Christmas Lights at 1208

In our 35 years of married life, this is our first attempt at outdoor Christmas decorations. It's kinda hard to tell, but that's a star up in the point and a couple of angels blowing horns down below.

Some of our neighbors look like they're auditioning for the Griswold's part in the Chevy Chase Christmas movie with great elaborate shows of light and ingenuity. And that's always fun, but our budget and sensitivities ran to something a little less pretentious for our first time out. At least we don't look the only Jewish family on the block any more.

The W in Christmas (shared with me by Sol Cartier)

The "W" in Christmas

Each December, I vowed to make Christmas a calm and peaceful experience. I had cut back on nonessential obligations -extensive card writing, endless baking, decorating, and even overspending. Yet still, I found myself exhausted, unable to appreciate the precious family moments, and of course, the true meaning of Christmas. My son, Nicholas, was in kindergarten that year. It was an exciting season for a six year old. For weeks, he'd been memorizing songs for his school's "Winter Pageant." I didn't have the heart to tell him I'd be working the night of the production. Unwilling to miss his shining moment, I spoke with his teacher. She assured me there'd be a dress rehearsal the morning of the presentation. All parents unable to attend that evening were welcome to come then. Fortunately, Nicholas seemed happy with the compromise.

So, the morning of the dress rehearsal, I filed in ten minutes early, found a spot on the cafeteria floor and sat down. Around the room, I saw several other parents quietly scampering to their seats. As I waited, the students were led into the room. Each class, accompanied by their teacher, sat cross-legged on the floor. Then, each group, one by one, rose to perform their song. Because the public school system had long stopped referring to the holiday as "Christmas," I didn't expect anything other than fun, commercial entertainment - songs of reindeer, Santa Claus, snowflakes and good cheer. So, when my son's class rose to sing, "Christmas Love," I was slightly taken aback by its bold title.

Nicholas was aglow, as were all of his classmates, adorned in fuzzy mittens, red sweaters, and bright snow caps upon their heads. Those in the front row- center stage - held up large letters, one by one, to spell out the title of the song. As the class would sing "C is for Christmas," a child would hold up the letter C. Then, "H is for Happy," and on and on, until each child holding up his portion had presented the complete message, "Christmas Love." The performance was going smoothly, until suddenly we noticed her; a small, quiet, girl in the front row holding the letter "M" upside down - totally unaware her letter "M" appeared as a "W".

The audience of 1st through 6th graders snickered at this little one's mistake. But she had no idea they were laughing at her, so she stood tall, proudly holding her "W". Although many teachers tried to shush the children, the laughter continued until the last letter was raised, and we all saw it together. A hush came over the audience and eyes began to widen. In that instant, we understood the reason we were there, why we celebrated the holiday in the first place, why even in the chaos, there was a purpose for our festivities. For when the last letter was held high, the message read loud and clear:

"CHRISTWAS LOVE" And, I believe, He still is.

Time for a Change

Bought a different (not new) car today. It's an Audi TT. We traded in Julie's 2002 Maxima. She will drive the Murano and this will be my car.


I've never owned a sports car but this is a lot of fun to drive. Although it only has a four cylinder engine, it's got a lot of zip.


More than can be said for it's proud owner.

All Saints Day Fair

This Saturday was All Saints Day. We had a worship service and then a fun afternoon.


Kids dressed as saints. Above "St. Patrick" shows off his snakes and "St. Frances' friend whose name I forget" shows off her animals.


We arranged for a huge bounce house for the kids.


And our diocesan church camp, located in Granbury, brought horses for kids and adults to ride around the campus.

Sunday Lunch with Erik

It's been a few weeks since we hung out with Michael, Cheryl, and Erik. Erik has grown quite a bit and is a lot more "interactive" than last time together.


He's teething..


And he's losing some of his baby hair as you can tell in this picture.


He's also taken to eating solid food. We enjoyed our visit but it was too short.

Society of Spectacle

Poster on Althouse blog nails it:

"This just reinforces my ongoing impression that we've been living out a satire for the past year or two. We elected a callow nobody as President on the strength of a few vacuous speeches. The healthcare debate -- driving trillions of dollars in anticipated future expenditures -- got turned around by comments someone scrawled on Facebook, and now the Nobel Peace Prize committee has decided to award prizes for good intentions. It's like no one's even serious about anything anymore. None of it matters. It's the Society of the Spectacle."

Blessing of the Animals

Yesterday was the Feast of St. Francis, a day when many churches, including ours, invites pet and animal owners to bring their beasts for a blessing.


This was Katie's first time to go to church. While we were waiting, she intimidated several other dogs in attendance, barked loudly when anything happened, and generally acted like most parishioners do. After prayers and a short homily, care-givers were invited forward with their pets to receive the sprinkling of holy water and blessing from the priest.


Katie survived the ritual, but thinks it's a lot more fun getting wet in the sprinkler.

Opus 5232 - Part 3

The pipe organ I play at Good Shepherd Acton, Moeller Opus 5232, was built in 1928 for Central Methodist Church in Fort Worth where it was first installed. That congregation had worshiped with a smaller organ they had used for more than a decade. The new organ and wind chest were positioned in the loft at the rear of the sanctuary (as it is in our own church). Larry Bourse of Fort Worth remembers as a teenager in the 1940’s hearing the pipe organ when Boy Scout Troop #42 held special services in the building.

Central Methodist Church, College Avenue, Ft Worth, TX

In the 1960’s Central Methodist Church sold their downtown location and relocated to the South Hulen area. They became Overton Park Methodist. Carol Roszell, Methodist Church archivist, unearthed a couple of references to the instrument from the early records of the Overton Park Church. The organist for many years was Marie Balch Wright. Jack Kyle Daniels writes in his memoirs (A Shot of Jack Daniels, p.117) that Mrs. Wright was a well-known piano teacher in Fort Worth whose students consistently won the National Piano Guild Competition.

Records show that in 1969 there was a lot of discussion about moving the Moeller organ to the new location, but the cost of relocating the old instrument was equal to purchasing a new one. Some of the best pipes, chimes, and bells were taken from the 1928 instrument to be incorporated into their new organ.

The console and wind chest gathered dust and pigeon droppings in the unused building. Trinity Episcopal Church purchased the property in 1972 and two years later turned it over to the Panther Boys’ Club, a branch of the Boys’ Clubs of America. The Boys Club converted the sanctuary of the old church into a boxing arena. Mr. Bourse remembers the old organ in the loft of the church was filthy and covered with paint splatter. They cut what he termed the “umbilical cord” that had connected the console to the wind chest in order to make room in the loft for the place where the officials judged the boxing matches.

In 1975 the Boys Club ran an ad in the Fort Worth paper.

1928 Moeller pipe organ in undetermined condition.
Located at the Panther Boys’ Club on College Ave.

The ad was seen by Genie Guynn who was studying organ and thought how wonderful it would be to have a pipe organ of her own. She contacted Wirt Norris who was President of the Panther’s Boys Club and a member at Trinity Episcopal where Ms. Guynn served as a volunteer assistant organist and choir director. Mr. Norris gave her what was left of the organ. She paid $1,000 to move the old organ to her home where the long process of restoration began.

(To be continued…)

Windy

Last night we had wind gusts of 60 mph. Kinda' wreaks havoc on the patio furniture and the psyche of one Corgi.

Baseball in Lynchburg

The Pittsburg Pirates have their "A" team in Lynchburg. We watched them defeat the Salem Red Sox (Boston's team). The Lynchburg Hillcats won 1-0 in a pretty good pitching duel. I expected to see sloppy play at this level, but the game was really well-played on both sides, including some great infield plays by both sides.


Thanks Marc and Amy for planning a great night.


We had a blast.

Caroline's Cozy Coupe

We are definitely on Caroline's A list when we found the only Cozy Coupe in all of central Virginia. We traveled 45 miles to Roanoke to purchase it, but after seeing her play in it, it was all worth it.



Amy's blog has a cute little movie.

Visit to Lynchburg

We're enjoying a long weekend in Lynchburg with Marc, Amy, and Caroline. Enjoyed going to church this morning to hear Marc preach and Amy play violin with their ensemble.
We're going tonight to watch some minor league baseball. The Lynchburg Hillcats, Pittsburgh Pirates "A" team, is playing the Salem Red Sox (Boston's system). Should be fun.

Opus 5232 - Part 2

Discii

 

Here are my three new discus fish I put in the aquarium yesterday. So far, no floaters.

They are very easy-going and don't rush around a lot. I need fish like this.

The Badlands

Opus 5232 - Part 1

I’ve done a little research on the history of the M. P. Moller Pipe Organ Company which manufactured our instrument, the only pipe organ in Hood County.

Mathias Moller was born in Denmark and immigrated to the United States in 1872. Moller worked in Warren, Pennsylvania as a woodworker for a furniture manufacturing firm. In Erie, Pa., he got a job with organ builders, Derrick & Felgemaker. Moller returned to Warren, where he built his own pipe organ in 1875. A year later, he went to Philadelphia, where he manufactured and sold four pipe organs before moving his operation to Greencastle, Pa., in 1877. Moller placed an organ in the Reformed Church in Greencastle on trial.

When Moller was unsuccessful at securing financing from the Greencastle banks to expand his business, the city of Hagerstown, Maryland took notice of Moller’s early successes and induced him to move his business to Hagerstown in April 1881 to help make Hagerstown a viable business center in Western Maryland. The result was M. P. Moller, Inc. The company remained in business until 1992, with a production of over 11,000 instruments. Each instrument was assigned an Opus number. Our organ is Opus 5232, made in 1928. Moller thought that anyone who wanted a pipe organ should be able to buy one. So, prior to World War II, Moller mass-produced smaller pipe organs with fewer pipes for churches, restaurants, and private homes.

After the WWII, Moller switched to making largely custom organs. Their instruments are in some of the largest churches around the world. The company did not keep up with changing technology and after several attempts to revive the business failed, the company went bankrupt in 1992.

(More to follow ...)

All's Quiet on the Hill

Hasn't been a lot going on except the routine of days around here.
I've been finishing up the DVD of our trip to South Dakota and may post some of the shorter clips here.

Julie's been back at work, plugging away, with now less than two years until she can retire. I don't know if she actually will retire when she can, but it is something to look forward to.

My company, PsyMetrics Global, is going through a lot of changes. In the last month, we have acquired two other businesses and brought on five employees. We are gearing up for our entry into the market in India as well as expansion here in the US. Our overseas operations will probably be run through PsyMetrics Canada, a subsidiary of our main company.

We are having a major training event in Dallas next week for which I've been busy preparing training materials and reviewing the work done by our instructional designers.

Stay tuned for more developments ...

Taking Care of Erik

For the last two weeks, Julie and I have spent Monday - Wednesday taking care of grandson, Erik, while his Mommy works. He's still a week or so too young for day care, so we're filling in the gap.

Check out Michael & Cheryl's blog for some really cute pictures.

Lasagna Rocks

Our last full day in South Dakota was spent driving through the Badlands. Trevor called these "lasagna rocks" because you could see the layers (or strata) so clearly.


The wind was blowing ferociously - maybe 50 miles per hour in one place.


It was a place I wish we could have stayed longer to see how the colors in the rocks change as the sun moves across the sky. But storm clouds moved in later that afternoon and we hurried back to Rapid City.

A Day in Deadwood

After watching the HBO series about Deadwood, I felt like I knew this place intimately. So, it was really a lot of fun to actually visit the town, all of which is designated as a historical landmark. In the picture above I'm standing with one of the re-enactors in front of the site where Wild Bill Hickok was gunned down by Jack McCall during a card game.


Today the town is a mecca for bikers. Next week almost 60,000 bikers will come to Sturgis and Deadwood for their annual rally.


We visited the Broken Boot Gold Mine on the outskirts of town where Trevor and Tyson panned for gold and actually found a few flakes.

My high point of the day was going to one of those photography places that dresses you up in old-timey clothes and takes pictures that look a hundred years old. What a hoot! We couldn't wait the couple of hours it was going to take to get the pictures, so they will mail them to us.

In spite of the many casinos and bars, we all liked Deadwood.

Balloon Landing

Hot Air Balloon Ride

Got up at 4:30 to drive to Custer, SD where we met the people from Black Hills Balloons. They pumped them up and six of us climbed in one balloon and 12 people went in the larger balloon (shown above).


I never realized how hot those propane burners can get when your head is only about 12 inches below them.


This is the only picture we got of us actually in the balloon. We asked this guy to take it and he couldn't quite figure out how to work the camera. But it's a kind of cinema-verite, I think.

We did fine until the landing which was pretty rough. The pilot would see a spot to put the balloon down and then the wind would shift. As you probably know, you can't steer balloons; they go up or they go down. But when we eventually put down in a pasture, we hit hard, were dragged a few feet, went back up, slammed down again, and a third time. When it was all over, Julie and I were at the bottom of the pile of passengers.

No damage done, however. We thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I'll post a video of the landing later for those of you who like your blogs suspenseful.

Julie Makes it 50!

Julie lacked one state of having visited all 50 states: North Dakota. Because there's probably not a lot of reason for us to ever get back to this part of the country, we drove from Rapid City about two and a half hours north so that Julie could accomplish one of her life goals.

Honestly, this is about as far inside North Dakota as we got, but, hey, it counts.

I've never seen country like that we drove through to get to the North Dakota border. Just picture a ribbon of road stretching absolutely straight to the horizon across rolling grass hills. The only thing I could think of to describe the geography was the surface of the moon if it was covered with grass.

A Day at Mount Rushmore

Actually (as Trevor would say) it was half a day because we got rained out at lunch time. The morning was bright and beautiful but, as you can probably see above George Washington, the storm clouds were moving in. As we ate lunch the rain started. At first it looked like the Presidents were crying, but after 10 minutes or so of cloudburst, it looked like they were victims in some slasher movie. Great dark streams smeared their faces.

I'm standing with Adam, my son-in-law, who has been kind enough to do most of the driving on this trip.

I'm not sure Tyson and Trevor thought looking at big stone faces was much of a big deal. They couldn't wait to get back to the swimming pool at the hotel.