Gina Harris's Blog, page 146

Band Review: Direct Hit!

Direct Hit! are the most punk thing I have listened to lately: fun and obnoxious.
I was checking them out based on the recommendation of The All-American Rejects' Mike Kennerty, in commemoration of his birthday next week.
I appreciate the way Direct Hit! is capable of hardcore but does not overdo it; that can become old very quickly.
Their execution is fresh and enjoyable. Even looking at the tempo and length of most songs, it feels very traditionally punk, but nothing feels dated.
For the obnoxious part, you know, either it will bother you or it won't. If traditional punk sounds good to you, you can probably live with it.
I enjoyed the band.
http://directhitsucks.com/
https://www.facebook.com/directhitband
https://www.youtube.com/user/directhitsucks
https://twitter.com/DirectHit_sucks

Picture it

It makes sense - with such a colorful theme - that color would leave the lasting impression on me. That's what happened.
It was reinforced by later activity. I started feeling a compulsive need to color later as my subconscious was begging me to relax:
http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2016/07/just-keep-swimming.html
Those issues aside, it was a pleasurable thing to see the difference that adding color made to each design. I saw their appeal when they were just in black and white, but the color made them pop. 


Adult coloring books are really big now, but you will be amazed by the amount of free coloring sheets online. Also, some of the "adult" patterns take on a level of complication that can make the relaxation aspects backfire.



 
Even though I did not get to color much on karaoke night, I got to observe it then too. I could see what other people were coloring, but also, there was the mural.
When I first got the idea I thought it would be nice to have one really big sheet that people could work together on. I didn't know how to make that happen with some cohesiveness unless I drew it. (Well, I could have asked someone else to do it, but I don't know whom.)
My initial idea was the local landscape, but I was picturing all of these Portland things, and we are really Beaverton. Still, we do things in other locations. We had things planned in Lake Oswego and Hillsboro, and had done things in Portland in the past.
Anyway, I drew something, and it wasn't great, because I am not a great artist, but it still felt good to do. 

It became so much better as color was added. 

I feel good about that.

Karaoke Coloring Night!

I don't remember exactly how we decided to put karaoke and coloring together. I know karaoke first started bouncing around because someone asked what kind of activity would get me there.
The thing is, I never went to single adult activities before. I appreciate them now, but once I am no longer on the committee, I may return to that pattern. It's not personal, but I am so busy all the time that I don't seek out additional things to do.
That's not true for everyone though, and if I am going to be involved I am going to do a good job, especially with karaoke. It can be hard to get people to participate. Outside of church activities that reluctance is usually being broken down by it being late at night with people drinking. That's not going to happen at a church activity.
I have been very familiar with the benefits of coloring; singing has some compatible benefits. I decided to frame things around that. Sing. Color. Play. Do the things that you used to do all the time without even thinking, but somehow getting older slowed you down. Maybe that's why these things are so good for you. Maybe they take us back to a time when we were younger, and more vibrant. More free.
Then it became a matter of thinking of all the things that could go wrong, and trying to fix them. They initially wanted to combine it with a dinner. That's a horrible idea. Getting people to go through the song lists, pick songs, get up and sing while eating a full meal, and get us out of there at a reasonable time is not going to happen. Karaoke food is finger food. Since we were focusing on color and good for you, the refreshments were colorful fruits and vegetables: strawberries, baby carrots, pineapple, kiwi fruit, and purple grapes. (Blueberries would have put me over budget.) Plus M&Ms!
Tablecloths would not be a good surface for coloring, but the tables at the church are a little bumpy too. Okay, we will put butcher paper across the tables. It is smooth, people can draw if they want, and it adds to the color, as we had tables that were red, orange, yellow, and blue.
One of the committee members had a karaoke machine and some music. Would it be enough? Initial e-mail attempts to get a list failed. It required a phone call, a hand off, and typing up the songs myself. It was not enough songs. That's okay; I ordered a 5-CD set. We only needed about two hours of music, but being able to find a song you like matters. That did mean typing up another hundred songs.
Would we have enough turnout? There are people who will be turned off by karaoke, associating it with late nights and alcohol. Also, they might be scared to sing. You can color without singing, but would that have enough appeal? I contacted several people directly to try and get them out, or at least make a case for why they should consider it. We didn't have as much turnout as I hoped, but we had some new people, and they may come to other things. In addition, those contacts were good, even with those who didn't come.
I wish I'd had a better idea of how many would have come. That would have solved the budget issue of both getting blueberries and being able to have 64-count instead of 24-count boxes of crayons, because I had eight tables, and we could have made it with four. But each of the eight tables had eight each of three different coloring sheets at various levels of difficulty. Oh, and there were colorful Life Savers to act as lozenges.
One thing I knew was that I would need to be willing to go first singing, I would need to have other people ready to go, and any other thing that could help loosen up people would be good.
I took some tips from the Sing Along Sound of Music. A coordinator there had warmed us up, singing one line and having the audience sing the next. We did that. I gave some tips (choose a song you love and own it, don't worry about your voice). We practiced giving a hearty round of applause, because anyone who came up was going to get one. This was going to be a supportive environment.
We also had group sings. Songs we had everyone sing together (with me leading) included "Sing" in the style of The Carpenters (easy chorus, very familiar), "YMCA" in the style of The Village People (familiar and hand motions so it really loosens people up), and "Stand By Me" in the style of Ben E. King (that was our closer). On my own I sang "Tainted Love" in the style of Soft Cell and "You Spin Me Round" in the manner of Dead or Alive. At the request of one friend, I was a backup dancer on "Fame".
I would have liked more people there, but I am so happy for everyone who did come and sing. I know it was hard for some people - it took some time and encouragement - but then it was good for us to share it.
And everyone colored well. More on that tomorrow.

The Day of Discovery

I thought I would focus this week on things that had kept me busy related to church assignments. I mentioned getting really busy a few months ago, but I didn't go into specifics. Two of the things keeping me busy were related to events that have now passed.
The first was a family history fair that ended up being called the Day of Discovery, but it took us a while to get there. My old seminary teacher (and bishop and home teacher, and parent I babysat for, depending on what life stage we focus on) was in charge and he requested that I be on the committee.
My first contribution was saying that there was no way I would be able to make 7 AM meetings. I was not the only one to have this concern, but I think it was important for each of us to say that. Sometimes that's the difference between one person being a spoilsport versus collective wisdom.
Family history fairs often consist primarily of speakers and workshops talking about what you can do and sharing inspiring stories, but in this case Bishop Brennan's priority was going to be on individual experiences. Attendees would get one on one time with family history consultants. Whether they were just starting out or experienced but hitting snags, they were going to get someone else to work on it with them.
The first thing that I noticed at the first meeting was that everyone else had callings specific to family history. I did not, though I have worked on it myself. I learned that my specific task was going to be working out the flow of the day - connecting visitors with consultants and keeping it going smoothly.
That seemed like an odd fit. I know people who have studied crowd dynamics and organizational behavior, and barring someone who'd studied that specifically, I would have thought maybe an engineer would be the way to go. Well, engineers sometimes think weirdly and I give the impression of organized. (That was the conclusion after some hinting around and finally asking directly, because I really wasn't sure I was the best person for the job.)
The carefully thought out plans did not work. My thoughts in terms of organization were that it would be better if visitors worked with family history consultants in their ward, and if visitors at the same level were in the same area.
We were going to have computer banks in three locations. If you had all of the beginners in one place, and advanced in another, it seemed reasonable that they could learn from each other, and we could have the consultants with the widest, deepest knowledge in same spot, collected with the toughest nuts. Then if a visitor is with a consultant from their own ward, whom they see regularly, follow up should come very naturally.
There was nothing wrong with the philosophy of that; but it was completely impracticable. To arrange that, you need to know who is showing up at what time, and what level they are at. Some time slots were filled out, but some visitors signed up in advance without it getting uploaded into the master schedule, finding out what they needed in advance added too much complication, and also an unexpected opportunity for leadership training came up that day that pulled a lot of people away.
Another thought I had was that the consultant could escort their visitor back to the spot they would be working at. That creates a glut of people at the entrance, assumes consultants will be done with their previous visitor at the start of the next hour (almost certainly not), and there's too much movement.
There were things I had to give up. Sending visitors on their own back to a specific area would not be good, but having escorts take three visitors at a time, match them up with their consultants, and then come back for more people worked well.
For matching people up, it did mainly go by availability, but as people came in I would ask if they had specific issues. If they did, I passed that on to the escort.
Starting with lofty goals and then adapting based on reality works. The first fifteen minutes was pretty hectic, largely because of people showing up early, but it worked out. People had good experiences. As we started getting visitors to consultants smoothly, I started having more time so I would visit with people as they were leaving. All of the visitors came away happy.
The most common deep technical issues were people having files in one format that they needed to get into another format; all of those were solved. There were people who weren't sure where to go next in their own research; they came away with ideas. Most of all, people who were intimidated at getting started had a friendly person at their side while they started, and it was confidence building.
That went for the consultants too. Some of them were very experienced, but others were less so. Getting a chance to see that yes, they do know what they are doing, and they know enough to help someone else, was meaningful, plus there was that boost that comes with helping someone.
The only way to feel about the day overall was good.
Finally, I participated in a meeting about a week later to go over what went well and what could be improved. At Intel we called these post-mortems. There's probably a better name for that, but the function of reviewing and learning from an experience while it is still fresh is invaluable.
The Day of Discovery was a win.
Related posts:
http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2016/06/thoughts-on-roots-connected.html
http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2016/04/what-day.html

Band Review: JG Beats

JG Beats is a producer and beatmaker, from whom you can purchase various beats to create your own tracks.
I have reviewed similar people, but they often had their own personal tracks as well, giving me a better idea of their specific tastes.
Here there seems to be some predilection toward big chained synth, and there is a lot to choose from, with 178 beats available.
I do not know enough about the process to know what to look for if you wanted to buy beats, but the selection and pricing look reasonable.
http://jgbeats.com/
https://www.facebook.com/JulianGBeats
https://www.youtube.com/user/JulianGBeats?sub_confirmation=1
https://twitter.com/julian_g

Band Review: Phantoms

Phantoms is a post-metalcore band from Baltimore. At least part of the band was once Camisado.
Songs can be aggressive, using percussion that creates a feeling of unease. They show a more delicate touch on the intro to "You May Suffer", an intricate and complex song which makes effective use of piano. My favorite track was "Let This Die" for the guitar.
At this point the Facebook page seems to be the main source of information. I could not even find a Twitter account for the band, though I have included that of frontman Joe Deak, who first drew my attention to them. (There is a duo going by Phantoms as well, so don't be fooled.)
Some may be put off by the genre, but while Phantoms does their fair amount of shouting and growling they are also doing some really interesting things instrumentally. Don't write them off.
https://www.facebook.com/phantomsofficial
https://itunes.apple.com/album/id1055040839?ls=1&app=itunes
https://twitter.com/JoePhantoms

Just keep swimming

I need to reset. I still have notes on what I was going to write about, but I need to take some time off and go a little lighter.
So, I recently had a massage. That was on the list of goals for quite a while. I had tried to set one up before the severance ran out and I still had money coming in, but they were booked. I realized I had someone I could barter with, and went for that.
One thing I appreciated was that she explained different things as she was doing them or getting ready to do them. Some of that was just interesting, but one thing really clicked into place.
She told me to let her know if anything hurt or tickled or something, because that could end up releasing adrenaline, which was the opposite of what we were gong for. As I was thinking how much sense that made, I realized I have been releasing a lot of cortisol.
I have been feeling thicker in my gut and there weren't changes in diet or exercise to account for it. It had been bothering me, but I was pushing it to the back of my mind because there were so many other things to worry about. All those other things to worry about are exactly the kinds of long term stress that may result in too much cortisol.
The other thing that had been happening was a surprisingly strong urge to color. I know about its value for relaxing. Due to working on an activity that incorporated that, I had several color sheets and crayons available. There was opportunity, but that didn't explain the compulsion to color. My subconscious desperately trying to offload some of the stress could explain it.
(I'm not sure that turning getting through the entire stack of color sheets soon into another thing I needed to do was the most productive direction for that to take. I can be difficult.)
This is probably a good reminder that if I want to be in touch with my body, that something bothering me about my body should not be pushed to the back of my mind. It is still progress, because I did finally get the massage instead of just thinking that I needed to do it. I also learned that the shoulder pain I have been having is coming from tightness in the rotator cuff. The massage brought some relief, but there is additional work to do there.
I do seem to be in a part of my life where it is always something. Today that included a cold shower that clued me in that some of the looking around that happened yesterday with the water extraction team led to knocking the water heater plug just enough that it didn't come out but it wasn't connecting. Fortunately, I do know how to turn it back on, once that was figured out.
Usually I decide that I just need to keep going, and figuratively put my head down and push through it. I do need to keep going, but these extended periods don't allow everything else to be turned off while pushing through the matter at hand. Keeping aware of me and my needs, while also taking care of business, is more complicated, and feels like too much.
It just appears to be necessary, so that's what I'm going to try to do.
I remain unemployed, with insufficient funds for all my bills, and with a mother whose memory problems have gotten worse, not necessarily requiring full-time care, but where I worry about a new job taking me away from her, even though it's necessary, so those two main worries pull me in opposite directions and it's really hard.
Also, sometimes people are mean to me and things break around the house, and that adds to it.
That's where I'm at.

Hello from here

I promise I really will get back to my regularly scheduled posting, but my brain is not in it today.
Today has already included a trip to the Laundromat, a meeting with water extractors, a call about my home insurance policy, and there will be at least one more phone call with the water mitigation team. That does not include the time already spent with plumbing or coming up with an appliance repairman.
We're dry, but not every part of the house is, and I think there will be at least one more laundry trip.
It could totally be worse, an expression that is usually true, though sometimes remembering that requires a rather horrible imagination.
Anyway, no real post today. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Borne on the 4th

I had been building up an aversion to the 4th of July. I wasn't always this way.
I used to love going to watch the fireworks display at the Fairgrounds, or wherever we were heading that year. I liked sparklers and fountains. I still don't mind a day off.
I started feeling differently as we had various pets who were really bothered by the noises. That made it less enjoyable, and it made going to see fireworks less likely, because I didn't have the heart to leave them alone. In fact, for a while our house was the haven for other people's greyhounds, where we could be the safe place they left their dogs.
I wasn't really sour on it then. I like having extra dogs, and we at least were keeping our pets safe - they just had a night that was really scary. As it began to be multiple nights, that was more annoying, as was knowing how many pets ended up lost every year, but that was something you could avoid with precautions - personal responsibility and all that.
I started souring more as I became aware of the losses of homes and businesses. One year something landed on a house with a cedar shake roof. Those are really flammable. I believe it was in 2011 that Aviary caught fire. The restaurant was in its first year, when getting established is really important. That setback could have been catastrophic. It worked out, but those are hard times for people. Just in case it wasn't clear, none of the people with burned homes or businesses are the ones who set them off. Apparently when you launch gunpowder projectiles into the air, they come down.
The concern that has been added lately is veterans. We have more veterans coming home with PTSD, and the sounds of the explosions can trigger them. There are signs and reminders posted, but for the past three nights that hasn't made an impact. I have a feeling that after being much worse tonight it will still be bad for a few days. Support our troops!
Obviously all of that makes it seem like my problem isn't really with the 4th of July but with fireworks, and specifically with illegal fireworks. That's true, but the mindset where you have to celebrate by blowing things up, without any consideration for the property of others, or the well-being of those who have served our country, or compassion for our loyal companion animals, that goes along with many of the other problems I see in our country today.
That doesn't get me excited.

Band Review: Life+

Life+ is a House / EDM / Electro duo from Salt Lake City.
White the amount of music on their Soundcloud is intimidating, I like the way it has been organized into shows, reflecting their regular show on ETN, Kinetic Dance Mix. It gives you a sense of what being at club with them would be like.
Their biography lists several other artists, which I thought might mean they perform live frequently. If that is the case there is not a listing.
This is not my favorite genre, but they are more interesting than a lot of the EDM I have listened to.
https://www.facebook.com/lifepluslive
https://soundcloud.com/lifeplus
http://www.etn.fm/
https://twitter.com/LifePlusLive