Inauguration Day and Whatnot

So, this guy is now President. Good for you, President Obama. I hope that you are not so into change that you screw up the few good things Bush did. Change just for change's sake is not helpful.

The one main thing that I'm glad for in the change of regimes is that now we can move on. I am so tired of listening to people complain about Bush. He obviously did not handle every challenge of his Presidency exactly the way you wanted, but you can't blame the guy for every bad thing that happened to you (or you think happened to you) in the last 8 years. Now, I must gently remind you that since your guy is in office, you can move on. I know there will be residuals, but quit whining.

With the regime change comes a fresh start for working together. With Congress and the Executive from the same party, there is always a danger of just driving through whatever legislation is on the radar with no thought of compromise or cooperation. I hope we can avoid that. The division widened by President Bush can be narrowed if the powers that be so choose. Looking back at the Clinton Administration, the government really did some good things (think welfare reform), in part (I think) because one party controlled the Legislative Branch and the other the Executive Branch. This check and balance within the checks and balances brought both sides closer to the center that better approximates the position of the infrequently-consulted American voting public.

I do not pretend to be perfectly informed on matters political (I'm disenchanted for the most part), but let's let bygones be bygones while still learning from our mistakes, and get to work.

The Frozen North

Moving to Waterloo, I knew that winter would be worse than in Coralville or Chillicothe. I didn't realize how bad it would be. The last few winters I've played disc down to about 15 degrees snow or shine. There is so much fluffy snow on the ground up here that I think I would probably lose my entire bag of discs on the first few holes.

Last night we got 7 or so inches - on top of the three we got Monday night. On top of the 5 or so inches we got last Friday night. The snow was up to our back porch this morning on the sidewalk that I shoveled on Friday. I would guesstimate 18-20 inches on the ground in the rest of the yard.

It's been cold, too. It is currently -2 with windchill of -24 degrees. It's a good time to find a warm place to hibernate. I remarked to Liss last night that it would be inhumane to have an outside-only dog this winter.

The weather hasn't really put me out too much. I have been driving the van, since my car doesn't like to start in the cold. I keep the block heater plugged in at home, but have no way to plug it in at work. When the highs were in the teens, I could start it fine in the morning, but it would struggle to start when I was going home after sitting in the parking garage at the office all day. Now, with the high for tomorrow forecast for -6, I don't think it would stand a chance.

Unfortunately, it turns out people still need lawyers when school is cancelled.

Album Review: Echoes, Silence, Patience, and Grace

I got the new Foo Fighters album, "Echoes, Silence, Patience, and Grace" while I was in Utah for Christmas Vacation and listened to it practically all the way home. In short, I give it 4.5 stars.

I'm not sure how many of my readers (and there aren't many) are Foo Fighters fans, but their last studio album, In Your Honor, was a double album with one album being a really straight-forward rock album and the other being a gorgeous all-acoustic piece. Touring in support of the album, they did some shows that were all-acoustic, and for these shows, employed some supporting strings, etc., that they didn't normally use. I heard an interview with Dave Grohl in which he said that having more personnel available in the acoustic shows changed the way that he arranged their pieces for performance. This changed the way he wrote new material, creating a more layered and rich composition.

Foo Fighter fans know that Grohl and company (there have been a few iterations of the band's lineup and this generalization applies to them all) have written their music on acoustic guitars and then translated it all to electric. This comes out in several tracks of theirs, with Everlong from "The Color and the Shape" coming to mind as the most prominent example. In 2006, the Foo came out with "Skin and Bones," a live album featuring a few of their songs that are normally electric guitar-heavy played on acoustic guitars, which would be easy to do if they were all initially written on acoustic guitars.

To conclude my blathering, this process of converting acoustic to electric and then converting simple acoustic compositions to more layered and textured pieces, has resulted in an album that shows a lot more sophistication and variety than their earlier albums. You still get Grohl screaming his throat out on "Let It Die," but the melody changes instruments and effects a few times before coming out front. The innuendo that this creates is really nice, and you see that sort of thing on several songs. The bass or backing guitar will pick up a lick and it will get passed around the group before becoming the main melody, then it will drift back down through the mix. It's nice.

The other thing about the album that is a blessing and a curse is the dynamics. The highs and lows are marching band worthy. The problem with this is that there are sweet sections that are really hard to hear - so I crank the volume - then it gets to the loud crunchy bits and Liss gives me a dirty look for the loudness (is that a word?).

The highlights:
Track 1: The Pretender. Classic Foo with better musical sharing between the instruments.
Track 2: Let It Die. My favorite track. The rhythms are unexpected in spots. The highs are high, the lows: low. Drop-offs where you expect walls. Lots of screaming towards the end. Perfect.
Track 4: Long Road to Ruin. Invokes some of the feeling of the Foo's Baker's Street cover with arpeggios in the bass line and a nice guitar tone.
Track 6: Stranger Things Have Happened. Sweet build on a really nice groove. Clean vocals.
Track 9: Ballad of the Beaconsfield Minors. Foos show their bluegrass chops.
Track 12: Home. The true ballad on the album, complete with piano. Even Liss likes this one.

Again, four and one-half stars. There are better albums for my ears, but not many, and this is the first album in a while that I've listened to without thinking they were trying to rip off Radiohead's "In Rainbows."