the pod bay door

.: Things are about to get hectic again. Tomorrow night I’ll be on site at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival, helping to set up and configure the Performer Hospitality area backstage. The festival runs from Thursday until Sunday evening. My brother Chris and friend Tony are arriving on Thursday to attend the festival, and will be staying at my home during that time. Chris is also volunteering again, for the first time joining me on the Performer Hospitality crew.

On Tuesday, 15 August 2006, two days after the festival ends, I fly to NYC to spend a week holidays there. Among other things, I plan to see the Steely Dan/Michael McDonald show at Jones Beach on the 17th, and living legend Les Paul at the Iridium Jazz Club on the 21st. I had planned to see Alex Chilton and The Box Tops at the Seaport Music Festival on the 18th, but according to the NYTimes, “The Box Tops with Alex Chilton have canceled their tour dates because the band’s bassist, Bill Cunningham, has had a medical emergency. The band was to have played a free show at South Street Seaport on Aug. 18.” Bummer. Instead, the New York Dolls are performing in their place. Other activities are planned and others will evolve each day.

Three days after I return, my parents, their neighbour Lynn, and her two children will descend upon my home for three nights, as part of a Winnipeg-Calgary-Edmonton-Winnipeg trip. Then, suddenly, it will be September. As always, we will ask – where did the summer go? Oh, and I have new glasses.

.: Owen Wilson’s current stinkbomb, You, Me & Dupree, has garnered the attention of our boys Don and Walt over at Steely Dan Inc. Seems that they are concerned about the obvious parallels between the premise of the movie (relative comes home and spends time on the couch) and their 2000 Grammy Award winning song, Cousin Dupree. In a hilarious open letter to Owen’s brother, Luke, they write:

Hey Luke –

Hey man – it’s, like, Don and Walt, we’re the guys from Steely Dan, the group, we won those Grammies that time, maybe you recall? You know. “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number”?
“Reelin’ in the Years?” “Hey Nineteen”? “Babylon Sisters”? Right, that’s us. So how’s it going?

After some further prelim discussion and explanations, they go on to say:

What we suspect happened is this: some hack writer or producer or whatever they call themselves in Malibu, or Los Feliz apparently heard our Grammy winning song “Cousin Dupree” on the radio and thought, hey, man, this is a cool idea for a character in a movie or something. OK, so the “cousin” idea was no doubt eliminated so as not to offend the Fundamentalist ticket buyers in the Flyovers. Nevertheless, they, like, took our character, this real dog sleeping on the couch and all and put him in the middle of some hokey “Down and Out in Beverly Hills” ripoff story and then, when it cam time to change the character’s name or whatever so people wouldn’t know what a rip the whole thing was, THEY DIDN’T EVEN BOTHER TO THINK UP A NEW F*CK*NG NAME FOR THE GUY!”

The letter goes on and on – read it and have a good laugh. It ends with:

P.P.S We’re now seeing that according to Wikipedia, Owen older than you are. But you seem a lot more mature somehow…don’t you?”

Can’t wait to see the boys perform on Long Island on August 17.

.: I am in Winnipeg. I arrived last night around 0045 hrs in the morning, after a long and uneventful drive.

.: Kenton recently posted a couple of comments (1, 2) on the prices of new books, specifically of how the difference between the Canadian and US prices does not reflect the current exchange rate, which has been near ninety cents for quite some time. Typically, the difference is between 20-25%, but can be much worse – the paperback edition of that book about some kind of code, which was released earlier this year, was priced 38% higher in Canada. The hardcover edition, released in 2003, was priced 52% higher. According to the article in the Toronto Star, prices will dip by 5-10% by the end of the year. I don’t know if federal regulations cover books being imported into Canada – in other words, are US publishers required to price their books within a certain range based on the exchange rate? If not, what’s to stop them from jacking up the prices as much as they desire, within reason?

The second article to which Kenton refers, which is actually an edited version of an editorial that appeared in the Montreal Gazette, notes the following:

Major booksellers have taken to posting explanations in their stores. Prices are set by publishers according to a 12-month cycle, they say. But if retailers are paying inflated wholesale prices and passing on the hardship to the consumer, they are no less complicit.

When I went to Baltimore, I took my copy of The World is Flat with me to read on the flights. On the way back, I either left my copy on the last jet, or in the Minneapolis airport. Since buying the book, Friedman had revised and updated it, and I wanted another copy. The book jacket US price is $30.00, the Canadian price $39.95, or a 33.17% increase. While in Indigo books, I noticed the book on sale for 30% off, with an additional 10% for Indigo club members. (Since buying the book again, the price online dropped another 10% to CDN$21.97.) So the final price, with 6%GST, came to $25.40, a heckuva deal, as they say in Minnesota. Hopefully Canadian booksellers will continue to offer at least some selected titles at more reasonable prices, to counter the continuing price gouging of US publishers.

.: Busy times are ahead. In about 10 days, I will drive to Winnipeg for a 8-9 day visit, which will include another high school reunion. I’m planning to bring my bicycle, using a bike rack kindly donated by Geoff some months ago. I’ll return on the 28th or 29th of July. Shortly thereafter, I’ll be volunteering for the 15th straight year at the EFMF. Two days afterwards, I’m off to NYC, a trip which will include seeing Steely Dan and Mike McDonald perform at Jones Beach on Long Island.

.: Last Tuesday I moved into the new NINT building, which opened officially on 22 June 2006. After I returned from Baltimore, I helped with the opening as a volunteer coordinator that day. On July 4, I was given a temporary office on the 2nd floor, in an area populated by members of the Fenniri Group. The move into the new building began on 29 May 2006, and was done in stages. At present, some of the labs, carrels, and offices remain empty as more people and equipment are still forthcoming.

The reason my location is temporary is that my permanent office is located on the fourth floor, and that floor is still being constructed. The fourth floor will be occupied by off-campus companies, which will lease office and lab space and time on equipment for various lengths of time. The fifth and sixth floors of NINT will be occupied by the Departments of Mechanical Engineering, and Chemical and Materials Engineering.

.: Hardy Drew and The Nancy Boys played its first gig with the current lineup on Sunday, 28 May 2006, at The Fox in Edmonton. We had a lot of fun, I loosened up as the gig progressed through the selection of fourteen tunes, twelve originals by David Leigh, the drummer and lead singer, and two covers: a lounge version of Whip It, and a noisy interpretation of Surrender. My thanks to Niki West and Angela Pond for taking a number of photos, which have been uploaded to Flickr. This one may be my personal favorite – can the guy still rock out? The bass player, James Wakefield, and I go way back, to 1990-91, when we were members of The Flicks, a seven-member so-called alternative band, and it felt very comfortable to be working with him again. David, James and I had good chemistry on stage, but we were plagued with poor on-stage sound, which we dealt with as best we could.

After a 15-year absence playing this kind of music, I wasn’t sure what to expect, and I was also hung up on personal age issues. In other words, I was concerned about being on stage playing music ostensibly of interest to people less than half my age. In the end, it didn’t matter, and I’ve shelved the imagined ageist issue for good. It was fun to play electric music again, especially with good musicians like David and James. The band gets together tomorrow for another rehearsal, the last one before I go to Baltimore on Saturday. I’m looking forward to learning new tunes and working with David and James on future musical collaborations.

.: Steve sent a link to images from Harrisand, The World Championships of Sand Sculptures, held annually at Harrison Hot Springs, British Columbia. Check the photos of these amazing sand sculptures, the work is outstanding. I wonder how they do it.

.: In the fall of 2004, my friend James invited to join him and sit in with a band called Hardy Drew and the Nancy Boys, a long-running musical project of the drummer and songwriter, David Leigh. James, the bass guitarist, and I had played together previously in Edmonton in 1990-91, as members of the seminal, cutting-edge band The Flicks (ok, so I embellish a bit, but seriously…) I continued rehearsing with HDNB until Feb 2005, when the project went on hold for about a year, until spring 2006. Since then, David and James and I have been rehearsing and polishing up David’s original tunes as well as a handful of covers.

Now comes word that we have a one set gig on Sunday, 28 May 2006, at The Fox Pub in Edmonton. The information I have is that we will be on stage at 2000 hrs (08:00 pm), and will play a short, one set gig. Cover is $6.00. If you’re in town that night, please come by, it would be great to have the support of friends. With the exceptions of playing twice with the late, great Edmonton band, Capt. Nemo, the last time at The Sidetrack on 13 July 1999, this will be the first time I perform loud, noisy electric music on stage since 1991. Is it too late to rock at 52? Stay tuned and find out.

.: If this wasn’t on the BBC site, one would think it was written for The Onion: 21 people were rescued after they fell nine feet when a floor collapsed during a health and safety meeting at an educational supplies firm in Hyde in the UK.

.: February began with the trip to Toronto to present at the OLA Conference, followed by a few days in Winnipeg. Upon returning, I prepared and delivered five lectures to various engineering classes and started working at NINT half-days the same week. In the midst of all this, I was also rehearsing with Amelia for a concert we played today as part of the Music Wednesdays at Noon series, which went quite well, and was appreciated by all who attended. Now I can take a breath or two, and begin working on a presentation for the upcoming 231st American Chemical Society National Meeting in Atlanta. I am participating in the Social Software and Chemical Information program on Sunday, March 24th. While in Atlanta, I will spend some time hangin’ with my lawyer cousin, Adam. I was in Atlanta once before, in 1994.

I need sleep.