Monday Afternoon

Monday, August 18, 2008

I was hoping that I would feel better than I do, in order to write a concise entry, however, I feel poorly regardless of my wants and desires so this will be shorter than most of my diatribes. In order to have something to compare to, I would describe my feeling poorly at this point, as, fairly nauseous, weak, muscle pain and cramping, and just general malaise. Bleh.

Today was the first day of school for both Missy and Joshua. In complete contrast to how I recall my first days of school, Missy and Josh were very excited to get to school and see their friends and begin classes again. CC and I will feel that the kids had really come to me as their friends from school and having a regular connection every day, so we were not surprised. When both kids came home with good reports about their first day of school.

Most of my morning was spent editing MP3s of Sting and The Police. Fortunately, the audio software that I use for multi-tracking and recording allows me to edit and restore MP3s from normal fidelity to good fidelity. Most MP3s are created with 128 bit encryption, that is to say that, when a CD is ripped into MP3 or Windows media format, the standard default encryption and fidelity is 128 bits, which allows you the smallest file size for the best audio, by comparison. Audio that is uploaded onto the Web is generally very compressed audio, and thus it is a smaller bit ratio, allowing for a smaller file size. The larger the bit encryption, the larger the file size, however, the better the quality of the audio. I believe the best audio format is WAV, which in its raw form is not compressed at all. So, why does all this matter? Being a musician as well as being a person who has dedicated the better part of my life to creating the best audio atmosphere I possibly can in the venues that I've worked in, when I listen to recorded music, I want it to be the best quality it can be, technically. When I am able, I go through my MP3 library and restore MP3s to the best quality that they can be, and to keep them as an MP3, I change their bit ratio from 128 to 320 and I also restore the audio fidelity to the songs via the same software. Boy, that took a long time to just say that I spent the morning editing and restoring MP3s to the best quality that they can be, in this morning's focus was on Sting and The Police. I am still in search of the first two albums from The Police; I have really enjoyed their early years in their fresh approach to the music they played.

I took a break for a couple hours, at CC's wise request, and lay down to see if I would feel better, but no such luck, so I am finishing this out. The highlight of my day, though, was receiving a call from Phil, my brother of many, many years. We talked on the phone for quite awhile and caught up with each other's lives. Hopefully it will work out for us to stay in better contact; Lord knows that I have been poor at that in many relationships, unfortunately.

I seem to be able to speak a few sentences at a time and then I have to rest by just hanging my head down and waiting for more strength and more words to come so I can speak them into the mic and it can write into this blog. Again, this software is truly a godsend for me and I am very, very grateful.

Words of gratitude, seldom satisfy the heart of the one who is grateful, yet all we can hope for, is that the one who is and was gracious, will read the words of gratitude and somehow interpret correctly, the heart of the grateful.

I am frustrated and feel badly that I'm not able to write more and to convey more than I am at this point. The issue lies with my strength and my constitution, which are currently both betraying me. In some very, very slight way, I feel some glimmer of identification with the Scripture that says, in effect, "The Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak...".
Today, I'm weak.

Perhaps more tomorrow, without all the whining.