Dispatches from Maine

Tours of the Portland Masonic Temple

2008-12-08T06:45:00.000-05:00

The Masonic Temple in Portland, Maine has been put up for sale. As a Past Master of Triangle Lodge No. 1, housed in this beautiful temple, I too am sad to see this day come. Unfortunately, the building is simply too expensive for our lowered membership numbers to maintain. The building is owned by the Masonic Trustees of Portland and its head, also the current Master of Triangle Lodge, loves the building perhaps more than anyone else in the State of Maine. He has arranged for an open house on Saturday, December 13th. The facility will be opened to the public from 10am to 2pm with tours of all of its historic halls. At some future day all of this grandeur will be lost to history, so take this opportunity to see what is inside this mysterious and beautiful building. Here is a preview: commercial.

Christmas Season

2008-12-06T18:01:00.001-05:00

Today we bought our Christmas tree from the South Portland Rotary. Normally, Tandy and the girls pick out the tree and my function is little more than holder, turner and lifter. I heard this described in Oklahoma once as, "A strong back and a weak mind." This year, however, it was I who found the perfect tree. The family was in agreement and now it sits warming in its stand in the living room. While I have never been a big Christmas guy, I do love how the tree makes the house smell.

MobileMe Calendaring

2008-09-01T22:24:00.001-04:00

Being forced to use Exchange for both my work and personal calendars has gotten on my last nerve. I am trying out Apple's MobileMe service in the hopes that I can have two push calendars at the same time. There has been little in the way of luck so far. I created two calendars with one event each, but neither has successully pushed yet...

On the other hand I just upgraded the-company-who-cannot-be-named to AccuRev 4.7.0 with minimal hassles. Some of the new features are awesome!! I will write about that tomorrow.

A New Season Begins

2008-08-31T22:59:00.002-04:00

After a short break from the hectic schedule of a District Officer, the 17th is waking up with a bang! Before the first September event has even occurred I am already scheduled for ten evenings. Pretty wild for there being only twenty-two weeknights available. It is great to see the lodges with so much activity, to many candidates is a good thing. I am more than a little worried about my potential for burnout this year.

I did manage to read a lot of great books over the summer: Committed to the Flames by Morris and de Hoyos, William Preston by Dyer, Freemasonry: Secrets, Symbols, Significance by MacNulty, Knights Templar of the Middle East by Prince Michael, The Magus of Freemasonry by Churton, and a ton of reference materials for my paper and the MEALS Committee. Hopefully, this will provide materials for me to use during my brief Masonic education talks.

Breaking the Law

2008-07-04T06:49:00.001-04:00

While I have never written a real book review, I have certainly given talks about books and recommend many of them. I know the old aphorism, "Never judge a book by its cover." Added to this appears to be an common law to never review or recommend a book from its first quarter. The true value of a text is ascertained during its great middle and completing finish.

This is a law which I feel compelled to break. Work is terribly busy right now, so I have to work on this flight, but my take-off and landing book is "The Magus of Freemasonry" written by Tobias Churton. I have mentioned this author a number of times in my blog, since he impressed me with his book "The Golden Builders: Alchemists, Rosicrucians, First Freemasons." While at Borders last year I purchased Magus and sat it on my reading queue. What a shame...

The work is a biography of Elias Ashmole, the first man to record his own becoming an Accepted Mason, called today a speculative Freemason. The distinction between so-called "Free" and "Accepted" Masons makes for a pointless inter-jurisdictional debate today, but it meant a great deal during the 17th and 18th centuries. Bro. Ashmole was a famous man in his day as a founding member of the Royal Society, antiquarian and general lover of history, science and alchemy.

At this moment I am in the air over Massachusetts having read about 10% of the book while on the runway and through takeoff. Though I have hundreds of pages yet to read I must strongly recommend this work to all Masons interested in a search for knowledge and understanding of our real 17th and 18th century history. To the general reader, I offer this quotation from the book which, like the stone itself, fell on me and is still blossoming in my brain:

[Ashmole] inhabited a world where science and magick were still handmaidens to religion and philosophy. He was one of the last men of learning to enjoy that world before the family broke up. All too soon, science would leave home to plow her own furrow independently and at times in contempt of her troubled parents. Nevertheless, Ashmole was a founding member o the Royal Society - a harbinger of that fateful parting - and was himself unconcerned with theological disputes. The philosophy he espoused stood above them; and so did he.

If I were wiser and more skilled with words, I might be able to explain the powerful picture those words create in my head. Imagine the history of the Enlightenment period and the eventually antagonistic relationship between science and religion as a painting illuminated by fluorescent lighting. With these few sentences, Churton turns off the lights and opens a window allowing the work to be illuminated by pure sunlight. A new depth and character appears in the work, which was never noticed before.

All this on page two! If the rest of the book is even half this quality, then we should all own a copy of it.

Why Pay More?

2008-07-04T05:42:00.002-04:00

I wanted to write about this earlier, but I wanted to avoid encouraging other bidders. Last week I engaged in a bidding war for a copy of the 1948 cipher, "The Correct Work for Maine." The question is, why would I be willing to pay significantly for a copy of that particular ritual?

Can any of our Maine ritualists answer that question?

The Wind Between the Atoms

2008-07-04T05:40:00.002-04:00

Hard to imagine being mentioned in a print article in the Scottish Rite Journal. Thanks very much, Bro. Tresner for the reference in "The Wind Between the Atoms"

“Just another person of little note writing about ordinary things,” says the cutline at the top of the blog Dispatches from Maine, http://lily.org/blog. It is the blog of Christian Ratliff, 32°, “a thirtyish software developer living and working in [Portland] Maine.” Brother Ratliff is over-modest. His site contains some excellent writing, especially including material on Freemasonry and the Church of Rome.

First Inspection

2008-06-25T07:17:00.002-04:00

Here in Maine, the District Education Representative is the right-hand man of the District Deputy Grand Master. I am very fortunate to be working with R.W. Bro. Walter Lamb, who is a big teddy bear and an all around good guy. It is his primary task to examine the records, financials and ritual of ever lodge under his care once per year. This event is a called the "Annual Inspection and Visitation" in our jurisdiction. The Secretary and Treasurer, unless they are new, generally do not sweat the experience at all, but the Master and his officers, whose ritual is being carefully examined, could loose a few pounds due to stress in that one evening.

We attended in the Inspection of R.W. Bro. Lamb's Mother Lodge, Presumpscot Lodge in Windham, this past Monday night. There was a great turnout to see his first Inspection and the two candidates were very attentive. I have little doubt they learned a great deal about the nature of our institution during their Fellow Craft Degree. Perhaps it is a sign of the economic times, but there was a well needed gift to our new District Deputy Grand Master. A Past DDGM, R.W. Bro. Jake Caldwell, remarked that lodges had been cooking a lot of spaghetti of late and poor Bro. Lamb's tuxedo shirt had been taking a lot of pink gunfire from the sauce. To help him endure the saucey onslaught Bro. Caldwell and his wife Judy presented Bro. Lamb a full size cloth bib with flags on the front and the square and compasses on the back. It reminds me why I often wear street clothes to dinner and change into suit or tuxedo before lodge!

This is going to be a great two years!

A Contribution to Maine

2008-06-24T06:50:00.002-04:00

Working on the Masonic Education and Lodge Services Committee (MEALS) is simultaneously heavy work and a great pleasure. Rarely are we given an opportunity to marshal all so much information in so useful a pursuit. Over the last few months we have been reviewing and updating the "Instructor's Manual." This monumental collection of documents aim to help candidate coaches prepare themselves with suggestions for topics, interpretations of the ritual, and background on our Order and the degrees themselves.

For the most part this task is one of consultation and criticism, only rarely are we able to put something new into the texts. While reviewing the Fellow Craft Instructors Manual I finally had the chance to contribute a bit of new material, which was a real pleasure. As we worked through this document, it was apparent that there was insufficient detail about the symbolism of the "ancient and original Orders in Architecture." The previous paragraph discusses the first three steps in the "flight of winding stairs" and then briefly mentions the Orders in Architecture without additional information. I composed the following additional paragraph, which was accepted by the committee:

There is a hidden message in the first eight steps of the Fellow Craft Degree. Reflecting life around us, our knowledge of the Craft builds upon itself. The first three steps remind us of the three principal officers, which we were taught in the Entered Apprentice Degree represent wisdom, strength, and beauty. The “ancient original orders in architecture” also represent these same three principles. The Ionic column depicts an opened scroll, the very source of learning for the ancients, and represents wisdom. The Doric column is simple and sturdy and thereby demonstrates the essentials of strength. Finally, the Corinthian column is enriched with intricate floral designs on its capital, showing to the entire world its great craftsmanship and beauty. The principal officers, and King Solomon, King Hiram and Hiram Abif, whom they represent, are always depicted with these columns to cement our understanding of these ideas and encourage their application to our lives.

Role Changes

2008-06-23T07:07:00.001-04:00

Since my last posting I have had a number of new responsibilities added to my Masonic plate. At the Annual Communication in May our Grand Master, M.W. Bro. Robert Landry, appointed me to the position of District Education Representative (DER) for the 17th Masonic District. The 17th is a Cumberland County region consisting of the lodges in Portland, South Portland, Westbrook, Scarborough, Gorham, Yarmouth and Standish. I have never been particularly interested in joining the purple aprons, so named for the color of a Grand Lodge apron, but the job is a genuinely interesting one.

The DER is responsible for assisting with Masonic education in his District. This includes organizing and hosting the Assistant Grand Lecturer with his School of Instruction, giving education presentations to the lodges, and coordinating other speakers. During the past few months, I have offered since my last posting I have had a number of new responsibilities added to my Masonic plate. At the Annual Communication in May our Grand Master, M.W. Bro. Robert Landry, appointed me to the position of District Education Representative (DER) for the 17th Masonic District. The 17th is a Cumberland County region consisting of the lodges in Portland, South Portland, Westbrook, Scarborough, Gorham, Yarmouth and Standish. I have never been particularly interested in joining the purple aprons, so named for the color of a Grand Lodge apron, but the job is a genuinely interesting one.

Another appointment given to me by M.W. Bro. Landry is as a member of the MEALS Committee, where MEALS is an acronym for Masonic Education And Lodge Services. Is responsible for managing the DERs and providing materials to the lodges to help them with administration and education. The committee is presently reviewing our "Candidate Instruction Manual," which gives candidate mentors educational ideas for each of the three degrees. Since the manual includes references to Masonic history and ritual development, the review is taking me the better of eight hours for each section. At our last meeting we spent over two hours just reviewing and approving revisions to the Fellow Craft Degree manual. The experience has been educational as I am constantly forced to pry references from my head to back up, or undermine, assertions made in the manual.

I hope, over the next two years, to be able to give Masonic Light back to my District after all it has given to me.

ACCU, Day Two

2008-04-03T05:56:00.000-04:00

The intellectual feast begins today! The keynote, by Tom Gilb, earned a pretty ruthless reception by the audience, particularly when he referred to there being no resources for guiding large projects with Agile. He indicated a book would be forthcoming, meanwhile the woman two rows in front of me rose to say the book had already been out for four years. She wrote it! The general level of hostility rose over time to be sure.

After the keynote I went to the session "Santa Claus and other methodologies" by Gail Ollis. The focus here was to explain how to evaluate and select methodologies. There was a particular focus on detecting flaws and salesmanship in methodology training. I wonder if part of the problem of software development is that we are still having trouble refining working processes, rather we always tear down the temple and rebuild it anew. I am guilt of that myself, but as we focus more on refactoring and less on rewriting from scratch shouldn't we apply those principles to our methodology development? The session was rock solid and worth attending.

Having being lakosed the night before I went back to my room for a nap, but wound up talking to the family instead. iChat, with its built in video conferencing is just wonderful! Better rested, though hungry from having skipped lunch, I returned to the conference for the remaining two sessions.

"Snowflakes and Architecture" by Steve Love was quite interesting on two levels. First, I realized that we are not as well educated in the language and practices of modern software design as we ought to be. There is still a lot of resistance to interface based programming, a style which results from the dependency inversion principle, except as it applies directly to COM. I have often wondered if the aversion to interface-based programming is a classic baby-and-the-bath-water reaction. Since COM was both inflexible and slow it may well have ultimately bred resistance the very core of its programming model. The wrap-up of the presentation was a description of the "hexagonal architecture", now commonly called the ports and adapters design. All in all a very engaging and interesting presentation.

The final session paid for the entire trip, insomuch as I am concerned, it was "Error Handling and Diagnosability" by Tony Barrett-Powell. He is a maintenance developer with Oracle responsible for a particularly gnarly multi-threaded service. Handling, reporting and analyzing errors is, as he says, "Really, really important to me" or "I am really serious about this." The Play State object is particularly interesting for for tracing the progress of database transactions and then reporting detailed diagnostic information, when used in conjunction with dynamic logging levels, the value to *******, where I work, is particularly valuable. Since we sell a very database-intensive application which works with user data, the part we rarely have access to, the information provided to tech support and/or development would be invaluable. He also made reference to "Patterns for Generation, Handling and Management of Errors" (PDF and More ... PDF) which I fully intend to search out and read.

As Steve and I were both exhausted from our lakosing the previous day, we snuck off to The Plough, a pub around the corner from the hotel, for a quiet dinner.

(Pictures soon on Flickr)

ACCU, Day One

2008-04-03T02:55:00.001-04:00

Finally the conference was due to begin! Steve and I were conducted to the Oxford Paramount in time for registration and our first sessions. I had signed up for Tom Gilb’s “Evo” seminar. We, at *******, used Evo several years ago for a number of projects. While it did a good job managing the detail level, it generally fell down for long term project management. For instance, with Evo we were never able to answer: How is the project against its total schedule? There were also defects in the small software application used to store the task, or time box, level estimations. There were a number of great ideas we took from Evo, however, including choosing a lower available effort level for a developer. Our Evo tutor, Niels Malotaux, encouraged us to limit “effort hours” available per week to twenty six.

While this seminar did provide some very useful insights, Gilb was too self-aggrandizing and too negative about other methodologies. I did like his shift away from the old Evo time boxes, six hours per task as we were taught, and toward “front room” and “back room” development. More than that the idea of establishing measurable, stakeholder-focused benchmarks in conjunction with requirements development. In our case, at *******, we could apply this concept to record the time of several common GIS edit operations and then set a goal for improvement by the next release of the software. A particularly time consuming task in **** is copy-and-paste from one layer to another. We are able to measure the time it takes to transfer a collection of objects from layer A to layer B for our internal customer, then set a goal for improvement. This type of operation is extremely frequent and would have immediate value for both internal and external customers.

After the seminar I changed into my suit and made for The Alfred Lodge on Banbury Road. The Oxford Masonic Centre is a very large facility with multiple lodge rooms along with conference rooms and dining halls. The large hall was quite beautiful with several pieces of 19th century furniture including the painted stands used by the Master and Wardens (pictures soon to be on Flickr). The Junior Warden, assisted by another Brother, examined me that I might proved myself as a Freemason. Afterward we made for the in house pub where I had a soda, since I wanted to pay attention to every detail of the ritual, and was treated as a long lost Brother. The ritual that evening was a double Entered Apprentice Degree which was sufficiently distinct from the American version as to be only mildly recognizable. The concepts are still almost the same, but the language is completely distinct. Unfortunately, there was not enough time for the lecture expanding on the symbolism of the tracing board.

Following the degree work we adjourned to the dining hall for the Festive Board. I have enjoyed this dinner, similar in Maine to our Table Lodge. The most moving and engaging part of the Festive Board was the chain and Entered Apprentice’s song. The song itself can be found in Anderson’s Constitutions of 1723, but the ritual really added a great deal to the moment. I reminded the new initiates, as well as all of the brethren, of our obligation to reach out and assist our brothers. I was allowed the honor of giving the response from the visitors.

My experience at The Alfred Lodge reminds me of the simple power and beauty of the Craft. No matter where you go in the world, you are not without friends. I hope to be able to share the chain ritual and song with my own Grand Lodge, perhaps encouraging them to renew this ancient practice.

After lodge I went back to the hotel and shared a birthday pint with Steve. Unfortunately, it was not “soon to bed” as I was soon lakosed.

England, Day Four

2008-03-30T13:27:00.000-04:00

Yesterday we left behind London and made our way to Witney to stay with Steve's family. As always the company and the food is delightful. For a late dinner yesterday we had a kind of shepherd's pie with spinach and seafood as a filling along with a delicious white Bordeaux. I ordinarily do not like white wine, but this was quite dry and very good.

In the morning I was on my own, so I made immediately for Oxford. There are no words to adequately describe Oxford. As an American I recognize that even our oldest history is quite young, barely four hundred years at the maximum. In Oxford there are pubs that old and all but a few of the college buildings are far older still. I went first to Blackwells bookshop, spending more than two hours purusing their second hand books collection. Last year I had the good fortune to find a copy of "Emulation: A Ritual to Remember" by Colin Dyer. This time, however, though there was only one Masonic title, there were several excellent Russian and Soviet history books. A bonanza for Tandy as it were.

I went right next door to the White Horse and had a ploughman's platter for lunch. Is there any better feeling than sitting in a small English pub reading a book by Dyer, his biography of William Preston? I doubt it. After a delicious lunch, and pint of bitter, I toured the Ashmolean Museum of Science and the Bodleian Library's Milton exhibit. The Milton exhibit rekindled my interest in his and Blake's work. The artistic elements, drawings, woodcuts and typefaces, were all out of the Art Deco and Arts and Crafts period. Very beautiful.

Having spent six hours touring museums and exhibits, Steve was due to meet me in town. I went over to the Kings Arms, very near the Bodlean, and had a pint of fine Cornish Bitter while waiting for him to arrive. Soon enough a huge table of American students appeared and it was momentarily hard to determine which country I was in. I read a bit more of the wonderful Dyer book on Preston, what an interesting man Preston was. I had long held the impression that Preston's dispute regarding the powers of immemorial lodges was based on some important, concrete topic (see Wikipedia), but it turned out to be a somewhat more personal dispute where, perhaps, he made the wrong decision and refused to own up to it. He took the 'passage to Ethiopia' as it were in Masonic terms.

Steve arrived in the midst of my reading about this controversy. Hungry as I could be we went to The Bear for fish and chips, delicious, and then to a few more pubs. We wound up at a pub called "The Cricketer's Arms" in Oxford. A large gray cat wandered in and went up to the patrons looking for a scratch behind the ear. We enjoyed out hand-drawn Old Speckled Hen and relaxed for the remainder of the evening. Then in the words of Pepys: so to bed.

(pictures are at Flickr)

England, Day Six

2008-03-30T11:11:00.000-04:00

Steve's parents were eager to show me a quaint English country village, which is how Witney appears to my eyes, so first thing today we were off to Burford. The village was truly beautiful as we sat around having tea at beside the stream running through the village.

Geocache

Nick-nacks museum

lunch of roast beef and yorkshire pudding

England, Day Five

2008-03-30T11:05:00.000-04:00

The goal for today was to spend a few hours at the Ashmolean Museum. When I came to England last year the entire museum was closed for repairs and upgrading, so I never had the chance to tour the collection. I rose fairly early, just after seven thirty in the morning, and was due at Steve's parents for breakfast. Suddenly my problems resolved and I had access to work email. After more than an hour reading and responding to email, I suddenly realized it was Saturday. No one would care what I had to say about for several days! I packed up and headed off to meet Steve.

The bus ride was notable for the picture I took of the only toll along the road from Witney to Oxford. The pictures are on Flickr and show the toll being 1p ($0.02 US) per axel. The bridge is only thirty feet long, but that is a pretty inexpensive toll. Once in Oxford, Steve and I spent several hours touring the museum. My favorite household item is a set of six dinner plates with an almost Burma Shave expression on them:

What is A Merry Man

Set him do what he Can

To Entertain his Guests

With wine & Merry Jests

But if his Wife do frown

All merriment Goes Down.

The plates are dated 1738 and are obviously quite humorous. There was also a collection of Beadle's staves or rods. In old Lodge records from the founding in 1717 to the start of the nineteenth century the Tyler was also referred to, occasionally, as the Beadle. Americans best understand this position was the old colonial town crier. The beadle's staff was an important defensive item when walking through the town at all hours. These staves are far more beautiful than the normal painted wood version, and are likely to have been of a more ceremonial nature within Oxford.

For the second day a museum made me late for lunch and it was 2:00pm before we made our way to a pub. FIrst we tried Jude the Obscure in Jericho, but it had stopped serving a few minutes before we arrived. We turned toward St. Giles road and found ourselves at the door of The Royal Oak. It was the penultimate quiet English pub with comfortable chairs and great ale. I had a delicious hand drawn stout, making up or the complete lack of stout, other than Guinness "extra cold," thus far on my trip. Steve and I shared a ploughman's and fisherman' platter and resolved to return soon on Monday for lunch again.

From there we stopped in at the Lamb and Flag then returned to Jude the Obscure. We were both fairly tired, so we were soon back to Witney and to bed.

England, Day Three

2008-03-30T04:05:00.001-04:00

Having spent most of the previous day geocaching for work, we elected to get right out and find the spots requested by the family. We were charged to take a photograph of the Peter Pan Statue in Hyde Park and another at Platform 9 3/4 within King's Cross Station. We rose before 7:00am for another delicious breakfast and headed for the local Tube station.

The morning was crisp and sunny as we walked through Hyde Park for the first photograph. The statue was very near to the Tube station we emerged room, so finding it was a breeze. We wanted to wander the park, but there was more to be done. Back into the Tube and we were soon at King's Cross Station. The platform was easily found and quite accessible. Having captured both of us on film, much to Steve's consternation, we wondered what to do next. Steve convinced me to go the United Grand Lodge of England Library on Great Queen St, Holborn.

It had long been my plan to spend at least a day at the Grand Lodge Library, but the jet lag/late arrival on the first day ruled out Tuesday. Then Wednesday was first recovering and then geocaching. I had all but lost hope of even seeing the Grand Lodge. We skipped right over lunch and went directly to the Holborn Tube station.

We had hoped to tour the facility, but there was some activity going on which prevented their normal tours. We were shown to the library and museum. Impressive does not do it justice. The collection within the museum is quite diverse, but my favorite objects remain the early operative 'tracing boards'. While Steve wandered through the museum I got right down to business, registering as a reader and requesting texts. One of the books I wanted to see had gone missing from the collection, something the library is likely to encounter often as they finish computerizing their entire catalog. This setback and the inapplicability of the first few texts was starting to dim my hopes of finding the ritual text I was seeking. Then I selected one of the titles I had noted down a few months ago, while using the UGLE Library online catalog. The text must have been fairly rare as my request had to be authorized by the Librarian, which it was, and shortly I was reading my eureka text. I will write more about this item later.

Poor Steve wandered around the museum for several hours while I did more research. At 2:00pm we rushed back to the hotel for our luggage, and my Past Master's Jewel, which was stored in the hotel safe. Back to the Tube, off at Victoria Station and the coach to Oxford. The English hierarchy of bus and coach I am finally beginning to understand!

(pictures are at Flickr)

England, Day Two

2008-03-27T12:28:00.000-04:00

Probably owing to our commitment not to sleep before 9pm, we actually managed to get a solid twelve hours of sleep. Both Steve and I feel like we are on local time already. We dragged out of bed to what has to be the finest hotel breakfast which could possibly meet our eyes. There were three buffets with cereal and fruit, eggs and accoutrements, and a selection of smoked fish. It was delightful and really filled us up. Furthermore, the Hilton staff were just wonderful keeping the buffet going even though we arrived three minutes before closing. I would certainly stay there again.

Today we spent a lot of time taking the Tube from place to place. Our mission today, from *******, was to drop off a geotag in a cache somewhere in London. We selected the Winchester Geese Cache primarily due to its proximity to a Tube stop and its fascinating history. The site was all it was billed to be. There were ribbons and poems hung on the gate by the hundreds, perhaps more numerous than that. We registered in the cache log and headed back into London to find a nice pub.

The Cloud...How I hate that company. Their web site offered a wonderful deal £9.99 per month with access from cafes and pubs all over England. Their coverage map looked great, so I signed up excitedly before leaving the US. The reality turned out to be quite different. Their coverage map is terribly out of date and once connected the network is dreadfully slow. I had made an appointment to video conference with my wife and daughters at 4:30pm, after their half-day at school. Steve and I wound up twice ordering pints while I settled in to make a connection. Then finding the coverage to be absent or too slow to use, we left our pints hardly half consumed as we headed for another location. I am particular irritated that I had to leave behind one of my favorite English ales: Bishop's Finger.

After finding a coffee shop with the Cloud operating, I had my text chat with the family as the connection was far too slow for video. We returned to our hotel to drop off our bags and seek dinner. After some discussion we elected to have dinner at a little Persian restaurant two blocks west from our hotel. The food was simple, but wonderful. We particularly enjoyed the viciously hot tea and nearly too sweet baklava.

Following dinner we quested for a fine pub to relax in for a few pints. Though we walked all over Kensington nothing suited our fancy until we returned to The Warwick Arms. The comfortable leather chairs and quiet conversation epitomizes the English pub and made our evening complete. It also might have been the hand drawn Fuller's ESB followed by a Bells, but who can tell!

England, Day One

2008-03-27T12:17:00.000-04:00

We arrived at 9:30am to a cool, gray skyline with a drip of rain here and there. It looks much like you would expect England to, although last year, thanks to global warming, the weather was gloriously warm and completely precipitation free. We grabbed our bags and made for the exit.

Lucky for me I was traveling with and real Englishman, Steve, who steered me away from the taxi stand, my preference, and onto the London Tube: mind the gap! We took the Tube from Heathrow to Earl's Court and then walked the remaining three blocks to our hotel. The walk was exhausting for me since I had brought toys, more on that later, leaving me in the larger bag with no wheels. The Hilton Olympia looks to be a 1960-1970s era hotel which has been mildly refitted, but is not particularly beautiful. After we dropped our bags off we wandered down Kensington High Street looking for Vodafone, SIM cards, and a pub, ale and lunch.

The young lady at Vodafone, Natalie, was helpful and had us up and running in no time. Steve was given an unlocked Nokia by a fellow at work while I was given a monster Sierra Wireless. My phone was a beast: slow, high power drain, bad cell reception and complicated. Steve lucked out in a a big way. In the end, however, we were able to call each other and numbers within the UK which was the critical goal.

Must of the rest of the day is a complete blur, owing to my being so tired. We had a lunch at a pub off of High Street on Kensington, wandered around a bit and then settled into the warm leather chairs at The Warwick Arms.

Off to England

2008-03-26T06:03:00.000-04:00

After some back and forth for forgotten items, Steve and I finally arrived at Concord Trailways in Portland. We both prefer public transportation to driving and the cost to park for two weeks in Boston is outrageous. Since I am going to be in land of Real Ale for an extended stay I fortified myself with a does of Maine's own beverage: Moxie. I like it quite a bit, but it still tastes like Crest and Coke. Cheers!

The attraction bringing us to England, other than the great beauty of the land itself, is the ACCU Conference. The conference is ostensibly about C and C++ programming. It delves much deeper than that into the issues attendant on large scale software development efforts: design and architecture. As a software architect, this information is at the heart of what I do on a daily basis for *******. Last year the sessions covering architectural analysis, team coaching, and software cost estimation were insightful. At the other end of the spectrum there were many sessions which resurrected the important lessons of computer science and applied them to the craft of software development. Few accomplished this task more effectively than Andrei Alexandrescu and John Lakos. Suffice it to say that I find it difficult to choose my schedule as there are so many valuable, overlapping sessions.

Having arrived at Logan Airport in Boston, we learned our flight was delayed. Not by a few minutes, but by three hours! Poor Steve has wretched battery life on his Latitude (hate those machines), so we were continuously tethered to power sources. Why is it that airports never have comfortable seating and power in the same place? The airport WIFI infrastructure was also not particularly great. Though it teased us with promises of flight information, the link always returned us to the front page.

Our flight finally boarded at 11pm and we settled into our slightly dilapidated seats. Apparently our scheduled plane had a problem, leaving us with a model previously headed for retrofit. The staff on board were plenty nice, as always, and we had a relaxing flight to England.

My 50% Camera

2008-03-24T11:53:00.001-04:00

While performing my final packing for my two week trip to England for the ACCU Conference next week, I realized my older daughter wandered off with my camera. It is a bulky, unwieldy beast, a Canon A560 or some such, and I had been planning to retire it before heading of to paradise at the end of April. Borrowing my wife's fancy 8mp camera seemed like no big deal to me, but before I knew it we were standing at Office Depot looking at a new model.

I was puzzled by this turn of events because Tandy is our head of finance here at the Ratliff Household and is tight with a buck. Not penurious the way my friend Amos is, but careful nonetheless. I picked out a new Casio Exilim 7.2mp, which I had been eying for at least six months, and walked out of the store with a new camera.

With new toy in hand I had to ask why. The answer was something else. Apparently, Tandy thinks about numbers when she is doing her crazy-early Master's swim program. Recently she realized that we two have been together for more than 50% of my lifetime. No, not 50% of my adult lifespan, the whole shebang! She wanted to buy something special for me to commemorate the event, but as I thought about the kind of forbearance it takes to spend almost nineteen years with me I wondered if I ought to be buying her something! I understand my turn comes around during this summer.

District Meeting

2008-03-23T16:11:00.000-04:00

What a day! On Saturday the 17th Masonic District, essentially the Cumberland County region for Maine Freemasonry, had its annual meeting. The Grand Master was in attendance along with more brass than you could count with fingers and toes. Since the event was being held at my Mother Lodge, Deering Lodge No. 183 in Portland, Bro. Chris DiSotto and I ran the dinner. The cooking began at noon and we were able to offer people a choice of prime rib, salmon or an entirely vegetarian pasta dish. Feeding 100 people in a single sitting was a new accomplishment, leaving the entire kitchen crew exhausted by 7:30pm. We were very happy with the results.

The meeting itself was considerably more engaging than I remembered from the past. The District Deputy Grand Master, R.W. Bro. Kenneth Caldwell, ran a fabulous meeting filled with many surprise awards. V.W. Bro. Walter Lamb received the Daniel Carter Beard Award for his work with the Boy Scouts of America. Bro. Chris DiSotto received the Mason of the Year Award from the District. While ordinarily each of the nine lodges recommends a different Brother, this year six of the nine joined together in recommending Bro. DiSotto for his work within the District. It was a moving moment for a good man. Another wonderful Deering Lodge Brother, Bro. Robert Wade, Sr., received a very special award. He was appointed as Assistant Grand Tyler. His son was previously a Grand Steward making for two Grand Officers in one family!

The remarks by the Masters of the District, dignitaries and Grand Master were very interesting. There were two which made a particular impact on me. R.W. Bro. Ray McLellan, Master of Casco Lodge in Yarmouth, is in charge of a very active, community focused lodge. He is having a lot of success at his lodge and brings an "old school" sense of dignity to the office which is a good reminder for we younger Masters. Hopefully we will be able to set up opportunities for him to convey his know-how to officers in the other lodges. While not every lodge should necessarily be so focused on the community, they might be able to use a few of his techniques. The other interesting remarks were by the Grand Master. He noted two important shifts in membership statistics at the Grand Lodge level. First, our average age for new members has dropped from the 40s to the 30s, a great sign for the fraternity. Second, the number of new members is greater than the number of suspensions, for non-payment of dues, for the third consecutive year. These are both very good signs for the Craft and analyzing why their causation will take more time to uncover.

The final news to come from the District Meeting is the appointment of V.W. Bro. Walter Lamb as our new District Deputy Grand Master and yours truly as the new District Education Representative. Our installation will take place on the first Tuesday in May after the Annual Communication of Grand Lodge. I have high hopes that we will make a good team stewarding the District through an exciting time of growth and change. The family tells me that I get no special privileges as a "Very Worshipful" and I still have to do all my chores. Darn!

Hitler Speaks - Documentary about Hitler's Private Videos

2008-03-20T21:22:00.001-04:00

It is a rare thing when two of my most significant interests come together with such a sense of wonder. One of the postings on digg today was a documentary about software developed to improve the quality of lip reading even when the individual turns away as much as 100 degrees. The software was amazing and listening to the resulting audio was equally astounding. The video is just over forty-five minutes, so curl up on the couch and watch it:

Many of Hitler's private videos have no audio. For the first time, lip recognition software can find what he said in them. [From Hitler Speaks - Documentary about Hitler's Private Videos]

Morals and Dogma

2008-03-18T23:54:00.001-04:00

At long last I have in my hands the most owned and least read book in all of Freemasonry. From the moment you first set eyes on the thing it is clear why this might be considered a magnum opus: it is huge. The first degree I opened to was "Grand Elect Mason," which is my primary obligation in the Scottish Rite as an Officer of the Lodge of Perfection. Far from being impenetrable the second paragraph is completely engaging:

Public opinion is rarely right on any point; and there are and always will be important truths to be substituted in that opinion in the place of many errors and absurd and injurious prejudices. There are few truths that public opinion has not at some time hated and persecuted as heresies; and few errors that have not at some time seemed to it truths radiant from the immediate presence of God.

I think I am going to enjoy this book!

Changing Ritual

2008-03-16T08:41:00.004-04:00

Since I mentioned my concerns about the Scottish Rite ritual in passing yesterday, I thought I should provide some valuable context. My specific area of research is the development of Masonic ritual, with a focus on its development here in New England. Freemasons, in modern times, believe their ritual is today as it always has been. This could not be further from the truth. Here in Maine, for instance, the ritual underwent several significant revisions:

1820

We lost our use of the Antients Ritual and shifted exclusively to the Moderns (Webb) style.

1852-1855

The Grand Lodge of Maine agreed upon an authorized ritual as exemplified by M.W. Bro. John Miller. The ritual style we inherited from the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts had been lost when they moved to the Baltimore Ritual in 1844.

1874

The Grand Lodge of Maine adopted new lectures as performed by M.W. Bro. Timothy Murray.

1894

The Grand Lodge of Maine commissioned a committee to review and publish a new authorized ritual, plain text, for the exclusive use of the Grand Lecturer. This ritual shed a number of very beautiful elements in favor of brevity.

19?? (I have not yet reached the 20th century...)

A final revision of the ritual, which I have not yet found, added a number of new elements, included two new exchanges between the Master and Deacons. It also restructured the Master Mason lecture in a way that materially changed the symbolic portion of the lecture.

These revisions added a few pieces of valuable coordination in the catechism, but in general shortened some of the more beautiful language. The changes to the Master Mason lecture in particular are disappointing because they brought the Master's Carpet into the exoteric class, rather than leaving it as an independent element. Suddenly all of the very old slides which do not include the Master's Carpet make a lot of sense!

Having learned so much of this history, I dearly wish I could go back and speak with the Past Grand Lecturers and Past Grand Masters and warn them. They firmly believed that they were hewing to a more ancient form of the ritual, but with all of the documents to come to light since 1894 and all of previously secreted manuscript ciphers this assertion appears unfounded. Rather than restore an older ritual, they created a new distinct one. The ceremonies are only mildly less beautiful, yet would that we could prevent those changes from having happened.

With this in mind, I try to pay careful attention to any changes to ritual and attempt to look forward a hundred years to imagine the impact of the change. Any revision which results in a massive shortening of the degree has, in my opinion, a significant risk of being amplified in the future leaving us with but a hint at its ancient beauty. Here in Maine, I have been happy with the openness of our Masonic leaders to talk through such matters and seriously consider the impact before making a change. It appears, in like manner, the Scottish Rite (NMJ) is also open to such conversation. I look forward to gaining more understanding regarding our own process for revising the ritual and sharing my concerns regarding the long term impact of shortening.

Seriously Zerubbabel

2008-03-15T21:35:00.004-04:00

For the past three years I have been playing Zerubbabel for the Scottish Rite Valley of Portland. Previously my role was limited to Zerubbabel in his later years, as recorded in the Apocrypha, when he returns to Persia to ask for the help of Darius to ensure the completion of the Second Temple. The role is a lot of fun, but is very serious. You have to play a man so imbued with righteous anger that he is willing to fly off the handle in front of the King and his nobles. Having argued with my share of Developer Kings and Masonic Kings, I find the role a quite natural fit.

This year the part of Zerubbabel in the 15th degree was added to my plate. While I was more than mildly disappointed in the 2005 version of the ritual[1], the role itself was a thrilling experience. This degree takes place at the end of the Babylonian Captivity and revolves around the interactions of Zerubbabel and Cyrus and Zerubbabel and Abazar. In simple terms, Cyrus is the judge and Abazar is the tempter, classical templates there. Considering the intensity of the dialog, I found the passivity of the guards to be quite odd. During the rehearsals this year I kept prodding them to be more forceful until finally they decided to get the better of me. One of my most valued Masonic mentors played the role of Abazar and he too was more than willing to push me around as well. By the end of the play, when the tempted, threatened, and tortured Zerubbabel is brought before King Cyrus, who shouts at him to answer immediately, it did feel real. The guards and I were breathing heavily from our struggle and I was easily able to summon up a sense duress. Rather than the refusal being haughty or noble, it felt more tired as if I would die rather than surrender. That is the young Zerubbabel as I see him now.

Having understood, for the first time, the first degree, the second gained a completely new richness. I see with new eyes the Zerubbabel I had loved for years. Perhaps his words in the first section of the 16th degree sound more petulant to me now than before, but it certainly gives a better insight into how to play that role effectively and clearly. I also heard, for the first time, the ritual music of the 16th, but I will write about that later. Now more than ever I want to study and understand the Scottish Rite Degrees. My thanks go out to R.W. Bros. Jake Caldwell and Jeffry Simonton for getting me into the Scottish Rite. Some days it makes me crazy, but no matter what I still love it.

[1] I would like to add that the Sovereign Grand Commander, Ill. Bro. McNaughton, and his Ritual Committee have been very gracious in engaging in a dialog with me about my concerns. This kind of openness really impresses me about the Scottish Rite.