Mike's Musings

Winston-Salem

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Mahaffie) — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 16:10:00 +0000

We are visiting Winston-Salem, in North Carolina. Christina is auditioning today for a summer ballet program. Tomorrow we tour Wake Forest University.

Camera + Trombone + Imagination = Cool

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Mahaffie) — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 22:56:00 +0000

Via kottke and colossal.

RGIII is an Inspiring Player; He's Also Still a Kid

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Mahaffie) — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 21:52:00 +0000

There's a cute "mic-ed up" of Redskins Quarterback Robert Griffin III in the Dallas game last week on Sound FX. It's a montage of Griffin making inspirational little speeches, cheering on his teammates, grunting his way through plays and celebrating successes. It's fun to watch him lead his team and enjoy his game.

There's also a funny moment at about 3:15 in the video where he's in the huddle, telling his teammate that they can take over the game and finish their victory. They all stare at him for a long moment and then he says, "Oh. Ya'll want the play? OK."

He's a great player. He's a leader. He's inspirational.

But he's also just a kid.

Annual Personal Metrics: 2012 Book List

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Mahaffie) — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 18:55:00 +0000

I read just under 56 books in 2012. That's about the same reading pace that I maintained in 2011. Of the total, all but two were fiction. Most were borrowed from the Lewes Public Library.

Here is the list:

Driving North

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Mahaffie) — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 19:48:00 +0000

We took a week and drove north to Highgate Springs, in Vermont, by way of Boston. We were on our way to visit Colleen, who is working this summer at the Tyler Place resort. We stopped in Boston on the way to tour Boston University and Emerson College with Christina.

View New England Trip, Summer 2012 in a larger map

A full photographic collection from this trip is on my flickr account. There are a few photos also posted on instagram.

An Evening in a Kayak

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Mahaffie) — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 11:00:00 +0000

Untitled, a photo by mmahaffie on Flickr.

Yesterday evening, I joined the folks from Delaware Paddlesports in a "social paddle" at Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge. Prime Hook is on the Delaware Bay near Milton, Delaware, and includes a large range of marsh and open water. We saw Ospreys and Herons and Skimmers and many other birds. Very pleasant, a nice minor workout, and quite relaxing.

It's Been 25 Years Since I Moved to Lewes

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Mahaffie) — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 01:56:00 +0000

Lewes Lighthouse Sign, a photo by mmahaffie on Flickr.

Walking downtown today, I realized that it has been 25 years since I moved into the City of Lewes, Delaware. I came here in the spring of 1987, after a winter in Rehoboth Beach.

I had a tiny bachelor apartment on Second Street before Karen and I married. We had a small apartment on West 3rd Street when we first married. We rented a small duplex on Market Street briefly before buying our first house, a Cape Cod on East 3rd. Eighteen years ago, we moved into a suburban-style house on Inlet Place. And here we've stayed.

I've lived in Lewes for half of my life now. In fact, this is the place I've lived longest in all of my life.

I'm proud to be a part of this town; glad that our daughters have grown up here. It's been my honor to serve for several years now on the Lewes Planning Commission.

I wonder if I'll still be here in 25 more years?

Literature: Words About Jazz

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Mahaffie) — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 11:30:00 +0000

I'm reading a great novel about jazz musicians in pre-war Berlin and Paris. Half-Blood Blues, by Esi Edugyan, tells the story of a group of American and German jazz players who had been successful playing in the clubs of 1930s Berlin but had to hide and eventually run from the Nazis. The group includes African American musicians who found less racism in Europe and Germany, some of them of mixed African and German descent.

The story, the history and the evocation of time and place are wonderful. But I was struck by this passage about playing the music. In this scene, a young, scrawny black German trumpeter first comes to play with an established group of musicians, who are skeptical that he can even hold his horn. The narrator is Sid, a bassist from Baltimore.

But when he lifted his horn, we gave him a respectful silence. His trumpet was a cheap-lookin thing, dented, like a foil-wrapped chocolate been in a pocket too long. He put his rabbity fingers on the pistons, cocked his head, his left eye shutting to a squint.

"Buttermouth Blues," Ernst called back to him.

The kid nodded. He begun to tease air through the brass. At first we all just stood there with our axes at the ready, staring at him. Nothing happened. I glanced at Chip, shook my head. But then I begun to hear, like a pinprick on the air -- it was that subtle -- the voice of a humming-bird singing at a pitch and speed almost beyond hearing. Wasn't like nothing I ever heard before. The kid come in at a strange angle, made the notes glitter like crystal. Pausing, he took a huge breath, started playing a ear-splitting scale that drawn out the invisible phrase he'd just played.

The rest of us come in behind him. And I tell you, it ain't took but a minute more for me to understand just what kind of player this kid was. He sounded broody, slow, holding the notes way longer than seemed sane. The music should have sounded something like a ship's horn sounding across water -- hard, bright, clear. The kid, hell, he made it muddy, passing his notes not only over the seas but through the solid too. Sounded rich, which might've been fine for a older gate, but felt fake from him. The slow dialogue between him and us had a sort of preacher-choir feel to it. But there wasn't no grace. His was the voice of a country preacher too green to convince the flock. He talked against us like he begging us to listen. He wailed. He moaned. He pleaded and seethed. He dragged every damn feeling out that trumpet but hate. A sort of naked, pathetic way of playing. Like he done flipped the whole thing inside out, its nerves flailing in the air. He bent the notes, slurred them in a way made us play harder against him. And the more we disagreed, the stronger he pleaded. But his pleading ain't never ask for nothing, just seemed to be there for its own damn sake. In a weird way, he sounded both old and like he touching the trumpet for the very first time.

Happy Maori New Year

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Mahaffie) — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 22:51:00 +0000

Watch the skies, a photo by mmahaffie on Flickr.

I learned that today is the Māori New Year, celebrated in New Zealand when the Pleiades star cluster, known to the Maori as "Matariki," makes its only appearance in the night skies.

It got me thinking back to about this time of year in 1980. I was a senior in high school and had invited a young woman from New Zealand to be my prom date. Helen was an exchange student and part Maori. She had the coolest accent ever.

It's traditional, for Maori New Year, to look to the skies.

Flag Bench

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Mahaffie) — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 18:38:00 +0000

Flag Bench, a photo by mmahaffie on Flickr.

On my walk to a sandwich shop in the western part of downtown Dover today, I came across this flag bench sitting all by itself.

Overfalls

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Mahaffie) — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 14:17:00 +0000

Overfalls, a photo by mmahaffie on Flickr.

The Lightship Overfalls under a perfect early June sky at Canalfront Park, in Lewes.

Come fishing

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Mahaffie) — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 16:59:00 +0000

Come fishing, a photo by mmahaffie on Flickr.

The fishing fleet in Lewes Harbor on an early summer morning.

A Hot Day on the Fairway

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Mahaffie) — Mon, 28 May 2012 23:06:00 +0000

Fairway, a photo by mmahaffie on Flickr.

I played a practice round at Old Landing Golf Course outside Rehoboth Beach today. It was a very hot day. I didn't carry my clubs, but I did walk the course. I'm glad I took along enough water.

Just Because This Picture is Simply Charming

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Mahaffie) — Fri, 25 May 2012 01:32:00 +0000

Gee-Up!, a photo by josefnovak33 on Flickr.

This is from a great flickr group called The Smiling Victorian. Found via the cool web editor at NPR's Fresh Air.

"Make Up Your Own Rules"

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Mahaffie) — Tue, 22 May 2012 22:41:00 +0000

It's graduation season and I am enjoying watching a variety of graduation addresses. Here's one from author Neil Gaiman, who is one of my favorite writers and who is modeling a new way of living as an artist and writer... on social media and the web.

Here's a part of the speech I found very interesting. It comes at the end when he has already given advice about akin art and living as an artist.

We're in a transitional world right now, if you're in any kind of artistic field, because the nature of distribution is changing, the models by which creators got their work out into the world, and got to keep a roof over their heads and buy sandwiches while they did that, are all changing. I've talked to people at the top of the food chain in publishing, in bookselling, in all those areas, and nobody knows what the landscape will look like two years from now, let alone a decade away. The distribution channels that people had built over the last century or so are in flux for print, for visual artists, for musicians, for creative people of all kinds.

Which is, on the one hand, intimidating, and on the other, immensely liberating. The rules, the assumptions, the now-we're supposed to's of how you get your work seen, and what you do then, are breaking down. The gatekeepers are leaving their gates. You can be as creative as you need to be to get your work seen. YouTube and the web (and whatever comes after YouTube and the web) can give you more people watching than television ever did. The old rules are crumbling and nobody knows what the new rules are.

So make up your own rules.

Blackbird Creek, From a Canoe

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Mahaffie) — Sat, 19 May 2012 12:43:00 +0000

Blackbird Creek Canoe Trip, 5/17/12, a set on Flickr.

On Thursday, I took the morning off for a naturalist-guided canoe trip on Blackbird Creek, in New Castle County. It was a part of the outreach programming from the Delaware National Estuarine Research Reserve, a part of DNREC. My boss took the morning and came along, as did several members of the staff of a company called Delaware Interactive, with whom we have been partnering on several eGovernment projects lately.

Our Purple Tree, Spring 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Mahaffie) — Fri, 11 May 2012 10:46:00 +0000

There's a purple-flowering tree in our yard. I think, technically, it is called a Redbud. All I know is that each spring it goes through a purple phase before turning green.

A Walk Through Historic Williamsburg

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Mahaffie) — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 12:11:00 +0000

The second part of our Williamsburg visit was a day spent doing the historic part of Williamsburg. It's important to note that a single day isn't really enough, but it is a very nice way to spend a day and we had nearly perfect weather.

We saw the key things we wanted to see and returned in the evening for a lovely meal at the Kings Arms Tavern, where nearly a quarter century ago (!) I proposed to The Lovely Karen.

A Visit to the College of William and Mary

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Mahaffie) — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 12:00:00 +0000

We're in Williamsburg, Virginia, for a few days of spring break. We wanted a get-away and we've taken advantage of the visit to start Christina's college search process with a tour of the College of William and Mary.

William and Mary is a tough place to start, I expect. It's such a lovely campus and seems a desirable place to go to school. I worry it might spoil the game for the other schools.

On the Street Where You Lived (Part 2)

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Mahaffie) — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 02:01:00 +0000

I spent some time this weekend searching through the newly-released 1940 Census records for information about my parents' childhood households. I didn't find anything really new about my family, and there's nothing here that they couldn't easily tell me themselves, but I'm a data geek, a history buff, and a former Census Liaison for state government, so this was fun.

Part 2: The Farrars of Meadow Road
My next search of the 1940 Census was in Greenwich, Connecticut, where my mother grew up in the neighborhood of Riverside. Her family lived on Meadow Road, at the apex of the triangle it forms with Tower Road. They were part of Enumeration District 1-62.

My mother, Judith Farrar, was nine on Census Day in 1940; she would turn ten later in the spring. She was the youngest of three children of John and Roberta Farrar. Her sister Joan was 14 and her oldest brother, Robert, was 16 that spring. Their parents were both 41 years old.

The household included a nurse, 48-year old Edna Bullock from Massachusetts. She was there for Joan, who was unwell. There was also a maid, Geneva Lumpkins (I think), a 20-year old from Alabama. My mother tells me that Geneva was not there much longer. As she put it, "The war changed a lot of things." Robert and their father would both enlist; Robert became a navigator on B-17 bombers out of England.

Before the war, though, my Grandfather was making films. The Census form lists his occupation as Movie Director. My brother John found a listing for his company, Mercury Pictures, in a 1948 edition of the Journal of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. He also owned a hardware store and wrote jazz music.

Among the other occupations listed in their neighborhood in 1940 was an interesting mix of the wealthy and people who work for them. There were lawyers, publishers, and bank vice presidents, as well as maids, cooks, housemen, and a butler. That neighborhood is still very high rent; last time we visited we had to get special permission to go through the gates.

In Part 1, we looked at my father's household.

On the Street Where You Lived (Part 1)

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Mahaffie) — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 12:52:00 +0000

First, I searched maps of the Georgetown district of Washington, DC, where my father grew up on O Street, between 30th and 31st Streets. I found that that block was part of Enumeration District 1-245 in 1940. A little scrolling through the scanned population schedules for that district led me to an enumeration sheet that included my grandparent's household.

My grandfather, Charles D. Mahaffie, Sr., was 55 years old on Census Day in 1940. He served as a Commissioner on the Interstate Commerce Commission. My grandmother, Isabel Mahaffie, was 47 and listed as a homemaker, though undoubtedly she continued to work, if not full time, as an artist. My father was about to turn nine years old and is listed as having completed three years of school.

I was interested also to learn about the people of the neighborhood. This is a partial picture, since the folks on the other side of O Street are in a different enumeration district, but a quick review of the people in the area suggests a fascinating mix.

There were a number of salespeople, a few people employed in the dairy business, a photographer, and the assistant chief of the Library of Congress (Maud Brady) who lived in the same house as a secretary at the Library (Cornelia Brady). I think they were Mother-in-law and Daughter-in-law.

Up the street lived a young woman named Besley (first name illegible, at least so far) who was listed as a Secretary for the Interstate Commerce Commission.

Around the corner, on 30th Street, lived Paul L. Townsend, with his wife and kids. The census form notes that he was born in Delaware, and Townsend is a big name in Delaware; so I did a search. He turns out to have been the son of US Senator John G. Townsend, Jr., of Delaware.

I work across the street in Dover from a building named after the elder Townsend. Small world.

In Part 2, we visit the household of my Mother in Greenwich, Connecticut.

First Time on an Old Golf Course

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Mahaffie) — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 01:46:00 +0000

18th Hole, Shawnee, a photo by mmahaffie on Flickr.

My friend Andy and I went north to Milford on Sunday for a game of golf on the old Shawnee Country Club course, now known as The Rookery North. It was Andy's birthday gift and I was excited that we had a chance to play what has been, until now, a private course.

Shawnee Country Club dates back to the late fifties; the golf course is fully mature. The club, however, seems to have fallen on hard times and this year the golf course is under new management and is open to the public. That's us.

Course management has been taken over by the folks who run The Rookery, east of Milton. They're calling the "new" course "The Rookery North at Shawnee."

The course is not in great shape, but it's not too bad. The fairways are mostly dead grass; they appear to be resetting things. The tee boxes and greens are fine, though, and the rough, out of bounds areas, and on-course plantings are all quite nice.

I'd play there again.

A Hike to Kingston-Upon-Hull

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Mahaffie) — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 12:00:00 +0000

I joined a guided walk from the St. Jones Center out to Kingston-Upon-Hull yesterday. It was a program of the Delaware National Estuarine Research Reserve (DNERR) and fit two goals for me related to physical health and mental - walking and taking lots of photos.

Kingston-Upon-Hull is a a decaying 17th-century building that has been a farmhouse, a tavern, a store, and a brothel. It marks the location of some of the earliest settlement in central Delaware and reminds us that waterways, in this case the St. Jones River, were once our highways.

Heart & Soul of Sussex County, Delaware

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Mahaffie) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 00:13:00 +0000

Folks at the University of Delaware have released a video called the Heart & Soul of Sussex County. It was created by a team that includes my old friend Bill McGowan and looks at what it means to be "Sussex County." I'm proud to say that there are a few images from my photographic wanderings included in this video.

The video is part of an effort to get the people of the county talking about the future of the county. It started back in 2008 with a web site dedicated to collecting words and images about the county from people who live here. I created a flickr group to help collect still photos; it looks like it helped.

A Hike at Blackbird Creek

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Mahaffie) — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 13:00:00 +0000

I took time off yesterday morning for a hike at the Blackbird Creek portion of the Delaware National Estuarine Research Reserve (DNERR). The hike was led by a pair of coastal programs staffers from DNREC who shared the history of the site, information about the flora and fauna, and restoration plans. The day started out quite damp and foggy. But by the time we finished our walk, the sun was out and it was a very nice day.