The Noblesvillain

Listening to a local values-friendly radio station, I mentioned that I thought that I would like the station better with better variety in the playlist.  My long-suffering wife thought that perhaps I had been spoiled by Yahoo's Christian Rock Launchcast station.  Without granting credence to this comment, imagine the level of smugness when from the back seat comes the comment, "Diffent?" which is Mark's cue to change the music.  Mark has some definite opinions about his night-time CD choices (or perhaps wishes to exert some control!) which is why we know this bit of vocabulary.

The end of the story is that Mark continued to ask for a station change even after we found some better music which cut my smug index in half.

Two weekends ago Mark and I went to visit his mom as she was working at Conner Prairie.  Since it was 94 degrees outside, we brought along some refreshing ice water and frozen blueberries.  While we visited, we went to the barn to see the new cow and the big horses.  On the way back we were distracted by chickens and a young girl feeding the chickens invited us into the hen house to see if Mark could find an egg.

In the hen house, Mark looked around, walked along the row of nesting boxes, and found a nice clean egg in the straw (I believe it was a 'plant' for a youngster to find) and picked up the egg.  The three of us then headed into the farmhouse to put the egg someplace safe so it could turn into tomorrow's breakfast.

Mark, clutching the egg tightly in one hand, did very well making his way into the farmhouse.  Unfortunately, about ten feet from the egg's destination his attention wandered and he dropped the egg.  A tidy boy, he called attention to the 'messh' and it was promptly cleaned up (handy to have a slop bucket for such things if one has pigs around!).

The story is mostly unremarkable (will that pun ever loose its enjoyment?) except that before nap time, I asked Mark if he remembered seeing the chickens (the chickens took the top spot in this visit).  He repeated 'chichen,' paused, said 'egg,' paused, and then 'messh.'  He had repeated the sequence of steps of the afternoon's incident making his daddy proud--proud enough to pick up his pen and return to his blog.

As a software developer and supervisor, I spend a lot of time in front of a keyboard during the day.  Between programming and email, I like to have a variety of music to keep the right side of my brain occupied.  While I have a largish collection of CD's and have them ripped to my hard drive, I've also listened to them for 200 days a year for 9 years.

A year ago we signed up for SBC Yahoo! DSL and have been mostly pleased with the service.  While there have been a couple of outages, the tech support has been very polite (albeit a scripted politeness) which is as much as I can ask.  With the DSL subscription we also have access to LAUNCHcast Radio by Yahoo (formerly Launch.com).  This music service provides a customized list of music which plays songs based on artists, albums, songs, and genres that you've indicated that you enjoy.  Sometimes it will pick songs based on what other listeners like that have similar tastes and I've learned about some new artists this way that I quite enjoy. (There's a free version which didn't have the sound quality I expected, but the high-quality station was quite good.)

Unfortunately, this live music service is prohibited at work because it is constantly downloading music from the server which reduces the network availability for the other people in the building.  This has been a real bummer as I love to listen to a variety of music.  For some on-line music variety, check out the Dunce's post for music he likes and sources to find it.

As a remedy, I've subscribed to a rather new service from Yahoo called Y! Unlimited (or Yahoo Music Engine).  With this service, I have access to Yahoo's entire music library and can download the songs to my computer (or to a portable audio (MP3) player).  I download the songs at home (to conserve the corporate bandwidth) and listen to the files at work.  To make such a deal profitable, Yahoo charges me $60/year (about the cost of 4 cd's) and uses a digital trick which makes the music stop working if my subscription expires.

My subscription just began and today was my first day listening to music at work.  I listened to an aid album for Katrina victims, a new Coldplay release, Best of Earth, Wind, & Fire, and a couple of others.  The music was high-quality and the tunes all fresh (at least to me!).

Watch this space for my updated thoughts on this topic, but so far, the Yahoo Music Engine is meeting my expectations.  Add the fact that I can have the software on three different computers (a refreshingly generous approach), and I think I'll enjoy this approach to keeping music fresh at work.

Apprently I do not excell in either loser or cool.

I was hoping to distinguish myself in some manner....I guess I'm not cool enough to be a nerd.

(link from http://brianvinson10.blogspot.com/)

Arriving at work yesterday, Mother Goose was turning her eggs.  I got a good glimpse of the typical five to seven eggs, so my earlier recollection of just two eggs was probably flawed.  The nest had undergone an change.  Down had been added where the goose meets the ground.  Today it is raining and the goose has adopted a set which has her wings slightly spread to keep any moisture from entering the rim of the nest.

While building a nest in a parking lot doesn't seem to be an ideal approach, apparently there are a number of geese which nest on the top of our building.  This seemed like a more sound approach until one considers how the young will forage...  I don't think there is much in the way of vegetable matter up there.

I have been looking but have not seen a goose bar.

This is the view that greets me as I arrive at work each day.  Geese parade all over the industrial park as if they own the place.  Having a goose bar your way as you turn into a drive doesn't fit the regular way of things.  As I get out of my car, I get a HHHHHHkhHkhHKkkkkhkhkh (a sort of non-sibilant hissing) from this mother.  I haven't yet learned the proper meaning but I believe that it is a cautious morning greeting (bordering on rude).

Growing up geese were either food (during hunting season) or kept a proper distance. The memo describing the proper personal space didn't seem to make it to the avians this year. In the nest two large eggs sit (not the requisite three to five). My natural inclination is to teach this wayward waterfowl a proper fear of humans, but a vague memory describing the strength of a goose's wing being similar to a Louisville Slugger keeps me nice.

I'll post again if I get a glimpse of gosling's.  The incubation period is 28 days and I'd guess we're about a week into this time.

[Edit: checked spelling]