The new floor

Click on the photos for a larger view.

Due to popular demand (i.e., the haranguing of my siblings) I present to the world these photos of my new laminate flooring in my living and dining rooms.

Here, our friend Cecil, in white, helps me, in orange, try to figure out how to get started doing the new floor.

The actual laying of the floor was the easiest part of the project. The hard parts were moving the bookcases out of the dining room and installing the quarter-round around the nooks and crannies of our living room.




Our cat, Violet, helpfully demonstrates the difference between the yucky old floor on the left and the fabulous new floor on the right. (That may be the first time the adverb "helpfully" was ever applied to a cat's actions.)

The old floor was what was left after we tore out the hideous, dusty carpet when we bought the house seven years ago.

But the worst part about the old floor wasn't the looks of it. It was soft and unfinishable, and we were eternally pulling splinters out of our socks and feet.




Ah! So now, when you walk in the room, here is the floor that greets you. The living room is noticeably brighter with the new, bright oak-like floor.




This is the view from the living room into the dining room, complete with silly daughter.




Here is some of the quarter-round that was especially, um, challenging to install. The pieces that were only 3/16th inch were stuck to other, longer pieces with super glue.

Music for 2006

So, what's up with me musically this year?

Instrumental CD: My brother Jeff has asked me to create some instrumental music for his upcoming wedding. So while I'm at it, I will compile the music into a CD I hope to have for sale sometime this summer.

Gigs: I will continue my gigs at The Anchor Room, with my next ones on Friday, March 10, and Friday, May 12.

Three-song demo CD: Maybe after my instrumental album is done, I'll be putting together a three-song demo CD that I can send to potential venues in Northeast Indiana.

I'll keep posting updates and links to downloads as they become available.

The 'paganism' of Christmas

Gene Edward Veith of World Magazine helps clear up some mythology about the so-called origins of Christmas in a pagan Winter Solstice festival:

True, the Emperor Aurelian, in the five short years of his reign, tried to start (a winter solstice festival), "The Birth of the Unconquered Sun," on Dec. 25, 274. ... But Aurelian's new festival was instituted after Christians had already been associating that day with the birth of Christ. ... Christians were not imitating the pagans. The pagans were imitating the Christians.

Read the whole article.

And Douglas Wilson helpfully tells us something about where all the pine boughs came from:

(T)he Christmas wreath custom did not come from paganism, but from a remarkable defeat of paganism. Boniface (680-754), missionary to the Germans, had chopped down a great oak, sacred to Thor. Three days later, on the first Sunday of Advent, he prevented a human sacrifice and used the sacrificial knife of the Druid priest to cut fir boughs for the people to take home as a reminder of Calvary. And of course, the inventor of Christmas tree lights (non-electric) was Martin Luther.

Wilson's article is here.

New gig! Friday, Dec. 9

Yes, this is a new gig! Come out to The Anchor Room on Friday, Dec. 9, from 7:30-9:30 p.m. and hear a special, Christmas-y gig. You can sing along! You can drink mochas! You can stop shivering!

Other changes:

• The gig for January 13 has been canceled due to an accidental double booking by the venue.
• Another new gig has been booked for Friday, February 24, at The Anchor Room.

As usual, details are on the engagements page.

Gig today at 1 p.m.

Come out to The Anchor Room today if you're in a Christmas-y mood. I'll be playing songs of the season from 1 to 2 p.m. Go to my engagements page for details.

And I'm happy to report that the medicines have pummeled my sinusitis.

Hope to see you there!

The cough-y house

Well. After two weeks of having what felt like the cold that would never leave, I went to the doctor and got some antibiotics. Sinusitis, most likely. Strong medicine, too.

But now, thanks to my illness-induced asthma, I have begun to cough.

I still hope to be feeling better before my gig on Saturday. If this medicine works, I'll be able to sing for an hour, no problem.

If not, expect to hear an awful lot of instrumental music.

My Christmas songs

We pause at last for Christmas past
Simplicity of Babe and creche
We sing the songs, confess our wrongs
As hearts of stone are turned to flesh

If you are looking for the lyrics to my Christmas songs, here are the links:

• Christmas in Our Town (quoted here)
• And Mary Said
• Nativity
• Blanket of Snow

And God descends and calls us friends
And grants the presence Jesus gave
We eat His meal and humbly kneel
Before the Son who came to save

Come and sing along at my gig Saturday afternoon at The Anchor Room.

How I spent my Saturday

But I'm not done yet. We bought a few more boxes of lights for the downstairs windows, which are still bare.

I want our house to be seen from space.

New gigs for December and 2006

UPDATE: The Dec. 17 gig at The Anchor Room has been canceled. By me. I may try to get another gig on a different day instead.

The good folks at The Anchor Room are allowing me to perform a Christmas gig during December. Plus, I have three new gigs to mention for 2006.

The December gig is on a Saturday afternoon:

• Saturday, Dec. 3, 2005, from 1-2 p.m.
• Saturday, Dec. 17, 2005, from 1-2 p.m.

The gigs for 2006 are:

• Friday, Jan. 13, 2006, from 7:30-9:30 p.m.
• Friday, March 10, 2006, from 7:30-9:30 p.m.
• Friday, May 12, 2006, from 7:30-9:30 p.m.

And and always, go to the engagements page for more details, including maps.

Two updates

Some very small, but good, news:

• Today, the men came to cut up and clean up the fallen tree in our neighbor's yard, and they went ahead and got all the tree in our yard, too!
• I received my Behringer UB802 Eurorack 8 Input Mixer in the mail on Wednesday, just two days after ordering!

Joke o' the day

While looking through cookbooks, Mary said:

I found a recipe for leftovers, but it takes two days to make.

This is your brain on sleep

This is a repost of something I put on a former blog on Feb. 17 -- but my wife still finds this funny:

Someday, it is our hope that science will discover the secret part of the brain that gives my wife such wacky dreams.

In her dream earlier this week, a couple of close friends were arguing. Then Friend 1 accused Friend 2 of just being “hypochronical.”

Not “hypocritical.” “Hypochronical.”

Now for the funny part.

In the dream, my wife does a double take and thinks to herself, “How does a woman of that intelligence make a mistake like that? She made that word up!”

Part of me wants to make fun of my wife for having a brain that makes up weird words, broadcasts them in the middle of her dreams, and then alerts her while she is still dreaming that it made up a weird word.

But making fun of her would be hypochronical.