Teaching Perfect Pitch

In the Washington Post a few days ago there was an article about how to develop perfect pitch in children. Perfect pitch has been considered something one is born with and not really able to be developed. Well, it looks like a Japanese music teacher has figured out a way to develop perfect pitch in children. His name is Kazuki Eguchi and here is the article.

Neither C or I have anything close to perfect pitch. I took a couple years of singing lessons, but I felt so odd practicing singing scales and songs at home that I didn't put in as much effort as I should have. I was on a choir for their special performances for a number of years, but that's about all my experience with singing outside of singing at church.

C has had less experience in lessons, though with the continual practice of singing in church, she sings very well. With neither of us being particularly musically gifted, it would be cool to be able to encourage and possibly train our kids to be a bit stronger in this area than we are.

Has anyone heard of this before or tried it?

Do Animals Have Souls?

It's not something that has ever kept me up at night, or crossed my mind in anything more than an All-Dogs-Go-To-Heaven sort of thought. However, if I had been asked, probably would have responded with something like "It depends on what you mean by a soul," since I've heard more than a few varieties.

Well, I read a post that deals with it in a bit more serious and thoughtful manner. (not hard, I realize)

The Wonder of Creation - Do Animals Have Souls? by Dean Ohlman

Anyone have some thoughts on his post?

Superman, Snow White, and Pinocchio walk into ...

Superman, Snow White, and Pinocchio walk into a carnival and wind up over on the freak-show side. As they're walking along, they see a sign that says "World's Strongest Man!"

Superman says, "Hold up a second, I'll be right back!" Five minutes later he comes out chuckling. "What happened?" the other two ask. "Well, let's just say he's in there crying his eyes out after he saw who is really the strongest," Superman replied.

They kept walking along until they saw a sign saying "World's Most Beautiful Woman!" Snow White says "I'll be right back boys," and goes into the tent. Ten minutes goes by and she comes back out with a sashay and a smile. "What happened," the other two asked. "Well, let's just say she's crying her eyes out and knows who is really the most beautiful woman," Snow White replied.

They continue on and they see a tent that says "World's Greatest Liar!" Pinocchio says "Hey, hold up for a second. This one's all mine! This won't take but a minute!"

Ten minutes goes by. Thirty minutes. A whole hour passes before Pinocchio finally shuffles back out of the tent, crying and sniffling. "What happened," Superman and Snow White exclaimed.

"Well I went in and I lied and I lied, but ... but..." Pinocchio started sobbing again.

He finally wailed, "Who is Nancy Pelosi anyway?!?!"

I Love Lutherans

I've got to keep remembering that. That, and not all Lutherans are the same.

I ran across a guy (Lutheran, I'm not sure which splinter, but I think LCMS) who is absolutely and vehemently positive that Baptists (and all other denominations) are borderline apostate. The LCMS (or whichever splinter he belongs to) has all the doctrines in Scripture exactly right, and the only way that anyone could disagree is that they reject what the Scriptures say.

"I’m disagreeing that Scripture is open to multiple reasonable interpretations."

"I think LCMSers would generally agree with me that no disagreement concerning the meaning of Christ’s promises can be “petty”"

"Jesus said that he taught some things in a purposely cryptic manner, but he promised that the Holy Spirit would make his teachings clear. Jesus emphasizes that only those who hear the Word and understand produce fruit, and those that do not understand are snatched by the evil one."

The excerpts here are right in line with what he was saying in his larger points. I'm a bit torn between pointing to where he made these statements, and hiding his identity for him even though he wouldn't care. I guess I'll be good and leave him anonymous.

Not all Lutherans are like this, and it's not just Lutherans - Calvinist debates can get like this a lot too, though they tend to get more personally rancorous, not generally declaring all others to be apostate.

I'm not doing an opposite extreme from this guy and saying "can't we all just get along and ignore differences". Everyone disagrees on things which we believe to be significant enough to break fellowship to some extent - hence the different denominations - and this is a necessary thing. Not necessarily a good thing, but as people who understand things imperfectly, we will necessarily disagree on some things enough to form separate groups. While I think there ought to be a lot more in the way of community and fellowship, I don't think it's a good idea to toss all differences aside as irrelevant.

Ok. I got the disclaimer out of the way. Now for the "BUT!"

But! (see, there it is) But, can people at least admit that disagreements don't necessarily mean that the "other side" are idiots who reject all standards and values, and are just making up their own rules, and ignoring what the Bible says?!?!?!?

Of course not. This is the Internet. That would be asking too much.

Would the real Hans Christian Andersen please stand up

Whew, I'm on a roll - more than one post in a day!

I've read some of Andersen's stories, but I don't think I've ever read The Little Mermaid, though I knew she didn't marry the prince. I did read The Red Shoes though, and some of his other, more popular stories. I would be interested in knowing how much they were changed from the original, though.

Here's a bit of a review of a new book that is more faithful to the original stories: The Stories of Hans Christian Andersen. Check out the review if you want to read how The Little Mermaid REALLY ended.

Evolution and Racism - Straight from the Creationist's mouth

If anyone is silly enough to start hanging around those shady parts of the Internet where Creation vs. Evolution get debated, you ought to have your head examined. I know I ought to. Anyway, one of the oft-repeated statements is how Evolution is responsible for racism and abortion and slavery and and and. Supporting this are statements of how Darwin was a horrible racist and how Hitler was started off by evolutionary thoughts on survival of the fittest.

Well, here is Dr. Todd Wood, the preeminent biologist (at least IMHO) at Answers in Genesis. In the June issue of the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, he is reviewing a book by Desmond and Moore, Darwin's Sacred Cause: How a Hatred of Slavery Shaped Darwin's Views on Human Evolution.

Here's part of his last paragraph (and the link to his post):

If the authors are wrong about this motivation, was Darwin a racist after all? I think such a charge is hard to justify without stooping to anachronistic and triumphalist standards of judgment. Whatever else he was, Darwin was a product of his time. By our twenty-first century standards, almost all people of European descent in the nineteenth century were racist. Saying that Darwin was a racist is little more informative than saying he lived in the nineteenth century. Far more important, I think, is Darwin's attitude about the treatment of other races. Here, Desmond and Moore do us a great service by illuminating the real passion of Darwin's anti-slavery and anti-cruelty. By making Darwin's evolution primarily ideological, however, they miss an important point: that science can be used to serve different ideologies. Common ancestry and natural selection can be interpreted to serve slavery and cruelty just as easily as to oppose them.....

Maybe this will put a bit of a slow-down on the .... oh, who am I kidding. Not a chance.

Anyway, I'm not really jazzed about the review as much as I am looking for an excuse to provide more links to his blog site, which I thoroughly enjoy. I suspect that his blog is a pretty narrowly known secret, but it deserves to be more widely known. I'll do my tiny, little bit.

Want to sue yourself?

Sound silly? Well, apparently Wells Fargo Bank has sued itself.

It holds the first and second mortgage on the property, and the owner of the first mortgage (Wells Fargo) is suing all other lien holders (Wells Fargo, the holder of the second mortgage). Apparently the court documents have Wells Fargo as the plaintiff and the defendant. The two different law firms which are prosecuting/defending Wells Fargo against itself are having fun with this, I'm sure. The article has a great line where Wells Fargo lawyers are saying to the other Wells Fargo lawyers "All other allegations of the complaint are denied".

I realize that in large companies, there are sometimes circular situations (my company has occasionally been a subcontractor to a subcontractor to itself), but a company suing itself??? Whew! No wonder they needed bailout money!

Wells Fargo Bank Sues Itself

A Kansas Haiku

Got this from the family in Kansas - a haiku to describe today

blessing from the Lord
a gentle north wind blowing
Kansas in July

I'm back, but no tan

San Diego was gorgeous, and the ESRI Users Conference was great. I will consider putting up a quick picture of the caricature I had drawn at the end-of-conference party. I very purposefully avoided taking any interesting pictures of managers in states of disrepute, and hopefully there aren't any of me. (actually I was very good, the whole time)

However, it was a whole week away from the beautiful and very pregnant wife. Before that was a couple weeks of stuff going on with travel, a wedding, vacations, preaching, etc. By the time I got to this trip, I started missing home about the time I was getting on the plane. It is GOOD to be back!

C is looking just as radiantly pregnant as ever, and we're down to less than 2 weeks from the due date. We're guessing the delivery will be on the later side of the due date, but at this point we're at full term, so we're "ready" at any time. That "ready" part is a bit questionable though. We've got the crib, changing table, car seats, initial baby supplies, etc all ready, but the baby's room is still being prepped. It's over half painted, and will probably only take another 2 or 3 hours to finish up. But that means we still have arranging to do.

Just before I left for my trip, our clogging friends gave us a wonderful baby shower with LOTS and LOTS of books!!! Jer got a slingshot with marshmallows to shoot out of it! Huge hit! I need to dry out the marshmallows some first since they tend to start smooshing and getting sticky, but it is a really nice slingshot that he is strong enough to use.

Now I'm on to VBS with church. It's an Answers In Genesis curriculum, and when I heard that I started to cringe, but after we got the materials, they were very good to avoid having a Young Earth apologetics VBS. It's pretty good, though one of the songs repeated over and over how little humans actually know - no other major point than that. An odd sort of song until the originators are considered. Fortunately, it's not the theme song or anything.

You will all be shocked, shocked! I say, to hear that I'm handling games. :^) I'll try to avoid getting TP'd this year.

Back to work

Waiting for 2008. That is, Visual Studio 2008 to install. Yup, we're finally moving up to the more modern developing platform from Visual Studio 2003. About time!

However, that's not what the post is about. I'm back to work after a week off to CA and PA for vacation. Actually, I was back all of last week too. I'm just really bad about blogging, I guess.

Vacation was wonderful - lots of family, lots of reunion, lots and lots of swimming, and plenty of Dance Dance Revolution - all in beautiful, sunny southern California at a beautiful resort. I don't think there was a day that we didn't sleep in until after 10:00 west coast time. Then after we got back to the east coast we headed up to PA for a three-day weekend. We got to see K and R and their kids (who are growing REALLY quickly!). I got some fantastic beef sticks too!!! On the trip back, we even got to take Jeremiah to a festival with a nice fireworks display!

My beautiful wife has blogged about it in much more depth and skill, so I won't bother repeating her stuff. Vacation is good.

Last weekend (4th of July weekend) was just as good. First - three day weekend! W00t! Second - anniversary time. (we do a 6-month shifted anniversary celebration) Third - wonderful dinner, a great play (Man of La Mancha), wonderfully close-up fireworks, and a B&B. Wait. That probably deserves to be back in point two as part of celebration. Oh well. Fourth - managed to preach on Sunday morning without seizing up or repeating myself ad nauseum.

Ahhhhh. Life is good.

Last night was a good high-school youth group meeting. These seem to be back and forth - sometimes there will be a ton of people and the next time only a few. But, the things that are happening in it, big or small, are great to see. We've had several teens declare faith in Christ, and we're hoping for some baptisms and continued discipleship for them.

Ummm, not much else going on at the moment. So I'll sign off, I guess. Hopefully I'll be a bit more regular in the future.

Oh. I said that a post or two ago. Hmmm. Ok. This time I mean it!!  :-D