Daily Doings at the Line of Death Bar & Grill

30 years ago this month, I left my parents' home in Buffalo, NY and moved to Dayton, OH to start a new job.

On Thursday, June 22, I flew out from Buffalo to Dayton via Detroit, to attend an in-person interview the following day. My itinerary said I had a hotel room at the "Holiday Inn Fairborn". But none of the shuttles said that on their vehicles, and I didn't know that it was also known as the "Holiday Inn I-675". I ended up taking a taxi to the hotel. At the interview, I was offered the job, and was advised to start as soon as possible. So after flying back home, I tied up some loose ends, packed some boxes, and on Tuesday, June 26, drove down to Dayton. In the first month, I lived in hotel rooms as I searched for an apartment. I found a 1-bedroom unit in Kettering.

In the past 30 years, there have been a lot of changes. Many businesses, restaurants, and shopping centers have come and gone. ( Here's a list of places I remember from 1989 that no longer exist. )

I was saddened and stunned to hear the death of Harold Stein.

Harold was a workhorse in the filk community. While he didn't sing or perform (to the best of my knowledge), he was a regular at many of the filk conventions, including the Ohio Valley Filk Fest (OVFF). He spent most of his time behind the mixing console, and occasionally chatted with convention regulars and guests as his busy schedule allowed.

Over the years, Harold amassed and catalogued an incredible collection of filk convention performances, and served as the unofficial filk community archivist. He recorded many performances, from concerts to filk circles, and ensured that performers had an opportunity to obtain copies of their performances. He was the filk community's counterpart to Alan Lomax, the famed ethnomusicologist known for recording many examples of American folk music.

I knew he had some health issues, but he didn't go into much detail about them. He had been scheduled to be this year's Listener Guest of Honor at this year's OVFF, but had to bow out due to those issues.

At this point I am not sure who will keep his legacy of filk recordings alive. I'm hoping several people will step up. I'd like to, but I'm currently dealing with my own digitization and decluttering projects.

Harold's Dreamwidth blog is here.

I often said that the Filk Hall of Fame should be for anyone who has contributed to the filk community in the long-term, whether as a performer or support person. Based on his service to the filk community over the years, he's more than worth of a nomination. I'm sad that this is a posthumous nomination; he should have been in a few years ago.

This past week, I ran out of money. I had enough to pay the important bills this month, but not enough for non-essential things, such as the rent on one of my two storage units. This is the smaller (10x10) unit that had reusables and recyclables in there. The rent was due on Saturday the 23rd (i.e. today). I asked the property manager how much of a grace period I'd have, and he told me "three days".

( That's when I thought, 'That's it. I can't afford to be keeping all this stuff.' )

Several weeks ago, my friend Dawn said she had a ticket to see Depeche Mode at the United Center in Chicago. But her husband John couldn't get the day off from work. So she was looking for a driver and traveling companion. I said, "If I'm not working by then, then I'll go with you."

( Friday, June 1: There.... )

( Saturday, June 2: ....and back again. )

So, one of my friends in town has recently signed up with a multi-level-marketing network. He's trying to sell Sprint cell phone service and Stream Energy electricity generation, among other things. So far, I've said no to the products he's been hawking. Sprint still has a bad reputation for customer care. And I don't know enough about Stream Energy to want me to switch my electricity generator (currently DP&L Energy).

All he's been telling us is "I can save you money!" But I'm not interested in saving money. I want to know how much is generated by renewable/green sources (such as solar and wind), how reliable the electricity generation is, and prompt service should the power go out.

(Backstory: Here in Ohio, electricity is being deregulated, and electric utility companies are being uncoupled into electricity delivery companies and electricity generation companies. Dayton Power & Light will still be my electricity delivery company. But I can choose who my electricity generator is.)

I have other friends in MLM networks -- one sells Shaklee, one sells LeVel/Thrive. There are plenty of MLM outfits out there -- Advocare, Melaleuca, etc. What a MLM? It's a network of people who sponsor each other, kind of like that old shampoo commercial -- "I told two friends, and they told two friends, and so on, and so on."

( And at one time, I was involved in an MLM outfit. )

One of my friends in Columbus is, or will be, having knee surgery soon. I told her I'd put together a blog entry of my experiences 21 years ago, during March of 1997, when I had a sliver of cartilage removed from my right knee. I didn't have a blog back then, so I'll have to rely on somewhat faulty memory while writing this entry.

( Read more... )

A few days ago, my daughter asked me, "Dad, what are you thankful for?" I don't remember what I said in response to her, but that question has always been difficult for me.

( Read more... )

Last week, I requested that all my LiveJournal content be migrated to DreamWidth. It took a few days (as many people were doing the same), but everything has been copied.

I'm also trying to use the ljArchive program (found on SourceForge) to download a copy of my LJ content to my desktop. Somehow, it's failing. I think it has something to do with incorrect case (i.e. "DOCTYPE" vs. "doctype"), as the error message I'm getting refers to that.

So now, I'm trying to figure out DreamWidth. There are some changes, and some things that are the same. Seeing my friends list here is a little different; they call it "my circle". Has anyone written a tutorial yet?

I still spend the bulk of my social media time on Facebook. I'll use my DW blog here for longer entries. Even though FB seems to have relaxed their maximum-length limit, I don't want to use it for excessively long posts.

For the last several years, I've been wanting a home theater PC. A few of my friends already had home theater PCs, through which they could play their music on their stereo, display their pictures on their TV, and play their videos on their TV. Some of these systems were based on the Windows Media Center edition OS. I didn't want a Windows-based home theater. Support for the Media Center versions of Windows has waned, and in the current version, it's practially non-existent. I had heard of Mythbuntu -- a flavor of Ubuntu [Linux] with MythTV support integrated into it -- and wanted to try it out.

The name for this machine -- and the project -- was GoldChannel, after the high-priority command-level communications channel on "Babylon 5". Since my main desktop is named "orac" (from "Blake's 7"), and my main laptop is named "tardis" (from "Doctor Who"), I wanted to continue using names from some of my favorite science fiction programs.

The goal was to build such a home theater system for under $1,000 using easily obtainable parts.

( Read more... )

(In which I look back on the events of my life and try to figure out why I no longer feel any joy this time of year.)

I used to enjoy Christmas. When I was a boy, I looked forward to getting presents that day -- usually new toys and games, and the occasional article of clothing. Dad would film my sister and I opening our gifts with his 8mm film camera and light bar. We'd also get together with the extended family -- my father's three sisters and their families -- and have Christmas dinner together. They'd take turns hosting the annual event.

In the '80s, I noticed that the Christmas season seemed to be a big buildup starting on the day after Thanksgiving, peak on Christmas Day, and then it was business as usual on the 26th. I also became aware of the rampant commercialism of the holiday.

Then I moved away in 1989 for work. I didn't return home for Christmas due to the threat of inclement weather, which would have made driving on I-90 treacherous. I also had no other family or relatives here in Dayton. The nearest relatives were in Lorain, about 30 miles west of Cleveland, and I wan't close to them at all.

And then, in the 1990s, I left the Catholic faith. I got tired of the hierarchy, or as I called it, "the oldest of old-boy networks", telling us how we should think and live our lives. Have you ever wondered why Christmas -- the birth of Christ -- is celebrated on December 25? Because some pope in the 4th century decreed it as such. It coincided with the observance of Saturnalia, and that pope didn't want his people to be left out of the festivities. And so, Christmas became "not my holiday".

Something else I've been missing since I moved here: the observance of Hanukkah. Even as far back as kindergarten, I've had Jewish friends who shared their holiday with me. We spun dreidels, had potato pancakes, sang and played Hanukkah songs in our holiday concerts, and heard the story about the the Jewish people taking refuge in their temple and the oil in the lamp in the temple lasting for eight days. We were multicultural before the term was even coined or even trendy, and no one complained about this at all. I often feel that I'm in Goys' Town USA because there's little to no mention of this holiday here.

Christmas is about family. Where's my family? I'm all alone now. Mom and Dad are dead and gone. My sister is in Colorado. I've been divorced since 2007. I still have relatives in Buffalo, but it's rare that I hear from them. I'm usually the one who initiates contact with them; they don't call or write unless I do so first.

And so I stopped decorating for Christmas. I haven't put up a tree since the divorce. I haven't put lights up on the condo. I don't even hang a wreath on the door any more. It's just too much work to put everything up, only to take it down a couple of weeks later.

For me, December 25 has just another day. But I do like the feeling and sense of stillness I notice from sundown on Christmas Eve to midnight (00:00) on December 26. It's like all the machinery keeping the world going has stopped for a short time.