Freshmen at my high school all had to take first-year English. As it happens, all new exchange students had to as well. So we had a student in my class, Suteera Nitayananta, who was a senior (I think. I’m amazed that I remembered how to spell her name). She sat in front of me.

We all had to write a paper (and give a short speech) on an assigned topic. I don’t really recall mine, but I remember Suteera’s: premarital sex, which generated the following conversation:

Suteera N: [turns around to ask this] What is premarital sex?

Class of hormone-enhanced rednecks: [LAUGHTER]

Me: Okay…do you know what marital means?

SN: No.

Me: It means “pertaining to or about marriage.” So if something is marital, it refers to being married to someone.

SN: Okay!

Me: “Pre-” is something we add to a word to indicate that it happens before something. So “pre-marital” means “before you are married.”

SN: Okay, that’s good.

Me: Do you know what sex is?

SN: Yes! We have many people in Thailand!

Class: [can’t breathe for laughing]

Me: Well, then, pre-marital sex is engaging in sex before you are married.

SN: Is that bad?

Me: Hey, I’m not writing your damn paper for you!

Class + SN + me + teacher: [pass out from laughing]

To be honest, I have maybe three good memories of high school. That’s one of them. So I thought I’d ask Google about Suteera. Turns out that name is the Thai version of Alan Smithee — mad hits. So I’ve no idea where she is now, but I hope she’s had a good life.

The year started unexpectedly in JANUARY by gracing Chateau Haney with a large sewer backup. In the past, such issues were small and more of an advanced annoyance (like having the gas tank access in the middle of the dashboard, or hearing Black Sabbath as elevator music). This time, it was more like Paris Hilton coming to the house to discuss proper parenting techniques with Carrot Top. The primary cause was the drought in 2012 — the trees so thirsty that they resorted to drinking poop water to survive (somewhat like the folks at a Rams game). Scott has been demanding that Heidi remove clutter from the basement, causing her to suspect Scott of paying the tree for the effort. Scott denies this, despite the city forestry crew finding $1000 and a copy of PlayLarch under the tree when they cut it down shortly after.

FEBRUARY was relatively quiet, involving mainly taxes, weather spotter training, and the coldest damn high-altitude balloon launch Cameron and Scott have ever experienced. The grand plan was to use our awesome ham radio gear to track the balloon, but it was so cold, nearly all telemetry was lost 7.5 seconds after launch, causing the lads to move to the backup plan of going home and drinking cocoa. This proved to be the correct thing, as all other crews lost the balloon as well — it was recovered in Illinois several months later after a farmer ran it over with a tractor (or possibly a goat. Or Blagoyovich).

This led to MARCH roaring in like a lion, and roaring out like an entire pride leaping on you as if you were coated in bacon. The month began with Heidi being broadsided when someone ran a red light (which is easy at this intersection due to another light being less than half a block away). Heidi was largely uninjured, but the insurance company chose to declare the van totalled, causing us to have to replace it entirely. That same week, Scott’s work suddenly dried up after the customer pulled the plug on the program. He spent the rest of that week in Indiana, visiting his father for what turned out to be the last time. (He also got a coupon to buy the new van at employee cost, thanks to his sister who is ENTIRELY kinder to him than he deserves.)

More vehicular mayhem ensued in APRIL when the OTHER car nearly dropped the engine due to the engine mount frames rusting through. This was a $1600 repair job, which has pushed the amortized cost of maintaining the car into “new car payment” territory. It was also the car Scott had just driven to and from Indiana — that trip could have ended badly. He could have been stranded. Worse, he could have been forced to drive Darrel’s truck. Scott also rode his bike as a chase vehicle for a incredibly blustery marathon. We also had a number of band concerts and auditions (many on the same day. We’re stupid that way).

April showers bring May flowers, and apparently also weak trees. Half of the linden in the back yard fell during a storm, taking out the power line and doing some mild damage to the house. Fortunately, Chateau Haney is wired to use generator power when the line is down, and we managed for a couple of days until the tree was cleared and the line restored. Note: gasoline makes for incredibly expensive electricity. Tabitha performed on euphonium for the Iowa Bandmasters Association Middle School Honor Band, quite an honor and a nod to her talent and intolerance of flighty middle-school students.

JUNE busted out all over with the commencement of the Municipal Band season (which proved to be one of the best yet). We also had a large number of ham radio events, added a new deck to the house, many Girl Scout camp events, and saw the other half of the damn linden fall AWAY from the house, through a maple and onto a 34,000 volt power line, where it kept catching fire from arcing. It apparently couldn’t live without the first half, and killed itself in despair. The tree turned out to be hollow from top to bottom, but contained no cookie-baking elves.

JULY began with the death of Darrel, Scott’s father, on the 9th after three years of dealing with leukemia. Many obituaries say something rather like “after a brave battle with cancer,” but Scott hates that. There’s no battle. Cancer isn’t some mighty-thewed warrior that can be vanquished with pluck and resolve and luck. It’s a thief, sneaking in step-by-step in the night and stealing you away so slowly that you don’t even notice it at first, but wake one day to find you’re half gone. We refuse to grant leukemia the honor of a clean battle or an honorable death. Fuck you, cancer.

Our attitude was not improved by the unexpected death of Darrel’s brother 16 days later.

AUGUST was just as busy, but not nearly as stressful. We closed out the 2013 Municipal Band season by playing live to fireworks (not caused by a fire in the breaker box, unlike 2012), attending weddings, visiting colleges and state fairs, and starting the school year. There may have been a makeover session in there, but Team Testosterone escaped with their complexions intact. We also welcomed Tuxedo to the Chateau’s feline menagerie. And by “we” I mean “everyone but Dowager Cat Empress Molly, who clearly has little use for the interloping twit.

SEPTEMBER saw fit to teach us all how chaotic the schedule becomes during marching band season. This was also when Cameron’s school bag went missing (originally believed to be stolen, but merely misplaced for a month by what has to be the single most clueless sports coach in existence except possibly the moron who went for the field goal in the Alabama/Auburn game YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE SPANKY). Cameron was still able to take his ACTs, on which he scored so well that Congress asked him to fix the budget (but clearly didn’t listen to him).

OCTOBER was full of concerts, work, ham radio events, the end of the marching band season, sugared-up short dudes with little, plastic pumpkins, and a surprising lack of death, dismemberment, and dismay — unless we start talking about mid-term GRADES, a topic of some contention. The local ham radio community managed to score 147 points for emergency testing without actually doing anything special for it — the public service year ended in October with well over 2000 staff-hours dedicated to events, leaving us all too tired to care about a dedicated test. (Also eliminating the need for one quite nicely.)

We remembered, remembered the Fifth of NOVEMBERed (some of us with an actual fifth, if you know what we mean). The kids passed their finals for Fall term, and we enjoyed an excellent Thanksgiving with family, except for the part where Tabitha claimed that it would be good to have a chupacabra as a parent. (Unless you’re a goat.) Cameron also visited more college campuses, and has applied to three and been accepted at one (we expect the other two to happen Any Minute Now[tm]). We also ended up sinking more money into that spare car, which is now on the verge of being replaced. This is made easier by the fact that the kids still don’t want to drive due to nobody native to this town ever having learned how before getting a license.

DECEMBER, like Aunt Minnie, gave us many gifts we did not want and can’t return. Scott experienced the joy of a colonoscopy and the amnesia-inducing drug they give you, much to Heidi’s amusement. Heidi’s mother, Vicki, had surgery to remove a fairly small cancer and will likely need mild radiation or chemotherapy. Tuxedo proved herself to be the single stupidest feline ever ensconced at the Chateau by eating so many hair ties, bread closers, hairs, dead labor leaders, and insulation bits that she nearly died and required surgery to remove these things from her colon. We are considering renaming her Steve Austin due to the cost. This was all nicely offset by the fact that Cameron received (several months after being approved) his Eagle Scout award, making all of us very proud (except Tux, who was in surgery at the time, and Molly, who has little use for the interloping humans).

Nietzsche one said that anything that does not kill us makes us stronger. We should be able to bench press a Buick by now. But we’re all here, having fun, and looking forward to a better 2014.

It was August 1981. I was 18, and about to start my freshman year of college. I was young, I was nervous, and I was driving my mother to an OB/GYN appointment. There was some concern that she was experiencing a somewhat early menopause, or perhaps had a tumor or cyst that needed to be addressed.

The true joy of that day was sitting in the waiting room with the expectant mothers (and a few steely-eyed but non-expectant mothers there with their entirely too-expectant daughters). I’ve always looked younger than I am. In my 50s, I appreciate that more than I did then — I didn’t look a day over 15 at most, and this earned me some hard looks, disapproving scowls, and a furtively whispered conversation.

So when my mother emerged from the mysterious confines of the exam room, I made of point of saying, “Ready to go, Mom?” earning me some nervous and sheepish expressions (and one hard look from someone who apparently thought it was my fault anyway. You pervert).

My mother didn’t say much, and we got in the car and began the 30-minute drive home. Mom rode in ominous silence — she’s normally a gregarious chatterbox, and being about as nervous about college as I was, certainly had things to say.

But she didn’t, and it dawned on me why. As we pulled into the driveway, I said, “Please don’t tell me you’re pregnant.”

“Okay,” she replied.

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, in exchange for chauffeur services, you have to tell me the day you will tell Dad so I CAN WORK LATE AND NOT GET KILLED FOR KNOWING BEFORE HE DID.”

“Okay.”

And life went on for a few days. My schedule and Dad’s didn’t overlap much, so I managed to not have to look him in the eye. But later (I think on a Saturday…can’t remember, but that’s the only day where he and I would have been home at dinnertime together), I walked in on the rest of the family having a meal…in deathly silence. My brother and sister were focused on their food. My mother kept rearranging her plate. And my father sat there with a fork in one hand, a steak knife (off which I never took my eyes) in the other, and a complete, uneaten meal in front of him.

“Oh. You told him,” I said.

“Uhhhnnnn…” said Dad.

“Well….”

“Uhhhhnnnn….” said Dad.

“I’ll just go sit in the trailer and listen to the shortwave.”

“Wait…YOU KNEW ABOUT THIS?”

Exit, stage left, pursued by a bear.

That was slight hyperbole…there was no pursuit, nor a bear. The evening was actually fairly tame as Dad stewed and Mom fretted. It was the NEXT day when Dad let loose with one of his classic rants. THE BOY IS STARTING COLLEGE! WE DON’T HAVE MONEY! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? (I don’t even want to speculate here.) WHEN ARE YOU DUE? MID-NOVEMBER?! YOU’RE 7 MONTHS ALONG?!!?????!?!??!??111??!?!!?!ELEVEN?? HOW COULD YOU NOT KNOW?

I suddenly stopped being all that nervous about college. In fact, it was a very busy time, and I was able to ignore the entire situation without guilt. Certainly without worry, because I knew that Dad would be fine the moment he set eyes on his newborn child.

And he was fine, and proud of how my kid brother turned out. As are we all, I think.

Happy birthday, Boo!

Folks, we’ve moved the entire site to a new hosting service. We had some trouble with the old one (including what appears to be a hacking attempt and some lost files), so we’re going with someone better. The move should be seamless. But if you notice anything wrong with the site, please let us know. (Note that it might take a day or two for the new email addresses to push through.)

My brother has a degree in history, and an interest in “alternate history,” where you ask “what if thus-and-such had turned out differently” and go from there. “What if the Confederacy had won the Civil War?” is a popular one.

My brother has a different approach — he’s created an entire war with Canada. And boy, he’s good at it. He tells the tales so convincingly that a reference librarian took three hours to catch on to the gag. And I am not sure the teachers at the school where he used to work ever caught on.

Short version is that if your story is reasonably consistent and you can keep a straight face, you can pretty much say anything you want and someone will believe it. Every time.

I’ve long felt this is giggle-worthy. I still do. And let’s face it, a number of people (such as S. M. Stirling) make a living telling such lies for profit — alternate history books are reasonably popular. They’re usually in the science fiction section of your local bookstore, and occasionally in the romance section. Check them out.

But lately, I’m harboring doubts. We have a non-trivial number of Senators and Representatives in the US who spout a lot of this nonsense. Many do so because they know better, but they need the votes. But an increasing number do this because THEY BELIEVE IT. Items from satirical or parodic sites such as The Onion are regularly quoted by our leaders and our news media as being true. And our leaders sometimes set policy or pass legislation based on this!

I can’t tell if it’s because we’ve become more gullible, or because the gullible now vote in more elections. But either way, I think it’s crucial that we teach critical thinking skills to our children. (Some of the aforementioned leaders are quite against this. They feel it challenges their faith. Well, yes. Duh. EVERYTHING should be challenged, including stuff I believe.) We’re becoming a nation of people who lack the skills to know when we’re being conned, and it won’t end well.

Can’t help but think this is partly how we’ve come to our current situation.

When I’m not busy biking, coding, or radiating RF directly into the neighbor’s very annoying dog (NOTE: I DO NOT ACTUALLY DO THIS, even though the howling bastard deserves it), I play music. I play with upwards of five different bands in a year, on several instruments, and in a wide variety of styles. Needless to say, I’ve been around a bit, and yes…I have a day job. Every professional musician I personally know does. That’s how it goes.

Some of the best gigs I’ve ever played have been weddings. I usually played with a group dedicated to that purpose — weddings and private parties. I’m 50, and I was pretty much the youngest most gigs. We had all gotten out of the bar scene due to the enormous amount of time it takes to spend the night sucking up second-hand smoke. Of course, Iowa no longer allows smoking in bars, so I’m willing to revisit the idea, but it’s still a lot of work. Musicians don’t get a lot of credit for the effort required.

Over the years of playing weddings ranging from “royal family” to “low budget, high mileage,” I have learned that weddings simply are not like other gigs. (This is true of private parties in general, but with weddings, you don’t get the leeway you get with other events.) It’s always good to be aware of your venue and your audience, but especially so for post-nuptial parties. If you’re considering booking a wedding, consider the following.

1. The band is a bridal accessory. Absolutely nobody present is there to hear you. Period. They are not your fans…they are there for the happy couple. If you act as if things are any other way, you may not get any more wedding gigs as word spreads. And it will.
2. A corollary to 1: get a grip on your volume. “If it’s too loud, you’re too old!” won’t cut it. You’re going to have people there ranging from 90 days to 90 years old who showed up to see “the kids” off on their new adventure. They’ll want to visit, talk, eat, and have a good time. If you’re interfering with any of that…you’re in trouble. This isn’t easy…you need to be “loud and proud” for the dancers, but basically background for everyone else.
3. Bands hate this, but at most weddings, you’re pretty much a living jukebox. You’ll get requests. You won’t know all of them, but you’d best be prepared to play some of them. Doing so goes a LONG way toward making them happy enough to recommend you to friends.
4. The band is a bridal accessory. You are on THEIR schedule, not yours, and certainly not the one they provided you before the gig. I have yet to play a wedding where everything happened as scheduled. (One came close — marriage of a Jewish woman to an Asian man. Most delightfully fun mix of cultures I’ve ever seen. Everyone had a blast.) Be flexible…you won’t start on time, and there will likely be some adjustments as you go. I do recommend that you hold pretty close to your scheduled stopping time. There’s a tendency for everyone to want to keep celebrating…that’s a good sign, in fact. But you can’t let them make you go much over. In fact, the venue staff will doubtless appreciate things ending on time, and probably also the bride and groom — they’ve had a busy day!
5. Be on your best behavior when not on stage. No foul language, no commentary on the girl in the very short blue dress (she is at EVERY wedding. Not kidding), no smoking where they can see you (find where the venue staff take smoke breaks, go there). And I shouldn’t have to say this… but NO DRUGS. Personally, I don’t even drink alcohol when working. One drink isn’t a problem, but if something goes wrong, I don’t want that idea to even be in play.
6. The band is a bridal accessory…and so it the groom. Sorry, man.

Have fun!

My bike rig is a Kenwood TH72, which has APRS built-in. It’s essentially the handheld equivalent of the D710, which is a fine radio. Like the D710, it allows you to tweak the SmartBeaconing[r] settings. I spent a fair amount of time meddling with them, and learned two key lessons:

1. There is absolutely no need to change the “corner pegging” settings. At all. The defaults work just as well for bikes as they do for cars.
2. There is very little need to change the speed-based beaconing, but it sometimes helps.

The speed-based settings depend quite a bit on how you ride. When I’m on the road, I’m moving anywhere from 10 to 24 mph, depending on conditions. That’s fast enough to get inside the beaconing envelope, which by default bottoms out at 5 mph. With the default settings and the frequency of the turns on my usual routes, the default settings work.

If, however, you are a more casual biker, you might want to drop the bottom of the envelope from 5 mph to 2 mph. Below this, you beacon no more often than every 30 minutes, which might not be what you want for some situations. I’d leave the top end alone,  but I’ve had it set as low as 30 mph without issues. (Again, this setting was probably buried by the corner pegging.)

Of course, this is all for general use. See the previous post for what to do for events.