What's New With Mick

Vital Statistics

Mitchell Laurren-Ring — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 00:48:34 +0000

Aches & pains: none

Current reading: The Big Book of Basketball by Bill Simmons

Recent listening: Frank Zappa, Pink Floyd, Jane Siberry, Sam Cooke, Donovan, Nanci Griffith, John Frusciante, Deadmau5, Florence & the Machine, Earth, Wind & Fire

Recent viewing: Dexter, Twin Peaks, Anvil: The Story of Anvil, Winnebago Man, NFL Playoffs

Recent playing: DropZap, Words with Friends, Temple Run

Recently accomplished: Mowed lawn to remove most leaves, taxi service, Christmas tree recyling

Imperative To Do: Finish Neil Young “liner notes”, finish 2011 FY for Troop 820, clean office, pay bills, call DirecTV, Troop 820 can recycling

Vital Statistics

Mitchell Laurren-Ring — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 20:10:34 +0000

Aches & pains: unmentionable

Current reading: undecided

Recent listening: Ray Charles, Harry Belafonte, Bonnie Raitt, Glenn Gould’s Goldberg Variations, Allman Brothers Band, Country Joe and the Fish, Pictures from Life’s Other Side by Johnny Dowd, Forever Changes by Love

Recent viewing: Raising Hope, Community, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, 60 Minutes, Stargate SG-1, Sons of Anarchy, South Park, The Office, The Walking Dead

Recent playing: DropZap, Words with Friends, Bloons

Recently accomplished: Cleaned roof and gutters, outdoor winterization, iPhone LCD replacement, Christmas vacation planning, booked December work trip

Imperative To Do: Finish Neil Young “liner notes”, put away hoses, organize recent garage additions, finish Xbox repair, reassemble Graham’s computer, Christmas CD burning

Vital Statistics

Mitchell Laurren-Ring — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 23:06:59 +0000

Aches & pains: left foot arch and ankle

Current reading: Fahrenheit 451

Recent listening: Sufjan Stevens/Come on Feel The Illinoise!; Blood, Sweat and Tears; Frank Zappa; Ray Charles; Dinah Washington; Uncle Dave Macon; The Beatles/Anthology

Recent viewing: Breaking Bad, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Columbo, 200 Motels, True Confessions, Modern Family, Glee, Community, How I Met Your Mother, Sons of Anarchy, Wilfred

Recent playing: DropZap, Words with Friends

Recently accomplished: Replaced Scion stereo, lawn care, invites for 40th birthday party

Imperative To Do: Finish Neil Young “liner notes”, pickup new glasses, Troop 820 treasurer duties, 40th birthday party

Letter to my Uncle Lorell who is dying

Mitchell Laurren-Ring — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 03:08:41 +0000

September 3, 2011

Dear Lorell,

When I was a kid there were few things I liked more than going to my uncles’ farms. Being a “city slicker” (as my classmates often called me), the farm was a completely different world to me. When I visited my Uncle Merlin’s farm it was mostly about hanging out with my cousins who were close in age to me, but when I visited your farm, it was always about you and I spending time together. That is a gift that I will always treasure.

One time when I was there “helping” you, we tried to take a dent out of the local rat population. I’ll never forget when you lifted up a piece of plywood (or maybe it was corrugated tin) that was laying behind the big machine shed. The plywood was laying on a small pile of corn and when you lifted it, it revealed several rat “tunnels” and the rats inside them. I was surprised but you were not because you had a gun and started shooting the rats as they scurried away. Guns, rats, tunnels – everything about being on the farm was so cool.

You’ve always been there. You were at Grandma Christensen’s for all those Christmases with the toys in the bedrooms and the money in the envelopes. And you were at Grandma Ring’s for the oyster stew. I remember sitting in that little living room watching Vitas Gerulaitis play tennis and you laughing when I joked that his name sounded like a disease. Harold was there. And my dad. And Gene.

So many memories I have of you and so little time to tell you about them. You kept your golf cart in Grandma Ring’s garage. You drove that giant green Cadillac. You visited me at my first house in Portland. Remember? You got lost and I told you “find the first bridge you see and cross it.” I was so sad to spend what I thought would be our last birthday together three years ago but now I’m so glad that you have had three more years in this world. I’ve never had a birthday where I didn’t think of you. And I never will.

As I sit here with all these thoughts and memories swirling through my head, I’m desperately trying to figure out how to end this note to you in a meaningful way. I suppose that life mostly doesn’t come to an end in a dramatic or meaningful way so perhaps I should just end this by saying that I thank you for your many kindnesses towards me over the last (almost) 45 years and that I think you’ve been a good uncle and a fine man. I also thank you for my double cousins without whom my life would be lesser. I hope that you reach the end of your days peacefully and without regret. And I love you.

Mick

Vital Statistics

Mitchell Laurren-Ring — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 06:10:49 +0000

Aches & pains: left foot arch

Current reading: Fahrenheit 451

Recent listening: Harry Nilsson, Billy Holiday, Green Day, The Zombies, The Clash, Matisyahu, Concrete Blonde

Recent viewing: Warehouse 13, Real Time with Bill Maher, The Colbert Report, The Daily Show, Louie, Falling Skies, Leverage, Stargate SG-1, Columbo, The Benson Interruption, H.R. Punfnstuf, The God Who Wasn’t There

Recent playing: DropZap, Words with Friends, Mondo Solitaire

Recently accomplished: Bug fixing for new job, bug fixing for old job, lawn care

Imperative To Do: Clean garage, clean gutters, new shelves for stereo, bark dust, doctor appointments

Vital Statistics

Mitchell Laurren-Ring — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 22:13:57 +0000

Aches & pains: ankles, back muscles, possible tongue thrush

Current reading: Little Heathens by Mildred Armstrong Kalish

Recent listening: Infected Mushroom, Foreigner, Primus, Greg Kihn, Massive Attack, Thievery Corp., Weird Al (new album!), Radiohead, Motown, Portishead, Canned Heat, Red Hot Chili Peppers

Recent viewing: Leverage (season 3 & 4), Frontline, The Planets, Pulp Fiction, Stan Lee’s Superhumans, The Story of the Blues, Super 8

Recent playing: DropZap, Words with Friends, Mondo Solitaire

Recently accomplished: Both children advanced to next grade level, camping/biking in Idaho, acquired fireworks of questionable legality, paid bills, Roundup for weedy areas, weed and feed for lawn, mowing

Imperative To Do: Light fireworks, back to work, clean garage, clean gutters, new shelves for stereo, bark dust, doctor appointments

Summer Playlist

Mitchell Laurren-Ring — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 19:34:12 +0000

After a few hints from the family, I have concluded that is time to end my blues exploration – at least for the time being. I had a revelation while eating dinner with the family the other night: The Summer Playlist. I’ll describe it in detail below but first a little context about the music listening situation in our house.

During the work day I spend most of my time in my office, the kitchen or the bathroom (in that order). On the left side of my desk my MacBook Pro (MBP) runs iTunes all the time. The MBP is connected to my awesome PMIX-100 personal audio mixer (seen on the right of the photo). The mixer is connected to my Cambridge Soundworks desktop speakers which are located 18 inches in front of my head in the classic stereo position. This is where I do almost all of my listening these days.

In the kitchen we have a Cambridge Soundworks Model 88 “tabletop” radio. In addition to the tuner, it’s also got AUX and CD inputs. You can see the old Phillips portable CD player that is attached in the photo. Out of sight is the Apple Airport Express that is attached to the AUX jack. Through the wonders of AirPlay, we can stream music to the Airport Express and hear it on the Model 88 using any AirPlay-capable software/device combination. Thus, I have the MBP in my office set to play music both on the speakers on my desk and the Model 88 in the kitchen. I love this because when I venture from my office I can still hear the same music playing in the kitchen and the nearby rooms.

The unintended consequence is that everybody else near to the kitchen will hear the same music to which I listen. This is not a problem during the school year because most of my work hours are during the school day. Once summer vacation comes, though, everything changes and the kids are within listening range of my office and the kitchen constantly. Thus, out of consideration for the rest of the family, I came up with the idea of the Summer Playlist.

The Summer Playlist democratizes the music selection process in that any member of the family can put music into the playlist albeit only on my laptop. From there it filters through a series of Smart Playlists to remove songs rated less than three stars before it’s gathered into a final Smart Playlist that removes recently”skipped” songs and selects the 500 Least Recently Played from the lot. I point iTunes DJ at the final playlist and it selects from it randomly.

Of course, the first thing I dumped in it was my entire Jimmy Buffett collection followed by all of the Beach Boys. And then every song with the words “ocean”, “summer”, “sea” and “beach”. We’ll add more as the summer progresses. What music says “summer” to you?

The Stumble

Mitchell Laurren-Ring — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 22:41:36 +0000

Today as I was listening to A Hard Road by John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers for the first time, the song that most caught my attention was their cover of Freddie King’s “The Stumble”. Since I had recently added The Very Best of Freddie King to my iTunes collection, I knew I probably had the original:

Sure enough I had the version by Freddie as well as another by Jeff Beck. I immediately queued them to play next: Freddie followed by Beck. In the meantime, I pulled up the Wikipedia article to find out more about this rollicking electric guitar solo. There’s not much there but the article does have a list of artists that have covered it. My eyes immediately found Gary Moore who was more or less a disciple of Peter Green, Mayall’s guitar player on his version of “The Stumble”. Having just downloaded a chunk of Moore’s work the night before, I anxiously scanned the files for his version of “The Stumble”. I dropped it into iTunes just as Beck’s version faded out.

As Moore’s version blasted my ears, I went to YouTube for further insight. I wasn’t able to find the Freddie King version but I did find Green, Beck and Moore as well as a couple of interesting versions.

Peter Green’s version is easily my favorite, but I’m a sucker for his mercurial story. He replaced Eric Clapton in the Bluesbreakers and then left after two albums to form his own band. He took John Mayall’s incredible rhythm section with him and combined their last names to create the name for his band, Fleetwood Mac. Green would eventually leave the band and lose his mind for the most productive years of his life while Mick Fleetwood and John McVie stayed in the band that would eventually abandon the blues and go on to make Rumours and Tusk, two of the biggest selling rock records of all time.

Jeff Beck’s version, which appeared on 1991′s Beckology, definitely has a more modern feel both in tone and technique. What I love about this version is the staccato bass part which drives the rhythm section more effectively than the conventional parts in the versions by Green and King.

Gary Moore’s version takes its cue from Beck but the result feels more like 80′s era metal than blues. If his over-revved rhythm section were anything but conventional here, he might be able to avoid words like “bombast” to describe this tripe. Unfortunately, they are not and he does not.

One of the off-putting parts of Moore’s version is the increased tempo which takes a lot of the “swing” out of the song. This version by Love Sculpture (Dave Edmunds‘ late 60′s band) also ratchets up the tempo but still keeps it interesting. I had no idea that Mr. Edmunds was such a great guitar player! Check out Love Sculpture’s version of “Sabre Dance” in the related videos.

Finally, I include this guy’s reading of Green’s version for the sake of watching how it’s played.

Vital Statistics

Mitchell Laurren-Ring — Sat, 21 May 2011 03:33:10 +0000

Aches & pains: right ankle
Current reading: Little Heathens by Mildred Armstrong Kalish
Recent listening: B.B. King, Albert King, Freddie King, John Anderson, Eric Clapton, Booker T. and the MG’s, Bukka White, Electric Flag, Mike Bloomfield, Paul Butterfield Blue Band, Elmore James, Robert Johnson, Fleetwood Mac, George Harrison, Harlem Slim, Jimi Hendrix, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Jimmy Reed, The Band, Reverend Gary Davis, Dock Boggs, John Hartford, Pet Seeger
Recent viewing: The Middle, Community, The Civil War, Frontline, 60 Minutes, Kickass, Surface, Lord of the Flies (1963), Strange Days, Suck, Twilight Zone, Network, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Black Swan, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Dark City
Recent playing: DropZap, Words with Friends
Recently accomplished: Teacher meetings (Thomas), Troop 820 treasurer’s report, bank trip, Tivo hard drive replacement
Imperative To Do: Clean garage, clean gutters, new shelves for stereo, bark dust, doctor appointments

On The Credibility of Rush Limbaugh

Mitchell Laurren-Ring — Tue, 03 May 2011 19:14:15 +0000

“I, me, my – three of the most used words in President Obama’s media appearance last night.” – Rush Limbaugh, May 2, 2011

created at TagCrowd.com

Vital Statistics

Mitchell Laurren-Ring — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:53:22 +0000

Aches & pains: sciatica, temperature sensitivity, left hip
Current reading: Little Heathens by Mildred Armstrong Kalish
Recent listening: The Chess Story, Eric Clapton, The Yardbirds, Beckology, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Steve Miller Band, Traffic, Boz Scaggs, The Rolling Stones
Recent viewing: CSI, God in America, Sin City, V is for Vendetta, Commando, Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey, Secrets Beneath the Ice (Nova), Real Time with Bill Maher, Japan’s Killer Quake (Nova), BBS: The Documentary
Recent playing: DropZap, Words with Friends, WSOP Hold ‘Em Legend HD
Recently accomplished: Couch acquisition, Troop 820 collections, mowed lawn, new couch prep
Imperative To Do: Clean garage, clean gutters, new shelves for stereo, bank trip, bark dust, doctor appointments

Vital Statistics

Mitchell Laurren-Ring — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 14:33:33 +0000

Aches & pains: sciatica
Current reading: Little Heathens by Mildred Armstrong Kalish
Recent listening: The Velvet Underground, Alabama, Boz Scaggs, Steve Miller Band, Bruce Springsteen, Jimmy Buffett, The Who, David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Funkadelic/Parliament, The Kinks, Sleep, The Small Faces, Traffic, Warren Zevon
Recent viewing: CSI, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, Modern Family, Friday Night Lights, Big Love, Stripes, A Clockwork Orange, Fringe, No Ordinary Family, Six Million Dollar Man, The Simpsons
Recent playing: DropZap, Words with Friends, WSOP Hold ‘Em Legend HD
Recently accomplished: Began Tivo repair (need new power cable), changed furnace filters
Imperative To Do: Troop 820 transactions, clean garage, clean gutters

Porto Alegre, Brazil, February 25, 2011

Mitchell Laurren-Ring — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 21:26:41 +0000

A few years ago I used to ride with Portland Critical Mass every month. Eventually, the numbers became so small that it seemed pointless to continue. Still, I’ve long felt a kinship with Critical Mass rides everywhere. Thus, seeing the following video taken Friday night in Brazil almost made me cry. One minute into the video, the joy and serenity is replaced with insane violence:

Here’s an overhead view:

Here’s one man’s reaction to the aftermath. I can only understand 3 or 4 words but his intent is obvious:

Whenever you see or hear someone joking about mowing bikers down, be sure the “joker” knows about this incident. Violence towards cyclists helps no one.

Mega Cool Super Church (and Technology)

Mitchell Laurren-Ring — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 13:55:01 +0000

Saturday I drove down to Happy Valley to pick up Graham following an overnight at his friend’s house. On the way there I saw a monstrous building and noted it was a church. On the way back home, we stopped so I could get a picture. I posted the first picture to Instagram (warning: link opens iTunes). In that picture, I included the sign as a point of reference but it somewhat eclipsed the gigantic church so I moved a few steps east and snapped another:

Although it looks impressive, I still felt like I hadn’t caught the majesty of the day and of the building, so I created a quick interactive panoramic with the most excellent 360 Panorama iPhone application. That turned out pretty well but I was still not satisfied.

This evening I pulled up Google maps to see what the church looked from the satellite view and the result is astounding:

View Larger Map

You can use the three white-topped buses on the right side for scale.

The Impact of War on Segments of the Middle East Population

Mitchell Laurren-Ring — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 00:18:37 +0000

Have you seen Google’s Public Data Explorer? It’s an interactive interface to some gigantic sets of data gathered from around the world (sorry, requires Flash). I found it when I searched for “population growth” on Google. If you click the chart at the top of the list of results, you can graph the change in population growth rates for any country from 1960 to present. The chart graphs the US population rate by default but you can turn on any combination of countries as well as the world population growth rate for comparison.

After playing with it for a few minutes, I wondered about Iran and Iraq, two countries that we all probably wish we knew less about:

Remember the Iran/Iraq war? You can see it right there in the data. Can you tell who “won” and who lost that war?

Now let’s throw Kuwait into the mix:

You can see the first Gulf War in that downward spike, but why did it take so long for Kuwait to get back to a “normal” growth rate? My conclusion: Saddam Hussein’s scorched earth policy reaked so much havoc that people continued to leave the country for the next five years.

I can’t wait to waste hours on this data!

All I Got For Xmas 2010

Mitchell Laurren-Ring — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 19:34:43 +0000

All I Got For Xmas 2010
Originally uploaded by rynosoft

Once again I had a very bountiful Christmas. Click the picture to see the details but my gifts included:

Earth: The Book
Microwave safe soup bowl
Soup spoons
Chopsticks
Microwave safe coffee cups
Instant coffee
My four favorite Beatles albums remastered
$75 in cash
Personal audio mixer
Let It Be…Naked
Sugar free candy
New earphones for my iPhone
Six pack of grilling sauces/rubs
Two iTunes gift certificates worth $45 (not pictured) – redeeming for various apps and songs
Amazon gift certificate for $50 (not pictured) – redeemed for iLife ’11

Thanks to Buddy, Leroy, Tom, Jan, Michelle & Ric, Tina, Thomas, Graham and the Kittens. I know I’m hard to shop for and appreciate when people do so anyway.

Vital Statistics

Mitchell Laurren-Ring — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 01:01:00 +0000

Aches & pains: ankles
Current reading: Little Heathens by Mildred Armstrong Kalish
Recent listening: Les Paul & Mary Ford, The Mothers of Invention, Slick Rick, Gershwin, Jane Siberry, Glenn Miller, Brave Combo, Buckethead, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, King Crimson, Neil Young, Steve Goodman, Woody Guthrie
Recent viewing: Young & Innocent, Stage Fright, Rockford Files, Murphy’s Romance, Disturbing the Universe, Nova, WWII in HD, Alice in Wonderland, Long Day’s Journey Into the Night (aborted), More Than a Game, NBA Basketball, Hawkeye Football
Recent playing: Words with Friends, Fieldrunners, Pinball HD
Recently accomplished: Played “adult in charge” at recent Troop 820 campout, fixed broken gate, fixed leaky toilet, winterization
Imperative To Do: Resume biking, lingering Troop 820 issues, desk cleanup, Xmas shopping

Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll

Mitchell Laurren-Ring — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 13:08:28 +0000

If you were a teen in the 80s like me then you probably remember the short-lived sketch comedy series, Fridays, on ABC. Although it only lasted two seasons, it left an indelible impression on my young brain.

Sadly, a DVD release of those two seasons is reportedly held up by Michael Richards. Luckily, YouTube has most of their great sketches including the ones I’ve included below the fold:

I had completely forgotten about The Rasta Gourmet but as soon as he asked “Watching TV? No no no no!” in the video below, I totally remembered it:

Considerably less difficult to remember was “Battle Boy” with Michael Richards:

And who can forget the crazed pharmacist and “just take a pill”?

I enjoyed the comedy but the real reason I watched Fridays was for the music. After I saw the following performance, I purchased every single Stray Cats record I could get my hands on, including British imports.

Although my pursuit of Stray Cats albums eventually led me down the punk path, I totally hated these guys when I saw them on Fridays – my first exposure to them. Eventually, I would realize they had just made one of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll albums of all time.

I specifically remember turning to my friend, Dave, and commenting on how bad they were. His reply was, “it’s like they’re each playing their own song.” I have no doubt my favorite band at the moment was Queen and my second favorite was The Beatles. There was not yet room in my world for The Clash.

I don’t remember seeing this sketch but evidently Melanie Chartoff got a chipped tooth from the first punch:

This video definitely illustrates the stylistic differences with Saturday Night Live.

I’ll close with what has been described as the greatest sketch in Fridays history. It was subsequently banned and edited from rebroadcasts:

Fun with the iTunes “search box”

Mitchell Laurren-Ring — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 21:40:36 +0000

Here’s a fun little exercise you can do in iTunes:

In iTunes, click on your music library in the sidebar.
Turn on shuffle, ensure that you have “By Songs” selected in the Shuffle menu (which is in Controls in the main menu)
Type the first word that comes to mind in the search box
Play one of the songs that is displayed
Pick a new word or name from the currently playing song, type that word into the search box
Listen
When song changes, repeat 5

Note that in step 5 that you must pick a word that will include the currently playing song or iTunes will get confused and stop playing after the song is over. Obviously, having a large music library (23847 songs for me) and lots of metadata helps make the game interesting.

If those directions aren’t clear, these are the songs from the most recent time I played this “game”:

“Marching Theme” from On Avery Island by Neutral Milk Hotel
“When the Saints Go Marching In” from Masters of Reality by Masters of Reality
“Can’t Run But” from The Rhythm of the Saints by Paul Simon
“Amity” from Reflections (Carly Simon’s Greatest Hits) by Carly Simon and Sally Taylor
“Soldiers” from Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon by James Taylor
“Ambulance Blues” from On The Beach by Neil Young
“Redondo Beach” from Horses by Patti Smith

The search terms I typed in were “marching”, “Saints”, “Simon”, “Taylor”, “Blue”, “Beach”

Vital Statistics

Mitchell Laurren-Ring — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 21:48:30 +0000

Aches & pains: left shoulder
Current reading: Little Heathens by Mildred Armstrong Kalish
Recent listening: Eminem, Black Sabbath, Public Enemy, Dr. Dre, Neil Young, Decemberists, Jeff Tweedy, Infected Mushroom, Billie Holiday
Recent viewing: Time After Time, Angels and Demons, 24 (season 8), Warehouse 13, CSI: Miami, Up In Smoke, Murder She Wrote, Life, Mad Men, Medium
Recent playing: Words with Friends, QRANK, Fieldrunners
Recently accomplished: Replaced deck boards, grass planting, weed removal, CDs for Kent
Imperative To Do: iPhone app, liner notes for Kelly, clean gutters, Troop 820 bookkeeping