For her birthday this past year, Kathy went out and got her first tattoo. It’s a line art Celtic cross that she designed by combining several different patterns culled from the Internet. She chose to use only thin lines and black ink, figuring that because this was her first foray into tattooing, and because the pattern was to be inscribed on the back of her neck (an especially sensitive area), keeping the poking to a reasonable level would be a good thing.

The tattoo came out beautifully. Kathy was very happy with it, and likes the fact that she can let her hair down to be discreet when the occasion demands or pull it up to show off her mark when she likes. One bit of flexibility that has been a bit more of a surprise, however, is that because the line art looks like a coloring book, there’s no reason the kids feel they shouldn’t get to color it. We’ve found that colored Sharpies work best, as they have a fine point and last for a good long while. It’s great fun to be able to change the tattoo according to the season of the year or the colors of the liturgical calendar.

Here are a couple of photos of one of our young tattoo artists at work and the results of her efforts:

Kathy’s brother Dan has been living in our garage apartment for nearly a year now. He decided to come down to Texas to spend some time with this portion of the family, see what Texas is like, and to have a change of scenery. Today he boards a Greyhound bus bound for North Carolina, where his friend Dave Reed, with whom he’ll be rooming, lives. We’re sorry to see him go, as he’s become an important part of the family and the kids have adored having an uncle in residence.

Take care, Dan! We’ll miss having you around!

One of the benefits of working at the University is that, after a year’s employment, I can take off 3 hours a week from work to take classes. The caveat, however, is that the classes either have to be part of a degree program or directly related to one’s work.

I’ve quite liked the freedom from homework I’ve enjoyed since finishing college, but it would seem a shame not to take some advantage of this benefit. While the classes I’d most be interested in taking aren’t at all related to my job, even within the Computer Science department there are several courses that sound fascinating: Human Factors of Computer Science, Advanced Artificial Intelligence, Distributed Computing, Neural Networks. Unfortunately, the Graduate College really seems to want people to enroll in a degree program to take graduate-level courses, and it’s tough to get enthusiastic about that now, especially given that I don’t have any of the undergraduate classes that they consider prerequisites. (My degree was in Music Education.)

So, what to do? I guess I’ll nose around the department a bit and see if they have any provision for people who have worked in the industry for a long while, but don’t have the formal schooling or, even better, might allow me to sit in on classes I’m interested in without worrying about a degree program.

Today I started dipping my toes into the chilly water of Podcasting. A Podcast, for those of you who haven’t encountered the phenomena, is a lot like a weblog, but done with audio, rather than text. One subscribes to a podcast, after which each episode of that podcast is automatically loaded as it’s released into one’s iPod (or PSP) for later listening. The technology’s still a bit clunky, but it’s rather nice to have regularly updated audio content for my walks to work.

The downside, however, is that because of the time-based nature of the medium, it requires fairly ruthless editing. I can’t skip to the next paragraph if I want to get through it quickly, nor can I skim. This problem is compounded by the fact that editing audio is harder than editing prose, which means that while it needs to be edited more heavily than text, it’s often edited less. No matter how charming Adam Curry is, one can’t listen to him ride the elevators in the Waldorf-Astoria for 20 minutes trying to strike up conversations with strangers and feel it time well spent.

Fortunately, there are a few out there who adhere to the “only talk when I have something to say” school of thought. As with weblogging, it will probably be a while before very much higher-quality content starts to emerge, but the promise of easily syndicated “radio shows” without the radio is too great for me to ignore.

We got back last night from a lovely trip to Port Aransas, Texas for Sandfest 2005. Sandfest is an annual fund raiser put on by the Port Aransas Community Theater in which professional and amateur sculptors come from around the country to create some amazing art from that most ephemeral of mediums, sand. We’ve gotten to be a part the last few years by dint of being friends with and nominal members of the San Marcos Suns, a local sculpting team which includes the members of The Grant Mazak Band.

This year Kathy, Emily and Abigail all joined in the building fun while Liam and Maggie and I pottered about building dams, flying kites, having mussel races, and playing in the surf. Later that evening, a variety of musicians got together for a little party. The best part for me was that we roped Meara into playing her violin with us for the first time. She did spectacularly well, especially given that we were throwing songs at her she hadn’t heard before. I’ve gotten her some recordings of some of our stuff now, so that only stands to get better!

You can see some photos from the trip here.

My friend Jason, a professional musician and woodworker and all around Really Interesting Guy, has a great post today, wherein he ruminates on self-employment, setting one’s own course, and the sacred duty to do the things we’ve been made to do well. As one who has dipped my toe into self-employment a few times, but always found the water a bit too chilly to jump in, it’s fascinating to see what things look like from that side of the fence.

At the risk of becoming a full-time shill for other people’s artwork, I must mention Livefeed, a fascinating installation that’s currently on display here at Texas State University. A collaboration between Jeff Shore and Jon Fisher, it features video sequences made by mechanically moving tiny video cameras through miniature diaramas. A lush, cinematic soundtrack accompanies the video, and is further enhanced by changing illumination from the boxes that contain the dioramas, as well as several frame drums on the back wall, played by electromechanical arms.

As a musician, I was engaged by the audio and the way it mirrored the imagery. As a technician, I was entranced by the intricacy of the installation and how well its diverse parts were made to engage and work together. It’s well worth a visit in person, if possible, as that’s the only way to get the full effect of everything that’s going on. If, however, you’re not convenient to the University, you can also see the work at the Livefeed live feed, or read a review here.

This one wraps up on Wednesday, so come see it while you can!

There’s a superb new photography exhibit up at the Witliff Gallery here at Texas State University. Called Lightning in a Bottle, it’s a collection of photos the gallery has recently acquired. My favorites are two wonderfully evocative images by Robert & Shana ParkeHarrison: The Sower and Turning To Spring. (There’s also a book of their photography available from Amazon, which is now on my wishlist: The Architect’s Brother.) Annie Leibovitz also has an image up, and there are many more alternately intriguing, macabre, engaging and disturbing images displayed.

If you live in Central Texas, the exhibit is well worth a visit. (Hours are posted here.)

I currently lack the order of mind to really put down what I’d like to about Easter. With all the moment-to-moment demands of four children, I seldom feel that I’m able to attend as fully to lent, Holy Week, and Easter itself as I’d like to. Fortunately, there are several wonderful churches in San Marcos that collaborate on a devotional walk through the hill country during lent. There are fourteen spots for reflection along the walk, pattered on the Stations of the Cross. Thinking that walking this path and reading the meditations would be an ideal way to have the kids participate a bit more fully in the holiday, Kathy and I took them out there yesterday. Even that, however, was an abortive attempt, as the rain came pelting down in torrents just as we reached the halfway point of the walk. We scampered back to the car, cold and sodden, and drove back home to make hot chocolate and dry off.

So, my prayer this Easter is that God would accept the meager offerings which are all we seem able to muster these days — grace interrupted by noisy burps, half-completed devotional walks, prayers snatched from the voracious fangs of our calendar as we walk from one place to another, and a too-occasional breathed “thank you” for the beauty of spring. We give to God what we have, what we are, even when that seems more like passing on a debt or scraping something weeks-dead from the highway and putting a bow on it than it does giving a gift of value.

He is risen. He is risen indeed. Thank heaven for it.

Here are a few more worthwhile meditations on this zenith of the Christian year: Fanny’s Easter Thoughts, and a sermon Barry heard at the Salisbury cathedral ten years ago.

I picked up a PSP at Target on Thursday. I had preordered one a month ago from PCConnection, but they apparently weren’t going to be able to get it out in anything like a timely fashion. Since I live in a town that’s big enough to have a couple stores getting shipments, but small enough that I wouldn’t have to fight my way through frothing masses, I strolled down to Target Thursday morning. As I was paying, they hit me with the usual “Would you like to apply for a Target card and save 10% on your purchase?” Why, yes, I would! I ended up not having to wait for shipping, and still got it for less than the list price. Sweet.

So, impressions: it’s a very polished, lovely piece of hardware. The reviews I’ve read have faulted its convergence features. This isn’t entirely fair, since the video/photo/music features on the unit itself are quite good; however, the software that runs on one’s computer to get those things into the PSP is still a weak point. The screen is outstanding, and the games are head and shoulders above anything else that’s out there in the portable arena. Kathy is already hooked on Lumines (and soundly beating my high scores by about 4x).

The one thing I find myself wanting until Sony adds more complete PDA-style features to the thing is a utility that will scan the Mac OS X Address Book and create a little JPG business card for each of the entries therein, allowing access to one’s contact info from the PSP. (Developers, feel free to hijack this idea — I’ve already sent it to the guy who makes iPSP, the third-party sync software for the Mac.) Making JPG renders of one’s iCal info would be great too, though more of a technical challenge than the Address Book integration would be.