Interesting Times

Hey, I'm making this post from St. Louis. It's good to be here, though I'm sure I'll be going stir-crazy by the end of my stay... Hmm. What's happened since my last post? Well, I got things squared away with regards to classwork. Said goodbye to some friends and headed for the airport. Many thanks to Scion for the ride; it was a real life-saver. Last Thursday evening I spoke with my old freshman buddy Neil and his wife. They dropped by my place to return the Escaflowne discs they had borrowed. It was good to see them again - I think we're going to try to get together more this next semester. They're both at BYU for about two more years, so I hope to become friends with them. We spoke for quite a while; they're both interested in doing some Nobilis. Perhaps this Spring that will finally work out. They are also going to lend me their copy of Firefly on DVD. I've heard very good things about that. I'd like to watch it with some folks before Serenity hits the theaters in September. My flight to St. Louis was largely uneventful, and I feel kind of jaded. The allure of air travel has largely worn off on me. It seems like a glorified bus system these days; there's no glamor in it. When I was younger, I was so fascinated by airplanes and flying machines. I still am, but there's no thrill in commercial flights for me anymore. I still want to get a pilot's license though... It's good to see my family again. The night I got here we ended up going to the Mimi's Cafe here in Chesterfield. It was good, though quite crowded for some reason. We all ended up coming home with boxes of leftovers. I had the apple-cider glazed pork chops. They were good, but not quite as strong as I like food to be. After dinner we went to a local rec center where the St. Louis Philharmonic was having a fund-raising concert. "Brass and Sass" It was a bit of a let-down, but it was decent enough. We'd been expecting a bit more of a "Pops in the Park" sort of atmosphere, but this was very much a fundraiser. The numbers performed tended towards uninspired arrangements of show tunes. And there were a lot more strings than brass. The acoustics in the auditorium (really a gymnasium) were awful. Still, the guest performer was amazing. It was Robert Romm, who was a founding member of the Canadian Brass. His trumpet performance basically made the show for me. He performed the Carnival of Venice, the Trumpeter's Lullaby, and others. Mostly his wife accompanied him on piano, though a few pieces were performed with the orchestra. He was spectacular. A lot of fun to listen to. The rest was less than stellar, but I'm glad I went and had the opportunity to see him perform. One of the first things I did here at home was to swap in my wireless router for the switch already networking the PCs together. That got me access from my laptop to the internet. It's working out quite well. I was up until 2 AM last night playing FFXI while my sister and her friends took over the basement. My bedroom's right off of the rec room down there, and I couldn't sleep for all the Karaoke Revolution happening... I'm typing this message up right now from the couch in the basement while listening to my iPod on the stereo system. It's quite nice. Speaking of the stereo, Daniel (my younger brother who's coming out to BYU when I return) did something pretty cool to it. The left and right speakers are Cerwin-Vega models from about 1980. They'd been getting a bit long in the tooth, and having trouble reproducing bass sounds. It turns out that the foam mounting that connects the drivers to the enclosure had totally rotted out and was causing the problems. So he got a $20 foam mount kit for this model of speaker and remounted the drivers. All of a sudden these speakers became awesome. They sound better than they have for as long as I've listened to them. And they produce massive bass. Shake-the-house bass. And with better tone than any subwoofer I've heard. Apparently the woofer drivers on these speakers are still quite popular. People mount them in their cars, or build sub enclosures for them. In any case, sitting here listening to the Black Mages while typing is quite the pleasure. I'm planning on watching Naqoyqatsi while I'm here. I've finally found a place to watch it that can do it aural justice. Don't Phillip Glass and Yo-yo Ma deserve the best? I'm going to hook my laptop up to it here shortly and try some FFXI. Give those battles some audio oomph. It might be overkill though. We'll see. One thing I love about being here in St. Louis is that I've basically got the basement to myself. That's where all the entertainment equipment is. And it's where my bedroom is. Since nobody upstairs can hear a thing I'm doing, even if it's extremely loud, I've basically got free reign down here. So I can crank the stereo at midnight, and nobody cares. It's perfect. On Saturday my dad and Daniel and I went down to a local firing range. I've been looking forward to it for a while now, and it was quite a lot of fun. We shot trap first. My dad's really good. Daniel did ok. I was not so hot, missing every clay pigeon on the first round of 25 shots. That was with the 20-gauge pump-action shotgun. On my second set though, I hit about 2 or 3 for every 5 pigeons. They were clean hits too. That time I was using my grandfather's semi-auto 12-gauge. I've always been much better with rifles than shotguns, so it was very gratifying to actually hit something for a change. We had planned to shoot the rifles and then the handguns after trap, but we had to stop early due to a lightning storm. But before we had to leave, I did get to shoot the .30-06. It was my dad's bolt-action deer gun, and I'd never really fired it before. Man, that'll leave your shoulder sore afterwards. I was shooting at 100 yards, with scope. I was pretty pleased with my performance. I put three rounds within an inch-diameter circle, with the two shots I thought'd "gone wild" about an inch to either side. I was generally a bit low and to the left, but it was the sort of thing that would adjust easily to fall right on the bull with a bit of sighting-in. I've actually scanned in my target, so I'll probably get that posted in a day or so. If I'd had another chance to shoot before the rain came in, I think I could have done much better, but three shots under an inch apart is not bad at all. I suspect that Dad and I will get out to the range again next weekend, which should be a lot of fun. It's not certain that we'll be going again though. We'll see what the schedule looks like. My dad and brother and I went down to the Bass Pro Shop when the rain came up. We bummed around there for a while there, looked at firearms, that sort of thing. I fell in love with the Benelli Black Eagle semi-auto shotgun I looked at there. We looked at a number over over-unders and semi-auto shotguns with the clerk there, but this one was a cut above the rest. It was a matte black, and very lightweight. But what set it apart was that when I threw it up to my shoulder and looked at the sight, it was perfectly aligned with my eye. It did this every time. All of the other guns took some adjusting at my shoulder to get the sight aligned. The Benelli was just dead on center. It fit. It's good to see the family again. It will probably be about a year before we're all back together. Ashley's heading out to Nanjing, China, with a BYU study abroad program. She's flying out to Provo on Monday, and from there to Nanjing. She's excited about it, but a little nervous. That's to be expected, I guess. She won't be back until after Winter semester. My mom's worried about her, but trying not to show it too much. When I fly back to Provo, my brother Daniel will be coming with me. He'll be a freshman in Computer Engineering. He's a good guy, and I look forward to introducing him to all my Provo friends. Mom's worried about being all alone. It's been 20-odd years since it's just been her and my dad at home. She'll find something to do to occupy her time though. Maybe finish up her Ph.D work? I know she's been wanting to do that for a while now. Wow, I think this is my longest blog post yet. I hope all you readers out there consider yourselves lucky :P What can I say, it's interesting times right now. Until later, James