baxabang's Xanga

New blog

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 02:09:27 GMT

Hey everyone. Head over to http://davidbanga.com and click on the blog link. From that page you can request to read our new blog. I'll be prompt in replying, I promise!

I'd love to hear from you on the new blog.

Monday, August 20, 2007

Mon, 20 Aug 2007 03:01:18 GMT

And so, we are in Calgary. It has been a very grueling series of days. I feel as though everyone in Calgary must know everything about me at this point, and I am certain Wendy is sick of my voice. She's been quite a trooper, sitting through most every interview with me. Wow, has it been good to have her along. The decision as to whether this is the job for us or not would have been so hard to make if she had stayed home. Is it the job for me? We'll have to wait and see, I guess. More prayer is needed. Lots of it.

Today, we had a few hours off, and so we went to Banff. The necessary davidwendy photo ensued:

But the town is very nice, if very small and touristy. There are certainly beautiful buildings. This is an Anglican/Episcopalian church in the heart of Banff.

The surrounding mountains are surprisingly rugged and beautiful. While we were there, the mountains were mostly covered with clouds.

The mountain's beauty is surpassed:

As we drove out of Banff, we had to climb up, out of the valley, which provided wonderful opportunities to see the beauty of the valley. Seeing it like this makes it seem obvious that people would have wanted to settle here. Never mind the 27 feet of snow annually.

A little further out is the CP Hotel, the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel. Not a bad looking place, if you're in to this sort of thing. There are natural hot springs here that people come from all over to soak in.

You know, it isn't a BAD looking place.

Pray for us, as we must pass through customs tomorrow. I am fully legal to enter the country, and nothing at all is amiss, but with the Department of Homeland Security, nothing is a certainty. I think I'm always just over anxious when approaching the border, but pray, nonetheless.

thankyouandhaveaniceday.

Bit o this, bit o that

Tue, 14 Aug 2007 18:59:31 GMT

Sunday morning Joel and I once again demonstrated our coolness. Check it out, biker chick included!

Actually that was a couple of weeks ago. This most recent Sunday morning, upon finishing the service etc., I start up the bike only to see what appeared to be both oil and gas pouring onto the cement under the bike. I quickly surmised that was likely not a good sign, and so I shut off the bike. Ultimately I ended up soliciting Joel's help in loading the bike on the trailer and carting it home, where it now resides in my garage.

Turns out the petcock bladder is torn. Sounds like a small problem, right? Alas, the part has not been made for 13 years, and the blokes at the motorcycle shop told me they can't help. And so, I went online, and once again EBay is my saviour. I found new-old stock right away. And for 8$.

Aren't they lovely?

Also on Sunday, Joel and I went golfing. I did not have a good trip out. In fact, it was downright miserable. I've decided it is Joel's fault, though I'm not sure why. He did it to me somehow, either with a dance to the golf gods, or perhaps he booby-trapped my golf-balls. In any case, I was entirely inconsistent and crummy. Such is life. It is almost like I don't practice, or I'm aging, or something. Almost.
To accentuate the poorness of my play, Joel was, of course, brilliant. Maybe that's overstating it, but here he stands, 50 yards off the green, after having just chipped his ball into the cup.

I haven't decided if I'm going to golf with him again. He clearly cheats.

Last week, Wendy and I did the last stage in our floor-refinish shtick: the quarter-round.

Now we just need to get some wood-putty of the right colour, and fill the nail holes, and we're good to go. The colours are not quite right, but try matching trim that has been up for 80 years. I'm hoping it will all fade nicely to match. Or not. I'm anxious to put this behind me now.

Friday we fly to Calgary for a job interview. I'm excited and apprehensive. Please pray for us. On the job front, I found out today from a friend that Goshen College hired someone 3 weeks ago, they just didn't tell any of their other candidates. At least I know for sure now. Very professional of them, no?

Weakness

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 22:50:45 GMT

Wendy and I have a weakness: cute kitties.

For the last several months, there has been a kitty living outside our house. We are suckers - we know we cannot have a long haired cat in our house, but we could not let this cat starve. She was clearly a house cat at some point (declawed, fixed), and so thin it was alarming. However, we fed her back to health, and today someone took her for their home. How could you resist?

She really is a pretty cat.

And now she has a home. And not with us. I know it is possible that the kitty got out of someone's house, or was lost somehow. I'm more likely to believe that someone abandoned her. This should be punishable by flogging, or at least strong alienation.

An 80s Material girl.

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 00:59:25 GMT

A scan from Wendy's father. As Wendy described herself:

May I point out the curly perm (why???!!), the frosted lipstick, the pink (egad!!!) turtleneck, and the (oh so coveted) 17th St Surf Shop shirt. man, am I 80s!!! And the expression, wow. It reminds me of a certain other teenage girl I know now....

Bumpers

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 00:58:19 GMT

This is our new favourite bumper sticker .

That's all for now.

Vital information for everyone

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 02:18:59 GMT

Pouring Ketchup

The full technical explanation. Impress your friends.

Are you one of those people who taps at the bottom of an inverted ketchup (catsup) bottle, waiting in frustration for the sauce to pour? I am speaking of traditional ketchup bottles, not squeeze tubes, wide-mouth jars, or bottles designed to stand on their heads. Have you ever wondered if there is a right way to do it ?a way that works, and makes scientific sense?

Yes, folks, there is a right way to do it, and it does make sense. Here is how, and why:

First, let's look at the most common wrong way to do it. Remember the old "anticipation" commercials from the 1970s? The bottle is held upside down, then the hungry diner waits... and waits. Most people I know attempt to improve on this by tapping the bottom (that is, the upper end when the bottle is upside-down). That may help, but not necessarily for the reasons you imagine.

Ketchup can be regarded as a highly viscous liquid, or a thixotropic (flows under pressure) solid. Neither term is exactly correct, but the problem is not what to call it. The problem is how to get the ketchup out of the bottle, in measured quantities, without making a mess.

In order for the ketchup to emerge, air must enter the bottle. With an ordinary liquid such as water, a very narrow (dropper) neck would prevent the displacement of water by air. But a ketchup bottle has a neck that would be much too wide to prevent water escaping, and air rising in, when a bottle containing water is inverted. In the case of ketchup, the sauce is thick enough that the gravitational pull on the ketchup does not suffice.

Ketchup will certainly fall, of its own accord. In the case of a partly empty bottle, tapping the base can expel some ketchup without the need for air to enter. This is because the air that is already inside the bottle can slightly de-pressurize. Tapping the inverted base may slightly liquify the ketchup, enough for some to drop out even though no air is taken in. But in a full bottle, the ketchup must move to the side so that the air can rise through the neck at the same time that the ketchup escapes. The weight of ketchup is not great enough for this to happen in most circumstances.

So, in the case of the full ketchup bottle, the problem can be divided into two issues: (1) How can I get the ketchup to move aside, so that air can enter on the opposite side? (2) How can I give the ketchup "extra weight," so that it will be pulled out of the bottle faster?

The first issue is solved by holding the bottle sideways, with a slight downward tilt, rather than upside-down. In this position, the ketchup naturally is pulled to the lower side of the neck, and the air naturally will channel along the higher side of the neck. Anyone who pours an ordinary liquid from a bottle knows this. Yet it is amazing how the experience is forgotten when it comes to ketchup.

Merely holding the bottle in the correct position is not very effective. It is necessary to "increase the weight" of the ketchup by applying some G-force. This can be done by tapping the bottle downwards against your hand, to bring the bottle to an abrupt halt. In other words, the bottle moves downward and is stopped by the stationary hand. The picture shows a fist, but an open palm may be better. Don't hurt yourself! If your hands are delicate, you may try some other method of applying an abrupt stop to the bottle, provided that the stop is not rigid or fragile, and that you mind where the ketchup is going to emerge. Striking the bottle at the upper side of the neck is much less effective, since it applies the G-force in the wrong direction.

Tapping the inverted bottom of a full bottle ?the customary way ? is counterproductive. If you do that, most of the G-force will tend to keep the ketchup in the bottle. But now you know the right way, thanks to the amazing power of the Internet to unleash this kind of information. Of course, it would be possible to print instructions on the side of the ketchup bottle, but you wouldn't read them if they were there, now would you?

Footnote: A year after I posted this page, I happened to be in the same pub where I first got the idea to write about pouring ketchup. At a nearby table was a couple, who had ordered hamburgers. After the woman failed to get ketchup out of the bottle by using the various wrong ways shown above, the man showed how to do it the right way. The only difference is that he bumped the bottle against his open palm, rather than against his clenched fist. (That's a better idea, but I didn't have a graphic image of an open palm.)

I asked the man where he had learned the right way to get the ketchup. He told me that he learned it while stationed in Germany (U.S. Army) around 1985. I didn't think of asking whether he had learned it from the Army, or from the Germans.

I have also been told that long ago, one of the major ketchup manufacturers once ran ads instructing users to tap the label (on the bottle neck). But I don't recall seeing such ads; in any case, no explanation was given.

...
taken from http://www.icogitate.com/~ergosum/essays/ketchup/ketchup.htm

Long time, no blog.

Thu, 26 Jul 2007 12:13:57 GMT

So it has been a while since we've updated. What have we been doing? you ask. Quite a bit, is the answer.

The floors of our dining-room and living-room are now finished. There is a slight line between the two rooms, but the wood in the dining room was so much more worn than the living room it was unavoidable. Overall they look really nice, rich in colour. Time to sell the house before they wear. :) There is really one more room we should do - the study. This involves, of course, moving all our books off our book shelves, and moving our piano. wOOt fun.

In other news, I'm still on the job search, but with good possibilities. I'll let you know more when I have firm options. Please continue to pray for me and for Wendy in this matter. Uncertainty can certainly add stress, though we do seem to be dealing with it quite well.

We had a nice visit from my parents.

We haven't seen them for a VERY long time - border crossing is tricky for me right now.

We also, with one other teacher from Trinity and a few teenage helpers, led a summer camp for kids going into grades 4, 5, and 6. It was fun, but wow, their energy is astonishing. Even on terribly hot, humid days. Somehow I can't quite keep up with them like I used to. It is almost like I'm aging or something.

And finally for today, I've been asked to write programme notes for a performance in Ottawa that is going to be made into a live-recording on the Teldec label. It is on the piece I wrote my Masters Thesis on, so it was fun to return to that. In doing so, I found my entire 179 page thesis in full text online. Not sure how it got there, and if it should be, but I'll find out. For your light reading pleasure:

http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp01/MQ57083.pdf

And the text for the notes:

Schoenberg's Book of the Hanging Gardens

Arnold Schoenberg Book of the Hanging Gardens (Opus 15, 1908-09) is a masterwork of early twentieth-century music that offers new rewards to the listener upon each hearing. At this pivotal stage in the evolution of his style, it is perhaps surprising that Schoenberg chose to work within the confines of the song cycle, a genre associated with the nineteenth-century tradition of Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, and Wolf. This paradoxical balance between conservativism (on matters of form) and radicalism (in tonal language) is a hallmark of much of Schoenberg's compositional output.

This is the second work in which Schoenberg would incorporate the poetry of Stefan George (1868-1933) ? the first being his Second String Quartet, Opus 10. In Opus 10 the poetry speaks of breathing the ir of another planet,?a sentiment well reflected by the free pantonality and freely emancipated dissonance of Schoenberg's harmonic vocabulary. Perhaps with this in mind, he returns to George's love poetry in The Book of the Hanging Gardens. George's exquisitely youthful Symbolist poetry (1895) shows great intensity and charm. It speaks of the unfulfilled love of a young man for a woman, and the desire to overcome loneliness through love.

Schoenberg laboured arduously on these pieces, working intentionally on the marriage of text setting and melody. This was a turning point in the composer's style. Here, more than a decade before his develop of the twelve-tone method, Schoenberg is exploring how new techniques - other than those associated with traditional harmonic architecture - could sustain longer forms. Opus 15 is based on the development of small motivic elements in each movement: an early form of Schoenberg technique of "developing variation" (inherited from Brahms). While the songs in this cycle are not significantly linked to one another by formal compositional devices, Schoenberg nonetheless achieves a high degree of stylistic consistency throughout.

While interest in Schoenberg's music sometimes tends to gravitate toward the later twelve-tone works, or the earlier, more Romantic works (Verkl酺te Nacht, for example), the Book of the Hanging Gardens is worthy of close listening. It represents a seminal step in Schoenberg growth as a composer, and one of the most strikingly moving and novel Song Cycles in the twentieth-century repertoire.

Golf, Floors, and more

Tue, 03 Jul 2007 19:50:33 GMT

So we got to the final coat of clear on the floor, and I did a dumb thing. I used a new product that someone promised me was a miracle product - absolutely no air bubbles if you use this special foam roller. This, it turns out, is false. It inserted so many air bubbles so deeply, it looked like the floor had measles. So, we sanded back down to the bare wood. While doing this, the floor sander broke, and I had to replace the bearings. And now it isn't working correctly, but it gouges the floor. Oh well, I now have a lovely belt sander, with which I finished the sanding. I've now put on two coats of stain and 2 clear coats. It looks pretty good, but am I ever sick of the smell of varathane!
Just so you all know, the product never to use is:
http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=41893-159-LR265-9&detail=cr&lpage=none

Tell everyone you know.

We have been to see Wendy's parents. While there, we were out shopping, and we saw this display, which was surrounded by children's bedspreads. I can only take from the display that this is intended for little girls. I think it may not be totally appropriate...

Though Wendy wanted to get it for Christina.

Sunday afternoon, on a perfect day for it, I played golf with Joel and David. It was fun, and we all golfed like Tiger Woods, in our dreams, our distant distant dreams. It was fun, though, and I'd love to play more often. The city courses are only 13$ after 3:00 PM.

We all spent a little time spying out our golf-balls.

But look at Joel's splendid form! (Golf ball in the photo, my slow-speed camera blurred it a touch.)

Round about the 6th hole, Joel and I spotted a little baby deer. I have never heard any deer make so much noise, it sounded almost like a goat. It was cute! David S. didn't actually see it, though (as you can see) it was closest to him.

All in all, a pleasant day.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 19:17:38 GMT

The work continues. I did the first 2 coats of clear without sanding between - the wood soaked it up so much! The trick is to get the second coat on before the first is totally dry, but what to wear on my feet? Shoes will scratch the first coat, so socks are the way to go. But the first coat isn't totally dry, so socks will leave bits of sock-fabric all over the place. The solution? Socks with plastic bags.

I may start a new trend.

The colour darkens a bit with each coat of clear, but I'm hoping it lightens somewhat as the whole thing dries. I've just put on the third coat, and will not let it harden until morning. I'll give it a good sanding in the morning, and another coat. I think I'm going to try to do 10 coats total