There were a number of comp albums from the 90s that I loved — the Singles Soundtrack, the Angus Soundtrack, and of course, the album that this song is off of, Sweet Relief: A Benefit for Victoria Williams. It was an album of Victoria Williams covers created to raise money for her since she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and didn’t have health insurance. I love the song, and I love that one of my favorite bands covered it.

Last night, at eight o’clock, my Mother-in-Law got the call. Five hours later doctors were cutting her open and giving her a new heart. We’ve been full of mixed feelings. On one hand it’s scary. She has been doing really well with her LVAD in. She is stronger than ever. The transplant will put her through a lot again, and may add some complications. I guess it’s a good thing though. The LVAD isn’t a permanent solution. It’s probably good that she got her heart now when she is strong. She should be able to recover from the transplant baring any complications. I had a coworker that had a lung transplant last year, and she was too weak, and didn’t survive.

My Wife and most of her family headed down to the hospital this morning. I stayed back to take care of the dog. I haven’t heard how she is doing yet, so I’m assuming she is doing fine. She has been out of surgery for eight hours now. It’s going to be a long few weeks of recovery, but it will probably be nice for her to not have to carry around her LVAD battery packs anymore.

I’m amazed by our scientific knowledge. It’s pretty amazing that we can cut someone open, remove their heart, and put in someone else’s heart, and they survive. I’m not going to be thanking a miracle, or some imaginary god, for her recovery. The reason this is possible is because of science, and the amazing doctors.

Then there is the sad reality that someone had to die for her to get her heart. We’ve been looking at the recent deaths in the area, and are curious as to which one was the one. I’m sure we will never know, but to that person’s family, thank you. And to any of your who aren’t donors, why the hell aren’t you?

I’m a sucker for a good Nirvana cover, and this one by a Boston band called Nemes is pretty damn good. It was so good that I bought their album that they are selling on their Bandcamp site for only $1. Seriously? They should charge more than that.

I wasn’t a huge Primus fan, but I loved Pork Soda, and this song brings back tons of high school memories.

Last night was my first chance at star gazing. It was a pretty nice night — 25º — a little too chilly for setting up my telescope, but nice enough to use my new binoculars. Most amateur astronomers will tell you to start with binoculars anyway. You don’t see huge detail in the objects in the sky, but it is easy to find things, and a good way to get familiar with the sky.

I didn’t get out early enough to see the Moon. Tonight the Moon and Venus make a pretty nice pair in the early evening western sky. I’m going to try and get a view of them tonight.

I was surprised how many stars I could see through my binoculars that I couldn’t see with the naked eye. My view of the northern sky isn’t that great because of all the light from the city. I couldn’t see any stars, but with my binoculars I was a least able to make out the Big Dipper. Facing west, Jupiter was bright and impressive through my binoculars. Again you don’t get much detail through binoculars, but still great to see. I usually can’t make out the different colors of stars, but with binoculars I could clearly see the bright redness of Betelgeuse, and the bright white Rigel in Orion. What I was probably most impressed with was actually seeing the Orion Nebula.

I went out again early morning and got a shot of Mars. Again, no details, but it was obviously red, and just cool to at least get a better view than you can with the naked eye. I went out a few hours later to try and see Saturn, but it got cloudy, so I didn’t get to see Saturn.

I agree that binoculars are a great way to start. It’s easy to find things, and a good way to learn the sky. I can’t wait until it gets warmer so I can spend more time outside. I may even have to find a good place where I can get away from a lot of the light pollution.

In the early 90s I picked up the Screeching Weasel album Boogadaboogadaboogada! on a whim. I instantly fell in love with the band and the label they were on, Lookout!. I started to pick up albums just because they were on Lookout!. Back then you couldn’t listen to an album before you bought it. There was no internet to get a preview of songs, I was just buying albums on a whim. I loved almost every Lookout! album, from Mr. T Experience, The Donnas, Squirtgun, and maybe a little band you might have heard of called Green Day. Sadly this week Lookout! Records is calling it quits. It’s sad, but they really haven’t been the label they were in the 90s for some time now.

This weeks video is from The Queers. They are another of those great Lookout! bands, and this song is so yummy yummy catchy.

Yesterday I got my copy of Night Watch. It was a book that Fraser Cain recomended for begining amateur astronomers during one of his Google Plus Virtual Star Parties, which I can’t say enough good things about. I’ve been obsessed with learning everything I can about amateur astronomy since it’s not really nice enough to be outside and observing. Last night was a clear night, and I had a good view of Jupiter and Venus from my driveway early in the evening, but with temps below zero, I didn’t feel like spending much time outside. Instead I dove into my new book. I totally agree with Fraser, Night Watch probably is the book for begining amateur astronomers. I’m sure this wont be the last post about my new hobby that I am obsessed with. My ultimate goal is to get some amazing pictures from space. I’m probably a few years off of being able to do that, but here is one of Jupiter and Europa that a member of our local astronomy club took.

How cool is that? Someday I want to be the person that takes these pictures.

The beginning of this year I re-thought my backup strategy. I’m crazy about my backups, maybe a little too much. This year I’ve actually cut back on some of my backups. Last year I got a CrashPlan family plan to back up my two main computers. It works great. I love CrashPlan. Now thanks to iTunes Match, I was able to downgrade my CrashPlan to a single computer plan.

I’ve been slowly upgrading all my music to 256 kbps, from the crappy 128 kbps that I originally ripped all my music to back when hard drive space was more limiting. It’s been great to get them upgraded without having to re-rip the 1400 cds I own. That’s another reason why I make sure to have good backups. I dread having to re-rip my cds. iTunes Match serves as a great backup too. The $25 for iTunes Match is actually saving me money. Downgrading my CrashPlan account saves me $84 a year, adding the iTunes Match fee and I save $59 a year. Plus I don’t have to upload most of the new music I buy. It is just matched, and I have a backup.

So what about my other files on my iMac that need backed up? Well, I wrote an Automator script that uses rsync to backup my documents folder over to my Windows machine, which is then backed up to CrashPlan. Everything is also backed up to my NAS. Yeah, I’m anal, but I have a great system and will never lose a file. Here is the simple shell script that I used:

rsync -aE –delete ~/ Documents/ /Volumes/Users/mace/Documents/iMacBackup/ Documents/

I made an app with Automator that runs that script and just just put it on my desktop. I could have gotten more fancy and scheduled it to run with iCal, but I’m happy enough just clicking on the app once a day. Automator is so powerful, yet underused.

I remember the day my college roommate played the Counting Crows, August and Everything After album for me for the first time. We bought a ton of cds that first year of college. My roommate had a crush on the record store girl, I was just in love with the music of the 90s. I never heard of the Counting Crows when my roommate brought it home, but I went out and bought it the next day. I had to have my own copy. Then “Mr. Jones” started to get some major MTV play, and the rest is history. I’ve been a little disappointed with the Counting Crows albums since August and Everything After, but that album was perfect.

It’s killing me that I haven’t been able to try out my telescope yet. We’ve had a beautiful winter so far this year, but the few nights that I have had off work it’s been too cloudy, and now I think winter is probably here to stay. It’s below zero now, and our high for today was only 7 ºF, not really good outside weather.

One thing that has got me really excited to try out my telescope has been Fraser Cain, from Universe Today, and his Virtual Star Parties. They are something that he is just starting to do using Google Plus, and they are totally awesome. He gets amateur astronomers to hook up their telescopes to Google Plus, and we all can see the various objects. Last night I watched his first two Star Parties, and learned a ton. Someday I’ll have to catch one live. I’m so excited to keep on learning, and maybe be able to actually call myself an amateur astronomer one day.

It’s been a long time since I started a new hobby, and it exciting to learn something new. There have been a few hobbies that I have wanted to start, but never wanted to spend the time or money to get started. Maybe it’s time to start a few of them. Three hobbies that I can think of now that I wanted to start are home brewing beer, learn to play guitar, and amateur astronomy.

I haven’t even used my telescope yet, and I have already found a few I want to upgrade to. I think I will hold off on them for a while, and get a good pair of binoculars first. That’s what most people say to start with. They say you can see more than you would think, and it’s a great way to get started and find out if the hobby is for you before spending a ton of money.

I was a little late to the game with the Pixies. By the time I discovered them, they were broken up. I have since grown to love them. My first exposure to Black Francis, or Frank Black, or whatever he want to call himself was his self titled solo album. I’m surprised it took me this long to get to Frank Black. He was one of my favorites in the early 90s. In recent years he has almost became too prolific. He has put out at least an album a year since 1998, and some years even two album. I haven’t been able to keep up with them. I would probably prefer an album every three years with just the best songs written in those three years, but that could just be me. So I’m not too familiar with Frank Black’s latest work, but his albums in the early 90s were some of my favorites.

I don’t know how much national coverage it has gotten, but last week a Minnesota high school hockey player suffered a horrific neck injury, and was paralyzed. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be sixteen years old, and know you will never walk again. Being paralyzed is probably one of my worst fears along with being burned. When I played football in high school I always made sure I made tackles with my head up, and hit with my shoulder. I feared hitting with my head like so many players do nowadays. One awkward hit with your head could change your life forever. The coaches I had taught that, and I listened.

I’ve never played hockey, so I can’t really relate to the injury and how it happened and if it’s something that can be prevented in the future. I just feel horrible for the kid. I hope someday these kind of injuries will able to be repaired by surgery. How great would it be to repair all neck and spinal cord injuries? That and a cure for cancer are two thing I hope to see happen in my lifetime.

So it’s that time of the year again when I look back and wish I would have read more books. My “to read” list grows way faster than I can keep up with. I read 21 books last year, and 24 this year, but this year a few of them were short stories, so I’m reading at about the same rate.

My podcasting/blogging/Twitter buddy, who probably doesn’t even know who I am, Kreg Steppe, is going to try I start reading more in the coming year. I congratulate him, and hope he succeeds. That was my goal 10 years ago when I picked up The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, after not reading a book since high school turned me off of reading. I may not be as prolific as some readers, but I usually manage to read 20 or so books a year, so that’s not too bad.

The week I am finally going to read Death from the Skies! by one of my favorite guys on the planet Phil Plait. I don’t know why it’s taken me this long to get to it, but it is probably a fitting book to start the year since it’s 2012 and all.

Here are the books I read this year. They were all great, and I would recommend them to anyone.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks – Rebecca Skloot
God, No! – Penn Jillette
Ghost in the Wires – Kevin Mitnick
Between Two Worlds – Roxana Saberi
See a Little Light – Bob Mould
The Believing Brain – Michael Shermer
Death by Black Hole – Neil deGrasse Tyson
Idea Man – Paul Allen
Made by Hand – Mark Frauenfelder
Nonsense on Stilts – Massimo Pigliucci
A Short History of Nearly Everything – Bill Bryson
The Demon-Haunted World – Carl Sagan
And Another Thing… – Eoin Colfer
Daemon – Daniel Suarez
Hunter – Wil Wheaton
Packing for Mars – Mary Roach
Sunken Treasure – Wil Wheaton
The Day After – Wil Wheaton
Blood is Red – Scott Sigler
With a Little Help – Cory Doctorow
Paranormality – Richard Wiseman
The Cold Moon – Jeffery Deaver
Steve Jobs – Walter Isaacson
World War Z – Max Brooks

I wasn’t a huge Verve Pipe fan, but I loved their album Villains. By 1996 when this album came out, many of the lesser known bands that I loved were getting major airplay on the radio. As a result, much music from this era I still can’t stand from hearing it too much, including this song.

So Christmas is over for another year. Things are starting to slow down and get back to normal around here. It feels weird that winter really hasn’t gotten here yet. I hoping it hold of for a few more weeks so I get a chance to play with my favorite Christmas present.

I got a telescope for Christmas! I’ve always wanted a telescope, but never thought I would use one enough to justify buying one. As a kid I loved my microscope, and chemistry set, but I never had a telescope. It’s just an entry level telescope, but that’s all I really need for now.

Monday night would have been a perfect night with Venus and the Moon to the west and Jupiter still in the east as I left for work. Tuesday it was cloudy, and last night it was raining. Rain in December? WTF? Today when I got the mail it really felt like spring out. It’s really going to suck when winter finally gets here. I hoping to be able to try out my telescope tonight, since my next night off wont be until January 2nd, and winter might be here by then. 

I originally had a long post about the stupid argument between “Happy Holidays” and “Merry Christmas”, but you know what? It’s Christmas, who the hell cares? Maybe ignoring that stupid argument will make it go away.

Instead here is my favorite Christmas song, “White Wine in the Sun”. Enjoy.

Here are the lyrics to “White Wine in the Sun”, and if you don’t understand the title, Tim Minchin is from Australia, and Christmas is a summer time holiday down there.

I really like Christmas
It’s sentimental, I know, but I just really like it
I am hardly religious
I’d rather break bread with Dawkins than Desmond Tutu, to be honest

And yes, I have all of the usual objections
To consumerism, the commercialization of an ancient religion
To the westernization of a dead Palestinian
Press-ganged into selling Playstations and beer
But I still really like it

I’m looking forward to Christmas
Though I’m not expecting a visit from Jesus

I’ll be seeing my dad
My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum
They’ll be drinking white wine in the sun
I’ll be seeing my dad
My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum
They’ll be drinking white wine in the sun

I don’t go in for ancient wisdom
I don’t believe just ’cause ideas are tenacious it means they are worthy
I get freaked out by churches
Some of the hymns that they sing have nice chords but the lyrics are spooky

And yes I have all of the usual objections
To the miseducation of children who, in tax-exempt institutions,
Are taught to externalize blame
And to feel ashamed and to judge things as plain right and wrong
But I quite like the songs
I’m not expecting big presents
The old combination of socks, jocks and chocolate is just fine by me

‘Cause I’ll be seeing my dad
My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum
They’ll be drinking white wine in the sun
I’ll be seeing my dad
My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum
They’ll be drinking white wine in the sun

And you, my baby girl
My jetlagged infant daughter
You’ll be handed ’round the room
Like a puppy at a primary school
And you won’t understand
But you will learn someday
That wherever you are and whatever you face
These are the people who’ll make you feel safe in this world
My sweet blue-eyed girl

And if, my baby girl
When you’re twenty-one or thirty-one
And Christmas comes around
And you find yourself nine thousand miles from home
You’ll know what ever comes
Your brother and sisters and me and your Mum
Will be waiting for you in the sun
Whenever you come
Your brothers and sisters, your aunts and your uncles
Your grandparents, cousins and me and your mum
We’ll be waiting for you in the sun
Drinking white wine in the sun
Darling, when Christmas comes
We’ll be waiting for you in the sun
Drinking white wine in the sun
Waiting for you in the sun
Waiting for you…
Waiting…

I really like Christmas
It’s sentimental, I know…