This one's worth preserving, for posterity... After taking Hamish to the Ely Cathedral animal service, I went looking for an article about it, on the off chance that his picture might be in it. Instead I found this article from three years ago, which not only has his picture, but it's the feature picture for the article! It's been just sitting out there all this time without our knowledge. Here's how it appears when you post the link on Facebook:
I've also started playing open mics. Well, I've done two so far, at the same place (the local "3@3 Real Ale and Craft Beer Cafe") which is very casual indeed -- just ten or so people in the upstairs loft, taking turns, with no amplification of any sort.
Me being me, I have a spreadsheet of songs that I'm considering, ranked according to how ready I am to play them. Marjorie wants to join me at some point on vocals, so there's a separate tab for songs we're considering for that.
In forty years of playing guitar, I know my limitations pretty well, and so stay confined to songs that are built around strumming and chords. The songs I've performed so far are:
I will talk now about songwriting.
When my engineering tendency to take thing things apart combined with my love of music, it was only natural that I would try to figure out a thing or two about songwriting. And so from the moment I knew two or three guitar chords, I've been trying to compose melodies over chords, and the to fit some words over them (the usual order of things, but not always).
I wrote some songs with my band back in the early nineties, but I didn't know a lot about the process. Still I thought I had some melodic ability, but my weak singing voice and clumsy musicianship didn't help matters.
Now, thirty-five (!) years have passed, and I've played pretty much daily since then. So you'd think I'd be a lot better, but it's been all on my own, and to be honest... No false immodesty, but I haven't improved all that much. I know a lot more songs, and a fair few tricks, but I'm basically the same guitarist I was then.
I find myself still fascinated by songwriting, though, and have amassed a collection of three hundred or so snippets -- recorded onto a cassette tape initially, but now onto my phone -- of little melodic bits that occur to me, in various stages of completeness. Most have me singing nonsense words over chords, but the point is to preserve them so I can develop them later. Early on it was all about finding some sensible chords, then finding a melody that fits over them. In recent years, it's far more common to devise a melody first, then figure out the chords that fit under it.
But to what end? I asked myself a few years back. I knew that nothing would ever come of the half-hearted efforts I had put together thus far. So I sought out and eventually found a forum that would force me to put more effort into writing complete songs. I came across a songwriting group that has a monthly theme where everyone submits their songs and has a listening party at the end of the month.
I won't link their name just now, but they are limited to the UK only and I submitted my first song in June of 2023. I don't submit every month (due to lack of free time, motivation, or ideas), but still I've managed to submit around fifteen different songs, which kind of amazes me.
The songwriting process follows a predictable pattern. I start with a flush of excitement, and bounce ideas around, often with the help of Marjorie. I come up with a theme and a song title, then comb my collection of snippets for one where I can work the title in and which has the right feel for the theme. I block out a structure for the song -- how the intro, verses, prehooks, choruses, and bridges all fit together, on my guitar. Then I start it with the recording, usually drums first (note by note using Hydrogen) and then a bass part (usually using TuxGuitar, though we own a bass now so I'm trying to use that instead). Then I record the guitar and add whatever other bits I want to add (piano, strings, trumpet, etc.) using TuxGuitar. Lyrics, sadly, I leave until the very last, as it turns out I hate that part. Often I record the vocals on the day the song is due as I've put it off so long. It also probably doesn't help that like everyone else, I don't like my voice.
I'm trying to break out of this mould this month by completing the song, lyrics and everything, before I start in with any programming or recording. I only have a vague idea going so far (the theme is "Don't do that") so I really need to get to work. I'm thinking of following the advice I just saw John Lennon give George Harrison in the 'Get Back' documentary -- if you sit down to write a song, don't stop until you finish it. That's marginally easier said than done.
It feels like the most common subject I blog about over the last few decades has been how little I blog. But I value all my old blog posts and Marjorie and I fairly often use it as an aide memoire. And as most of the shine has gone off of Facebook in my eyes, it just seems to make sense that I should write about things here more often, even if it will go unnoticed by most. So let's see if I can get back into this.
We are still happy with our choice to move to Ely, and plan to stay an indefinite while. A statement like that obviously means a lot more now than it would twenty years ago, as it's time to consider when, where, and how to retire. We are glad to have the options we do, especially as everything has gone haywire thanks to our batshit fuckwitted leader.
We lucked into a house we like a lot and are surrounded by great neighbours. We also have something we've never had before: a pub. Yes, we've lived near pubs before, but now we're part of a Stammtisch at the Prince Albert where we can just show up randomly and get into great conversations with all the regulars, who have become friends. We seem to learn so much there about life in the UK, life in Europe, history, etc.
Hamish the dog is still kicking on, and loves to go to the pub. He's 15, and arthritic, but still has an undeniable zest for life. We have a harder time leaving him these days as his pace has slowed and he tends to come back from the dog sitter knackered. But we took him up to Thornham in Norfolk for a quick weekend getaway last weekend and he had great time.
Our jobs are... fine enough for the moment, though here as well obviously we wouldn't mind a bit more security. Retirement would be great but it makes loads more sense to be stockpiling all we can at the moment.
What else is new... We got a bass guitar, named it Minty, and I'm going to try to teach Marjorie what I know (at least the parts that overlap with playing a regular guitar, which is a lot, but there's still loads specific to the bass that we'll have to figure out together). She's had one lesson from me so far and did awesome.
I'm taking an online class on basic astronomy at the Royal Observatory of Greenwich, just because the chance was there. Two hour classes on Tuesdays for six weeks. I could probably teach the class tbh but I wanted to get thinking about cosmology again just to have something to ponder that isn't the shitty state of the world. It's a subject I sometimes wish I had pursued, but what can you do. (Funnily enough, Marjorie took an astronomy course in college and hated it because they expected her to do math when she just wanted to look at stars, while I was unable to get into my college's astronomy courses because of all the people who signed up for it just wanting to look at stars!)
That will do for a catch-up post. The plan from here is to get back to posting smaller stuff, if I can sustain this.
When I was young, learning math(s), I would often wonder what more "advanced" mathematics (like my older brother and sister were taking) could be about. At a young age, I remember actually coming to the conclusion that you learn to add, subtract, and multiply, with really big numbers! I had no clue there could be so much more to it.
Maybe because of those early imaginings, some years ago I started playing around with a mathematical idea that's not dissimilar to doing basic operations with big numbers. (Maths are great for thinking about when you're drifting off to sleep, since they can consume your whole brain and there's no room for the troubles of the day.) I got pretty far with it, I think, and told a few people that I thought I discovered something, before coming to the conclusion that nah, it was all bunkum. Here's a social media post I had started composing to talk about it (never posted), right after I gave up on it:
It was years ago that I basically stopped thinking about the idea. But then recently, I saw a passing mention that p-adic numbers were numbers that go off infinitely to the left, and my ears pricked up. So I went off and watched this video and it immediately clicked. It really feels like I was close to (RE)discovering them! I was wrong in dismissing them as "just" infinite numbers, and I shouldn't have just given up. There were still a few places where I would have had to make a logical leap that I don't think I could have.Disclaimer: I’m not a mathematician, but I’ve been playing with some back-of-the-envelope sort of stuff (actually done mostly while lying in bed at night, drifting off to sleep) and have made a tiny bit of progress on some (I’m sure) unprofound mathematics that probably wouldn’t have been a challenge for most of you. But it’s been a lot of fun! So I thought I’d write it up here. And it all started with a misconception…
I began considering digit sequences where you know the low-order digits but not the high order digits -- for example, “...20445089241” is just some number that ends with those digits, but the “...” means that we don’t know how the number begins. The misconception was, I began to consider these numbers as infinite -- that is, the “...” goes on forever. So these numbers are all effectively infinity, but they just… end differently. Knowing the final digits was enough to give them different properties -- for instance, divisibility. For example, a number could be infinite but still may or may not be divisible by 5, depending on whether the last digit was a 0 or a 5.
(I’m sure you can all see the fallacy here, that any such infinite digit sequence is equal to any other, and there’s no divisibility difference between them, but pondering the possibility was enough to keep me going.)
So, treating them as a class of numbers, I began to ask the obvious next questions about operations and closures. Adding two such numbers is trivial -- e.g. “...1230734 + ...6534221 = ...7764955”. Subtracting two such numbers was doable, but not knowing which was “larger” meant it yielded two answers (A-B and -(B-A)). Multiplying was trickier, but I managed to figure out the algorithm for generating the result starting with the least significant digit. Division was a bit trickier still but I was still able to figure it out eventually (requiring an assumption that it divides evenly -- you don’t really know unless you know the higher order digits). From the division algorithm I devised a way to figure out the square root of one of these numbers (again starting from least significant digits).
Then I had the odd thought, since these numbers were infinite, but I could still apply math operations to them, then could I find a number A that is its own square root (i.e. A*A=A, excluding 0 and 1)? Turns out I could! For instance, “...141376 * ...141376 = ...141376”. This got me excited. But a later Google search revealed that I had just rediscovered automorphic numbers!
It wasn’t until I started trying to devise a way to convert these numbers into different bases that it fully dawned on me that my premise was flawed -- all these infinite numbers were equivalent and didn’t have any unique properties; they’re just different representations of the same thing. But all the methods for basic operations still work for finite numbers where you just don’t know the high-order digits of the number, so that’s pretty cool, to me at least. Thanks for reading!
2024 is drawing to a close, and good riddance. We lost my dad in February; my mom, a month later in March; and Marjorie's mom just three days after that. Needless to say we were in shock for a long while afterwards, but I wanted to include some things here for posterity.
John Philip Schnitzius passed away on February 10th, 2024 in Cocoa Beach, FL, just shy of his 87th birthday.John was born on 02/14/1937, the son of John Alphonse Schnitzius and Frances Rose (Szymanski), and grew up in Mount Ephraim, New Jersey. He acquired his associate degree from Temple University and his BS in Electrical Engineering from Drexel University. He met his life partner Loretta at the Dancette Ballroom in Oakland, NJ, and they were married on 02/24/1962. John worked as an electrical engineer for many years, for NCR, Harris Corporation, and NASA among others, living in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Florida before retiring in Cocoa Beach.John was an active boater and sailor for many years, and was a member of the Grumpy Ole Sailors and the East Coast Sailing Association. Whenever he wasn't on a camping trip with Loretta, he was planning his next trip. He loved adventure, fishing, hiking, camping and traveling. He was an amazing husband, father, grandfather, and great grandfather, and always had many friends, old and new. John has been described as wise and kind and humble, always willing to give advice or help with a lending hand.John was a eucharistic minister and longtime member of the Church of Our Savior in Cocoa Beach.He is survived by his wife, Loretta of nearly 62 years, his three children, Kevin Schnitzius and his wife, Kim, Danielle Schnitzius Norwood and her husband, Charlie, and Mark Schnitzius and his wife, Marjorie; his five grandchildren, Abi Schnitzius, Livia Schnitzius, Bryce Schnitzius, Chaeli Norwood Harden (Kevin), and Chase Norwood, and by his great grandson, Kix Harden. He is preceded in death by his parents, John and Frances, and by his sister, Clare, and brother-in-law, Bill Leap.Services will be held Friday, February 23rd at 10:30 a.m. at the Church of Our Saviour in Cocoa Beach. Burial will follow at 12:30 p.m. at Florida Memorial Gardens in Rockledge. In lieu of flowers his family asks that donations be made in John’s name to the Cancer Center of Merritt Island.
Dad was really into boats and fishing, which never really rubbed off on me. Even still, I have lots of great memories of family trips in the boat out on along the New Jersey coast. We also took a long driving trip down to Florida every year for quite a few years in a row. It was a happy childhood for me. He loved an adventure, which certainly *did* rub off on me, but only in retrospect do I think his main motivator was making his kids happy.Dad always, always had time for my questions, and I had a lot of questions. Sometimes when I only wanted a quick answer it became an hour of writing things out on graph paper or looking things up in the Encyclopedia Britannica. He taught me about math and chess and computers, and from him I credit that part of me that takes problems aside that initially seem to be a complete mystery and sit with them until I figure them out.Going into computers was an effortless career choice for me, and so it was no real coincidence we both ended up working at the same huge area employer of technical people of all sorts: Kennedy Space Center. We worked for different companies there, but we ended up working in the same building (among many) for a year, maybe two? On the father-son relationship timeline, this had to be a peak.He loved his music, but had no real ability, and I think deep down he would have loved it if one of us became a concert pianist. He loved a good joke, too, but had no real ability to tell one. He would sometimes try, then get to the punchline and say something like “Wait, I want to make sure I get this right. [pause] So, the *banker* says...”. And where a lot of people say they use profanity to blow off steam, my dad did it better than anybody -- he hardly ever swore, but sometimes he would mess something up, flash with anger shortly, saying "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh..." and end it with a quiet "shit" before breaking into laughter.When one of his early jobs wanted him to start clocking in and out, he refused, and quit. But later on he took on a few jobs that had him commuting some really long distances so us kids could stay in our same schools with our same friends. I remember him as anxious frequently during these times, but as the years went on he came to realise his kids were turning out happy and successful, and he seemed to relax a lot. He of course wasn’t happy when I moved away, then further away, then even further away, but us kids were always free to set our own course.Human lives can’t be summed up in a few paragraphs, so any obituary or eulogy is going to come up short. But I want to share a few little things that have come up in my memory this week that might give some glimpse into how *nice* of a man he was.One time my parents came to visit while we were living in Singapore, and while they were there we took a slightly nutty side trip into Malaysia. On the long bus ride back I sat a few rows behind my father, and sat fascinated as he chatted with the tour guide across the aisle. The guide was Malaysian, Muslim, and probably 30 years my dad’s junior, and having nothing in common and without artifice, my dad just kind of effortlessly befriended him, across the cultural gap, and they shook hands warmly and said goodbye at the end of the trip.Another time I came home for a visit, my dad mentioned to me how he had sold the old electric guitar we had in the attic at a garage sale, for like $5. It came to light that he had told the person who bought it that it worked; I told him though that it was actually broken. I started to make a joke about it, but then I saw how crestfallen he was – it wasn’t enough that he thought he was telling the truth at the time, it had to actually *be* the truth. And so we sat there a while brainstorming ways to get back in contact with the person.I could go on. But it’s inevitable that most of my personal memories of my dad will die with me, as the memories of his dad died with him. Every morning since his passing I’ve woken up to thought, wow, it’s really real, Dad is no longer in the world. I have a lot of friends who have known grief in their lives, some all too recently, who must know how this is. I just really, *really* would like to talk to him again, and not even about anything.
Loretta Eleanor Schnitzius passed away on March 12, 2024, in Cocoa Beach, FL, just a month after her husband John of 62 years.Loretta was born on October 28, 1937, the daughter of Felix Michael Thompson and Helen (Gąsior), and grew up in Camden, New Jersey. She met her life partner John at the Dancette Ballroom in Oaklyn, NJ, and they were married February 24, 1962.Loretta was an award-winning artist specializing in watercolor painting. She received recognition as the poster artist for the Space Coast Art Festival and received awards in numerous shows and exhibitions in and around Brevard County, New Jersey, and the Rehoboth, Lewes, and Cape Henlopen, Delaware area. She was active in the Florida Watercolor Society, the Brevard Arts Council, and numerous other artist groups and galleries. Her skills live on in the students she taught in classes down the years and inherently through her children and grandchildren.She was an active boater and sailor for many years, and was active with the Grumpy Ole Sailors and the East Coast Sailing Association with her husband, John. As a pair, they took numerous camping trips all around Florida, the United States, and internationally. Despite her desire to always run off and have the next adventure, she was the steadying influence in her household for her whole life. For many years she attended mass and was active in the church and organizations at Our Savior Catholic Church in Cocoa Beach, and was an amazing wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, and friend.She is survived by her three children, Kevin Schnitzius and his wife Kim, Danielle Schnitzius Norwood and her husband Charlie, and Mark Schnitzius and his wife Marjorie; her five grandchildren, Abi Schnitzius, Livia Schnitzius, Bryce Schnitzius, Chaeli Norwood Harden (Kevin), and Chase Norwood, and by her great grandson, Kix Harden. She is preceded in death by her husband, John Schnitzius, her parents, Felix and Helen, and by her brother, Tom Thompson.Services will be held graveside at 2pm on Tuesday, March 19th at Florida Memorial Gardens in Rockledge. In lieu of flowers her family asks that donations be made in Loretta’s name to the Cancer Center of Merritt Island.
And now, Mom. Just a month and two days after Dad. We're sad, but they would have chosen to go even closer together if they could.
I'll leave Marjorie to decide whether and what she wants to post here about her mother. I'm at least glad I got to be with her at the end, and to be there for Marjorie. Those were some awful days.
The snorkelling was the best we've experienced in Europe so far. I saw two eels, no other 'big ticket' animals, but plenty of fish and lots of varieties. The visibility was amazing, the water was clear at 30+feet, and the island off the shore (near Es Bruc- restaurant) was easy to circumnavigate and provided really excellent snorkelling conditions.
Es Bruc was the best restaurant in the area by far, but we didn't have any meals on this trip that I'd call 'gourmet'. If we go again we'll rent a car as well as there may have been better options a bit further afield.
On the whole I think Menorca was doing pretty well with Covid safety compliance. Most people were good about wearing their masks and we were mostly outside which made things feel much safer, but there were unavoidable covid stressors due to UK precautions before returning including a covid test (not fun, but understand the reasons) and a four page document to complete 2 days before returning. We did manage to let down our guards enough to book massages, which we've not done since covid and that was really nice.
Ultimately I'm glad we were able to go and glad to have had a week of real summer (and the suntans to show for it).
A year ago today the WHO declared Covid-19 a global pandemic, we had just returned from Belgium and planned to go to Florida the following week for Mark's nephew's wedding but our travel plans were cancelled (obviously). At the time it was exciting but abstract, the actual threat didn't seem real, and I suppose we thought it would be like our SARs experience in Singapore and that life would largely go on as usual, and it would all blow over in a few months.
Now, a year later I'm wondering if we'll every fully return to normal. We've been extremely fortunate throughout this, but it's still been hard. I'm so ready to get back into the world, but know it's likely to feel strange, and scary. I've had my first vaccination (Astra Zeneca) and have the 2nd scheduled for early April. Mark hasn't had his yet (hopefully he'll get a call this month), and we will feel much better 14 days post his first vaccination. I hope we'll be able to travel this summer! It's nice here, but it feels like a tease having the rest of Europe on our doorstep but not being able to go there.
We've taken lock-down very seriously and haven't gone anywhere in months (including grocery stores - deliveries and click and collect almost exclusively). I miss restaurants/pubs, but, I've definitely become a better cook this year. I was an okay cook pre-pandemic, but as we haven't even had take away in months I've become more adventurous and tried more laborious recipes that I would have previously not felt I had time for. Can't use that excuse now :^)! This month we're having a 'meat-free' March, if only to do something different. It's going well, and I don't think either of us have missed meat as much as we thought we would (but still 20 days to go). Vegan would be hard though, don't think we're ready to give up eggs or milk anytime soon.
In other news, I finish my current job in two weeks and start a new job in April. The new role is better paying and a permanent position, and hopefully a role I'll enjoy. It's taken 4 years to get back to a position and wage that feels more commiserate with my work experience - the real downside of having to start over again (at least partly) every time we move.
Hamish celebrated his ~11th birthday last Sunday. We spoiled him all week beforehand, making him better meals than usual (which is saying something because I cook for him anyway). On the actual day we took him on a long walk to Fen Ditton and gave him a lamb casserole dinner. He was smiley all day and seemed to be loving life.
The next day however, he was very, very unwell. I woke up before 5am to the noise of Mark escorting Hamish outside after he'd already vomited repeatedly in the house. I was initially worried he might have an abdominal blockage because he ate an entire beef rib on Saturday (it was thinly cut, but I would normally not allow him to have the whole thing in one sitting and he ate the thing in less than 3 minutes so couldn't have chewed it much). I made an emergency vet appt for him and he spent the next 36 hours at the vet having blood tests and x-rays to try to figure out what was making him so unwell. Luckily he didn't have a blockage, and didn't require surgery, but his liver enzymes were elevated, and he was clearly very unwell. Best guess is that he ate something that made him unwell (he eats random crap when we go out on walkies so who knows what it was). The whole situation was incredibly upsetting and I spent most of Monday ugly crying in between work calls.
He's home now and seems to be improving but he's still very picky about what he eats, which is not normal for our boy (he's a pig). The vet sent him home with sensitive stomach canned food, but he won't touch it so I've been making chicken rice for him. He's eating the chicken and keeping it down, which is reassuring. Day by day he seems to be improving and slowly getting back to his normal self.
Long way to say it's been a stressful week, but things seem to be mostly okay now.
We are trying to enjoy the holiday season in spite of the pandemic, and are doing well enough. Our neighbours have definitely put up more Christmas lights/decorations this year which makes evening walkies more enjoyable. There are a few areas that are almost up to American levels of festive.
And like every year, I've made another xmas music mix to share: 2020 Xmas mix
We're eating well too. No reason not to make multiple festive meals so we're having another turkey dinner this weekend and will do more baking. It's amazing we haven't gained weight but fast days are working for me, and Mark seems to get away with just running every once in a while. Hamish eats well too, but also gets 3 walks a day on average at the moment so.....
Nothing exciting to report. We're fine, but bored. Vaccines coming and we intend to shelter until we have it. It would be foolish to risk catching the virus now.
I forgot my password (and login) a long while back and then just didn't have any real interest in blogging. It now seems more and more necessary to quit facebook though, so I've spent the last 10 days in a security spiral with Google trying to get this account reopened as it was linked to my Australian (now defunct) phone number.
Nothing much to blog about though - other than dystopian elections and pandemics. The UK is about to go back into a second national lockdown starting this Thursday. Hopefully there will be good news from the US by then. I fear for the world if the fascist is re-elected.
