Computers & Technology, Personal

Odds & Ends

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A handful of updates:

  • I traded up, replacing my HTC HD7 (running Windows Phone 7.5) for an HTC Windows Phone 8X. The 8X is a flagship device that’s astonishing — larger than the HD7, but lighter. Sound quality is phenomenal, boosted by the on-board Beats Audio. The 8 MP rear-facing camera rocks; I snapped a photo yesterday of a cigar I was smoking and the camera picked up with astonishing sharpness not only the fine veins of the cigar wrapper but I could also clearly see fine hairs on my wrist and even the fingerprint on my little finger.
  • I had to replace my laptop, too, because it well-and-truly died. I wanted to upgrade to a Win8 tablet but there aren’t non-RT models actually available (except for the Samsung ATIV) on the market. And the ATIV is an online-only order with a weeks-long fulfillment. So I ended up grabbing an HP Pavilion G6. It’s a perfectly serviceable machine with an AMD A8 processor, 4 GB of RAM and the usual specs for a lower-mid-grade laptop. Only glitch was that I had to buy it twice; the first model had a hardware failure straight from the box, so I had to swap it for a replacement at Best Buy. HP, your build quality is going the way of Compaq.
  • NaNoWriMo is … going. I have all the tools I need to be successful (well, almost; my Scrivener files haven’t yet synced to the new laptop — but having more than 30 GB on SkyDrive to sync on a slow connection might be the culprit) and a good plot. I’m behind on word count but at this point is more a discipline thing than an organization thing.
  • All’s quiet on the work front. Holding pattern.
  • Tony came to town yesterday. That was fun. In my head, I thought he was still going to be in California.
  • Been unusually tired lately.
  • I saw Skyfall last week. Not bad. I’ve seen people go on both directions about the film, but I thought it was a successful pseudo-reboot of the franchise.

Personal, Politics & Culture, Writing, Editing & Journalism

Assorted Reflections and Updates

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Today’s excursion into pithy commentary:

  1. National Novel Writing Month has commenced. I’m stretching my legs a bit to write a sci-fi story. My goal is to have the science be accurate but in the background; I’m really aiming for a commentary on human social evolution that just happens to bet set forward in a non-archetypal future. NaNo requires 50k words. I’m aiming for 90k, because I’d like to brush up the first draft and possibly shop for an agent or publisher. High goals, but hey. Defecate or get off the pot; I’ve been meaning to write a novel for years so why not now?
  2. To that end, I’m not only participating in local write-ins this November, but I’m also hosting one. On Saturdays at the food court at 35 Michigan. We had the first one yesterday and a baker’s dozen attended. It was great. The Starbucks baristas were friendly, too.
  3. So just about every female I’ve seen under the age of 30 seems to be wearing skin-tight clothes (including, most frequently, black leggings) paired with boots that frequently rise above mid-calf. Fashion is one thing; lemming-like wardrobes is another. At least the cellulite brigade hasn’t hopped on the bandwagon yet.
  4. Many of the regular patrons at my local cigar shop are Freemasons. They’re a cheerful, civil lot. Apparently they’re barred from asking people to join up, but they’ve hinted that perhaps I could ask questions about joining up. Alas, the Catholic Church still considers Freemasonry a grave sin. I chatted up another regular about it — a local priest, as it happens — who was quite happy to share his (utterly orthodox) knowledge of the Vatican’s perspective, with an added challenge to “return the favor” by encouraging the masons to consider membership instead in the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Hmm.
  5. I refreshed my HP TouchPad to the latest release of CM9. Much improved over the version I had installed earlier this year. I also downloaded a desktop-sharing app that works flawlessly with my Win8 PC at home. Meaning, I can keep working on my novel in Scrivener on my tablet without any loss of data or continuity.
  6. Halloween was somewhat underwhelming. My office door was decorated on my behalf. I ended up doing last-minute NaNo planning with Brittany, Steve and PJ at Wealthy Street Bakery. Very helpful.
  7. The election looms. I’m planning on watching the returns with Tony in (of all places!) Southfield. He needs to fly to California early the next morning from DTW, so we’re going to watch early returns at Churchills’ cigar shop there and enjoy a fine dram of Scotch or two.  I’m cautiously optimistic that Romney will eke out a win, and I may be working Tuesday morning as a poll challenger at one of the most heavily Democratic precincts in West Michigan. Hmm.
  8. Speaking of the election, there’s been a lot of background noise about Nate Silver, the NYT blogger/prognosticator who’s been consistently “predicting” an Obama win. The whole situation annoys me. Look, as a full-fledged member of the American Statistical Association, I can say for certainty I know what Silver’s doing — he’s assessing the probability of a binary outcome, based on various undisclosed polls as inputs into his model. That’s fine. As a full-fledged member of the Society of Professional Journalists, I can say for certainty that if journalists could do stats American reporting would be of uniformly higher quality. That said, the fundamental problem with Silver’s analysis is that he’s basically got a garbage-in/garbage-out thing going. I don’t question what I understand his methodology to be; I do question the radical differences in polling that feeds his model. Polling in this cycle is all over the map. Throw crap in, you’ll get crap out, no matter how carefully you run your probability estimates. So a pox on everyone’s houses.
  9. Oh, and on top of it, American politics isn’t accustomed to a binary probability estimate for presidential elections. So moving in that direction, given that the inputs are more volatile than people give them credit for, seems like a misapplication of models. But hey, if Silver wants his 15 minutes of fame, he’s certainly earned it.
  10. I swapped out the stereo on my Jimmy a few weeks ago. The operation took longer than it should have — I needed to buy a wire harness — but I managed to get the job done without damaging anything. Yay, me.
  11. Tony I went on a brief casino trip a few weeks ago to Harrah’s Joliet and met Mark and Keren of the 360 Vegas podcast. An uproariously good time was had by all.
  12. Life at the hospital continues to pay lip service to the Chinese maxim about interesting times. I’m now officially a business analytics analyst in the Information Services team. The transition continues to unfold, so stay tuned.

November, already. Ugh. But hey — the holiday season’s a-comin’. Be glad, and rejoice.

Personal

Film Review: “Garden Island: A Paranormal Documentary”

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When you think “northern Lake Michigan,” what comes to mind? The Mackinac Bridge and its gateway to Da U.P? Art shops in Charlevoix? Clear, deep water ideal for a day of sailing or fishing?

Maybe it’s the scenic wonder of the region: The rocky cliffs, cool but sunny beaches and vast expanses of forest populated with an eclectic mix of deciduous trees, hardy pines and small wetlands.

Thanks to Chris and Amy Penney of Dogbyte Motion Pictures, you should add a new image to your mental catalog: Haunted Indian burial grounds.

Garden Island: A Paranormal Documentary — shot entirely by the Penneys on location primarily at Garden Island, Charlevoix and Grand Rapids — is the newest indie flick to hit the local theaters. John Serba of MLive reported that the film cost a whopping $1,000 to produce, but the lush visuals and excellent editing results in a film that looks like it cost a heck of a lot more to make.

Think of Garden Island as a Michigan version of The Blair Witch Project. The premise is straightforward: A team of documentary filmmakers trek to Garden Island (an uninhabited speck of 5,000 acres north of Beaver Island that really does hold the largest Native American burial ground in the Midwest) to research the decades-old disappearance of a group of kids who were camping on the island. When the team arrives, they’re accosted by meth cookers. By the end of the film, many of the crew have vanished under odd circumstances — and despite the bizarre readings recorded by the  paranormal researchers they’ve brought along, you don’t really know if the film crew succumbed to evil spirits or to vengeful meth cookers.

For being an ultra-low-budget title, the production values were astonishing. Chris Penney has directed several independent films, so he’s had ample time to hone his craft (and it shows). The mix of lighting, scenery and sounds worked well, and the entire cast felt like a real research team — not like a group of local actors trying to sound like a research team. The humor was real, the terror looked entirely believable and the frustration on-screen at various plot points was eminently plausible. The sense of increasing paranoia shown by Amy Penney, in particular, developed into a crescendo of terror that worked because it played off a fear of being lost and in the middle of the unknown, with the natural escalation of fear leading to panic leading to jumping off the deep end.

The great thing about the film: You didn’t really have to suspend disbelief. The plotting and the acting were of sufficiently high quality that you could let yourself immerse in the story without a mental film critic interrupting with objections about some technical flaw in the film or incompetence by an actor. Within the plot, there was enough of a “yes or no?” quality to the ghost thing, in light of the meth dealers, that you could walk away asking what really happened on Garden Island. That kind of immediate authenticity is hard to come by in independent filmmaking, which often relies on cheap gimmicks or woefully inadequate special effects to hammer the point home well past the point of obviousness. The Penneys let your own imagination play a key role in parsing the events you see on screen — a special treat for people who love the horror genre as it was meant to be.

Special kudos to the cast, led by the Penneys with Chuck Harb, with appearances by other actors who’ve worked with the Penneys before, as well as cameos by real-life members of various West Michigan paranormal research societies.

Garden Island: A Paranormal Documentary screened Friday and Saturday at Celebration Cinema South. Attendance on the latter screening was nice — a crowd of perhaps 50 or more. Films like this one deserve a wider release and more careful study by other local filmmakers.

Garden Island ought to get an award for mixing high production values, thoughtful plotting and excellent acting into one tidy package. That films like this can still get made in a world where “independent films” feature million-dollar budgets should be enough to give you goosebumps.

Want to learn more? Check out the film’s Facebook page.

Personal

Film Review: "Garden Island: A Paranormal Documentary"

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When you think “northern Lake Michigan,” what comes to mind? The Mackinac Bridge and its gateway to Da U.P? Art shops in Charlevoix? Clear, deep water ideal for a day of sailing or fishing?
Maybe it’s the scenic wonder of the region: The rocky cliffs, cool but sunny beaches and vast expanses of forest populated with an eclectic mix of deciduous trees, hardy pines and small wetlands.
Thanks to Chris and Amy Penney of Dogbyte Motion Pictures, you should add a new image to your mental catalog: Haunted Indian burial grounds.
Garden Island: A Paranormal Documentary — shot entirely by the Penneys on location primarily at Garden Island, Charlevoix and Grand Rapids — is the newest indie flick to hit the local theaters. John Serba of MLive reported that the film cost a whopping $1,000 to produce, but the lush visuals and excellent editing results in a film that looks like it cost a heck of a lot more to make.
Think of Garden Island as a Michigan version of The Blair Witch Project. The premise is straightforward: A team of documentary filmmakers trek to Garden Island (an uninhabited speck of 5,000 acres north of Beaver Island that really does hold the largest Native American burial ground in the Midwest) to research the decades-old disappearance of a group of kids who were camping on the island. When the team arrives, they’re accosted by meth cookers. By the end of the film, many of the crew have vanished under odd circumstances — and despite the bizarre readings recorded by the  paranormal researchers they’ve brought along, you don’t really know if the film crew succumbed to evil spirits or to vengeful meth cookers.
For being an ultra-low-budget title, the production values were astonishing. Chris Penney has directed several independent films, so he’s had ample time to hone his craft (and it shows). The mix of lighting, scenery and sounds worked well, and the entire cast felt like a real research team — not like a group of local actors trying to sound like a research team. The humor was real, the terror looked entirely believable and the frustration on-screen at various plot points was eminently plausible. The sense of increasing paranoia shown by Amy Penney, in particular, developed into a crescendo of terror that worked because it played off a fear of being lost and in the middle of the unknown, with the natural escalation of fear leading to panic leading to jumping off the deep end.
The great thing about the film: You didn’t really have to suspend disbelief. The plotting and the acting were of sufficiently high quality that you could let yourself immerse in the story without a mental film critic interrupting with objections about some technical flaw in the film or incompetence by an actor. Within the plot, there was enough of a “yes or no?” quality to the ghost thing, in light of the meth dealers, that you could walk away asking what really happened on Garden Island. That kind of immediate authenticity is hard to come by in independent filmmaking, which often relies on cheap gimmicks or woefully inadequate special effects to hammer the point home well past the point of obviousness. The Penneys let your own imagination play a key role in parsing the events you see on screen — a special treat for people who love the horror genre as it was meant to be.
Special kudos to the cast, led by the Penneys with Chuck Harb, with appearances by other actors who’ve worked with the Penneys before, as well as cameos by real-life members of various West Michigan paranormal research societies.
Garden Island: A Paranormal Documentary screened Friday and Saturday at Celebration Cinema South. Attendance on the latter screening was nice — a crowd of perhaps 50 or more. Films like this one deserve a wider release and more careful study by other local filmmakers.
Garden Island ought to get an award for mixing high production values, thoughtful plotting and excellent acting into one tidy package. That films like this can still get made in a world where “independent films” feature million-dollar budgets should be enough to give you goosebumps.
Want to learn more? Check out the film’s Facebook page.

Personal, Writing, Editing & Journalism

The Last 11 Books

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Hmm. Last 11 books I’ve read, according to my benevolent overlords at Amazon, in no particular order:

“How to Think Seriously About the Planet: The Case for an Environmental Conservatism” by Roger Scruton
“Moral Dimensions: Permissibility, Meaning, Blame” by T. M. Scanlon
“On the Nature of Things” by Lucretius
“Principle Doctrines” by Epicurus
“The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion” by Jonathan Haidt
“Rome: An Empire’s Story” by Greg Woolf
“The Social Conquest of Earth” by Edward O. Wilson
“What I Talk About When I Talk About Running” by Haruki Murakami
“The ARRL Operating Manual for Radio Amateurs” (9th ed.)
“Dictionary of Unendurable English” by Robert Hartwell Fiske
“Deadly Deceptions” by Duane Gundrum

I guess I’ve knocked back more books than I thought lately.

Personal

New Wheels

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A few weeks ago my truck — a 1990 Ford Ranger — died. As I was pulling into the parking ramp at the hospital, I had to gun it to avoid running over a cyclist who played right-of-way games on the sidewalk. That last push of torque snapped something in the transmission, and from that point forward the Ranger was no more.

After the hospital security pushed me into a makeshift parking spot — I blocked one of three entrances to the employee lot at morning rush hour — I had the ol’ girl towed home.

The Ranger has been replaced with a 1998 GMC Jimmy SLS 4×4. This two-door SUV has a full luxury package, including a moonroof and all-electric controls. Everything works like it should and the old owner had just put new brakes and tires on it.

The Jimmy rides like a dream. I got it used from the original owner, who obviously took good care of it.

The Jimmy passed it’s first medium-haul test with flying colors. Yesterday I drove Alaric and me to Kalamazoo for lunch at Saffron and spirits browsing at Tiffany’s. We also popped over to the WMU campus for a nostalgia tour, then returned to G.R. for a beer-tasting event at Brewery Vivant. Yummy. The Belgian sour ales were heavenly.

In any case, now that we’re staring down Old Man Winter, it’ll be good to have a vehicle that (a) goes forward reliably when you depress the accelerator, and (b) stops when you touch the brakes.

 

Personal

The Crispness of Autumn

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On this, the last day of September, the early signs of autumn already show themselves: The air is a bit cooler, the sun looks weaker, the leaves begin to show their final colors.

I love the fall. I like the transition to sweater weather, the promise of the upcoming holiday seasons, the fun of cider-and-donut season, the simple joy of Halloween. It’s a reminder to slow down, to enjoy what’s left while it’s still here.

As much as I disdain birthdays, my mid-September birth marks the beginning of an action-packed period that stretches until the new year. From mid September until Halloween, the name of the game is seasonal change. From Halloween until Thanksgiving, it’s “preparation for winter.” Thanksgiving to Christmas is a magical time of anticipation. Christmas to New Year’s prompts thoughts of annual renewal.

Of course, January 2 heralds the long, desolate slog until spring.

The scene from the coffee-shop window amuses. I see, for example, guys walking down the street together; one’s in shorts and a tank top, the other wears jeans, a shirt and a pullover fleece. Only in Michigan can both get-ups be equally acceptable simultaneously.

In any case, I’m taking today off to relax a bit. Perhaps I’ll retreat to the veranda for a cigar and a glass of wine. After all, autumn’s nigh — savor it while it lasts.

Personal

Annual Birthday Reflection, 2012 Edition

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So. Yesterday marked the beginning of year No. 36. All things considered, No. 35 was refreshingly solid:

  • Nothing bad happened.
  • I experienced some lovely travel events, including vacation trips to Las Vegas and Windsor, Ont., and a business trip to San Diego.
  • I’m in (slightly) better physical shape than I was a year ago.
  • I earned my Technician license for amateur radio, which was a bucket-list item.
  • I’ve replaced most of my “lost” outdoors equipment, including hiking gear, and acquired and actually used a new kayak.
  • Tony and I have done a pretty good job keeping current on our podcasts.
  • I competed in the 2011 National Novel Writing Month and learned a bit of humility in the process.
  • I finally finished building out my home office and fully stocking my home-based “vice station” of spirits, liqueurs and cigars.
  • Gillikin Consulting has seen real profitability for the first time since 2008.
  • My circle of friends grew substantially through the WriteOn! group and our monthly cigar-and-cocktail evenings.

The observance of my birth went off without any unwelcome drama. Ronda very kindly got me a T-shirt and a scrumptious birthday cake on Friday. I got cards from my mom and grandmother. Tony, Jen, Jon and Emilie spent the weekend in Grand Rapids; at considerable expense to themselves, we had dinner yesterday at Judson’s Steakhouse then spent a fair amount of time imbibing at Cygnus27. Then back to Cygnus27 this morning for a champagne brunch. Yummy. And they got me two bottles — one of a tasty, tasty single-malt Scotch and one of a smooth bourbon.

I’ve drawn two major life lessons in the last 12 months.

First, I handle stress best when most things are moving smoothly along several different dimensions. Probably this reflects my own natural way of approximating Maslow’s Hierarchy. Those dimensions include:

  • Living in a place that you’d be happy to welcome guests into.
  • Being reliably mobile.
  • Looking and feeling healthy.
  • Having enough disposable income that you can handle sudden problems or unexpected opportunities without sweating the bank account.
  • Pursuing meaningful life goals and being able to demonstrate excellence in a self-defined niche.

When any of those broad categories fall short, I tend to obsess over them and then other things begin to destabilize, like the roving finger in the proverbial dike.  So paying attention to how things are going and being more proactive at life planning helps keep the Ship of State on course.

Second, I’m just beginning to sense the attitudinal benefits attendant to growing older. I used to genuinely fear aging; now, I’m more stoic about it and more welcoming of the experiences that influence thought patterns — not a bad trade for the occasional grey hair. I think the tipping point was noticing how my approach to problems has shifted. I’m more often approaching them with a patient “been there, done that, no big deal” mindset that reduces the drama. If some of the uncertainty at the hospital had played out a few years ago instead of now, for example, I’m pretty sure I would have responded more aggressively and, thereby, shot myself in the foot.

Put differently: More and more of the knowledge I’ve had in my head is becoming internalized in my heart. Many of the lessons I knew in an academic sense have become more “real” because I’ve accumulated enough experiences to move from knowledge to wisdom. As we remember from Gillikinism #44: “Experience puts meat on the bones of theory.”

All that having been said, I guess I’m OK being 36. Not that I have much choice. But I see more clearly now than I used to that the decisions I make today and tomorrow will decide whether next year’s birthday blog post will be positive, negative or neutral.

Personal

The First Week of September

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Goodness, gracious. What a week it’s been.

  1. My poor little truck, the ugly-as-sin 1990 Ford Ranger, finally gave up the ghost. She served me well, but an emergency acceleration to avoid an out-of-control cyclist provided the final bit of torque that snapped one of the linkages in the truck’s transmission; I had to have it towed home from the employee ramp at the hospital. The old girl is now permanently decommissioned and will soon be listed in Craigslist for sale for parts. I bought the truck in August 2010 for a whopping $750 and got a full 25 months’ service with very little real trouble — a total cost of ownership of roughly $1 per day, with the only extra expenses beyond ordinary fuel and fluids being a new alternator, new light bulbs and routine tire replacement. Excellent first experience with Ford.
  2. The work of dismantling my department at the hospital continues; everyone keeps a job, but what the job is and what it entails isn’t yet carved into stone. Alaric and I met with the folks in Information Services with whom we’re supposed to work — nice people.
  3. I hosted some creative professionals on Friday night. Eight guests, tasty pizza and delicious chocolate cake (thanks, Brittany!) capped off the meeting; to celebrate the “other” Jason’s birthday, in whose honor the cake was baked, most of the group went to Celebration Rivertown for the 11 p.m. showing of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
  4. Spent a fair amount of time that should have been engaged in productive work in the evenings this week watching back episodes of Supernatural instead. Just started season 3 last night.  I was so engrossed that I even missed the new episode of Doctor Who last night. Heavens to Murgatroyd!
  5. I’m sooooo looking forward to the late October release of Windows 8, Win8 tablets and Windows Phone 8. Here’s hoping that T-Mobile doesn’t cheap out on its initial WP8 offerings … I’d offer up Tony’s firstborn child to get a Lumia 920.
  6. The next cigar/cocktail evening is planned for 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 19, at Grand River Cigar. Anyone interesting in attending who didn’t already see an invitation — let me know. The more, the merrier, and self-invites are not only welcome but encouraged.

Personal

Bells, Bells, Bells

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Bell #1: Wedding.  Today I was privileged to attend the wedding of Brian and Liz at a lovely church in Holland, Mich. The ceremony began at 11 and started auspiciously: The couple rickrolled their guests by having the string quartet intersperse a few Astley measures after the canonical opening of The Wedding March.  Adam leaned forward and said, “Dude, were we just rickrolled?” Yes, Adam. Yes we were.

The pastor was also the bride’s father, which provided both emotional contrast and occasional bouts of levity (like when he ostentatiously switched places with himself to give the bride away). In any case, the ceremony was lovely, Liz’s dress was gorgeous and Brian comported himself well. The post-wedding luncheon included some games, a gorgeous performance of Songbird by Cassidy and excellent sweet tea. (Seriously. As many times as I’ve been served tea at various functions, no one has prepared it as well as the caterer for this wedding.)

Several members of our writer’s group attended the ceremony; the “other” Jason, Mel, Cassidy, Tabby/Richard, Jen, Adam/Ashley, Brittany/Steve and Lianne/person.

Best wishes to Brian and Liz as they begin their life together as husband and wife.

Bell #2: Casino Winnings.  Last weekend Tony and I spent two nights at Caesar’s Windsor on a comp; ostensibly, we did our “Best Year Yet” planning but we also found time to enjoy a few authentic Cuban cigars (over-rated), imbibe adult beverages (too expensive for too little alcohol) and enjoy delicious food (Nero’s steakhouse is fantastic). In addition, we managed to run about $10k through on my card one night, at a total net loss of only maybe $60. So it turned out really well. We left on Friday, with a pit stop in Okemos to grab a few Davidoff Maduros from The Corona and a reduced-cost hour-long table massage for me. The trip to Windsor was routine. The Caesar’s Windsor complex is nice — it’d be an upper-middle tier property on the Strip, I think — and the Canadians were unfailingly polite. Mix perfect weather, cigars along the Detroit river, tasty food and some productive work, and the three-day weekend was time well spent.

Bell #3: Workplace Chinese Firedrill.  Two weeks ago, my department was unceremoniously dissolved; the nine of us have been scattered to the four winds. ‘Tis a time of great uncertainty, requiring some deep thought about one’s options.