2011
– Last 100 Days
Prodigal
Altar Boy Countdown
T-25
Days to Go
6
December 2011
Goal:
1 hour per day working on the film
Details:
Began
work on the assembly edit
Total time: 2 hours
Goal:
30 minutes per day music practice
Details:
Warm
up on the MojoCaster
“So
What” – Miles Davis
Pat
Metheny Etude #1, bars 1-4 25X
“Talking
Loud and Sayin’ Nothing” – Living Colour version
“It’s Your Thing” – The Isley Brothers
Total time: 30 minutes
Goal:
15 minutes exercise per day
Elliptical
interval training – level 5
30
seconds > 160 RPM
60
seconds > 180 RPM
Total time: 30 minutes
Goal:
15 minutes per day working on the score for the movie
Details:
“Dies
Irae” – 25X on the MojoCaster
“Dies
Irae” – octaves, dyads and opening/closing chords
“Granby
Street” – on the MojoCaster – Lyrics work
A
Dorian riff
Am
– D7 chord work for A Dorian riff
Total Time: 30 minutes
Notes:
Twenty-six
days and counting.
Baltimore Holds Key to Iran Foreign Policy:
Sunday’s
(4 December 2011) Baltimore Sun reported the recent spate of metal thefts from
Baltimore homes. The latest thefts involved
copper gutters from upscale neighborhoods.
Inside the paper was the above summary of “notable” metal thefts in Baltimore.
First up we see the theft of seventeen manhole
covers from the streets of Southeast Baltimore in July of 2010. Really?
How could any scrap metal dealer not know they were stolen?
Scrap
dealer: “Where’d you get these?”
Manhole
thief: “Just layin’ in the street, dude.”
Moving
on, we see in 2006, over 320 catalytic converters were sawed off and stolen
from cars in Baltimore County.
Apparently, thieves are hip to the fact catalytic converters use
precious metals to clean automobile exhaust.
If you are a scrap dealer and someone brings in one converter, you could
probably believe the converter was either replaced by a new one or taken off a
car the owner is junking. Actually,
there probably is an EPA regulation that prevents you from doing that, but for
argument’s sake, I will let it slide.
One converter, okay, but 320?
Please.
In
2008, a couple from Arnold was charged with stealing fourteen aluminum bleacher
seats from three Anne Arundel County parks.
The couple that steals together does time together. (If they actually did any time.)
Now
we get to the Mission Impossible stuff.
Vandals disguised as utility workers stole 130 hot-wired aluminum light
poles in 2005. Now that is bold, but
more importantly, think of the planning that would have to go into getting
uniforms, having the know how to get the poles without being electrocuted, and
making off with them. The poles were 30
feet tall and weighed 250 pounds each. Tom
Cruise has nothing on these people.
Finally,
two 300-pound bronze doors, valued at $30,000 apiece, were taken off the hinges
of (wait for it) the Baltimore Circuit Courthouse in March of 2007. With thieves as bold as this, they should
film “Oceans 19” right downtown.
The
silver lining to this cloud of brazen stealthy theft is its application to U.S.
foreign policy objectives for Iran. Forget
economic sanctions, Stuxnet, or the eventual Israeli strike on Iran; why not
put these thieves on the State Department payroll? Put the word out to local scrap dealers that
Uncle Sam is paying top dollar for Iranian enriched uranium and centrifuges, point
them in the right direction (Tehran, Natanz, Bushehr, Arak, Gachin, Isfahan and
Qom) and those sites will be out of business in a week. Need to get underground access? Put the
manhole cover bandits on it. Big,
protective doors securing the goods?
Bronze door bandits, check! Need
masters of disguise to infiltrate and pilfer the goods? The light-fingered light pole gang is on the
case. Need to disable a caravan of
security vehicles? Bring on the County
Cat(alytic converter) burglars.
Ask
not what your country can do for you, ask, what you can steal for your country!
