Two more weeks...

Discovered Skype today. It seems to be quite incredible, and I can't wait to try it. Only problem is I don't know a soul who's using it. :) So if any of you want to call me on Skype, my username is "crowderb".

Other than that, I'm going to spend the next two weeks focusing everything I've got on my schoolwork, but I think I'll still be able to post regularly on here. (Video may have to wait till after finals, though -- writing a blog post takes a fraction of the time it takes to make a videoblog post.) I sent my book in to the press today, which is a relief. Now I just have to wait for them to contact me telling me all the things that have gone wrong with it. ;)

Early to bed...

All these late nights are getting to me. :) But soon the semester will be over and it'll be back to normal early bedtimes. This evening I've been reading through library blogs, and there are a lot of them. I'll put a blogroll up here soon...

Read an interesting format comparison between ODF (OpenDocument Format) and Microsoft's new Office XML format. Microsoft's XHTML produced from Word has bothered me for a very, very long time, and it looks like the new XML will be just as nasty. ~sigh~

Freeeeezing

It's cold. Saturday was nice, but Sunday the snow fell and the little red blob in the thermometer jumped off the diving board, and since then it's been anything but warm. I'm not ready for winter! I object. Anyone want to file a petition with me? No more winters, please. And what's with the ice on the roads and sidewalks? I can handle ice in my freezer, but slipping and sliding on my way to class is remarkably unfun. Still, though, I guess I'd better learn to like it, since it looks like winter will be here for a few months (not to mention every year after that for the rest of my natural life). ~sigh~ I wonder if it snows in heaven...

The semester is near its end and my stress level skyrocketed today as I realized just how much I have to get done this week and next. I did finish the cover for my CHum 283 book today, though:



So now it's just a matter of getting it to the press (which I'll do tomorrow) and waiting for it to be printed. Other than that, I registered topofthemountains.net today and eventually I think I'll move this site from Blogger and use Wordpress or Movable Type or something else instead. But that's a ways down the road.

In the meantime, ideas for vlog posts are bubbling up in my brain and my next video will be up soon. (That's if I don't explode from the stress of preparing for finals, of course.)

First vlog post

Well, I am now a video blogger. Here's my first vlog post:



Click here to see video

Impressions of video blogging so far: It took longer than I anticipated to put a simple two-minute segment together, but it was fun, even though I'm not terribly happy with the results. :) (In my mind's eye it was an amazing work of art, but somewhere along the pipeline it got run over and squished around a few times.) But these vlog posts will get better. Believe me. Other than that, I'll try scripting my next post beforehand so it'll come together better. But at the same time I don't know if I want it to be scripted -- real reality as opposed to artificial reality (reality TV, etc.) is one of the things about vlogging that got me interested in the first place. Anyway, more to come later.

Oh, and Top of the Mountains now has a new banner. The old one just didn't sit right with me -- the typography wasn't strong enough.

Gobble-gobble

Thanksgiving break is almost over. ~sigh~ Back to a meager diet of Ramen and saltine crackers... Just kidding. :) It's nice having most of my major projects done and over with. I do have to get my book to the press by Monday in order to get it printed in time for the final, but it's quite close (it's all done except for the cover), so that won't be hard. Oh, I discovered an interesting class that'll be taught next semester: Anthropology 525, about curatorial stuff. Here's the description: "Instruction and hands-on projects in managing museum collections -- object handling, object tracking, accessioning, deaccessioning, cataloging, object photography, collections databases, loans, conservation environments, museum law, insurance, and ethical practices. Training is relevant to all types of museums."

Well, it's late and I'm dead tired, so off we go.

My Favorite Things

I was depressed earlier today and on my walk home from campus I decided to come up with a list of my favorite things. Here they are, in no particular order: walking on paths with lots of leaves during sunsets, overcast days, rainstorms and windstorms, singing in the bathroom, solving math problems, discovering new places, the creative idea flood that won't stop, waking up refreshed, movies/shows/plays/songs that make me cry, movies/shows/plays/songs that stir me up to action ("The Impossible Dream," for example), good friends, libraries, old bookshops, honest and true people, learning about other cultures, being able to understand something in another language, traveling by train, Washington (D.C.), Thailand, penpals, learning something new, being funny, having people visit my website and blog, curling up in front of a toasty fire with a good book, being nice eto other people, sunsets, oceans, cliffs, long grass, wind, the sound of the violin, the first day of school, clear singing voices, printed matter, beautiful typefaces, my Mac, a good story, meeting interesting people on the bus, seeing people like my artwork/music/writing/software, typing fast, typing in Thai, doing hard things in short amounts of time, answering questions, being brave, being sociable/friendly, Britain, chivalry (being a gentleman, that is), reading old books, C.S. Lewis, modest girls, integrity, romance, writing in my journal, writing e-mails, and many other things.

Oompa Loompas

Watched "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" (rented the DVD from the bookstore for $1.29). Usually "weird" movies don't really interest me, but I loved it! Johnny Depp's sense of humor is great (or at least whoever wrote his character :)). The effects were pretty neat, too. And even though I usually don't care for dance at all, I did find the Oompa Loompa dances entertaining. And of course the movie's clean, which is really nice. :)

Well, most of my major projects are done. Gave another presentation in class today and it went quite well. Now I've just got to get my CHum 283 book to the printing press by Friday. It's so nice to not have all those deadlines breathing down my neck anymore...

Climbing family trees

After reading a post today on the BYUMUG mailing list about Mac genealogy programs, I've decided to start my own project. It'll be a next-generation family history application with many cool features, most of which I haven't thought up yet (but will soon :)). Considering my background -- programming at Ancestry.com, studying family history here at BYU, and programming for IAP -- I think I've got a good enough background to work on this. :) Phase one will be research and brainstorming, trying to find what's good about the genealogy apps that are out there and what's lacking. Ah, I'd much rather work on this than do homework. ~sigh~ :) Anyway, I should have a cool name for it within the next day or so.

Tricksy

I'm even more sore today than I was yesterday. This is why I'm not an exercise science major. :) Lately I've been reading Alan Ayckbourn's The Crafty Art of Playmaking. And Jane Eyre (which I really like). Cleaned my desk today. Also went up to the bookstore to get some change so I could do my laundry. (I've never been so obsessed about getting quarters before. :)) My presentation yesterday went decently well, by the way. It's over and that's all that matters. :) I really ought to be working on my Music 201 paper (due Tuesday) and my Old English presentation (on Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, also due Tuesday), but I think I'll try to manically fit it in on Monday and on Tuesday morning. Procrastination is the bane of my existence. ~sigh~

No, tricksiness has nothing to do with this post, but it's my favorite Gollum word and I couldn't think of any other title.

The Sound of Music

I went bowling last night for our ward activity. The weird thing is that I'm sore now from it. How do you get sore from bowling?!? ~sigh~

Anyway, my mom let me borrow one of the violins so I can start practicing. "Crowder" comes from the Old Gaelic/Irish/Welsh word "crwth" which was a fiddle, so a "Crowder" is a fiddler. Fitting. :) I'm sure it'll be hard, especially to get good, but this is something I've wanted to do for a really long time and I'm going to do it or die. Preferably the former.

Monkeys 'n' typewriters

Looks like I'm getting back into the groove of posting every day. :) Today was mainly a get-homework-done day. Tomorrow I'm giving a presentation in my English usage class on "a whole nother thing" (linguistically), so I spent the bulk of my homework time today putting together a handout and crafting a Powerpoint presentation. (Let me just say that while Powerpoint's okay, someday I'm going to shell out the money for Keynote because it's a better program, and it's not Microsoft. :)) There's a cool program called OmniOutliner that comes with Mac OS X -- it basically helps you outline your ideas. Simple but effective. I found it quite useful as I drafted my presentation (which will evolve into a paper by the end of the semester). You know, making presentations and writing papers and all of this can actually be quite fun... (But now that I've said that, just watch: next semester I'll have to give ten billion presentations and write twenty gazillion papers. ~sigh~ Have I mentioned how much I don't like giving presentations and writing papers? ;))

It's an attic up here

It's been a long time since I updated Blank Slate. Most of the links are old, growing staler by the minute. Three inches of dust sit on almost every page, and there are cobwebs up in the corners -- not to mention the cracked paint and broken window panes. It's time to remodel. In spite of how busy I am, making both Blank Slate and this blog more interesting and useful are indeed important to me, and I'll try to do better.

Stayed up late last night studying for my Old English test (which went quite well, I've got to say). It was really fun to read the passages aloud to myself in the most authentic Old Englishy accent I could muster. :) Maybe someday I'll put up some recordings...

iNeedMoreTime

Have I mentioned that school's being a beast right now? I have lots of projects and midterms and papers due. Not so fun. Especially because I really really really want to start writing some good software for the Mac, but I need time to do it. I've already got thirteen ideas for apps, so it's just a matter of time. Today I was looking at Jahshaka and found it quite interesting. It doesn't seem to be far enough along to use, but it was still inspiring. And so I'm now thinking about writing a little app to color correct video. At this point I have no idea how complicated color correction theory and math is, but it can't be that hard to study up on it and figure out the best way to do it and then write an app to do it. It would be free and open source, of course. I want to drop out of school and develop apps full-time. :) Anyway, at work I'm still developing the content management system for our next-generation website. It's coming along pretty well and I should have a prototype up by Thanksgiving.

Adium

A while ago I tried Adium and wasn't very satisfied with it, so I switched to Fire for my Mac instant messaging needs and found it suitable. But today I decided to check Adium out again and wow, I'm amazed. I'm wondering if my memory was accurate after all. :) It's a really, really neat program. Fire was having stability issues anyway, and with the proper themes Adium is quite beautiful.

Insert foot in mouth

One other thing my roommates just told me: in my talk today in church, I was talking about sacrifice and said something along the lines of, "Selfishness sucks the love and happiness out of our lives." But after "Selfishness sucks" I unwittingly paused to take a breath and it sounded like I said, "Selfishness sucks." LOL :) Good thing I didn't realize what I'd said or I would've burst out laughing.

A wocket in my pocket

I'm not doing so well at the regular updates now, am I... Here, let me list the titles of the books on my desk right now. Some I'm currently reading; some are on the to-read list. In the back left corner (closest to my pillow) I have the Book of Mormon in English, the Book of Mormon / D&C / Pearl of Great Price in Thai, and the Bible. In the front left corner I have C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (a friend is going to borrow it), CSL's Letters to an American Lady, Douglas H. Gresham's Lenten Lands, Don Aslett's Get Organized, Get Published!, Aaron Hillegass's Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X, Joe Zobkiw's Mac OS X Advanced Development Techniques, and Brandon Goldfedder's The Joy of Patterns: Using Patterns for Enterprise Development. In the back right corner I have Jeremy Vineyard's Setting Up Your Shots, Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, Teach Yourself Welsh, and Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace. And finally, in the front right corner I have Boyd Petersen's Hugh Nibley: A Consecrated Life, Se-Ed's Modern English-Thai & Thai-English Dictionary, Harvey and Marilyn Diamond's Fit for Life, Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring, Eugene Savaiano's Spanish Idioms, the Random House Webster Handy Spanish Dictionary, and an Oxford World's Classics collection of five Chekhov plays. Other items on my desk include my lamp, a roll of tissue paper, a surge protector (into which are plugged my cell phone charger and the desk lamp), a pad of post-it notes, a piece of paper with the Thai alphabet on it for use in developing the cover for my Adventures in Thailand book (which I'm putting together for my CHum 283 class), my iPod, a 3x5 index card with design notes for an application to help me design other applications :), two of my scheduling cards, a post-it note reminding me to write in my journal and clean my hard drive up, and two letters from one of my friends who's a missionary in Thailand right now.

Heck, this is kind of fun. :) It's late and I need to get to bed, but here's a list of the contents of my pockets. Shirt pocket: notebook (3x5" pad with 75 sheets) and pen (I've been using The Dog pens from Thailand for the past year but I ran out and so I bought a Pilot Precise V5 Rolling Ball Extra Fine pen with which I'm pretty pleased). Left pants pocket: cell phone and chapstick. Right pants pocket: keys and wallet (the back pocket in this pair of pants is sewn shut so I keep my wallet in the right pocket).

Well, I do realize that this kind of thing is probably not interesting to anyone but me and my future posterity, but just humor me, okay? :)

Seventeen Steps

I finally finished this poem:

"Seventeen Steps"
by Benjamin Crowder

Seventeen steps down the way, she said,
Not more or less, dear, or you'll end up dead,
Then turn to the left and count all your toes,
Your fingers and eyeballs and even your nose.
Follow the footsteps that lead to the woods
Where darkness and danger and shadows like hoods
Cling to the trees like a leech on its prey;
You'd better walk fast or you won't get away.
Take the first pathway that leads to the right,
Downward and inward, away from the light.
Terror may seize you but do not turn back,
For six hundred goblins are hot on your tracks.
Look for the voices which shimmer and sing,
And then you must ask them to show you the wings;
Take them and fly through the canyon below
Till you get to the edge where the wild things grow.
Deep in the tangle of brambles and thorns
You'll find a gold jacket, all tattered and torn;
Don't touch it, my boy, now, whatever you do--
Though tempting it seems now, it won't get you through.
Three steps past the jacket you'll find a tight hole;
Stomp loud with your feet till you bring out the mole,
Then sing him a song of lost love long ago,
Till the leaves in the trees begin their soft blow.
Quickly, now, while he sleeps, into the hole,
You're closer than ever to reaching your goal;
Take the top tunnel, then right left left right,
And soon now the sunlight will grow in your sight,
Stronger and brighter, just follow your eyes,
You'll come to the exit, but don't mind the size,
It's meant for a mole, not a creature so big,
So roll up your sleeves, boy, and dig, dig, dig, dig;
The wind will be cartwheeling out of the west,
So run like a shadow and don't stop to rest.
The end is not more than fifteen feet away,
Just dodge past the infinite edge of the day,
And yes, there it is! On the cusp of the tree,
It's a book filled with stories,
For you and for me.

Hum-dee-dum

Whoops, I kind of lost track of time for a while. :) Let's see, what's happened in the past week? First, I decided that with all the other projects I'm working on, particularly at school and at work, my novel (Doubletake) is going to have to sit for a while on the back burner. So no, I won't be finishing it by the end of the month. I would like to, of course, but I really have to give the other projects higher priority.

For my print publishing class at school we have to create a book, which BYU Press will publish for us at the end of the semester. Originally I was going to do a beautiful hardcover children's illustrated book with glossy paper, but I found out that it would cost me $72. I sensibly decided to take a different route. (I thought about doing softcover instead, but it was still $36.) Instead I'm going to take my Adventures in Thailand posts and bookify them.

At work I'm busy building the new content management system that will soon supercede the existing websites. The tentative deadline is the end of Thanksgiving break (I guess that's Saturday the 26th), so I'll have to work fast. Once that settles down a bit, I'm going to start working on a few of the many Mac applications I have ideas for (primarily because they're apps that I need and they don't exist yet).

On the non-required side, I've been playing around with Blender lately. Project Orange is creating a movie entirely with open source tools (like Blender and The GIMP) and it's looking pretty good so far. They posted an animatic up the other day and already the animation -- even though it's just a rough blocked-out animatic -- is convincing. And the new features that are getting put into Blender, like realistic hair simulation, are simply amazing.

Yes, two posts in one day :)

Lately I've had an itching to program something for Mac. At work I code for Windows (ASP.NET), and in the last five or six years that's about all I've written other than website stuff. So I spent a couple of hours reading up on Cocoa and Mac development this evening. Fascinating stuff. Interface Builder is really cool. I've got ideas for two applications in mind right now (a flash card thing, kind of like iFlash but pretty and free, and an e-book viewer). This is going to be fun... :)

NaNoWriMo

Today marks the first day of National Novel Writing Month. :) We have one month to write a 50,000 word novel, which means around 1,900 words a day for me (since I won't be writing on Sundays). Spent 40 minutes this morning and pumped out 1,100 words, so I think an hour a day will do. My novel is called Doubletake. As a way to keep me working on it, I'll post what I write each day. Feel free to leave comments. Here we go:

Fillmore stepped up to the ticket counter and handed the lady his ticket, but she frowned and said, "This isn't a ticket."

"What?" A hollow feeling started eating away inside him. "Are you sure?"

"Look, mister," she said in a thick Bronx accent, holding up a ticket that looked almost the same. "This is a ticket. This thing you gave me," and she pointed to Fillmore's ticket, "is a fake."

"But that's impossible!"

"Sorry, sir. Maybe there are some standby tickets available."

Fillmore swallowed. "But I've got a meeting--I'm going to be late! Isn't there something you can do?" He turned around and looked at the long line of people behind him, most glaring at him and tapping their watches.

"I'm really sorry," said the lady. "Now if you'll just move out of the way, sir, there are lots of people who need to get on this plane."

Fillmore blinked. This wasn't happening. It couldn't be real. He stepped to the side and, cupping his hands over his mouth, hollered, "Anybody have an extra ticket?"

More glares. The ticket lady looked uncomfortable and shot him a nasty look. Then a man stood up off to the side, in the waiting area. He waved at Fillmore, so he walked over to him.

"I have a ticket," the man said. He was wearing a sharp coal black business suit and a pair of rather large sunglasses. There was another man, younger but balding, sitting next to him and whispering into a cell phone.

"How much do you want for it?"

The man laughed. "Nothing. It's yours. But our flight doesn't leave for another ten minutes. Can you wait that long?"

Fillmore looked at his watch, a Mickey Mouse piece of white plastic he'd gotten at Disneyland last year. 9:44. "Yes, I think I can. My name's Fillmore, what's yours?"

"You can call me Smith," said the man, yawning. "This here is Anderson." The balding man nodded a hello at Fillmore.

"So," said Fillmore, "you just happened to have an extra ticket? That's kind of lucky for me, isn't it."

"Sure, whatever."

Fillmore's stomach growled. "Do you mind if I go get something to eat? I'll be right back."

"No problem," said Smith.

He started walking away and then spun around. "Oh, can you watch my bag for me?"

"Sure," said Smith.

There was a McDonald's down at the other end of the terminal. When Fillmore got there he fished through his wallet and found his McDonald's meal card, the one he won at the carnival two months ago. Five stamps so far -- only two more and he'd get a free Spiderman toy.

"Hi, what can I get for you today?" The girl at the counter looked like she was thirteen. Lots of freckles.

"I'll take a cheeseburger." Fillmore fidgeted with the card.

"That'll be two dollars and seven cents."

He pulled out two ragged dollar bills from his wallet and then reached into his other pocket and found a dime there. "Here you go."

"Three cents is your change," said the girl.

"No, no, you keep it." Fillmore smiled without showing his teeth. His top front tooth had gotten knocked out on the swingset a year ago, but since it wasn't a baby tooth it hadn't grown back in. And Fillmore hadn't had time to get a plastic one made, so he never showed his teeth when he smiled.

"Thanks, I guess. One moment please." She started walking to the back room to get the cheeseburger.

"Wait!" Fillmore knocked on the counter three times. "Can you stamp my card?"

"Oh, yeah. Sorry about that." She came back and stamped it.

While she was getting his burger, he looked around. There weren't very many people there, except for one table where a large group of people crowded around, looking at something. Some of them seemed very excited. Fillmore looked back across the counter but there was no sign of the girl, so he walked over to the table.

All of the people were Asian except for a girl at the other end of the table. Fillmore got up on his tiptoes and leaned over to see what they were looking at. There was nothing there. The only thing on the table was a tray with a milkshake. The girl was eating it with a spoon, but nobody was looking at it.

"Your cheeseburger is ready!" said the girl at the counter.

"Just a second," Fillmore cried back.

The girl at the table looked up, pushing her long red bangs away from her eyes. "What are you doing?" She said something in a weird language and all of the Asians stopped talking and looked up at Fillmore.

"I was just curious," he said. "What are you all looking at?"

"Nothing." She frowned and glanced at one of the Asians, a skinny boy in a polo shirt and shorts. He left the group and walked over to the counter, then returned holding the tray.

"Hey, that's my cheeseburger! Thief!"

"Hold on a second," said the red-haired girl. "He's not stealing it." She said something else to him and he handed Fillmore the tray. "Take a seat." She motioned to the seat across from her.

"I can't," he said. "My plane is leaving in five minutes."

"Sit!" She stood up and pointed at the seat.

"No, really, I can't. But what were you looking at?"

Two of the shorter Asians next to him grabbed his arms and pushed him into the chair.

"Wait, help!" Fillmore cried.

"Quiet," the girl shot back. "Are you crazy?"

Just then her eyes grew wide. She muttered something in the weird language and all of the Asians scattered.

"What's going on here?" said Smith. He stood next to Anderson, who was at least seven feet tall.

The girl swallowed. "Nothing, nothing. See ya." And she darted out of the restaurant.

"Hurry, Fillmore, the plane's about to leave," said Anderson as he looked down at Fillmore's cheeseburger. "Can I have some?"