Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Notes from the Cave

I'm continuing to work on my songbook (which I mentioned in the last post), where I'm arranging a collection of "old timey" songs for piano solo. I'm doing "old timey" songs because anything more recent than 75 years ago is likely under copyright and thus can't be freely used.

I've recently finished an arrangement of America the Beautiful, and I'm currently about three-fourths of the way through My Old Kentucky Home. Up next is Massa's in de Cold Ground, my all-time favorite Stephen Foster song.

Here's one I did a few weeks back. It's an arrangement of an old hymn called Just As I Am.



I recently had an idea for a blog post related to Kentucky basketball, but I abandoned it because I discovered that my main thesis was basically false (this is what's called being "intellectually honest"). Like many UK fans, I felt that Kentucky got an insanely unfair road to the Final Four in this year's NCAA tournament - they were the first team in NCAA history to play three 30-win teams before the Final Four. Basically, 3 of the 4 teams they played had 30+ wins by the time they played them. They ended up losing by 2 points to the 3rd of those 3 teams. This is not the first time that an unfair bracket has been complained of by UK fans. So I decided to do a blog post comparing other major programs (Duke, UNC, Kansas, maybe a few others) to UK to demonstrate how Kentucky is more likely to get difficult paths to the Final Four.

In reviewing past tournament brackets, I discovered that it's basically bullshit. Yes, Kentucky got screwed this year, but while they may sometimes have tough roads in the tournament, they don't always have tough roads, and other teams could easily make similar arguments. I won't go into all the data now, but essentially any team that routinely gets a high seed could argue that they "often" get a tough road through the tournament. It's just the UK fans (myself included) tend to only pay attention to UK's seeding and UK's potential path.

I've really been enjoying the new show on NBC called Trial and Error.  It stars John Lithgow and it's a spoof of trial documentaries. It's silly, but I think it's hilarious and well-written. I highly recommend it.

Now that I am not on Facebook, the readership of my new blog posts has declined considerably. I guess I didn't realize how many people on Facebook actually clicked on the links I shared. Oh well, it's not enough to make me get back on Facebook.

Melanie and the girls are on Spring Break this week, but I'm unfortunately working a lot because I have a co-worker out on medical leave, requiring the rest of us on third shift to pick up extra hours. It's really amazing how, when you're used to working three 12-hour shifts, having to work extra days, even when some of those shifts are only 8 hours, really screws with your mojo. It makes you realize how much you value that time off!

After debating and discussing it for the last two years, we finally got a new dog on Sunday. We've wanted a playmate for Sophie for a long time, but hadn't ever pulled the trigger. I had actually sort of gotten over it, but Melanie and Sydney continued to look and follow adoption sites and they finally found one they wanted. We had to apply to adopt, but our application was chosen so we brought Maggie home on Sunday. Sophie is a full-bred Havanese, but Maggie is half Havanese, half Cocker Spaniel. We jokingly call her a Have-a-Cock. She's the runt of her litter and since she's only 9 weeks old anyway, she is tiny. The dogs are getting along well though and I think they're both going to do well. I fancy myself a dog whisperer, so I'm working hard on house breaking and training. She's doing well so far, although she's very timid and has awful separation anxiety - two things Sophie didn't have issues with.



I guess that's enough boring shit about my life for today. Peace.

No comments: