(dc) frosty beaver

From my friend Gordon:

The next full is on Saturday, November 24, 2007, at 9:30 a.m. EST. It will appear full for the three days around this time. Two nights later, on Monday, November 26, the nearly full Moon will appear close to Mars, which is quite bright now (as described in the article below). Mars will be at its brightest in December.

This is the Full Beaver Moon. This was the time to set beaver traps before the swamps froze, to ensure a supply of warm winter furs. Another interpretation suggests that the name Full Beaver Moon comes from the fact that the beavers are now actively preparing for winter. This full Moon is also sometimes referred to as the Frosty Moon.

------ Forwarded Message
From: NASA Science News
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 20:30:33 -0600
To: NASA Science News
Subject: Mars Doubles in Brightness

NASA Science News for November 21, 2007

During the past month, Mars has doubled in brightness and now it is putting a nice show for backyard stargazers. A good night to look is Nov. 26th when Mars has an eye-catching close encounter with the Moon.

FULL STORY at

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2007/21nov_marsdoubles.htm

(*dc) plasma love

my mom just advised me
as mothers do
that finding the right person
who is everything you could possibly want
in a friend, partner, lover
is only half the equation.

of this i'm painfully aware,
and it made me think of my shower curtain
and 9th grade chemistry
learning to balance equations

i told her
i might just be one of these
plasma situations
with perpetually unbalanced
chemistry
freer electrons
beautifully out of equilibrium
perhaps
never destined for
the symmetry of
equilibrium physics.

everybody wants to see
the northern lights.

(dc) all i need

what sets me apart from, oh, say 99.99999999986% of the world's population (assuming 7 billion people) is this kind of thing that i do:

tonight on my quick trip from the studio to the house to pick up my laptop, i was listening to radiohead's "all i need" from their new record (ok, obsessively over and over again). once in a while i'll listen to weird fishes but mostly i can't get enough of this one song. it *is* all i seem to need right now. .:. anyway, as i was waiting on U st to turn into my alleyway, i noticed that my left turn signal was exactly in time with the song. i love when this happens, but it's almost never exactly in time, so the joy usually ends quickly as they start to go out of phase. sometimes i enjoy the phasing. eventually i had to turn because there were cars behind me, but by the time i turned the blinker still hadn't gone out of phase. i had to do further testing, so when i pulled into the alleyway, i turned the signal on again. totally phase locked. these are rare joys for me. ignoring the fact that i live in a rather dangerous alleyway, pulled into my spot up against the white brick wall, turned the volume up, the lights off, and the blinker on so i could watch the wall light up and go black in time with the music, just as the song was climaxing.

these are the little things that light up my life and make me happy. and these are the things i miss when i drive cars without stereos.

addendum

ok, maybe i'm not alone...thanks, commenter from bangkok! this is an awesome commercial!

(dc) mechanically minded

yesterday i had a good excuse to take apart my sony tape deck. a close friend had asked me to dub all her family's precious tape recordings onto CD for them and my machine had trapped the first one inside and frozen. i got out the screwdriver and remembered to unplug the device before operating. i found the little mechanism that wasn't releasing and took it apart, and still had to force the tape out. it had unwound itself into the guts of the machine, but in the end, i was totally triumphant. unfortunately, in the end, my machine seems to be failing to drop its heads appropriately when not recording, so the door doesn't open and tapes can't go in and out. this is bad news for me. it will probably cost more for me to send it in to SONY than it would just to buy a new deck. we'll see.

but i was reminded just how much i like to take stuff apart (and put it back together). my friend chad was mixing in the studio at the time, so i had the bonus perk of hearing him sculpt a kick drum for the duration of the time i took me to disassemble, rescue, and reassemble. it reminded me how important it is to get the kick just right in a mix, and i also got to hear how he built the sound. i think this studio merge idea was brilliant, and i'm looking forward to more evenings like that: puttering in the studio listening to a world class mix engineer make sounds fabulous.

at one point in the evening when i was trying to kick devin and chad out so i could work on music, their engineer intern called and was in the neighborhood with a friend and they stopped by. they were blown away by the space, and it really got me and chad and devin re-excited about what we're creating. it reaffirmed just how special our space is and how much it's going to be in demand when word starts to get out. devin called later and told me he'd gone out with these to guys after they left. apparently they were gushing about the space to another musician who joined them at the bar, and devin got to hear how nick was describing the place to the other guy. i think we are going to be popular. i'm a little worried about the place - preserving its integrity (musicians can be...umm....i dunno...hard on their environment, let's say). but i think chad and devin and i are totally aligned in our philosophy and our aesthetic, so whatever comes up, i'm feeling good about how we'll work things out.

and that's what's up at tiny planet.

(dc) space sounds

my friend loretta, who blogs for wired magazine, said this is the most read blog entry she's seen since joining wired with 800,000* hits so far. She said the second highest post last week had 100,000 hits.

(dana point, ca) me

(dc) earthset over malopert

courtesy JAXA



see all the juicy bits here.

(dc) metro hex

(nyc -> dc) questions

my onion horoscope for this week is

"All of your questions concerning spontaneous combustion will suddenly be answered this Friday."

that's really a relief
because i have a lot of questions.

(183 providence) mmm

one of the things i do at work is serve as the program scientist for the moon mineralogy mapper, an instrument on chandrayaan-1, india's first mission to the moon.

i'm at brown university this week for the mmm science team meeting and it's reminding me how fun science is. they have scientists here who were heavily involved in the apollo program and there are cases and cases of rocks + space kitch. i suspect if i had been exposed to this kind of thing when i were an impressionable young kid, i would have developed a passion for it.

as it is, all i can think about at this meeting is how to turn these data they're discussing into music.

(dc) a new phase

silver sonya moved into tiny planet (my space) yesterday and will be joining forces with it's not rocket science studios (my studio). what was already a deliciously crowded and eclectic space is now crowdeder and eclecticer until i can get rid of some of my more boring equipment. i shall be selling my sissy v-drums to be replaced with one of TJ's kick-ass kits. i shall be selling my digidesign Control|24 to be replaced with their new (real analog) console (which they shall then sell as soon as they can afford the API board we're all lusting after). there is a set of vibes in the middle of the live room, and a couple racks of warmth, including a manley mixer and an awesome compressor. i'm torn, though. as you might recall, i'm itching to get the new rhodes when it's available. but do i give up the old one for the new one?

anyway, once we figure out how to get it all integrated, it's going to be the funnest place to be on the east coast. well, if you like to make music.

i can't wait to get my new website up and running.

and now i am going to make some music.