Eastertide 2021

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From the Gospel of Luke:

On the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking spices that they had prepared.

They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them.

The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.”

Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest.

Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.

But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.

Something amazing happens and Peter goes home…to take a nap? Have a sandwich? What’s up with that? When there is good news, you share it! Wishing you joy and peace at Easter during this difficult time.

Launching a Podcast

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My wife is launching a podcast in April! This is a project she has built toward for a while that is finally coming to fruition. Lisa is a performance management strategist and also a certified professional coach. As she says, positivity is her beat, and that is what this new podcast is all about. It’s an entertaining exercise in gratitude she and her local guests share. Lisa’s goal is to start a ripple effect of positivity. What has brightened your day?

Podcasting enters my area of the world, and I enjoyed watching her quick transition to content producing. She formulated the idea, created a format for the show, started booking interviews, and hired musician and designer friends to compose her theme and design the pod’s logo. I was recruited to the effort as well (duh!). While I’ve made equipment recommendations and acted as a troubleshooter for technical issues, my job is mainly post-production and assisting with the metadata. I handle audio restoration, editing, mixing, and uploading. I’ll start the submission process shortly for Apple, Spotify, and Google. We’ve got her on a hosting service already and will route the podcasts through her website. There have also been discussions with a radio station in Salem, Oregon to air these shows, which will release weekly.

I’m really proud of Lisa. She comes at this with a producer’s mindset, and being a curious person, she is good at getting her guests to open up. She finds the interviews invigorating. We’re ironing out the creases as we go, and I expect any technical hitches to lessen over time. Lisa will also get more comfortable with the “live recording” aspect. Everything is headed in the right direction. Once the show launches, I’ll post a link on my site. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have more editing to do.

Thoughts I’m Thinking

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A few random thoughts that are on my mind:

1. Every February for Aria’s birthday, I make a two-minute video slide show using the pictures we’ve taken over the last year. Two things stood out to me about the latest edition. First, most of the photos were shot around the house. We didn’t journey far during COVID-19. Second, a lot of the pictures were taken in my studio-office where she hung out quite a bit. She still visits frequently, and I love it.

2. There haven’t been any new ukulele videos since Christmas, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been practicing. Videos will appear soon of new but difficult material. I’m working on a well-known classical piece, which has a complicated arrangement with a lot of movement. I’m also working up a major hit from a popular duo in 1970. The song itself is simple, but I added an intro, outro, and solo that aren’t in the sheet music, so it’s taking me time to nail it all down.

3. Lately, I’ve revisited the music of Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship, and Starship. From psychedelic rock to slick pop, they covered the gamut of popular music through the decades. Throw in a heap of drama and egos and there are crazy stories to consume about life in those bands. I recently added former lead vocalist Grace Slick’s memoir, Somebody to Love?, to my reading list. I actually found a used copy online that shipped from San Francisco, which seems appropriate. Slick was, and still is at 81, a fascinating person, measuring up to the idiom, “crazy like a fox.” It’s remarkable she lived to tell about her life, but Slick is whip-smart even after all those years of chasing white rabbits…

4. I realized that today is the one-year anniversary of my cat Stormy’s passing. Her kidneys were failing badly, and it was an awful day of awful decisions. She was a beautiful Himalayan seal point mix, born in a barn (yes, really!) on September 8, 2001. Tom Brady was still the backup quarterback in New England, LeBron James was in high school, the Twin Towers in New York still existed, and Windows XP was a few weeks away from being released. She had a difficult personality with feral tendencies, but we made it through multiple moves, jobs, and vomit mishaps. She is missed.