Nath had an appointment today. I took the afternoon off to care for the children. Mostly we did homework and cleaned up rooms, but Diane also has her horseback riding lesson on Wednesdays.

She complained of stomach aches all afternoon, and did not want to go. Finally we did go, and everything turned out fine.

The children ride ponies, not big horses. The ponies seem to follow each other habitually. They walk quietly or trot, though the children lose control from time to time. Diane had Flamme, a one-eyed pony with a gentle temperament, at least this afternoon. Diane had some trouble getting Flamme to take orders. I suspect that’s partly due to Diane’s orders being not much more than suggestions and sometimes only wishes. She’s learning to take the reins, though.

This morning I took a lesson in cross-country skiing, but not inline, skating, up at the Col de Marcieu. The instructor, Corentin, said I’m the first person to ask for a cross-country lesson this season. Not nearly as exotic as what Luke has been up to. Yet highly recommended.

The skis for skating have no scales underneath. I found myself having to duck-walk up the steep bits. But in general this sort of skiing is what I have been missing all this time.

It’s like running, skiing, cycling, swimming all rolled up into one sport.

This morning we skied at Le Collet. -12 C at 10:00 am, but the sun was shining above the clouds.

3 C at 12 noon, at least according to the car thermometer. -8 C a couple hundred meters further down the hill, under the cloud cover.

People are no doubt too complex to categorize definitively in a binary way. Why have psychologists latched onto the extrovert/introvert idea? Why does this classification keep rising to the surface of my thoughts?

extrovert: an outgoing, overtly expressive person
introvert: a shy, reticent, typically self-centered person

(Source: New Oxford American Dictionary)

Extroverts make up between 60 to 70 percent of society and introverts account for 20 to 30 percent, according to Dr. Ed Diener from the University of Illinois.

(Source: http://www.marshallparthenon.com/2.13764/extrovert-vs-introvert-1.1899491)

The majority count as extroverts, which fits the definitions.

What correlates with the extroversion-introversion split? Citing two sources, Wikipedia says, “More extraverted people tend to report higher levels of happiness than introverts.” Beyond that the article identifies a number of traits that strike me as inherent in the definition, like introverts being more at ease studying stuff and extroverts being more at home in sales.

Another correlation that seems inherent in the definition could be preferences for synchronous vs. asynchronous communication. Diane told me I should talk more with her mother, especially around Valentine’s Day. According to Diane, I was too normal, but should be more than normal. I asked her what that meant and she replied, “About 12 1/2.”

Anyway, here’s the key correlation. It seems that, “Introverts salivate more than extraverts in response to a drop of lemon juice.” (Source: Wikipedia ibid.) Plus, it’s all in your horoscope.

The girls went to a birthday party and stayed overnight afterwards. Today they were tired when we went to Collet d’Allevard.

Lots of folks were sharing the slopes with us, many of them no doubt on vacation from other parts of France. There was plenty of snow, with some extra having fallen yesterday.

Probably like downtown Washington, D.C.

The Western Digital My Book 500 GB drive I have been using to back up this computer must have gone out of warranty recently, because it seems to have died this afternoon.

Hmm…

Since the drive does not seem to want to turn on, how do I check to see whether I want any of the data back?

Inclement weather today. This morning I went for a run over to St. Vincent and was completely drenched.

The picture was taken more than an hour after the rain stopped, draining the back yard. This is mudslide weather.

We looked at nearby slopes through the webcams. All snow seems to be washing away.

Maybe this problem goes away if you buy the latest version of Apple’s software… but…

I’ve been trying to remix some instrumental songs, because the levels in mp3 were too much lower than in Garageband. An exercise in frustration.

The discussion, Garageband output volumes in relation to other sequencer output volumes…., does not indicate yet why although Garageband lets you go into the red without distortion, the mp3 you send to iTunes is distorted in spots (unless you lower the level to the point where you have to adjust the volume when you play your song). Furthermore, distortion in the mp3 output does not seem directly related to clipping in the recorded tracks.

If only Garageband were “what you hear is what you get.” In other words, here’s my RFE: what gets sent to the headphones when I’m playing my mixed song should be what gets sent to iTunes when I export, even in a lossy format like mp3.

Don’t tell me I should know how to record and how to mix, by the way. If I knew what I were doing, then I wouldn’t be using Garageband.

When recording guitar, especially bass guitar, I was getting a consistent, annoying hum upon taking my fingers off the metal parts of the instrument. With enough high end, you could call it a buzz. Terrible.

This happens not only with my little amp, but even with the preamp direct into the computer. My guitar cables aren’t balanced. Maybe the real solution is to have XLR outs from guitars. That must not be good for other reasons.

Anyway, what seems to work is running a wire from the jack to my body. I was going to wear the wire (show on the right) as a bracelet, but that leaves too little contact to be effective. So for now I have to hold the wire under my tongue. No hum/buzz. But maybe I won’t try recording during a thunderstorm.

So what should we make of the photo to the left of this text? If you actually read the labels of the photos, you notice they contradict what the rest of the text is trying to get you to buy.

Why did they do that?

Is it a typo?

Are they trying to get me to see the fnords?