This morning I scrambled three eggs with some cheese, made two pieces of toast, and sliced up a big orange. I bought five pounds of oranges at the market last Saturday and I don’t think it’ll last me through the week. I cut this morning’s fruit into sixths because I like the way you can pull back the corners of the wedge and the peel just falls off. Good eats.

In my Pre-Calculus class I found out I did a lot better on Monday’s surprise exam than I thought. Rather, everyone else did nearly as bad as I and the curve makes us all look smart. Either way, the B- made me feel better. After class I spent an hour or so in the library working on the homework. It was hard, but it made sense to me by the end. I think I might be finally wrapping my head around the idea of school-as-work-as-something-valuable. About time.

At noon I had an anthropology lecture. Normally this class is pretty dull but today it was engaging. We talked about Bergmann and Allen’s rules about the relationship of volume to surface area in body sizes and proportions.

When I got home I started looking at Google Apps. I think I’m going to pitch it as a better email solution for PAUL. I think it could make a lot of things easier, but there’s still a good amount of research to do.

My last class of the day was a double lab for Manufacturing Processes, from two until eight. We talked about the wide variety of abrasive techniques and tools, from saws to polishes, and were then given plenty of time to work on our assignments. Today I tackled the pin braze. The pin braze is a very simple assignment, the objective is to brass braze some 3/8” round stock steel to a plate with a nice fillet the whole way ‘round.

The way this class works is you get to practice as much as you want for each assignment, but when you think you’re ready to be graded your materials are stamped with your number and you have one shot to get it right. I did a half dozen test pieces before committing to be graded. It was really nice getting to try the same process repeatedly, tweaking one element at a time. Different gas flows on the torch, different size flames, different amount of heat applied to the materials, etc. I was definitely nervous when I did my final graded piece, but it came out really well. The professor said it was one of the best he’s seen and that made me really happy.

The afternoon gave me faith that A) brazing is something I am not doomed to suck at, and B) I can get a lot of satisfaction out of a steady improvement of my technique. Last night Brad and I got together to design the bottom bracket and rear axle fixtures for our frame jig. Tomorrow after work I’m going to talk to Jim about the best way to machine those parts on the manual lathe and mill. It’s all coming together.

For dinner tonight I drank some root beer and some chai, and ate about a dozen cookies. Also, today’s song has been The List by Defiance, Ohio. As Xue said, this song is about everyone’s life, always.

So I’ve been playing through lots of my own songs and a few covers, trying to figure out what I want to share, trying to figure out what I want to sound like. I play for an audience so very rarely, it’s not something that feels very natural or comfortable for me. I know that being on some kind of stage, real or just symbolic, really messes with me. I get nervous, clammy, forgetful, mumblesome. This wasn’t an issue a few years ago, but now it’s a seemingly incurable malady.

I’d like to blame my nerves on the changing nature of the music I’ve been writing, but I know it’s probably just because I’m out of practice and insecure.

Anyway, here’s a cover I recorded today. It is ‘Up The Wolves’ from The Mountain Goats’ album The Sunset Tree. This album has been sounding really great to me this past week, so I recommend it furiously if you haven’t heard it yet.

Download Up The Wolves

After work I rode over to the library and met up with a classmate from my machine design class. Right now we’re working on turning our concepts into a materials cut list. This means we need to figure out exactly how the parts of our machine will fit together, and are deciding the parameters that will define it’s framing. We ran into a couple pretty critical problems, and I felt like I spent most of the two and a half hours beating my head against a wall. We came up with some elegant solutions as well though, but I had let myself get tired and hungry and cranky. We called it quits before 9 and I decompressed over the phone to Xue as I walked to get some Pizza.

Two slices and a root beer. They were playing the Pixies when I got there, and Dig for Fire and the food made me feel really energetic and motivated. I think talking to Xue helped too. I left, heading back towards the library, with the intent of killing some chemistry homework. Of course the library isn’t open Saturday nights though. Nobody does homework on Saturday when they can do it Sunday, right?

Feeling a little useless, I came home and tried to play video games, but it only made me anxious, so I quit.

Then I recorded a cover of Islands’ Tender Torture. Have a listen?

Tender Torture.mp3

Chanson des Chats.mp3

Since 2006 I’ve written about thirty songs that I’d consider worthwhile, lost interest in just as many songs half-way through writing them, and learned maybe seventy covers. I’ve tried a few strategies for listing this music, but none of them have worked perfectly. My constant fear is forgetting. I can think of a few songs whose titles I can recall, but the lyrics and melody of which are lost.

Written lists in notebooks fail as my stationary affections shift from one book to the next. Typed lists are usually inconsistent and don’t offer enough information about songs’ lyrics or chord structures to be helpful when I’m feeling forgetful. Folders full of text documents are the best solution I’ve found yet, but don’t mesh well with collection of .mp3’s I’ve recorded.

So as a little introvert-nerd project I’ve decided to make a little .html database of my music, a catalog that will combine lyrics, chords and tablature, and audio recordings. By making this database available online I can access the lists from wherever I get a signal, and at the same time it makes the my Creative-Commons licensed music open source.

The only trouble with this plan is that it means I need to go through every half-decent song I’ve written in the past twenty-odd months and clean up the lyrics, figure out what chords I’m playing, and then process it into some kind of structured document. I’m sure I can knock out of a few songs every night when I normally practice.

Today I got the most basic elements of the database put together, along with the first two tracks from Interstate 80. Once I’ve got that album done I’ll put the whole listing online.

Until then.

ridinginmycar.mp3

“…we’re going to assume that you make things, we’re going to assume that you care very much about certain issues or topics, to a point where you’re really verging on obsession. We’re going to assume that it’s important to you, whether you’re a writer, or a photographer, or an interpretive dance choreographer, that you want to get better at it.”

There’s a lot of good in the first fifteen minutes of their talk, but I recommend taking the time to listen through. Don’t worry, their talk is just as smart as their title is smart-ass.

SxSW ’09 - Gruber & Mann - HOWTO: 149 Surprising Ways to Turbocharge Your Blog With Credibility!

The rest of the episode, “Yellow Fluff & Other Curious Encounters”, can be found here.

My favorite part is the rhythmic hand clapping game.

via From The Basement.

Additionally, his newest album Noble Beast is available as a free stream from NPR.