November-December
2006
Well, it's been the usual November-December for us. Build up the Musical Christmas Tree and finish up the semester. We imagine that some of y'all are kind of tired of hearing about this Christmas display, so I'll refer you to the "MCT" page, section on updates.
The Musical Christmas Tree, 1998
Photo by Kathy Barnhart
But what I didn't say there was that we have had a few people who just come and sit for an hour or two to relax, settle their emotions and meditate on the message. Couple of coeds must have sat for two hours watching, praying and praising God. Others have watched the "quiet" program for an hour or more. At 10:00 we have a reading of the Christmas story and carols like "Silent Night" while the display changes colors occasionally instead of frenetically.
One of the students wrote a light routine for "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen", a sort of jazzy arrangement with a strong Flamenco flavor, on a CD we just happened to see in a display at Hobby Lobby when we were shopping for something else entirely. I had searched Amazon.com for hours for something new, and there it was sitting near the checkout. Have you heard the new "Christmas" music?It's Christmas, I love you It's Christmas, I want you It's Christmas, I need youad nauseam. Put the word Christmas into an egocentric "love" song and you'll get air time for a month. Closest thing to a traditional song I heard was "No Place Like Home For The Holidays". (End soapbox)
Well, as of New Year's Eve-Eve (Dec. 30) we had passed out all 850 programs we had printed, probably representing roughly that many cars and we guess well over 1500 people, maybe as many as 2500. Not bad for a couple of old folks.
Oh, that picture? That was our first Musical Christmas Tree, 12 feet high, no star, free-standing on our lawn in Toppenish. This year, a vice president from one of the local banks wants us to set up across the street next year at the new "events center", making it bigger and better. All I have to say is, I hope someone volunteers to help us or we stay right here in our own yard. But people are generous. We spent a bundle on new lights this year, and the donations have about covered it, plus a little bit towards the flour, sugar and chocolate chips ($$$) that have gone into the cookies, so many dozen we've lost track but I betcha it's around 170 dozen. One night Kathy came in about 9:30 and said, "I need to start another batch of cookies." Well, let's just say that she bought one of those stainless-steel serving things (bigger than your dishpan I bet) that they use at buffets to keep the food warm, to have something big enough to mix up a "batch" of chocolate-chip cookies. On top of all that, she invited a couple of bachelors for dinner, who had come for the second or third time to the show. (We had jambalaya, just about hot enough to take paint off the wall at 20 paces. The bachelors loved it, and son Jon who was here for Christmas thought it was kind of mild. I ate a lot of corn bread and drank a lot of iced tea....)
And speaking of son Jon, he's using many of our discarded Christmas lights as (a) igniters for hobby rockets, and (b) igniters to separate stages or push out the parachute or something. After the lights have faded to pastels, we retire them and we're glad they don't go to the landfill, at least initially.
Gentle Jazz
Played two "gigs" at Grace Village, the retirement home. We learned enough Christmas songs for about 45 minutes. Played for Assisted Living, then packed up and scooted over to Health Care. Two gigs in one day, not bad for a couple of old folks. (I already said that, didn't I?)
Grace News
Not a whole lot to report. Applications are up like 3 times as many as this time last year. Or 180%. Or something. Everybody counts them differently. "Evangelistically speaking...." But the biggest problem may be housing next fall; we most likely have enough room in our classes unless they all decide to major in the same thing. Might have to hire some adjuncts to teach sections of Freshman English and so on. Good problem to have, though.
Work on the replacement for Gamma Hall (the one that burned down a year and a half ago) is nearing completion. One thing they are saying is that it will not be called "Gamma" any more. Probably somebody's name, former president or big donor.
They dug up the lower Alpha parking lot (again) less than a month after they patched up the sewer line digging. I guess the permits for the water line came through and so they tore up the driveway again to put in a six-inch water main to C.E.National up the street. We have a shiny new fire plug about 150 feet from our house now. They were kind enough to cover up their trenches so our Christmas Tree visitors didn't fall in each night. Made kind of a muddy mess, though.Geek Stuff
Mostly it's Christmas Tree work. Added some hardware, including a new transistor card with 24 transistors. Built it from scratch and it worked the first time! I really sweated over that one! Can't hardly buy those edge cards any more, and I had to modify the one I did find before I could start wiring it. Also added a few more chips for a total of 176 circuits. I think I'll call a halt to expansion after we reach the limit of this last transistor card, at 192 circuits. I'm down to the least reliable components at this point, and maintenance is not exactly a hassle, but it keeps me out of the bars, that's for sure.
Son Jon visited at Thanksgiving and again at Christmas and we set up a hub for his "main" computer and the Christmas Tree computer so they shared the same 100 Megabit line to the router. His laptop and mine were connected via wireless.
Jon also brought a whole bagful of yellow LEDs and a 256 Meg memory stick for the Christmas Tree machine. I'm working on a design for some new decorations for next year. Current brainstorm is to make them in the shape of musical notes to run up and down one (or two) of the trees, in the style of Animusic. Have you seen those videos on Public TV fundraisers? They're really cute! See http://www.animusic.com. I got Kathy the first video as a "stocking stuffer" this year. I thought they had several videos out, but I only see two on their site. Recommended for anyone who is musical and most people who aren't.
The extra 256 Meg of main storage helped a bunch. I was going nuts trying to synchronize the music and light routines, but with the additional memory and some jiggery-pokery suggested by Jon, everything was working perfectly by Christmas Eve. Secret is, you copy the executable and all associated files, including the mp3 music file, to /dev/null, which gets it into main storage, at which point it's practically instantaneous.
Brought home my "old" laptop from school, a Win2K machine, downloaded updates for a couple of hours and then installed the Remote Desktop client. Now, in spite of being Win2K, I just log onto the office computer upstairs and I'm running XP. I don't think that's cheating, but it doesn't seem right somehow. Don't reckon anyone else wants to use this old relic, but if they do I'll take it back up there. Meanwhile it saves me lugging my office laptop home every day just to be able to compute near the wood stove. (I keep my files on a memory stick with backups in both places.)
Well, y'all have a Happy New Year and stay out of trouble. Seriously, best wishes and our prayers are with you.
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