so viscerally exciting as sitting at a BIG organ and turning it loose. And, like most organists, I have a bad case of hero-worship of Johann Sebastian Bach. By the way, here is a modern forensic anthropologist's reconstruction of what Bach may have looked like, based on his skull from the Tomaskirche in Leipzig, where he is buried. Put this face on a stocky 5'6" frame and you've got it!
For Christmas, Vickie gave me a course called Bach and the High Baroque produced by The Teaching Company. If you're not familiar with that company, they produce a variety of (mostly) college-level courses on tape, CD, and DVD. The subjects in the arts, sciences, theology, history, and so on, and include everything from Early Christianity to The Joy of Mathematics. The teachers are chosen for their ability to make the course material come alive.Bach and the High Baroque is comprised of 32 45-minute lectures, all on CD. In addition to that course, our library also includes A Survey of Western Art, The Life and Works of C.S.Lewis, Understanding Linguistics, How to Listen to and Understand Great Music, The Chamber Music of Mozart, and Fundamentals of Music. The music courses we have are all taught be a fellow named Robert Greenberg, who is a well-regarded composer himself, and who works with San Francisco Performances. Founded in 1979, San Francisco Performances is the Bay Area’s leading independent presenter of chamber music, vocal and instrumental recitals, jazz and contemporary dance.
Greenberg is an absolutely riveting lecturer. Because he is a composer and performer himself, he knows his subject from the inside out. But that's not all - he's funny, original, and just plain fun to listen to. Here's a sample from the San Francisco Performances site. Click to get to the link, then scroll down to see Greenberg; you'll need Real Player to play it.
Greenberg covers Bach's very interesting life in some detail, including the time his employer had him jailed for trying to quit! (Bach loved life in jail because he had time to compose.) He discusses the life of a composer in the early 18th century: for example, when Bach was in Leipzig, where he spent the last 27 years of his life, Bach was required to supervise and train the choirs and organist for all five churches in town, write music for every Sunday service, plus municipal events (e.g., a mayor's inauguration), make sure all the organs were working correctly, and, by the way, teach Latin to the 12-year-old choirboys! He also had to get in the middle of the political fights between two factions, one of whom loved Bach's elaborate style and thought highly of his compositional gifts, and the other group, who thought of Bach primarily as a teacher and wanted to make the church music rather starkly simple. That battle, by the way, is still going on for most church organists. Over his time in Leipzig, Bach wrote
- Several complete cycles of cantatas, 54-60 cantatas in each cycle. A cantata is a 20-minute-or-so, 5-7 movement mini-oratorio based on the hymn for that Sunday in the Lutheran liturgical calendar. Bach wrote nearly 300 cantatas, all told; we have only (!) about 200 of them. Click here for a list of which ones were performed each week during Bach's life.
- Four or possibly five Passions. A Passion is the crucifixion story set to music. We have Passions for the Gospels of John and Matthew; the rest are lost. The St. Matthew Passion consists of 78 sections and calls for two choirs, two orchestras, a boys' choir, and four soloists. A performance lasts about four hours. It is one of the world's greatest masterpieces of vocal and orchestral music, highly spiritual and deeply moving.
- Reams of music for his children. He and his two wives (sequential, not simultaneous!) had 20 of them, all told, of whom ten survived to adulthood. Even the exercises are masterful compositions.
- The B-Minor Mass, an incredible setting (one of the finest ever) of the Catholic Mass - and by a Lutheran composer!
- The Art of the Fugue, a masterful exposition of all the tricks used in writing these characteristic Baroque pieces. He uses the fugue subject (theme) forwards, backwards (in regression), upside-down (inversion), upside-down and backwards (inversion-regression), slowed down, speeded up - you name it, he shows how to do it.
- An incredible amount of other stuff.
Bach must have been a real challenge to work with. He had a temper and did not suffer fools gladly, nor was he tolerant of anything but a performer's best efforts in the service of God, which is how Bach defined his role as a musician. This could and did lead to problems, as Bach could play the organ and harpsichord better than any of his keyboard players (in fact, during his lifetime he was better known as an organ virtuoso than as a composer), and violin better than the violinists, plus he was a professional-level singer. In addition, his second wife, Anna Magdalena, was the leading soprano in Cothen, Bach's location before Leipzig, so he brought his own soprano soloist along and wrote many of his soprano parts with her in mind.
Having done some arranging and composing myself, it seems incredible to me that he could have accomplished so much in one lifetime. Consider writing a Lutheran church cantata, for example. He would start working on Monday for the next week's cantata, and would have to have it finished and sent to the copyists on Wednesday so the choir and orchestra could start practicing in order to sing it on Sunday! And he didn't have the terrific music-printing software that we have now. My software, called Finale, will take an orchestral score and automatically print out each part. Bach had to start with blank paper and a pen. Unbelievable! (Especially since he did it so much better than I can.)
The best part of the course, naturally, is the music. We've been listening to the course on our car stereo - it's actually becoming a reason to go for a long drive somewhere, anywhere, just so we can hear some more.
Baroque music is characterized by a highly-emotional musical superstructure built on and controlled by a very rigid formal structure. Greenberg explains and illustrates the formal structures, then plays dozens of different things to illustrate how Bach was a master of just about everything to which he set his hand.
All told, listening to this course is one of the most amazing experiences I've ever had. Bach is by turns introspective, flamboyant, pensive, highly spiritual, funny, unrestrained, or tightly wound. He has an unbelievable gift for coming up with unforgettable melodies and beautiful harmonizations - all within the incredibly rigid confines of the Baroque forms.
I will never look at Bach the same way again. And my most heartfelt thanks to Vickie for getting this course for us!
Friday, February 20, 2009
Weight loss surgery
Let's face it - I'm not 25 any longer. One would think that having children in their 30's would make that pretty clear, but they don't look like they're in their 30's, and I really don't feel like I'm in my 60's (barely!) However, I have noticed that there is more of me (except for my hair) than there used to be. Quite a bit more, actually. The added weight has brought on several problems that I'm not thrilled to be facing. They include acid reflux, sleep apnea, high cholesterol, hypertension, and a near approach to Type II diabetes; the last three together are known as Metabolic Syndrome. All of them are a byproduct of the extra weight. I keep telling Vickie that in me she just has too much of a good thing. It doesn't really help.
Nor did various attempts at diet and exercise seem to do the job. I'd lose a few pounds (up to 10-12), then put them back on. Not good.
So we decided it was time to do something more dramatic: bariatric (weight-loss) surgery. It turns out that there are several ways to go. Here is the link for the National Institute of Health's site discussing weight-loss surgery.
The type of operation I'm actually having is laparoscopic gastric banding, often referred to by the brand name of one of the equipment makers, lap-band. Basically, they install a little band with an inflatable balloon around the stomach, near the top, to make a little pouch instead of a big stomach. Here's a diagram, so yo
u can see how it works.
The inflatable portion is connected by a little tube to a port that sits just under the skin in some convenient place. To tighten the band, you simply inject a little saline through the port; similarly, you can loosen the band by withdrawing saline through the port.
As a precursor to the surgery, I've been on a 1000 calorie/day diet for the last week and a half, and have lost about 10 pounds so far. After the surgery, I'll be on liquids for a week, then soft and mushy foods for a week or two, then back to relatively normal stuff - just not very much of it.
The idea of this whole thing is that you don't eat as much because the pouch gets full and your natural gastrointestinal reactions tell you that you're full - even though you haven't eaten nearly as much as you might with a normal stomach. That is supposed to basically eliminate hunger - which is for me, like for most people, a big part of why I eat.
Of course, I'll have to watch what I eat from now on. Carbonated drinks are out, for example, including champagne (I'll never miss it, since I've never even tasted the stuff.) I will have to concentrate on protein and nutritious things, and be sure not to miss taking vitamins regularly. Vickie and I have already started exercising fairly regularly, so that will continue, too. In essence, you're supposed to live a healthy lifestyle - not a bad thing for anybody. This will just help enforce it.
There is at least one more big advantage - Vickie and I will now be on the same diet, since she had the same surgery about 50 pounds ago, so cooking will be easier. We've already decided how to handle eating out: we will alternate the choice of what we eat, since the best way to eat out is to just order one meal for both of us, then split it.
My surgery is scheduled for Thursday the 26th of February. It's done on an outpatient basis, so unless something goes drastically wrong, I'll only be in the clinic about 3-4 hours. After I come out of the anesthetic, it's homeward for a nice nap.
The statistics for lap-band surgery are very comforting, as complications are rare, especially when it's done by a doctor with lots of experience. My doctor has done about 700 of these, so he knows what he's doing. Even better, all of the office staff has had the surgery, and there are numerous support-group activities. Complications occasionally do happen, but the odds are much better than for other types of bariatric surgery, and having this surgery greatly decreases my risks of having problems related to excess weight.
Wish me luck!
Nor did various attempts at diet and exercise seem to do the job. I'd lose a few pounds (up to 10-12), then put them back on. Not good.
So we decided it was time to do something more dramatic: bariatric (weight-loss) surgery. It turns out that there are several ways to go. Here is the link for the National Institute of Health's site discussing weight-loss surgery.
The type of operation I'm actually having is laparoscopic gastric banding, often referred to by the brand name of one of the equipment makers, lap-band. Basically, they install a little band with an inflatable balloon around the stomach, near the top, to make a little pouch instead of a big stomach. Here's a diagram, so yo
u can see how it works. The inflatable portion is connected by a little tube to a port that sits just under the skin in some convenient place. To tighten the band, you simply inject a little saline through the port; similarly, you can loosen the band by withdrawing saline through the port.As a precursor to the surgery, I've been on a 1000 calorie/day diet for the last week and a half, and have lost about 10 pounds so far. After the surgery, I'll be on liquids for a week, then soft and mushy foods for a week or two, then back to relatively normal stuff - just not very much of it.
The idea of this whole thing is that you don't eat as much because the pouch gets full and your natural gastrointestinal reactions tell you that you're full - even though you haven't eaten nearly as much as you might with a normal stomach. That is supposed to basically eliminate hunger - which is for me, like for most people, a big part of why I eat.
Of course, I'll have to watch what I eat from now on. Carbonated drinks are out, for example, including champagne (I'll never miss it, since I've never even tasted the stuff.) I will have to concentrate on protein and nutritious things, and be sure not to miss taking vitamins regularly. Vickie and I have already started exercising fairly regularly, so that will continue, too. In essence, you're supposed to live a healthy lifestyle - not a bad thing for anybody. This will just help enforce it.
There is at least one more big advantage - Vickie and I will now be on the same diet, since she had the same surgery about 50 pounds ago, so cooking will be easier. We've already decided how to handle eating out: we will alternate the choice of what we eat, since the best way to eat out is to just order one meal for both of us, then split it.
My surgery is scheduled for Thursday the 26th of February. It's done on an outpatient basis, so unless something goes drastically wrong, I'll only be in the clinic about 3-4 hours. After I come out of the anesthetic, it's homeward for a nice nap.
The statistics for lap-band surgery are very comforting, as complications are rare, especially when it's done by a doctor with lots of experience. My doctor has done about 700 of these, so he knows what he's doing. Even better, all of the office staff has had the surgery, and there are numerous support-group activities. Complications occasionally do happen, but the odds are much better than for other types of bariatric surgery, and having this surgery greatly decreases my risks of having problems related to excess weight.
Wish me luck!
Thursday, January 8, 2009
On getting things done...
Since we're all interested in New Year's Resolutions in January, I thought I'd post this interesting list of four commandments on how to get things done. It's a good one - so good, in fact, that I've taped the list to the cabinet just above my computer screen so I won't forget to apply these.
Four Commandments
1 - Show up - Sometimes all we need to do is simply be in the right place at the right time. It's certain, however, that we won't do anything if we're not where we're supposed to be, when we're supposed to be there. I've got a tendency to be late to things, so one of my resolutions this year is to improve my timeliness.
2 - Pay attention - Most of the time, we don't really need to give our full attention to what's going on. However, when things are happening, it's important to pay attention to a) what's happening, b) why it's happening, c) how what's happening now relates to what happened earlier, d) how what's happening now relates to what should happen in the future, and e) what we need to do about all the above, if anything.
3 - Do your best - Often, it's easy to slide along and do an adequate (but not spectacular) job of things. Having picked that small subset of all our duties that really matter for the long term, it's important to do nothing but the very best on those crucial few. Have I always done that in my life? Sadly, no - but I think I'm getting better at it.
4 - Let go - I was surprised at first to see this one on the list, but the more I think about it, the more important it gets. Once we have done what we can do - even if things don't turn out as we had hoped - it's to our own benefit to let go of the project physically and emotionally. We all know people whose lives topped out when they were in high school and who have done virtually nothing since; people who live on the memories of past accomplishments. Similarly, it's not hard to find people who can't seem to get past some real or perceived emotional wound. Divorces often cause such emotional ossification. Only when we put down past burdens or cease carrying our old trophies are our hands and heart available for the tasks of the present and future.
Four Commandments
1 - Show up - Sometimes all we need to do is simply be in the right place at the right time. It's certain, however, that we won't do anything if we're not where we're supposed to be, when we're supposed to be there. I've got a tendency to be late to things, so one of my resolutions this year is to improve my timeliness.
2 - Pay attention - Most of the time, we don't really need to give our full attention to what's going on. However, when things are happening, it's important to pay attention to a) what's happening, b) why it's happening, c) how what's happening now relates to what happened earlier, d) how what's happening now relates to what should happen in the future, and e) what we need to do about all the above, if anything.
3 - Do your best - Often, it's easy to slide along and do an adequate (but not spectacular) job of things. Having picked that small subset of all our duties that really matter for the long term, it's important to do nothing but the very best on those crucial few. Have I always done that in my life? Sadly, no - but I think I'm getting better at it.
4 - Let go - I was surprised at first to see this one on the list, but the more I think about it, the more important it gets. Once we have done what we can do - even if things don't turn out as we had hoped - it's to our own benefit to let go of the project physically and emotionally. We all know people whose lives topped out when they were in high school and who have done virtually nothing since; people who live on the memories of past accomplishments. Similarly, it's not hard to find people who can't seem to get past some real or perceived emotional wound. Divorces often cause such emotional ossification. Only when we put down past burdens or cease carrying our old trophies are our hands and heart available for the tasks of the present and future.
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