We’ve got a new pope already! Wow. As mentioned before, I don’t really care, but it seems to be all the news, so I thought I’d include it. The first American Pope. I guess that’s cool. It does seem a bit strange, with all of the other tumultuous stuff going on, but hey, I guess it’s about time. He’s the 267th! Let that sink in for a moment… We’re only at 47 Presidents. 267 in over 2,000 years!? That math doesn’t seem right to me. Well, it is. I just checked before I continued. That gives the average Pope about 7.5 years. It works out. But still, all things considered, for some reason, it doesn’t seem like that many. When I first saw the number, my initial thought was: That’s all? I guess if you’re into it, it’s pretty remarkable. 2,025 years seems like a long time, but 267 Popes doesn’t seem like that many, go figure. My math may be off by a little but not much, since they weren’t calling them “Popes” when it started. I also found it interesting that when they were talking about who the next Pope might be, on the news, they mentioned some gentleman, but said he was thought to be too young to be Pope. He was not a young person to me. It made me wonder why they prefer an older person. Is it so they can’t be in charge that long? At an average of 7.5 years per Pope, none of them were Pope very long. However, in my memory, Pope John Paul II was Pope forever. I know that’s not true, but almost my entire adolescence. I just looked it up: He was in charge from 1978 to 2005. 27 years. Apparently, some Popes didn’t get their full 7.5. Even the Pope just after him served 8. Which was also strange, because he was one of the only ones who quit. Everyone else waited until their death took them from office. I do like history, and I do like numbers, but, other than that, I really couldn’t care less.
I’m kind of excited because a project I’ve
been working on for years is finally “all caught up.” The Eruption started in
2004. It began to start in early 2004, and by November 2004, we had our first
show. We record every practice. And, at every practice, from the beginning, we’ve
started with an improvisational jam. Sometimes 2 or 3. I saved all of those
recordings. Back then, we were using tape. So, while I was practicing writing,
back in 2012, I would listen to the tapes, and make copies of the jams. Each
tape was 45 minutes per side. Back then, I was considering each side of the
tape 1 Jam. I got up to 24 Jams before I started using digital technology. So,
then, I had to digitize the first 24. The idea being, that if we ever needed
material, we would have this wealth to pull from. However, at some point, I got
this idea for an instrumental album. I knew the album would be in the “future.”
So, then the idea became to go through the jams, collecting ones that might
make for good material for the instrumental album. As of last week’s practice,
we finished Jams 69! That’s nearly 69 hours of original improvised music. Even
though technology changed since I began this project, I kept the jams at around
45 minutes. 1) to keep integrity with the first 24, and 2) to keep it to a
digestible amount. After that much time, things tend to blur together. So,
about a year ago I started a database, so that we can retrieve our jams easier.
I had to find out what keys we were playing in, and make them sound standard,
since most of the time we spent “getting our sound right.” And I am happy to
say, that after 21 years, and several starts, I have gone through all 69 jams,
with the keys, and the notes telling me, and my bandmates, which of the instrumental
songs I think they’d fit with! Yay!
That was quite an undertaking. I know if
left to others, it would never have been done. I feel accomplished. I created a
database! Now we can just punch in a key, or an emotion, and the songs will
come up. I can not believe it! Now I have to go through all of the possible
song choices, but step 1 is done! I can’t get over it. But I have to. I still
have about 300 words left, and I don’t want it to be like this for the rest of
the paragraph. It’s okay that I’m excited, but I’m moving on. Mother’s Day is
on Sunday. It kind of snuck up on me this year. The 11th seems too
early, but the math checked out. I knew it was bad when my sister sent me a
text message, asking if I had any plans. Usually, I’m the one who starts those
kinds of chats, so when she initiated, I knew it wasn’t just me. We’re going to
a small local restaurant. My wife and I go there for brunch occasionally. It’s
good, and not very crowded, so I knew we’d get in. We’re not trying to get into
the newest, fanciest, places around. We just want to be together, and not have
our mothers cook. It’s usually nice. Both of our mothers will be there. Plus,
my mother-in-law’s boyfriend’s mother is also coming. From now on I’m going to
call him David. That is his name, I’m not trying to protect anyone, except
myself, from having to type out that long description. His mother is Barbara, I’ll
use her name too. This is the 3rd or 4th family event
that Barbara will be joining us for. As I mentioned at Easter, she is nice. Her
husband has recently died, and I think she’s really glad to have a family to be
a part of. She even said so much, as she asked her son: “Why did it take so
long for you to include me? I love this family.” That’s good to hear.
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