I'm Running Late This Week

I have been very busy these last couple of weeks. After months of design, I have my first prototypes that I am getting up and running. This is really when my company will see whether I actually know what I am doing or not. You can fudge your way through the design part, but when the actual hardware arrives everyone will know if it works of if it doesn't. Things are looking really good right now with no major mistakes, but I have a long way to go. There is a big trade show mid-September where four of my newly designed products will be released. I have to provide working samples of all of them (yikes)!

Fortunately, I've been doing creative things as well as working. I have been able to write a few new songs over the last few weeks (songs that I actually like). I may post links to them so that I can get some feedback. I also recorded some harmonica parts for an old SLC friend, Chris Gino Dean, who is working on a new album. Chris impresses me, he is continually writing new songs and recording new albums. It seems like it was just a few months ago that I was playing at his first CD release, but really it was a year ago this past February.

I have also finished another book, "Orthodoxy", by G.K. Chesterton, which had been recommended by a couple of friends. I really enjoyed the book. Chesterton goes through and explains how he came to believe that Christianity is true, and he looks at some of the essentials of the Christian faith. Mostly I liked it because it was filled with great individual quotes. The kind of lines that you can pull out and they sound incredibly witty and intelligent. For example: "We should thank God for beer and Burgundy by not drinking too much of them" and "Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason". I may dedicate a future post to quotes from this book.

Last week I suffered my second major wreck on the bike ride home from work. The first wreck, if you didn't hear or don't remember, ended up with myself and my bike half submerged in the canal in the dark in the middle of winter. This time there was no water involved, but I tore my left knee apart and sprained both of my wrists. I'm glad I always wear a helmet, because I took a severe knock to the head as well.

So, my post is a little bit scattered this week, but that is the way my life is right now. Next Thursday, we hop on a plane for a few days in Paris. I am definitely looking forward to a few days of good food and relaxing.

JE

The Odyssey

After 2 1/2 months of dragging my feet, I have finally finished reading this literary classic. Heather bought me a beautiful copy for my birthday. I really love the movie "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou", and since it is loosely based on the Odyssey, I really wanted to read the original story.

To be fair, I read most of it in the last week or so. The trouble was that I didn't ever spend enough time reading at each sitting. Since it is a translation of a story written 3000 years ago, the wording can be a bit difficult at times, but if you keep at it long enough, it begins to flow.

It was fascinating to me to be reading something so old, and yet connecting with the characters so easily. I really felt for Odysseus on his quest to get home. I really hated the men who were desecrating his house and using up all of his livestock and wine with their constant partying. I was sad for Penelope as she waited for her husband's return, I was angry for Telemacus as he watched his inheritance getting wasted.

The actual story was fun, but a little drawn out. What I really enjoyed about the book was the insight into the ancient Greek culture. One thing in particular that stuck out to me was how travelers or vagrants were treated. It was continually emphasised that these people were to be accepted and taken care of; this was important because it pleased the gods. Not only that, but it was known that the gods themselves often traveled in disguise, and you never knew who it was that you were taking in. I believe there is a bible verse about entertaining strangers because you never know when they may be God's messengers. When Odysseus would arrive in a new town, he was taken in, fed, and washed before they even heard his story.

What a great ideal to treat strangers and travelers with such care and respect. Why don't we do this today? Our streets are filled with homeless people that are in transit from one place to another. The sad thing is that I am not fully comfortable with this idea. I'm afraid that if I take someone into my house, they might want to come back and rob me, or somehow take advantage of me.

I remember once in Salt Lake there was a man going around doing odd jobs to help feed his family. On this occasion I paid him some money to mow my lawn and clean my car. He came inside and I gave him a drink, then he went on his way. A couple of days later he showed up to do more work, and I told him I didn't have any work for him. A few days later he was waiting at our house when Heather got home from work (an experience that kind of freaked her out since she had no idea who he was). We didn't ever see him again, but the whole experience left me with a bad feeling about inviting strangers into my home.

But maybe we should be doing it anyway. As far as I know helping the poor is one of the biggest mandates of Christianity. Honestly I am still not willing to open up my house as they did in the days of Odysseus, perhaps that is why I haven't run into any angels recently.

JE

Live 8 and Africa

Most of you probably heard the big broo-ha-ha (I have never written out that expression before) surrounding these world wide concerts. It was a huge event here in England with the most popular bands in the world playing for a great cause.

The idea behind it was to raise awareness about the problems of poverty and disease in Africa, and to put pressure on the politicians at the G8 conference to do something about it. While I have little to no faith in the politicians to come up with something effective, I have to admit it is a very difficult problem. It is not something you can just throw a bunch of money at to make it better.

The poor African countries are filled with corrupt politicians who prevent the money from getting to the people who need it (kind of like in America, except on a much more tragic scale). In addition many of the countries are still plagued by the tribal warfare that has been going on for centuries.

There was an article on the BBC news this morning about Liberia (the country I lived in for a year and a half when I was five years old). The country has been plagued by warring tribes and political unrest for years and years. When we lived in the country, there had just been a political coup (the existing government had all been shot, and their heads were put on stakes for every one to see). The country was filled with soldiers carrying machine guns. When we were there things were relatively peaceful, but still quite tense (a factor which led to us moving back to England sooner than planned). Violence has continued in Liberia since then, but for the last two years they have had a stable government. The problem is that the stable government is completely corrupt. According to the BBC story, over half of the country's income is spent on the politicians themselves. Until recently, there was no paid police force. The police subsisted on bribes and extortion.

This is a subject that is close to my heart. My parents met and married in Kenya, I have lived in Liberia, and I have grown up in a house filled with African artifacts. All these things have created some kind of a bond. Africa is such a beautiful country, and in general Africans are a beautiful, vibrant people. I have always been impressed with the friendliness and acceptance of Africans (from many different African countries), it is such a tragedy that their continent is so filled with pain and suffering.

Live 8 and the Live Music

So I spent most of the day on Saturday watching the "Live 8" concert. I also spent a fair amount of time watching the Glastonbury festival. The Glastonbury festival is one of England's largest popular music festivals. It is a weekend long, thousands of people come and camp, and it always rains (kind of like Wimbledon).

I love watching live music. It brings together so many elements that are fascinating to me. I love watching how the stage is set up, the different mics, speakers, mixers, amplifiers, guitars, and gear that are used. I love seeing how the musicians present themselves on stage. All of the posturing to look cool, some trying way too hard to get the crowd going, some looking way too miserable, or angry.

Most of all I love to see how well they can perform their music live. Nothing puts me off more than a band who gets up to play, and then has a backing track playing with all kinds of prerecorded instruments and sound effects and backing vocals. If I want to listen to a recording, I'll put on the CD. I don't expect the band to sound exactly like the album (especially with today's heavily produced music), in fact I look forward to hearing a different live rendition of the songs.

I actually really enjoyed some of the bands. Paul McCartney played "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" with U2 which was really cool (especially the four French horn players who played the horn part). McCartney said that he had never performed the song live before.

Coldplay put on a great show as always, although Chris Martin (the lead singer, and usually piano player) made several mistakes while playing guitar and once had to start a song over again. I do expect more from a full time professional band, but it does make me feel a little better about myself. I make that kind of mistake all the time, but at best I practice my music for an hour a night.

Usually, I am completely opposed to anything that resembles pop music, but there were a couple of bands that I really liked. One of them was a British band called Razorlight. They have really good songs, good vocals, and great sounding guitars. The downside was that the lead singer did this "Jim Morrison" kind of a thing where he stripped his shirt off (nothing like a pale, flabby English boy in tight white jeans) and ran around in the crowd. Another guy who was really good was Craig David. He is an R&B singer who had only an acoustic guitar player backing him (no convoluted thumping rhythm track). The Acoustic guitar player was amazing and the vocals were spot on.

One last confession. I saw Will Smith playing at the Philly concert and I really liked it. He was doing "Summer Summer Summer Summer Time", and I got a little nostalgic for the old American summer. For the first time I realized that Monday was the fourth of July, and I would be working.

Pictures

If you are interested, I have set up an online photo album with www.flickr.com. The site is still in Beta form, so it can be a bit buggy. You can click on the link in the sidebar, or click here to see our pictures. There are pictures from our recent trip to Cinque Terre in Italy, as well as others from around home.

JE