Adventures with Dr. Lady Cutie Troublemaker

Lots to do today, but I thought I might pop in to share a really great experience I’ve been having the last few weeks. I sing in the North Carolina Master Chorale. There is a chamber choir, too, but there are no auditions. It’s an invite-only situation. Recently, one of the sopranos in that group had to have surgery, so our director, Al, invited me to join them in their performances of two pieces for Easter. Here’s a description of them:

The NCMC Chamber Choir, joined by instrumental chamber ensemble, presents a pairing of two stirring works by living composers: locally-based composer J. Mark Scearce and Scottish composer James MacMillan. Scearce’s spiritual cantata for chorus, chamber orchestra and five soloists is an uplifting, life-affirming powerhouse with texts drawn from the Bible, Schopenhauer and Chief Seattle. MacMillan’s arresting and completely original setting of the Seven Last Words has been called inspired and stunning. A glorious and compelling program for Passiontide.

Now if you know me, you know I’m not a religious woman. To me, Easter is generally about making sure I get my hands on some Cadbury Mini Eggs (actually haven’t had any this year!). But I’ve always loved sacred choral music. People are inspired by their beliefs, and that inspires me. I’m more inspired by the sounds and the emotion and the raw beauty than by the details of the stories behind them – I’ve always been that way, for whatever reason. When it comes to words and language, I’ve always been very interested in how they sound more than what they mean. I’ve always felt like that was maybe a bad thing, but anyway, that’s how it has always been for me. If I’m truly inspired by the way something sounds, only THEN do I maybe start listening to the lyrics for their content. Anyway, I digress. When Al asked me to do this concert, he provided me with a recording, and after hearing it, I knew I was IN. No question. The MacMillan is a stunner of a piece, and I knew that I had to be a part of it.

We did these performances on Friday and Saturday nights. The real performance was Saturday, but we did the MacMillan only Friday night in the sanctuary of the church where we rehearse. It’s a lovely space, and our Friday performance was part of a service, rather than a concert.

There was a speaker (who I did not hear), then an organ prelude, then we sang the piece, which includes 7 movements, each corresponding to the seven words of Jesus on the cross. Before each movement, there was a reading related to each thing Jesus said. At the end of the piece, there is a long, drawn out section where we don’t sing, and the orchestra plays. It’s clearly the last breaths of Jesus dying. During this part, the lights in the sanctuary were dimmed, and when it ended, the lights went out completely. There was no applause, and the audience was encouraged to stay and pray or reflect and leave as they were ready.

Jake and Lalitree came for this Friday performance, and I’m so glad they did. They are story and words people. After the performance was over, and I met them out front, I learned so much more about what I had just performed. It really is a little embarrassing how I can overlook such a dramatic story, but (and I know this sounds odd) I knew the emotions. I knew they were desperate and solemn. And I was overcome by the beauty of the piece each time we rehearsed it.

The Saturday concert was really satisfying, too. We got a big standing O at the end of each piece, and I saw familiar faces in the audience: Lenore (a Twitter friend), Stan (from Flickr), and several other people who sing in the regular Master Chorale. I was happy to share that with them, and they seemed happy to be there. Mark Scearce was there for the performance of his piece, and he could not have been happier with how it went. It’s wonderful to see a composer responding to his “baby” like that.

I will admit that I have been guilty of some boredom in choir lately. I was spoiled singing in the Atlanta Symphony Chorus with Robert Shaw for all those years, because it doesn’t get much better than that. In the regular choir, people are slower to learn music, and I get impatient. It makes going something I sometimes avoid, because I know I will be restless and have trouble remaining focused. The challenge just isn’t always enough to keep me occupied. But this really shook things up for me. It was a treat performing with such good musicians and really bringing a piece ALL THE WAY to fruition. I really hope Al asks me to do more concerts with them.

We got a little stipend for our participation, and I’m happy to report that it was enough to cover the cost of my little black dress! I can’t TELL you how thrilled I was to hear that I would not have to wear my standard issue choir outfit. 😀

I really did try to get the Blackberry problems sorted out, but in the end, the not getting service in my office thing was a BIG problem. I learned from the receptionists that noone was able to get Verizon service of any kind inside the office. They’d actually lost contracts because of it. And so once I realized I’d have to switch carriers, I knew I would have to cave and get an iPhone. Yep, I followed the herd. I have so many friends around with them that I knew it wasn’t a stupid herd move, and that I would likely be pretty happy changing over. I’ve had the thing about 2-3 weeks now, and I really love it. Lots of fun to be had, AND when I schedule appointments while sitting in my office, they sync correctly. Hooray!

So along those lines, I was out shooting with friends (pictures, not guns – of course), and Lalitree was messing around with her Tumblr iPhone app. I had tried it briefly but for whatever reason, wasn’t that all impressed. I re-added it yesterday and now can’t imagine was was not to like. It is perfect for both reading on the go and posting on the go. So easy, in fact, that I’m expecting I’ll be posting there a LOT. So if you aren’t following my Tumblr blog, might wanna add it to the feeds… or perhaps conversely, REMOVE it from your feeds if you would like less Abby content (yes, that is often the case, as I believe I have proven time and time again that I generate WAY more content online than anyone should have to deal with!).

I love Facebook. I know a lot of people who don’t. One obvious reason for this is that I LOVE connecting with people I knew long ago. I think it’s fascinating. Also, I love connecting people I know to other people I know. I’m a connection-gal. If you know me, you know that’s true. The OTHER reason I believe that I love Facebook much more than other people is my quick tendency to click BLOCK APPLICATION whenever I see a new invite for yet another application. My friend Patrick posted a list of all the applications he’s blocked. I did the same thing and was amazed to find that I have blocked 200 applications! Here they are:

Northwest Trail, Pirates, Ninja Academy, Who Would Win, The Ultimate Battle: Pirates vs. Ninjas, How Many Ninjas Could You Take in a Fight?, Pirates vs. Ninjas, Zombies, Are YOU Interested?, Lexulous , SuperPoke!, Friends For Sale!, Hug Me, HOT or NOT, You’re a Hottie, Honesty Box, Vampires, Hot, Hatching Eggs, Best Friends, Parking Wars, Funnest Person Contest, What does your birth date mean?, Jetman, SpeedDate, Romantic Greetings, Birthday Calendar, Send Good Karma, Send Cupcakes, Verbal IQ Test, My Heroes Ability, What Musical Instrument Should You Play?, What Flower Are You?, Likeness UNRATED, Mesmo TV, What Greek god are you?, Are You Normal?, What Kind of Drunk Are You?, What’s Your Stripper Name?, Discover the color of your aura, Custom Cartoon Personality, Scramble, (Lil) Green Patch, What’s Your Dream Engagement Ring?, There/Their/They’re Test, What Musical Instrument are you? (best version!), SpeedDate, Blackjack, What Greek God are you, Hugs, Most Creative People, Slide FunSpace, Pet Pupz, My Garden, Sparkey, How Many Strippers Could You Take in a Fight?, Hot Men, U.S. Citizen Test, Which bollywood actress are you?, Which Jane Austen Heroine Are You?, Who’s Your 80s Hunk?, Coolest Person Contest, What kind of person should you be with?, What Musical Are You?, Which 1950’s Pin-Up Girl are you?, Your Birthday, We Love the 80’s, Super Wall, Movies, Optical Illusions Challenge, Got Love?, Pets, What Kind of Poop Are You?, Who Has The Biggest Brain?, Are You Bangable?, LivingSocial: Beer, Click to Give – The Hunger Site App, Which Sondheim Musical Are You?, Typing Speed, Which 80s movie defines you?, Are You Intelligent?, LivingSocial: Albums, What song are you?, Dr. Phil’s Personality Test, Your American Accent, Top Friends, What is Your Kama Sutra Position?, Wack-a-Billary, Shots and Drinks!, Twirl, which opera are you, Which movie star are you?, My House, StumbleUpon, Send Starbucks, Hug Me, Poke Me, Best Looking Person Contest, Office Poke!, Which singer are you?, Dirty Harry, Kindest Person Contest, WereWolves, What’s your Actual Age?, Mob Wars, What German philosopher are you?, Most Eligible Singles, Zoosk, Brain Battle!, Flower Power!, Send Krispy Kreme, Birthday Cards, Earthkeepers, Challenge Sudoku, Likeness, Owned!, Send Prosperity, Hug Me, SpeedDate, Webkinz, Childhood Memories of the 80’s, Dianne’s Nature Goddess Photos, PackRat, Send Muppets, The Brain Game, Click a Day for Breast Cancer, Pink Ribbon, Winnie the Pooh, Visual Bookshelf, Causes, Six Degrees, Magnetic Words, Stuff White People Like, Dogbook, How weird are you?, Karate Monkeys, Cutest Friends, Send Jewellery!, 70s and 80s toys and gifts, Cute Catz, Martinis, Tree-Nation, Re-Green Greensburg, Pet Society, Catbook, Poke Pro, Which Peanuts/Snoopy Character Are You?, Happy Hour!, Rock the Vote Online Precinct, Locations 2.0, LinkedIn Contacts, Digsby Widget, Valentine’s Gifts, MyBO , Kidnap!, MyCalendar, Nicest Person Contest, Oberlin Gifts (90s), Willy’s Sweet Shop, iSmile, NetworkedBlogs, Knighthood, Which 60’s Band are you?, The Pink Ribbon, African Safari, Pass a Drink, MyCalendar, Atlanta Falcons Fans, (Lil) Blue Cove, Love Cheers, Snowball Fight!, What were you born to do?, Covered Dishes from the Fellowship Hall, Punk Rock Singles, Friendship Day Wishes, Ghetto Snacks, Countdown Calendar, Throw This Shoe at Bush, Are you a good lover?, Happy Obama Day!, Who’s the Coolest Cat?, 80’s Nostalgia, Pass a Drink, What Mythical Creature Are You?, What Led Zeppelin song are you?, Toast, smiley’s, Give Southern Stuff, Mardi Gras, My Girls, You’re Sexy, Characteristics, What’s Your iCue?, Glad We’re Friends, Soul Food, Who Sang That 80’s Song?, Analog Synths, Totally 80’s Fashion Gifts, Voted! (Talented), Voted! (Smart)

If you want to do this and see how many applications you’ve blocked, here are the instructions:

Go to SETTINGS | PRIVACY SETTINGS | APPLICATIONS | SETTINGS. Scroll down to see all Blocked Applications. If your list is short, you probably hate Facebook, unless you have LOTS of free time and are wildly interested in silly games.

My delightfully hack-o-rific boyfriend has done something fairly remarkable in the past week. (Cut to his hack if you don’t feel like being bored by the back story!) It all began when I purchased a Dell Mini 9 laptop/netbook. I have a rule: when I get paid for photography, I get to buy a new lens, or something that helps me to make more money, but it can be fun, too. Well, I got another photography job, and I was thinking about lenses I could buy, but the truth is that I’m pretty happy with the lenses I have right now. There aren’t many limitations I’m finding I have, and honestly, the more lenses one owns, the more stress there is about deciding which lens to have when I walk out the door. When it all comes down to it, I have the 50mm, f/1.8 planted on the front of my camera 90% of the time. That way, I can just throw the sucker in my purse, and I’m a happy camper.

Anyway, I started thinking about what fun gadgety thing I could get that would help me be more productive as a psychologist, and quickly came up with the idea of getting a little netbook, one that could bring around with me that was NOT a place where I could edit pictures. Basically, a machine for report writing, checking email, and that’s about it. After a little research, and after learning that Dell Mini 9’s were about to go on sale at Best Buy, my choice was clear.

Well, I got this little sucker, and it’s EXCELLENT! It fits right into my regular purse. I have it running Windows XP with only a few little programs installed:

• MS Word and MS Excel
• Chrome, Firefox Portable, and Safari 4 Beta (I’m at a crossroads browser-wise these days)
• CCleaner (my very favorite security program)
• Foxit PDF Reader
• Lightscreen Portable
• WinDirStat Portable (for making sure I’m wasting NO space on my tiny 8GB hard drive)
• Pidgin Portable for IMing (hey, I’m not a saint!)
• CoolPlayer+ Portable (for listening to tunes)
• Picasa (for viewing, and now when I’m out, if I just HAVE to post a picture, I can)

Portable Apps

There’s a really nice SD card slot, which is great for sucking in pictures, and I found a $30 16GB Kingston card which I keep crammed in there most of the time. A few of the portables are there, plus I will eventually add a little more music and such.

I signed up for a Dropbox account, which is REALLY nice. I just drop stuff into “My Dropbox” and it automatically syncs with the server, so sharing files I’m working on between computers is a no brainer. I’m a happy camper, and I think it’s one of the best $300 I’ve ever spent.

So back to the delightfully hack-o-rific boyfriend… Multiple people saw that I’d gotten this thing and started sending me links to this Hackintosh article. Jake is a tech guy. This article had him drooling. He started getting MUCH more interested in my little Dell Mini 9 very quickly. He was so excited about it that by around Wednesday, I had offered to give him my Mini for the day on Saturday so he could try some hacking. And by around Thursday, he’d ordered his own netbook. It’s a Lenovo S10 – similar to mine, but with a different kind of hard drive with 160GB. His plan was to get a netbook as his primary laptop. Right now, he’s using his IBM-issued ThinkPad. With his own laptop, he could leave his work machine at work all the time.

On Saturday, Jake set up the Mac OSX on an extrernal hard drive and was running it on my Mini. Very neat. On Monday, he was out driving around in the snow to try and get his paws on his new netbook. Sadly, it was already out on the truck. But yesterday evening, he got that sucker, and he’s been a bit distracted ever since.

Check out his handiwork. You’ll be impressed:
Mac OSX on Lenovo S10 and Dell Mini 9

Now stop right there. Please do not tell me to get an iPhone. I’ve actually looked into it, and I can’t afford that right now. So just move along if you’re here to tell me all about how the iPhone is better. I have some real tech problems that are kinda driving me crazy that I’d like to fix. So please, if you have some answers, share them. 😀

Problem #1: My office is in a dead zone. My BB gets service most anywhere, EXCEPT for my office. And whenever I go into my office, I can’t even make phone calls. And when I leave my office, my BB can’t find service again, like EVER. That is, unless I do a full restart, taking out the battery in the back and everything. Ugh. What a pain.

Problem #2: I lost a little spring in the back. It’s annoying. I don’t think it can be replaced since this is a disposable culture. I’m sorry, but I don’t have hundreds of dollars to replace the whole BB when it’s just a spring that’s gone.

Problem #3: In order to use Opera Mini (the best BB browser), I need to have the firewall turned off, or I’m faced with a nag every single time. That was no problem until I installed the YouMail app (which I love). Only problem is that for that app, I have to have the firewall turned ON or I get TWO nags every time I open up the program. What?!!

Problem #4: For some reason, every picture I’ve attempted to mail in the last week has failed. I wasn’t warned or anything. Just didn’t work. Why? I don’t get it. I find this really annoying. I haven’t changed any passwords or anything.

Problem #5: GooSync isn’t working consistently. Every now again (not every time), when I add an event to my BB calendar, it doesn’t sync up with my Google calendar. This is why, last week, when I was STARVING and really ready to go home, a patient showed up for a 2 hour appointment. I looked at Google calendar: Nothing. Looked at my Blackberry. There it was. Not acceptable! And I can’t figure out why that event is any different from any other events.

Problem #6: Some programs drain the battery. I know what some of these are: Google Maps (with GPS turned on) and the Chronograph (stopwatch) are the worst offenders. I’d like to have something similar to Windows Task Manager that would tell me what didn’t get turned off correctly so I can work out what is draining the battery. I don’t mind things running in the background, but if they are battery drainers, I sure wish they would exit out whenever I moved to another program.

OK, all done. Any advice you have is most appreciated. I do love copy-paste. I do love the full QWERTY keyboard. And there are many other things I do like, but these annoyances are becoming “LOUD” (if you know what I mean). They are starting to mess with my bliss, and that ain’t OK.