Some years ago, I wrote a little jig. During a rehearsal last night, we decided to incorporate it into The Happy Out’s version of “All for me Grog”. As I needed to later communicate it to our fiddle player, I finally got around to writing it out and giving it a title inspired by an experience my wife and I had wandering through the streets of Cong on our honeymoon: “Beagle at the Bar”.
A friend of mine recentlly asked for some recommendations for an upcoming visit to San Antonio. Because one thing I’m never short of is opinions, I wrote up a list of some of my favorite things to do in town. I’ll add to it over time, but here’s the first version of Sean’s Insider Guide to San Antonio.
While playing with The Happy Out at the San Antonio Highland Games recently, we were a bit vexed to be utterly drowned out during one of our lilting acapella tunes by the band at the next stage. The musical interlopers in question turned out to be Celtica, a group known not only for their Scandinavian-metal tinged Celtic rock, but also for their fire-belching bagpipes. While we have no aspirations to match them in volume, we were impressed with their visual flair, and decided to see what we could do to step up our own, ideally in ways that would not cause the fire marshal to raise a concerned eyebrow.
On my return home, I immediately launched into a couple hours of feverish research, followed by placing an order from Adafruit, one of my favorite electronics supply houses. A few days later, the shipment arrived, followed closely by some tinkering, prototyping, tea-drinking, assembly, thinking, coding, cursing, disassembly, soldering, and reassembly. Eventually, the smoke billowing from the chimney of my workshop abated and I emerged with v1.0 of The Nuclear Bodhran[^1]!
I was fortunate in this effort that Adafruit had published an article on their site on making the drums in a trap set sound-reactive. I used their parts list, circuit diagram, and code as a starting point for my efforts. However, I made several tweaks to their design that better suited it to my needs:
I’m quite happy with how this first version turned out. For future versions, I might explore whether there are brighter light strips available, or whether using strips with more LEDs per meter would allow the lighting effects to be seen in a broader range of environments. I’ve also considered changing out the Gemma M0 for a microcontroller that supports wifi and bluetooth so that we could sync up lighting effects on multiple instruments or even have the audience send texts from their phones to change the lighting effects. (There is no end to my nerdiness.)
I’ll be trotting this out for the first time at The Cottage this weekend; looking forward to seeing how it’s received!
[^1]: Not actually nuclear. But actually a bodhran.
I finished reading “Blood, Sweat, and Pixels” this morning. Great read, and an excellent window into the video game industry and the toll it exacts from those working in it.
When I got laid off from EA back in 2004 (they were moving the Origin team from Austin to California), I took a job at Texas State University next. There were a few reasons for choosing that role, but one was that I wanted to be more present for the raising of my young kids than my previous commute and the studio’s occasional crunch time allowed. Seeing how endemic the practices of crunch and overtime are in the industry, I’m even more glad now that I made that decision. (Plus, a few of my most treasured friendships grew from that time at the University.)
In a bit of interesting synchronicity, as I’m reflecting on this, my youngest is moving out to her own place, leaving me with an empty nest for the first time in 27 years. My kids have all turned out to be wonderful adults, and I’m so grateful to have been able to make the most of those fleeting years when they were growing up under the same roof with me.
I still occasionally dream about being a part of building another terrific game; but given how much that industry asks of its people, I’m unwilling to pay that relational price. I’m so glad to have had the opportunity with Ultima Online, but that window seems to have closed, and I’m fine with that. Most days.
Several years ago, I designated the day before Thanksgiving as Creme Brûlée Day. My extended family now observes it, naturally enough, by getting together and making the titular dessert while visiting, playing games, doing other Thanksgiving prep, and enjoying being together.
Part of the tradition is to devise new Brûlée recipes and try them out. In the past, we’ve come up with recipes for Mexican Chocolate (a keeper!), Sriracha (decidedly not a keeper), and Parmesan cheese (far better than it sounds).
This year, our experiments were all based on the same custard base:
We tried even more variations this year than usual. After much deliberation, we settled on trying the following:
We ate about half of the quadruple batch we made (having learned from years past), but still have plenty to take to our Thanksgiving feast tomorrow. A delightful time for both palate and soul!
Hey musical nerd-friends! If anybody’s been curious about Poppy’s traveling song from Episode 5 of Rings of Power, I took the time to chart it out this morning, as I wanted to perform it with The Happy Out. Help yourself! Fair use disclaimers apply: not for reproduction, for personal study only, etc.
{title: This Wandering Day}
{key: Bb}
{time: 3/4}
(drone on chord)
[Bb]The sun is fast falling beneath trees of stone
The light in the tower, no longer my home
Past eyes of pale fire, black sand for my bed
I'd trade all I've known for the unknown ahead
[Bb]Call to me, call to me
[Eb]Lands far [Bb]away
For [Bb]I must now wander this [F]wandering day
A[Gm]way I must [Eb]wander this [F]wandering [Bb]day
Of [Bb]drink I have little, and [Eb]food I have [Bb]less
My [F]strength tells me [Gm]no, but the [Eb]path demands yes
My [F]legs are so [Eb]short and the [Bb]way is so [F]long
I've [Gm]no rest nor [Eb]comfort, no [F]comfort but [Bb]song
[Bb]Sing to me, sing to me
[Eb]Lands far [Bb]away
Oh [Bb]rise up and guide me this [F]wandering day
Please [Gm]promise to [Eb]find me this [F]wandering [Bb]day
At [Bb]last comes their answer through [Eb]cold and through [Bb]frost
That [F]not all who [Gm]wonder or [Eb]wander are lost
No [F]matter the [Eb]sorrow, no [Bb]matter the [F]cost
That [Gm]not all who [Eb]wonder or [F]wander are [Bb]lost
I’ve recently gotten access to DALL-E, an artificial intelligence program to which you can provide prompts and it outputs images based on those prompts. It’s an incredible piece of tech, and often hilarious. I just gave it the prompt “Jesus as a superhero” and got this back:
BTW: I know Jesus wasn’t a white dude. This demonstrates one of the perils of inaccurate training sets for machine learning models.
“Astronauts kung fu fighting” is also pretty fun:
This is a big batch of my go-to salsa for parties, family functions, etc. It’s easy, quick to make, and always gets compliments. The lime gives it a delightful brightness that makes it perfect for serving with chips as an appetizer, on a taco, or even on a burger.
3 lbs roma tomatoes
1 medium onion
3 serrano peppers (adjust for your preferred level of spiciness)
1 bunch cilantro
2 tsp salt
8 limes, juiced
2 tsp black pepper
4 tsp chili powder
1 tsp garlic (optional)
Blend everything together in a food processor or high-speed blender. Put it in the fridge and let it sit for a day. (This allows the acids in the lime juice to cook the tomatoes and the flavors to blend.) Try not to eat it all in one sitting.
Dear Friends & Family,
As the year winds down, it seems a good time to catch up with those who are dear to us around the country and the world. (If you’re reading this, you made the cut!) Since we can’t possibly sit down for a leisurely meal and visit with everyone we’d like to, we bring you this meager substitute: our 2021 Christmas letter!
After a mostly-locked-down 2020, it has been a delight to be able to be out in the world once more. As folks have gotten vaccinated (3rd time’s the charm!), we’ve been spending more time with family and friends once again. (Particularly startling is seeing the bottom half of people’s faces who we’ve only known from the eyes up!) We’ve visited Kris’ sister Kim in Seattle, had a rich and full time with Kris’ family in Indianapolis, and reveled in several lovely places around Texas with each other and with Sean’s family. Oh, the joy of seeing something other than our own walls once more!
In the latter part of the year, Kris finally gave up her commute to our beloved St. Mark’s community and started as the Director of Children and Family Ministries at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church & School. It is a mere 3.5 miles from our home and also happens to be Sean’s 1st and 2nd-grade alma mater. While learning a new set of traditions and building relationships with a new group of people has been demanding, Kris has received an enthusiastic welcome from the leadership both at the church and the school. She’s also been very involved in our community garden and the local “Neighbors Helping Neighbors” efforts and on our evening walks seems to be known by everyone in our neighborhood!
Sean started working for Doximity in April, writing software to help doctors do their jobs better and more easily. The company is remote-first, and Sean has greatly enjoyed the ability to ply his trade from wherever he likes, be it the coffee shops and breakfast taco joints near our house or a relative’s home halfway across the country. He’s also begun getting back into performing, joining the San Antonio Choral Society this summer and recently playing out with a band for the first time in several years (at a bar that had a pig-in-residence named “Minnie Pearl”).
Our kids are all doing interesting things in the world:
Other notable events: surviving the Texas Snowpocalypse (40° indoors with no power for 12 hours at a stretch), playing music together, ushering for theater under the stars at the SA Botanical Gardens, a delightful long beach weekend with all the Texas kids, lots of care and feeding of the feral cats that call our yard home, getting to drive an Indy 500 pace car, enjoying dozens of butterflies and hummingbirds in our front yard pollinator garden, gently tiptoeing past the baby skunk who lived on our front porch for several days, finally finding a good habañero and carrot salsa recipe, nearly stepping on an alligator near the coast, playing lots of board games in person and online, petting kangaroos, and playing Pickleball for the first time.
As 2021 winds down, we wish you the peace of the Christmas season (well, the post-shopping portion of it) and every blessing for the year to come. And if you ever find yourself down our way, please stop on in — we’d dearly love to have time with you!
Warmly and sincerely,
Kris & Sean
After many months of off-and-on work, I’ve finally finished creating an appropriate setting for the LEGO Saturn V that my fine son Liam gave me.
This was a fun project: electronics, 3D printing, CNC milling, programming, and audio editing all combined to get the effects I was looking for. If you’re interested in the details, please check out my writeup on its construction.