Cello Recital - Schindler's List

2024 Nov 9

In June, we spent a long weekend in Walla Walla, WA. They had a chamber music festival going on, and we were able to take in two concerts. One piece played was the main theme from the movie Schindler's List. Although I had previously heard it, it had not spoken to me. This time I "got it". And so I purchased cello sheet music of the official arrangement.

Our summer this year was busy with many things, and so I slowed down on the cello. I had lessons every other week. I worked on two pieces of music, including this one, taking my time.

Superficially, it is a simple piece. However, when I got to where I really knew the notes, I found I could lengthen the phrases. Instead of just playing adjacent notes ("words"), these larger sections were sentences, and adjacent sections became paragraphs with substantial meaning.

More House Power

2024 Oct 27

Melanie was wiping down the controls on our gas kitchen range when it started flashing with an error. There was an issue with the oven and a part would need to be replaced. However, maybe this was a different opportunity.

She had been admiring our kids’ induction cook tops. They don’t make combustion fumes inside the house. Spills don’t burn onto them, making them look grimy even when cleaned. They respond very quickly (similar to gas). However, there was a problem: our house electrical supply would not accommodate the power demands of a new electric range and would need to be upgraded.

I have too many hobbies! ;-) I don’t go looking for new projects to do around the house. However, issues with the old range had been bugging Melanie, and I admit the induction tech was cool to me. Maybe this was a project I should take on. We went to see what models were available and picked out a Bosch.

I had done inside-the-house wiring for our house addition so I was comfortable with that part. Initially I thought upgrading the main breaker box for the house would do the job. However, the capacity of the supply wires into the house was insufficient, so the outside power mast and the meter box also needed to be upgraded.

I was unsure about the main supply work, so asked for a quote from an electrician. When it came back at over $19,000 dollars, I decided I could do the whole project!

Quotes: Short and Interesting

Morality - 2024 October

Unless ultimate reality is moral, we cannot morally condemn it. - CS Lewis

Religion [is] toxic when it elevates its theological views and its doctrines above … our need to love and serve one another. [Science is toxic when it does the same with its views and doctrines. There are] rational scientific world views, which … see human beings as disposable pawns in the march of progress. That's wrong as well. - Julian Baggini, humanist

(Quote context and citations are in the note links).

Understanding - 2024 July

In mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them. - John von Neumann

I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics. - Richard Feynman

If you understand [God], it is not God you've understood. (Si comprehendus non est Deus.) - St. Augustine

Kayak Camping: Shaw, Lopez, James Islands

2024 Apr 21

My general plan was to do a circumnavigation of Shaw Island. I had three days for camping, but Shaw would not take that long so I also planned a spur out to Lopez Island. I walked onto the early ferry from Anacortes to Orcas Island, pulling my wheeled boat.

The first day’s route ended at Shaw Island County Park:

The view of the Olympic Mountains from the campground.

It was unusually warm weather for April. The parks reservation system doesn’t open until May however, and kids are still in school, so even with the good weather very few people were out camping. This first night I was the only one at the campground (and subsequent nights I saw hardly anybody in the evening either).

Is Christianity Exclusive?

2024 Feb 26

Is Christianity exclusive? Maybe.

Christianity is very inclusive because it includes all people and all ethnicities and all cultures.

However, what is distinctive about Christianity is what it offers. The promise of Christianity is a relationship with the God represented by Jesus.

Everybody Believes in the Supernatural

2023 Sep 7

Our universe happens to exist. Most people subscribe to the Big Bang's explanation of its cosmological origin. In this, our universe began in the finite past, bursting into existence from a single point and expanding out to size.

All things naturally physical (including energy and matter), all physical laws of our universe, all space and even time itself did not exist without this singularity. Absent this singular event, nature itself did not exist. Therefore, since the event was not of nature, it was by definition super-natural. In the Big Bang model, the origin of the universe was supernatural.

Others believe the universe had an infinite past, always existing with its characteristic features. This view would seem to make the issue of origin disappear, but it does not.

In our physical world, real infinities are never actual because they are unable to exist. There cannot be an infinite quantity of things because there are a finite number of particles available in the universe. There cannot be an infinite number of events because then there would never be an event to start the event sequence. Infinity is only a concept we play with in our minds because infinity itself is supernatural.

However, we exist. Since an infinite past in our natural world is impossible, an infinitely old universe would be supernatural.

Therefore, the existence of the universe through either the Big Bang or an infinite past is supernatural. Of these two ideas, most scientific lines of evidence point to the first, making it the preferred view. So then, because our universe exists, everyone believes in at least one great miracle.

Mechanistic Causes

Since everything that begins to exist has a cause, the next great question is what was the cause of the Big Bang? We already know it was not natural (of our universe); however, it might still be a mechanistic cause. A huge issue that this cause must also explain is why our universe is constructed with hyper precision to support life.

Why I am Still a Christian

2022 Sep 14

I was born into a Christian family. However, today my view on Christianity is not the same as it was when I was a child.

Often a person remains in the religious belief system they grew up in. If they do leave their belief system it may be for reasons that involve experience, rationales or evidence. I however am still a Christian, and it is because of evidence, reason and experience.