Back in 1980, I lived in Spokane, Washington, and was in 6th grade. On Sunday, May 18th, I walked, barefoot, out onto my front porch - it was a warm day. I was bored, it was a Sunday. I was stretching and looked to my right, to the West, and saw a huge dark cloud heading our way. It looked exactly like this. I called to my Mom, and we both stood in our front yard, a little scared, a little excited. We thought that it was likely "the mountain", as we had been hearing that Mt. St. Helens (250 miles away from us) could blow its stack "any day" for weeks. Soon after, the cloud moved over us, blacking out the sky. We watched the streetlights flicker on in the early afternoon. We could feel the grittiness of the pumice and ash as it brushed our skin, falling to the ground. I can remember how it felt, underfoot, as I stepped on a thin coating of ash on our painted-concrete front porch steps.

In retrospect, it seems sort of a yawner, the whole "getting ashed" thing - akin to a big storm or something, but at the time, there was a lot of doubt and worry - would there be poisonous gases in the air? Would the ash be harmful to our lungs or throat? Would it scratch the finish on a new car? Would it choke the livestock? Would it clog air filters? Nobody really knew, but everyone seemed to think it would be alright (and it was - the only major problems were felt up close to the volcano).

The next few days were bizarre - dark days and darker nights. I was a volunteer for the Red Cross, and we handed out disposable face masks to people on city streets. The only problem was - we (volunteers) were the only ones out on the streets. I remember a semi roaring through downtown - a giant roiling cloud of ash billowing out from under it and behind it - all colored orangey-gray by the street lights, punctuated by flashing yellow traffic lights. You'd have thought it was 2 am, but it was only 2pm. Soon, some rains came and made a muddy mess of everything, and within a week or two, it was mostly back to normal.

As it happens, I got caught in an ashfall once again, twelve years later in Anchorage, Alaska in 1992, when Mt. Spurr sent a small cloud over us. The ash was rougher, larger bits of grit. It actually stung a tiny bit if it fell on bare skin. I got caught outside and had to ride my bike about a mile home in it, breathing through my shirt. The two experiences were equally surreal, but May 18th will always be "the big one" for me, and a lot of other folks I know. Remember when natural disasters were scarier threats than people (other than the ones with nuclear bombs)?

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Several years ago, when I used to fly a lot, I discovered a handful of songs which had intros that matched up to the takeoff sequence of an airliner fairly well. In the spirit of laying my own personal soundtrack over the Real World, I'd sit calmly, while we were awaiting clearance for takeoff - my thumb on the play button of my Cassete/CD/MP3 Player. As soon as I heard the engines wind up, and the gentle starting push, I'd hit the button and fall into it.

The one song that always gave me goosebumps, that seemed to click into the timing and rhythm so well was Unsung (iTunes Link) by Helmet. The first 30 seconds or so of the song - Man. When I started to write this entry, I listened to the song again, to remember the feeling, and could vividly recall the sensation and the timing. (I even got goosebumpy again, just sitting here).

Here's the sequence: Start - Jet Engines wind up, I smile, sit back and hit play (:00). Drums and quick bassline hit. Gentle acceleration pushes me back into the seat. (:07) Now going quite fast, a little scary, Guitar 1 kicks in, ratchets up the tension. Wheels start thumping the ground, a little wiggle in the body (:12) Guitar 2 Whines into the mix. Plane is going very fast - it's been a while, when is it going to start nosing up? Tension builds even more. (:20) Slight relief as I feel the nose start to rise, but wheels are still thumping mightily. (:24) Crescendo and pause in the music, the bottom drops slightly away as we take to the air - now being pushed not only back, but down into the seat. (:28) The chorus riff starts, gruff and direct, looking out the window, the rapid climb and accelleration is obvious and thrilling. Cars, buildings and trees drop away as if the Earth just decided to stop, with me falling up and away. Then it's just an enjoyable transition into the rest of the flight.

Of course, it all depends on you enjoying the song as well, but the matching choreography of song and takeoff just can't be beat, from my perspective.

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After buying and moving into a new house, we started upgrading a lot of our furnishings. Being a guy, and a geeky fan of Movies and TV, I started entertaining the idea of upgrading our TV (currently a heavy analog 27-inch set). I'd briefly seen HDTV displays in stores, and knew there was a bit of a learning curve involved (plug-and-play is a long ways off). So I thought I'd record my journey into the world of HDTV, from the point of view of a non-expert. That idea has become HDTVFocus.

The HDTV resources you can currently find online almost all come from "experts", or those who wish to sell you something. They can be quite helpful - but there are an unbelievable amount of variables, marketing terms, standards, numbers, claims, distortions, equipment out there and a deep lack of simplicity or clarity.

These systems are a substantial financial commitment, and they really seem to defy the urge to "just walk into the store and buy the one that looks best". (Although, one could argue that there is such a thing as over-researching a purchase).

At any rate, if you are interested, please follow along. If you wish to correct my assumptions, please do (comments enabled over there). HDTVFocus is powered by Blogger, and I've really enjoyed the ease of building a custom template (even a silly little resizing trick to keep the window at an HDTV 16:9 aspect). For some reason, this looks fairly bad in Mac IE. I am working on that. It's nice to rely on a good free service like Blogger, rather than my roll-your-own CMS tools I've been using for a long tme now. No offense to TypePad - it was fun to try it out and make this blog work over there, but Blogger as it now stands offers more flexibility (template-wise) for free. Hard to compete with that.

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