Oh. hey.

As I've said, the busiest times are the most interesting, but then there's no time to document it. I've waffled between slaughtered-with-projects and sleeping-over-ten-hours-daily for a while, with a fairly regular work schedule. Then the Survivor season ended and we finished that other show and things have been a little spotty and less consistent lately. Episodes deliver late, I cancel dinner plans, etc. etc.

But for as busy as I felt there, for a while, I can't think of much that happened. Predictable and boring heartache aside, the main thing that sticks out for me the last few months is that I realized that in American English, at the end of Zs and hard Ss, there's a short section of a soft S. I don't know why I never noticed before, but it kind of blew me away.

As you know, in addition to the more creative work of designing and editing sound effects, I (much more often) edit dialog. Sometimes this means cleaning up production sound in noisy environments, sometimes this means pacing out the sentences in interviews that have had content removed for more concise storytelling (removing ums or stutters, replacing pronouns with proper nouns, shifting sentences from the past tense into the present, etc), and sometimes this means editing voiceover to fit and play over action.

I was working on a 'wacky' series with two commentators who talked over each other fairly often and for the most part, fading one out as the other started speaking worked just fine, but in cases where they did a few takes of a section and changed up timing, sometimes a whole word or just a syllable at the end of one commentator's sentence would be masked by the other in one take, but not in another. i.e. you can hear Tom talking over the end of Jerry's line in Jerry's mic, but since the producers wanted to use a different take of the next line, we don't want to hear Tom start to talk, but we want Jerry to finish his line. Make sense? So in order to execute that, I have to find an acceptable substitute for the last few letters that Jerry was saying so his sentence ends cleanly. In the particular instance that I am talking about, the line ended with a hard S and I was having a difficult time finding a clean one in that episode. But as I mentioned, it turns out that in a hard S or a Z, after the vocalized part, there's a short voiceless part. Pure S. I figured I would try stealing a soft S (Ok let's get picky: a voiceless alveolar sibilant) and pasting it at the end. It sounded seamless and I added another tool to my toolbox!

And I do this stuff all the time. After a while you get notice that you can put in a long fade across a W and you won't hear it, you should always drop a short fade into the center-loudest point in a short I, etc, etc. You know that you can crossfade different Ss together and not hear it, paste a SH right before "He" and make it say "She" easily with some finessing, copy and paste "and" or "but" from somewhere else in the show etc, etc. But it was really nice to add another nugget of knowledge to that database and I was quite pleased.

Early Signs

I know that I am starting to get old because I now have to take off my glasses when I solder teeny electronics up close.

SOAP

Possibly due to the current global economic climate, the management of the office/studio building where I work has seen fit to water down the liquid soap in the bathroom.

Repair Saga

A little while ago I started having some motorcycle problems. I was rolling home in stop-and-go traffic when my headlight dimmed and started to tremble some. I noticed the turn signals were blinking rapidly but weakly and the whole bike was sluggish, barely being able to get out of second gear, and dumping more gas just made it backfire, so uncombusted gas was making it out into the exhaust. It definitely wasn't safe on the road. I limped along to a parking lot and it seemed to fix itself. It seemed like an intermittent electrical connection was causing weak spark, so I figured I'd check it out further once i made it back home near my tools. I took side streets and the behavior came back, but I made it home.

Being busy with work and projects and the greatest piece of media I have ever been involved with, I decided to leave the motorcycle on the street and get to it on the weekend. So I spent Sunday fostering a certain amount of masculine energy, pulling the thing apart, stashing the gas tank and seat somewhere for a few hours, disconnecting and reconnecting every multipin connector on the entire bike and putting dielectric grease on damn near every one of them. Hand in hand with that was getting dirty, scowling and cursing. I even bummed a cigarette and kept it dangling from my lips (unlit) just to complete the picture. There was one connection that I had an extra hard time getting apart, and after a lot of prying and more cursing, I figured that since it was connected to the main fuse box, if there was any problem in there, I'd have complete electrical failure and not on-again off-again weak spark. I decided to leave that one alone and get on with my life. I reassembled the bike, took a trip to the grocery store and discovered that I still had the problem. Then, when I turned the bike off and tried to turn it on again, I had no power at all. No headlight. Nothing. I juggled a bunch of connectors but nothing helped, and while I was sitting there thinking about what the problem could possibly be, not touching anything, the lights came back on again. What?

At this point I figured that the problem was most likely the battery and decided to deal with it the next day. It had been low on water (me being lazy) and had gone without a reconditioning in a long time (me being lazy), so I figured it was time to replace it. I walked down to Autozone and traded the old one in, had them put the acid in the new one for me and went home (the kid there failed to take the pressure release cap off before adding the acid, so when I discovered this and removed it, I managed to get a spray of battery acid on my arm and face, which was awesome). After a long charge, I put the battery back in the bike and started it up. It started fine, but I didn't have time to drive it to check for the problem, so I put it off another day.

I then took a trip to the grocery store (I kept using the grocery store as my destination on these test drives because it's uphill, so I figured it would be easier to push and/or coast the bike back downhill if the thing completely failed on me). The problem was back. This time, though, I had a multimeter with me and when I tested the voltage of the battery in this ailing system, it was...13 volts, totally fine. Maybe a little off, but totally fine. At this point I figured that it was possibly a problem with the charging system, the regulator, or something i didn't understand. In any of those cases, while my background in electrical engineering made me conscious of the theory and the concepts, I thought it might be better to turn it over to a technician who actually had some training in the specifics of motorcycle electronics and common failures. The disconnect between engineers and technicians is broad and lamentable in many fields, but I think this is particularly true in electronics.

So I decided to take it to the shop. But I didn't have time right away, and besides, I was feeling bad about my lack of ability and still holding out hope that something in the Haynes manual would point me in the right direction so I could fix it myself. I didn't mind being forced to ride my bike to work and the track for a while. God knows I can use the exercise.

Today I had the day off so I finally decided to take the thing down there, and guess what? The bike started acting up and when I pulled it over, it wouldn't start up again and then died completely. No power at all. So I'm between my home and the shop and I figure oh, what the hell. I pull off the sidecover and start working really hard at getting that one multipin connector apart and opening the fuse box.

What I found was this: the connector had some corrosion on it, but probably not enough to keep current from flowing, and the fuse had a tiny bit of corrosion around a tiny fissure in the middle. I believe this crack was so small that the pieces of metal were still touching, so the fuse would still pass current, for the most part, but small vibrations or changes in temperature would cause the two ends to reseat, sometimes causing non-ohmic (nonlinear) contact and thus poor current flow, and sometimes no connection at all. Honda gives you a spare in that little box, so I walked home, grabbed a screwdriver and replaced it. It seems to be running fine now, though if there was some underlying problem that caused the fuse failure in the first place (other than the rain we'd been having), I'll have to sort that out in the future.

The main lesson here is this: don't let your brain defeat you, Bryan. Don't assume that because you're smart and can think a few layers into everything that you can cut corners. Be thorough, even if you can come up with a rational reason why you can skip a step. All that disconnecting and reconnecting and inspecting was worthless, since the one part that failed got overlooked. It's worth it to cover everything and be sure.

Home to Home

Now with extra links!
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I had some broad plans for this trip, I guess, but the way the chips fell, I just stayed in the Kent / Cleveland area the whole time. I was too tired to jet off for New York the day after I arrived, so I didn't go see Ahmed on Letterman. It was alright; his sister was there for him, and he said that he met Will Smith on the show and gave him a Sinkane CD. Awesome! Though I really would have liked to see him. and Kate as well.

The next planned destination was Pittsburgh, to visit Greg and Emily. I intended to leave Friday morning, but there was freezing rain and the roads were very slick. I used to be a pretty good winter driver, but didn't really want to test it after not driving on four wheels much at all for a couple of years. I spoke to Greg about it, and we were both pretty let down, I think. We agreed, though, that instead, as a Christmas/birthday gift to him, I have to get around to recording the handful of post-ohio-exodus songs I've written that he likes and send him a CD or a tape or something. I intend to polish off one or two per month until April 19th. Here's a taste, Greg : http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=28949228

After cancelling the Pitsburgh trip, I decided to take a walk in the woods with my mom, since that's about the only thing that is actually made better by a little freezing rain. All the small branches and twigs were encased in an icy shell about 1/4" thick, and against the grey sky backdrop, when the light catches it right, it's truly beautiful. My mom's morning walks in the woods haven't been the same for her since our dog Levi died, and I know she was grateful for the company. It's odd; he's been gone for a long while now, but I still expect him to be there at the top of the stairs every time I come back to my parents' house. The absence is still jarring. Though I do catch myself now before accidentally asking my mom where he is.

As I was falling asleep the first night here, I noticed a smell that I had forgotten about, right after the furnace kicked on: the subtle scent of heating vents, processed warmth, modern comfort. I don't think I ever registered it as a smell before, just as the feeling of warmth, but since I've been away from it for a while, it jumped out at me. There's so much comfort here. Easy, domestic coziness. I was having dinner with the Laniers, family friends since forever, and Phil showed his son, Sam, a napkin with Santa Claus on it, and said, "Who does that look like?"
Sam, being 2.5 years old, naturally responded, "Cat Stevens."

Sam kills me.

He has this game he plays while eating his food: he takes a bite in a well-strategized place, and says, "What does this look like?"

"An airplane!"

Then another bite. "Now what does this look like?"

"An anteater?"

Another bite. "What does this look like?"

and so on. It's perfect.

Phil plays a number of roles for me, but one of them is as a parallel universe for what could have been my life if I had quit music early, stayed in Ohio, and married someone while young.
I mean, plenty of people stay in their hometowns, especially when it's a college town that makes it easy to extend your stay after highschool. But Phil is one of the very few people I know that is actually happy in Kent. Most people who stay here end up either alcoholic or Christian-by-default. yikes.
I spent most of this trip at about and 80/20 split: 80% dread and 20% hope that I would run into someone I know, in the mall, downtown, or at the grocery store in the middle of the night. Some poor drunk or Protestant to whom I either specifically or generally don't have anything to say.

So for the most part I've stayed in the house, baking, hanging out with the family and watching movies after they've gone to bed. The few excursions I have made have been pretty good, though. Breakfast with the Stines, watching the West Wing with Michaelanne and Jim, and skating with Mila. Everywhere I go I drive my mom's or sister's car and sing along to music loudly. I may end up heading back to LA with a sore throat.

Party Prep

I'm spread a little thin lately, but I did enjoy feeling busily domestic yesterday. Because we're having a holiday party at the apartment tonight, I baked a pumpkin pie, then did a blue load of laundry, then baked a cherry pie, then washed my browns. This is in addition to the apple pie and the other pumpkin pie that I prepped earlier in the week and froze for baking today. I cleaned up a little (still a long way to go) and coordinated with margaret about party plans. The other day our friends Elizabeth and Rajeev came over for dinner while I was making the apple pie and they were both impressed with the fact that I make my own pie crusts, and with the apple turnovers that I made with the leftover dough. I think tonight is going to be a success.

Tum

The update here is that I'm doing much better, thank you, and even though it felt like something much more severe for a couple of days, now I think I just pulled a muscle while jumping out of a scissor lift.

Maybe I am getting old.