Violent Dawn (VD) emerged onto the rock and roll scene in 1968 with its debut performance of an original tune “Way Down Upon a Lonely Trail” at the Centerville 5th Ward Spring Sing. Original band members Kerry Fowler (Rhythm guitar), Stan Page (Lead Guitar), Richard (Dick) Goudy (Bass Guitar), Gordon Flanders (Drums) and Brad Barber (Keyboards/Lead Vocals). Throughout the ensuing years, VD experienced wild fluctuations in popularity in the Northern Utah, Southern Idaho and South West Wyoming regions. Key performance venues included such well known hot spots as Rupert Idaho, Kemmerer Wyoming, an impromptu concert in Evanston Wyoming and sundry and various locations in the greater Salt Lake City/Bountiful/Centerville area, including their home studio in the old White Church. One of the most popular, and well remembered venues was the “East Patio” in Centerville, where the band played numerous performances to their delight of the local fans. (And sometimes to the chagrin of the local adults).

The band performed numerous well known covers including the oft requested Inna-Gadda-Da-Vida, Little Black Egg, For Your Love, and It Came Out of the Sky. Their repertoire included music from a diverse array of bands including: Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Rolling Stones, Iron Butterfly, The Monkees, The Guess Who, The Who, Cream, The Doobie Brothers and many others.

Lead Guitarist Stan Page began his guitar career as do many with a Christmas gift of a fine Gibson electric six string, of which he was very proud. It wasn’t long before the simple lessons of Mary Had a Little Lamb were left behind for the cool and soothing lead riffs of such hits as Black Magic Woman and the impressive guitar solo in Inna-Gadda-Da-Vida. Stan’s love of the musical talents of Crosby Stills Nash and Young, the Beatles, (jointly and individually), and other super groups always kept the band stretching for new sounds and capabilities.

Rhythm guitarist Kerry Fowler was the maturity and strength of the band with his solid accompaniment and back up of any type of sound the band required. His Fender Stratocaster kept the band flowing and was always a favorite of the fans. His easy going attitude and unwavering dedication to the band were a solid strength through the years.

Richard (Dick) Goudy was solid on the bass guitar, to the point that in the early years, his guttural bass lines could be pulled from the simplest of instruments, and often was. Plus his vocal and harmonies were a staple on many of the bands numbers from the beginning. His cool demeanor and good looks were a solid draw for the band’s female followers.

Drummer Gordon Flanders, though he would never admit it masterfully laid down the percussion for the band in all it’s variety of sounds including his flawless performances of the famous Inna-Gadda-Da-Vida drum solo. Always a crowd pleaser. Gordon could always be counted on to be a guiding light to the group and was the main provider of transportation with his stylish van, affectingly named “The Pimp Van”.

Brad Barber, Keyboards and lead vocals, was the youngest of the group, a mere 12 years old when the band first performed. His attack of the ivories and vocal prowess lent to great capabilities and range in various music genres. Barber also went on to play with the very popular Velvet Shade in the mid 70’s, though his music career closed abruptly in 1974, prior to leaving the country in 1975 for a two year religious experience abroad.

VD slowly faded as the band grew older, though they were known to get together and jam occasionally as late as 1974, but never achieved the level of popularity and preciseness of their earlier years. Sadly, due to the lack of viable technology at the time, as well as funds, there only exists one very rough recording of the band, made on a home recorder at an impromptu jam session sometime in the very early 70’s.

(left to right) Brad, Kerry, Stan - 3/4 of Violent Dawn (one of the few remaining photographs of the group that aren't "in 45 yr old girly scrapbooks somewhere")

There are tons of people using it right now, with much success. My wife even uses it, and has no idea, because I’ve got it over our whole network through a tunnel.

Anyone on DreamHost should vote for this suggestion: https://panel.dreamhost.com/index.cgi?tree=home.sugg&category=_all&search=Implement%20IPv6

Speaking of, today I switched from Freenet6 (now gogoNET) to Hurricane Electric (HE). Originally, I had shied away from all the manual configuration of HE, but after having many issues with the gateway6 autoconfiguration client, I decided to finally switch over, and it seems to be working MUCH better, and HE gives me more control over my netblock to boot. Very pleased.

Mary Gentle (b. 1956)

5 High-Brow, 11 Violent, 3 Experimental and 11 Cynical!

Take Which fantasy writer are you? at HelloQuizzy

http://andrewlives.com/about-me/languages.txt
http://andrewlives.com/about-me/distributions.txt

Update (Nov 22, 2009):
Contents I’ve participated in: http://andrewlives.com/about-me/contests.txt

These will update as more happens. For example, I’ve already learned more languages since I first posted this.

Why does every day move so very slowly?

I, Tianon, got myself a girlfriend.

She’s amazing, and I wouldn’t trade my relationship with her for anything in the world.

However, she is exponentially more interesting than a computer. This leads to less time spent turning yellow in front of a computer screen, and more time spent away, in the real world. A place scary, and filled with real people. Frightening just to think about.

The real scoop is that her eyes don’t glaze when I start talking technical, so she’s certainly something else.

(Warning, possible spoilers ahead!)

At first, I was a little irritated by the actress portraying Lyra. Of course, throughout the three books I grew deeply fond of her, and so seeing her portrayed on the screen as such a brash way caught me off guard. I certainly learned to love her by the end, however, so no worries.

I was a little surprised when Iorek punched the jaw right off the king, not expecting such brutality in an otherwise mostly tame fight, but I feel it really helped to crystallize our understanding of his deep commitment to and love for Lyra.

Of course, I am glad they set themselves up so swimmingly for the next book, because I’m really looking forward to it. However, this surprise ending has caused a lot of angry people, and plenty of people I have spoken to were unaware of the later books until the credits began to roll and the story was left hanging. I’m sure they could’ve done something to smooth that out more, but who cares, as long as they make the next one quick, right?

Overall, I’d have to say it was a fantastic film, with plenty of action, adventure, and even a little romance. Obviously not for everyone, but nothing is, and that’s what makes the world go ’round. Will definitely be counting days for the second film!

This book/series was an absolutely beautiful testament to the one constant in this whole shit-faced world: Love. Yes, I’m going to spoil the series by telling you it’s not about some damn anti-Christian plot, but is really a fantastic and gripping love story. It is the story of two people who lose themselves to find each other. It has all the elements that make a fantastic story: action, adventure, mystery, romance, and most importantly, plot.
Anyone who believes their beliefs are being attacked by a fantasy story never had solid beliefs to begin with and should leave the rest of us way the hell alone.
I can understand if someone has read the story, and didn’t like it, but pinning your dislike on something as childish and unfounded as anti-Christian is just spineless.

“The Golden Compass” was a fantastic novel, and if I could, I would be there this Friday right when the film opens.

Personally, I believe an open mind is the key to success in this world, and the sooner people realize that, the sooner we can move on as a species. Free your mind.

He’s the guy who is credited with the idea of Introversion vs. Extroversion, and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator was based off his ideas.

It was only recently that I discovered Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, and I find it extremely fascinating. (At least as much as the Color Code for personality types, if not more so!)

From Wikipedia:

Fundamental to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is the concept of Psychological Type.

In a similar way to left- or right- handedness, the principle is that individuals also find certain ways of thinking and acting easier than others. The MBTI endeavours to sort some of these psychological opposites into four opposite pairs, or dichotomies, with a resulting sixteen possible combinations. None of these combinations is ‘better’ or ‘worse’, however Briggs and Myers recognised that everyone has an overall combination which is most comfortable for them: in the same way as writing with the left hand is hard work for a right-hander, so people tend to find using their opposite psychological preference more difficult, even if they can become more proficient (and therefore behaviourally flexible) with practice and development.

The basic idea is that there are four pairs of preferences or dichotomies that determine what type of person you are. Also note that “the MBTI does not measure aptitude, either: it simply sorts for one preference over another. So someone reporting a high score for Extraversion over Introversion on the MBTI cannot be correctly described as ‘more’ or ‘strongly’ Extraverted: they simply have a clear preference.” (still from wikipedia)

The four dichotomies are:
Extraversion vs. Introversion
Sensing vs. iNtuition
Thinking vs. Feeling
Judging vs. Perceiving

I am fairly constantly an INTP: Introversion, iNtuition, Thinking, Perceiving.

Knowing this helps me understand myself and how I think, which is something I’m always trying to do. Reading about this stuff has made me realize just how much I analyze things.
It’s also interesting to note that only about 3.3% of the world population is INTP. Don’t I feel special!

The only real downside to all this is the sad fact that it’s not the most valid or reliable theory ever, so (as always) YMMV.

Here’s a linky to an online test, if you feel so inclined. Of course, remember that it’s like all online tests: don’t take it too seriously. If you don’t like the answer it gives, that’s fine! You’re a person, and a machine can’t tell you what you are or aren’t.

UPDATE: just realized I never did paste that “linky”. Got side-tracked somehow.

I prefer taking this test: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp
But the results pages for this one: http://www.eggheadcafe.com/articles/mb/default.asp

Go figure.

Now isn’t that just lovely?
(I wonder if there’s a scholarship for that… :D)

More seriously, though, it felt like a lot of the questions were written just for me, which of course is to be expected considering the large VOLUME of questions they pose in this “little” quiz.
But it was a lot about stuff like trouble focusing, knowing when it’s your turn to speak on the phone, trouble with small-talk, etc.
Honestly, I’ve probably got a bit of Asperger, but I wouldn’t say it’s as bad as the above image seems to make out. (At least my obsession with all things computers actually goes somewhere… which isn’t to say it’s not the result of Aspergers, because it certainly does fit many of the qualifications… :P)

One question that really made me laugh was about talking to people about your interests whether they care or not, and it’s funny because I do that all the time!

“Quizzie thing here: http://www.rdos.net/eng/Aspie-quiz.php”
For more info about Asperger, see Wikipedia’s Asperger syndrome article.

For the curious, see http://site.gravatar.com/

They’re pretty easy to use, but it’s really quick and simple to sign up and add one for yourself. Then you can look all pretty when you add comments below.

I’ve left the ratings at the defaults, because I believe in a system of trust. If that trust is violated and something explicit comes up, something will be adjusted. The biggest problem is that the owner of the “Gravatar” decides the rating, so if they’re malicious, they just set all their Avvy’s to be “G” rated, so that’d be a case for ban anyways.

Enjoy.

One minute, I can be depressed as all get-out, but give me 24 hours, and I can be light as a feather, ready for another round. Sometimes, it doesn’t even take 24. Sometimes, it only takes an instant.

Funny, this effect time has on us. Anyone who’s met up with an “old friend” can attest to it. They’re the same, but completely different. New look, new attitude. Some have given their lives an entirely new depth or direction, while others are just happy they’ve kept the train down while they went around the curves, oblivious to the way it sculpts them, changes them. I am guilty of this very thing far more often than I’d like to admit. I love to take life in small bites. The smaller, the better. One day at a time, just chugging along. Hopefully, today I keep pointed in a decent direction, but if I start trying to look too far ahead, a switchback catches me by surprise and suddenly I’m blown off course. If I keep my focus here and now, I see the switchback, and plan the second after it accordingly. It works well, for the most part.

It’s when other people get involved that things get messy. Here at Dixie State, they’re trying to push us to become the University of Utah, St. George. I don’t want that. This is not the U of U, and that’s part of what’s so appealing. Universities have higher requirements on both Teachers and Students, and quite frankly, I’m not interested in the present moment. Maybe, 50 ft along my track I’ll see something to change my mind, but I try not to go there, and I focus on here. It’s in the here and now that I live. Not that whimsical future, but right here. Right now. And that’s life.

In other (more important) news, I’ve been working on this theme for hours. I kind of like it now, even though it still needs some work. Had to format a lot of the code, because the original author didn’t believe in proper whitespace (it was all over the place!), but it sure is nice now. What this means in English is that, unfortunately, most of my changes can’t easily be seen by anyone but me.
Also, adding icons from the Silk set at FAMFAMFAM (see page footer) really helped promote the “soft” feel I was looking for.

Let me know what you think!

(In case you were wondering, I re-enabled guest posting… I’ll only axe it if it becomes a problem. Also, for some reason, posts are moderated, which I kind of like, but is annoying for you. Sorry ’bout that.)

UPDATE: if I approve your comment once, you’re good to go. (Might require a username… Pixelfish seems to be having no trouble at all.)
Also, I’ve disabled the little “feature” where a linking blog gets linked back, because I think it’s kind of silly, and always found those comments on other blogs to be irritating. If anyone is just DYING to have them back, talk to me, and we’ll work this out.