Fatherly urges

I have been feeling some desires to be a dad. The idea kind of scares me. It's a big responsibility and it can be expensive, right? Would I still be able to attain my goal of financial independance?

The idea scares me but it also attracts me. I like being uncle to my nieces and nephews; I like spending time with them and playing with them and being the occasional parental figure with them. But at the end of the day they're somebody else's kids. At the end of the day, after a long long day when they're tired they want to go and be with their own mommy. Someone else decides how to raise them, someone else decides when they come to visit and how often and for how long, and whether or not they'll come camping or come to church. And that is how it should be because all of that is their parents' responsibility.

But there is a piece of me that wants it for me. As I mentioned the other night to one of the men on my men's team, I don't have kids but I'm a dad at heart. It actually felt really good to say that! The other day I was speaking with someone about the subject on the phone. At the end of the call I felt like I was standing at the bottom of a big mountain looking up and saying with a big grin on my face, I'm going to climb that mountain!

Technology, music, physical challenges

The RA I have in my hands is making it difficult for me to learn to play keyboard or guitar or bass well. That's been getting me to thinking - there must be people out there in the world that have a passion for making music but are limited by severe physical challenges. So why not use technology, bring together all the necessary components (they already exist!) and put it all together in a way that a person who has physical challenges can overcome their limitations and be able to play a musical instrument? The way that hand and mouth artists are able to paint despite no limbs.

I know that hardware can be expensive so maybe there is some venture capitalist or philanthropist out there who would find it worth their while to finance such an undertaking.

I feel inspired by the story of Diane Dupuy, the founder of Famous People Players. She created a venue for people with mental and physical disabilities to express themselves in a theatrical context. She had a powerful vision.

So how about a similar vision, a vision of a world in which people with physical ability is not a handicap to being able to express oneself musically.

Thoughts on combining signal delay with pitch bend

So I'm familiar with the technique of using a Delay effect in audio production; this allows a signal to be played back after a slight delay from the original signal. This technique can be used, for example, to play quarter notes and have them sound like eighth notes.

What I'm thinking about is the possibility of running the delayed signal through something that will change its pitch. Reason does not have a pitch-bend device that I know of, but some devices do have a function that can change the pitch. The Subtractor is one that comes to mind. If I lowered the pitch by 4 or 5 semitones, then the delayed notes would actually be played back as a different note in the same chord as the original note. I would expect that this could produce an interesting arpeggiation effect.

Have Metropass, will travel

It is cool having a Metropass. I can get on any bus or any streetcar anytime and I don't have to make sure I have enough change or have a token. I can spontaneously decide to get off the bus I'm on and take a different one without having to make sure I have a transfer. If I'm waiting too long for the subway to come, I can change my mind about going somewhere; I can get off the transit system and decide to walk or drive instead, without feeling like I wasted a token. Or if I have some unexpected downtime when I'm in the core of the city I can spontaneously decide to go for a ride on the Sheppard line just because I have not been on the Sheppard line yet since it opened five years ago.

The Sheppard-Yonge Station used to be called just Sheppard back before the new line was built. Back when I used to ride the subway as a young boy. Just like I did today.

I got off the northbound train heading up the Yonge line and climbed up the stairs, following the signs towards the tracks of the Sheppard line. I got to the top of the stairs - and there it was. Wow! A brand new subway station! It was like seeing something out of my dreams, a mysterious, secret subway station that existed only in my imagination. Only this one existed in the real world.

Like a young boy, I rode at the front of the first car, looking into the tunnel as the train moved. Like when I rode on the Spadina line when it opened.

What secrets do these underground tunnels know? What mysteries do they hide? What tracks exist, going into unknown places, concealed from the general public?

Slept in the tent

J's nieces and nephew visited this weekend. It was not only Father's Day, it was also my baby niece's second birthday (see It's nice to have a niece and Photo-shopping). J got them all stirred up about the idea of sleeping in a tent in the backyard. My four year old nephew was particularly excited about it and couldn't wait for me to finish my dinner so that we could go set up the tent.

I had purchased the tent several years ago when I met J so that I could take her camping with me. I didn't think she would enjoy my previous tent, the small two and a half man tent that I'd had for about ten years. To be honest, not that I like to admit it, but I'd gotten older myself and my body was not as flexible as it used to, so getting into and out of the older and smaller tent was getting more difficult for me. It was time for a tent that was big enough that I could stand up in.

Our first camping experience together was pretty traumatic for J. Between the mosquitoes and a cycling mishap, it didn't look likely that she would ever go camping again. But her trauma eventually subsided and a year later we went on our second camping trip together. On that second trip we combined tent camping with trailer camping. We had some rain and the tent got wet and I got sick so I just put the tent in the trunk of the car instead of packing it into its bag when it was time to return home. When we finally got home, I just was not up to the task of unpacking and putting everything back in its place so the tent poles and fly ended up in one place and the tarp ended up somewhere else - and was not to be seen for the next two years. The missing tarp finally turned up last week in a hidden corner of our shed which we had to empty because we were starting a backyard landscaping project (J's mom found the tarp - thank you!)

So when I finally finished eating I went outside and set up the tent and got the air mattress pumped up and the kids were so excited and jumping on the air mattress. Then we took them down to the waterfront for a walk. We went for a long long walk and it was dark by the time we got back home. We were all pretty tired by the time we got back home.

I want to sleep inside the house with mommy they were now saying. So much for all the excitement about sleeping in the tent. They were more excited about setting up the tent than actually sleeping in it.

I hated to miss the opportunity so I end up sleeping in the tent myself. It's a nice big tent and I enjoyed having it all to myself.

Vicarious Ghost Rider

I was at Chapters the other day, and I've been curious to look at any of the books that Neil Peart has written, so I looked him up in an authour search and found out about a book he wrote called Ghost Rider. The catalogue listed it as being in the Biography section which just happened to be right beside the terminal I was using.

I ended up reading the first three chapters of his book, which cover his motorcycle journey across Canada to Alaska. By the end of that third chapter I felt like I'd been on that cross-Canada trip with him. There was a time in my life when I thought of doing a cross-Canada cycling ride, so reading those chapters at Chapters gave me a sort of vicarious experience of it. It also reignited my desire to write.