House of Cards

They're building a new hotel near the office. I pass the construction site on the way to and from work every day. It took over a month to clear out the land and put in the sewer and electric and whatnot. They've now started building up in earnest.

The hotel has a wood frame that is covered with plywood. It looks so flimsy. It seems to take two days to add a story to the building -- they were up to three stories when I left work today. Whenever I see this building-to-be, which to me just loks like a bunch of plywood stapled together into a three-story building, I can't help but think of a house of cards and wonder how this hotel will fare in Indiana weather.

This after watching the new CVS going in up the street. After they prepared the groundwork, this building's skeleton went up: strong, heavy, steel I-beams welded together.

If there's ever a tornado here, I'm heading for the CVS.

First IWS Concert

Last night was the first concert of the season. We started off well with Copland's Fanfer For the Common Man, followed by the Star-Spangled Banner and Stars and Stripes Forever.

The concert went well, and we generally sounded good. I don't know if any of the pieces sounded good enough for a recording, though. Each had its own little shortcomings. But all in all it was a good concert, definitely worth the price of admission.

But something weird happened to me. As I took a breath to play the last note of the last programmed piece (Persichetti's Symphony for Band), I suddenly got light-headed and woozy. I thought for a minute that I might pass out. Then we played an encore, an arrangement of America the Beautiful. in which the clarinets rest for a whopping 3 beats throughout the entire piece. I didn't play very much of that one. Just moved my fingers along and concentrated on breathing regularly. I still thought I might pass out.

I hadn't had any dinner, and I drank a Mountain Dew before the concert. I figure my body was just mad at me. I stopped at the VP on the way home and got a Gatorade and fig newtons.

Trying to get to sleep last night was difficult, because I never felt "right." Thinking about it made it worse, but I couldn't not think about it. I even considered driving myself to the ER just to be safe, but I never did. Eventually I fell asleep.

A Note from the President

That's right: Tonight I was ushered in as the new board president of the Indiana Wind Symphony. My first act as president was to abolish the Eb Alto Clarinet.

I was quickly censured and reminded that the board acts as a representative democracy, not a politburo.

But seriously. Voting me in was the first thing on the agenda. After that, I had control of the meeting, in the sense that a ringleader has control of the circus. There was no set agenda (that'll be my first change), and I was completely unprepared, so the best I could do was draw people's attention to the different rings and then hop out of the spotlight.

But tonight isn't a sign of things to come. I hope that I can leave this band in better shape than I found it.

It's strange. I didn't start thinking about those What Ifs until just now. What if I fail? What if I somehow steer the band wrong? What if I do something wrong -- something government-investigation wrong?

Mostly, my thoughts have been more along the lines of WHAT THE HELL HAVE I GOTTEN MYSELF INTO?! Like so many other things in my life, this is something I'll just have to learn along the way.

That's one great thing about being human. We're so adaptable.

Opposites? They ought to be!

The English language can be rather odd, which I think is what makes it fun. For example, the following look like they ought to be antonyms, but they're actually synonyms:

• ravel = unravel
• flammable = inflammable: The source of "flammable" is well-documented. "Nonflammable" exists only because people started using "flammable."
• press = depress: As in buttons or keys on a keyboard. Occasionally I get authors trying to sneak "depress" in when "press" will work just fine. Some people just can't stand one-syllable words.

Can you think of any more?

Indy Irish Fest

Went ti the Indy Irish Fest with some friends this morning/afternoon. When I got there, I made the bad choice of thinking that Military Park (the festival's venue) was shady enough the I didn't need sunblock. My red forehead hurts!

Other then that, I had a great time. They had four stages going, so we got to hear a lot of great Celtic and Irish music.

I heard, for the first time, a band called Siochain ("SHE-uh kahn," at least that's how they pronounced it -- yes, it sounds like a character from Star Trek) that blew my mind. I had thought the idea of "Celtic Rock" sounded a little too far-fetched and forced to be really interesting. But they rocked!!! They had the drums and bass as a foundation, a guitarist who "doubled" on bagpipes, I woman on keyboard and bodhran, and the main man Nathan Klatt on fiddle. I saw them on two stages, and both sets were wonderful. I especially liked their surprising rendition of Amazing Grace.

The best part is that this is a band from Indianapolis, so if I keep my eye out, I can catch them live at the Claddagh Irsh Pub or somesuch. I liked them so much that I bought their CD.

This festival was so much better than this summer's Jazz Fest -- and I love jazz. The jazz fest had only two stages. PREPAID admission was over $20, it was probably $30 at the door. "Food tickets" were either $1.25 or $1.50 -- and a beer cost 6 tickets. That's right, a single beer for the cost of an entire six-pack. It was just too expensive for what you got.

On the other hand, admission to the Irish Fest was CANNED GOODS! That's right, bring in some cans of corn and you get in essentially free. Food tickets were only a dollar, and a beer -- on draught, not from a can -- was either 4 or 5 dollars. (The real Irish beers -- Guinness, Harp, and Smithwicks -- cost an extra dollar.)

The food at these kinds of festivals is always great. They don't have carnival food. Local restaurants -- and in the case Irish ones like the Claddagh and O'Malley's Steakhouse, as well as others -- peddle their yummy wares.

Summer in Indianapolis is a wonderful thing.

Now I have to go apply lotion to my stinging forehead.

Palate Cleansing

I just had to get a new note posted so that that depressing note from 9/12 wouldn't be the first thing people saw here.

I don't have much to say, though. The IWS has its first concert of the season on Sept. 23. On Monday I put the finishing touches on our possibly only snail mailing of the year -- a postcard with our schedule and a bit more info on it. Now we just have to get them stamped, addressed, and sent. Not any easy task for a mailing list of, oh, 500 people. We'll probably have a postcard-assembling party this weekend, if there's time for everyone.

On Sunday I'm going with some friends to the Indianapolis Irish Festival. I'll probably get drunk on Guinness and whisky. (More on Sunday evening.) It's nice to have some weekend plans for once.

The Day After 9/11/06

I suppose September 11 was pretty blog-intensive, especially with it being a multiple-of-five anniversary. I managed to make it through the day without thinking about it much, except when I saw that the flag outside my building was flying at half-staff.

Is it wrong for me just to not think about something painful? I have enough pain ni my past that I could think about it all night long and never leave the house, even without 9/11.

I've often wanted to ask my few friends whether they knew personally anyone who had been murdered (I knew two) or if they new personally any murderers (I know one), but I don't know what I would do with the answers. I just wonder about how unevenly pain is spread around to people.

Since I was born, I haven't been able to go more than five years without someone close to me dying. The saddest part is that over half of these people died before they reached 40.

Maybe I'm bad luck to know?

Presidential Nominee

It's official. At least unofficially so.

I've just sent an e-mail to the rest of the IWS board that I'd like to be considered for the position as president. Of the IWS board, not the United States. Hope I'm not getting in over my head.

Simple Insanity

An "author" for one of the books I'm copy editing has been turning in, to put it nicely, substandard text from the beginning. It started as just bad writing, but then quickly turned ridiculous. A few weeks ago, he went from ridiculous to ludicrous. Now, in addition to the grammatical problems, clarity problems, agreement problems, and word choice problems, he's showing signs of extremely illogical thinking and total lack of organization.

He's gone from ludicrous to online Japanese translator.

Of course, if any of my authors read this, they'll each "know" that I must be talking about someone else.

But all this leads back to a question I ask myself about twice a week: If someone can get paid as an "author" to write and submit drivel like this, then why haven't I written and published a book yet?

Useless Information the Hard Way

There are a lot of phrases that, as a copy editor, an English-speaker, a reader, and a human being, just grate on my nerves. I'll likely list a few of them in a later post, but today, I'm being weighed down by just one.
There are a number of X that Y.
The mammoth book I'm copy editing now is written by two authors who, to be nice about it, aren't good. If I had a nickel for every time these guys used the above phrase, I could buy myself a nice lunch. And a hooker.

What's wrong with this phrase, you ask? This is possibly the most verbose way to convey a piece of information so small as to be irrelevant. Take this, for example:
There are a number of different types of input devices that can be used.

1. The subject of the sentence is "there." These expletives need to be avoided as much as possible.
2. The sentence is in passive tense, which should also be generally avoided.
3. Two is a number. So if there were only two types of input devices, this sentence would still be true but would be exactly the opposite of the intended meaning.
4. Of what use is this information?
5. Most importantly, this tiny bit of information could be conveyed more interestingly, more colorfully, and more accurately and with fewer words, like this:

Data can get into your computer in a lot of ways.

Not all input devices are the same.

There are as many different input devices as there are haircuts.

The best solution is probably to work the existence of a multiplicity of input devices into another sentence with only two or three words. It isn't that hard. [In the end, this was my solution. I deleted the whole sentence and slipped the word "myriad" in before the next nearest occurrence of "input devices."]

Sigh.

Omit needless words!!!

Now reread the first sentence of this post and tell me what a hypocrite I am...