Jetty Island; November 11

• 7 mi

S against a good wind, but in the lee of the island. N with the wind, so some surfing and lots of busy lumpy water. Turned at the sunken wooden ships; they have significantly deteriorated from when we first saw them. Into the teeth of the wind again while returning.

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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.

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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!

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Austin’s birthday is in early September. There were some observations of his birthday, but nearing the end of the month Austin asked if Melanie would be making a dinner for his birthday. Of course we could do that. So, she planned and made one of his favorite meals. She had picked up an ice cream cake, and she put birthday candles on it.

When the boys were young, we used the small single stick candles. About the time the quantity of lit candles on the cake started getting dangerous we found candles in the shapes of numerals and started using them instead. They were easier to light, and usually we only needed two digits. Eventually we had a pretty complete collection of them.

Austin turned 39. When Melanie looked in our candles she didn’t find a “3”, so without thinking too deeply, she substituted a “4”. (They are adjacent values, right?) When the cake was set in front of Austin, it said he was 49 years old! He was quite surprised, but we all laughed and he blew the candles out.

Melanie’s birthday is in early October. Nine years ago the kids were trying to decide what to get her for her birthday. She didn’t need new things because she already had everything she needed. So they came up with the idea to cook a gourmet multi-course meal for her.

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Melanie was talking with a friend about the bioluminescent microbes in the Puget Sound that can be seen in the dark. On a whim, she checked our favorite kayak tour guides. They had a nighttime tour for Sunday from Bowman Bay at Deception Pass State Park! New moon was only the day before, so it would get quite dark and the viewing would be good.

I booked for two people not knowing if the time would work for Melanie’s friend. It did. But then when I went back to see if I could add myself, there were no more empty spots.

With our long summer days, it would be a late start and a late return home. Driving so late would be difficult for Melanie, so I offered to take them. I brought along things to keep me busy while they were out, including my cello.

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I am always on the lookout for cello music that is intriguing and includes a challenge. Through a YouTube video I found this very interesting cello quartet by Andrea Casarrubios.

She wrote about the piece:

"Anthem (2022) was commissioned by the University of Iowa and Anthony Arnone for the 20th Anniversary of Cello Dayz. It is an introspective work conceived as a personal anthem. This music evokes the process and, ultimately, the acceptance of letting go of what is not in my control. I was inspired by the idea of an anthem as a way to provide solace and guidance, and it is my hope that those playing or listening can use this music as a release."

The music is slow. However, this does not make it as easy as it might seem to be. The slow tempo was actually part of the playing challenge and part of the enjoyment for listening. It has very close harmonies that require careful intonation. And it uses the full range of the instrument.

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What does it take to create a world? In thinking about this question, we could look at worlds made by writers of fiction and those made in video games.

Literature worlds

In the literature genres of fantasy and science fiction there are writers that make complete worlds. When this is done well, it is very impressive because it is not simple and not easy. The author must think deeply about how everything works, and how it works together. They design the world and all its contexts so that everything is functional and follows the rules of the world. This work makes the world believable to the reader.

By the power of their words, they create matter, energy and places and the beings that live there. As they work, they can modify things, going to what had already been written and change it. They might write different weather, or remove characters. They might bring new characters to life.

Essentially the writer functions as the god of the world. Their words create, and bring both life and death.

Imagine that a book character is written as becoming aware of their author. It would be foolish for such a character to disbelieve that they were authored! But of course we know this because characters in a book are directly dependent on the author.

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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 included 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).

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I had made plans for us to go camping out to the northwest end of the Olympic Peninsula. Melanie hadn’t been feeling well the days immediately before, so I went by myself and ended up exploring more than if we had gone together.

In Port Gamble there is a kayak shop and a wool-forward knitting shop. I stopped there for a break and I ended up buying a knitting project for Melanie. She Facetimed in, picked out her yarn colors and was already anticipating my return.

I had a reservation for camping at the Sol Duc Hot Springs campground. A private resort runs the hot springs facility. You get access to the pools in sessions (by pay). There was enough time before my session to hike to Sol Duc falls. It is similar to Deception Falls (on the west side of Stevens Pass Highway) because it falls dramatically into a cleft of rocks and makes a 90° turn.

The Hot Springs were nice: two pools of different temperatures, and an unheated swimming pool. They were quite a few people there. A couple times when it got too warm, I jumped in the deep end of the cold water pool and then got immediately out. It was cold enough that it hurt!

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I performed an opera aria on the cello. I played in a combined recital for the studios of Ellen (my teacher, center below kneeling) and Lianne, her long-time good friend and collegue.

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Where do abstract things such as math come from? Since they aren’t material things, you can’t go to the store to buy them. You can’t get math by growing it or by digging it out of the earth. And are they real and/or true?

Although the ideas for abstractions might start from things in the material world, abstractions are mental products and exist only in the mind. We see the similar color of trees and emeralds and think of greenness. We observe similar shapes in the outline of an egg and the ripples from something dropped in water and think of roundness. We hear a gentle speaking voice or feel plush fur and we could think of softness.

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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.

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