Blogging Ottinger (tim)

The news has been full of it, but SCO is done. I was following the whole SCO v. Linux thing quite a while ago, and we all knew that it was baseless and groundless and hopeless. We wondered at a company that used to be important having slid so far that they now wanted to make their living off of suing people. We speculated about where the money would come from to pay the lawyers, and we received little confirmations along the way. It was, of course, a fiasco.

Now they admit that bad publicity and Linux success are to blame. The publicity was from their baseless attack on the Linux community, so really it’s all the same thing. They tried to take on the wrong enemy, publicly and poorly, and a company that used to provide a useful product is now dead by their own choices.

Sadly, the only postscript is “told ya so”.

Nobody on earth sounds like Jeff Beck, except maybe Jeff Beck. This song, and this video make me smile. There are plenty of high-speed, high-accuracy shredding videos on youtube and most of them only impress me with how fast they are, not how good they sound. Beck’s guitar sounds great, and he knows just what a song needs and when it needs it.

And he’s even better alongside Stanley Clarke in 2006.

I found yet another good article at Christianity Today (quite a good publication, really). Today’s article has this great sound bite:

This may be the only group in America that realizes all the way to the bottom that when you decide to follow Jesus, you don’t always get to do what you want to do.

A quick note to bashers, intolerants, forced-acceptance types, and militants: If you simply can’t stand to read about ministry to homosexuals, then you won’t like this article. I liked it a lot.

This has been a little rough. I have a new family member, a great niece between the ages of my boys. We’ve just put them in a private school about 1/2 hour from home. The school day is rather shorter than the work day, and there is a commute between work and school. There are after-school sports to deal with, and then meetings every night (well, the nights without have been filled with school supply or school clothes shopping).

I’m sleeping better, but my days are so busy and there is so little time for work or personal development. I fear that I’m just falling further behind, and feeling the stress of that. I have got to learn to be more productive in a four-to-five hour day, because the rest of the day I’m pretty much driving or sleeping or attending meetings in Mundelein. In the late evenings and early mornings, it’s time for chores like getting laundry done. Some days my kids are getting their wardrobe from the dryer before getting in the van. It’s a different routine here.

I wish I could read while driving, but programming books tend to require more concentration and eyes-on than if I were learning about some other aspects of business or theology or what-have-you. Technical reading doesn’t translate well to books-on-cd. I think I’d be willing to try it, though, if my trips weren’t ferrying kids who are themselves trying to adjust to a lot of newness at once. They have a new school, a new family dynamic, their first time at sports, and the expected interrelational problems between themselves. The three of them have more things they all want to tell me at the beginning and end of the day, but I’ve still only got the ability to listen to one thing at a time. Trying to layer on some audio learning doesn’t seem very likely.

Of course, I’m playing catch-up with my wife and friends and remote family also. It’s quite overwhelming for a bear of little brain.

Eventually we’ll all get good at this. In the meantime, I will just remember that this is all for a good reason and a good purpose. I will try to be responsible to all the people who rely on me. I’ll also pile on the vitamins and get the best rest I can.

This is so wrong. Just repeat that while watching.

Oh, no. It’s not right. I think I’ll take another look, maybe I misinterpreted. No. That’s soooo wrong. And quite the surprise for the woodland creatures. I’ll have to take that out of my bookmarks it’s so wrong. And maybe blog about it.

It’s always the same old story. There is always the pragmatic (those things that we could successfully do) in conflict with the ethical (those things we should or should not do).

Yesterday I was driving. Outside our subdivision there is a little park and a pedestrian/bike crossing. It is at the bottom of a hill, and the unwary drive may have built up some inertia coming downhill from the subdivision entrance. I was driving down the hill and I saw some kids on bikes coming out of the park. They stopped, which was wise of them. I saw that there was truck coming down the hill, and they were waiting to see if he would stop or not.

The Ethical/legal/correct thing was to stop and the crossing and wait for the kids. The pragmatic saw that they were stopped anyway, and waiting on the other truck. I could zip across the crossing while they were waiting and be on my way that much sooner. I want to tell you that I did the right thing, but I didn’t. What’s worse, the truck coming down the hill behind me zipped through without even slowing. Nobody was hurt, but it’s not our fault that things went well. We were wrong.

The truck coming toward me, however, slowed and stopped. When I pulled through the crossing, he gestured at me (no, no, not *that* gesture). He gave a universal “what are you thinking” gesture and then gestured toward the kids. I felt ashamed immediately. Then he put his hand out in a “stop” gesture toward the truck following me, which did not hesitate to blow through the crossing.

Now if I were the average, stubborn, selfish jerk then I would have been mad at the approaching driver for pointing out that I’d been a selfish jerk. I would be mad at him for making me feel bad about it. But instead, I was a sorrowful jerk. I have children and live in the community there. I know the laws and who had right-of-way. I could have paused for all of ten seconds without destroying my schedule. There was no reason for my sudden burst of selfish pragmatism to overrule my caution and compassion. But it did.

Not next time. Because the other driver drew my attention, that intersection is now important to me. It’s not an annoyance that will slow me down ever again. From yesterday onward, that crossing is the safety of children and I will be watching for it. I might even join the anonymous northward driver in correcting those who don’t appreciate how important and precious that crossing really is.

But this is why fellowhip with righteous is so important. If we are not reminded from time to time, we may be overcome by pragmatism and business and selfishness. The righteous will give us a reminder, even if it doesn’t make us feel good. If we are wise, we’ll welcome that correction and even seek it out.

If you were driving north on Tiffany yesterday, I just want to say “thank you” and “I’m sorry”.

Someday I will buy a guitar with P90 pickups. I figure my collection will be more or less complete if I have one P90, one hollowbody (maybe a Epiphone BB King), and one multi-voice/hybrid.

If I were to buy a P90 guitar today, I would buy the Godin LG P90.

The reviews have looked good and I know from sampling at guitar stores that the Godin products are always comfortable and playable. I have never been anything but impressed with them. I think that the LG P90 is an exceptionally attractive bit of art as well. Look at that wood grain. Most of the p90-equipped guitars I have seen (other than the recent Fender TC90) have been fairly unattractive. I especially don’t like the Les Paul Gold Top (an example on David Stafford’s page. I like to see something other than thick polyeurothane color coat. I like to see wood, or at least some kind of texture (like my Breadwinner).

A different photo from The Twelfth Fret has rather a different look, more of an amber/butterscotch kind of finish.

Either way, I would be pretty proud to display and play something like this. I’ve not owned a P90 before, but I’ve heard over and over about what a bright and warm sound they have. I’ve heard recordings, including the one at Duncan’s page. I would love to hear these through my own electronics and amps.