Busy Boys

This has been a busy few days in a busy week for the boys. On Sunday we visited a mock encampment in New Durham representing a field recruiting office for the Union in the Civil War. They had tens set up and gentlemen in uniform who talked quite knowledgeably about the conditions at the camp, the food, the state of medicine, the requirements for becoming a Union soldier (essentially having at least one upper and one lower tooth so that you could tear open your powder packet to load your musket).

William was interested in the talk, though most interested in watching a young soldier whittling by the fire. Daniel was only interested in running through the open field with a friend that he met there unexpectedly. That is until it was time to visit the bake sale, which interested both of them the most.

Monday Danny had his first Cub Scout den meeting of the year, followed on Tuesday by the pack meeting. William is going to an extra den meeting tonight to get the low-down on a camping trip he's taking with Karen this weekend. Friday I will take William up to the campground to give Karen time to finish up work, and then I will be without the two of them until Sunday morning.

But it won't be boring, for Danny an I are headed to Wal-Mart on Saturday to help out with popcorn sales. (Yes, folks, it is time for the annual fund-raiser, and yes, we will be hitting you up.) I'm sure Danny and I will find some fun things to do afterwards.

And then William's birthday party is on Sunday (with his actual birthday coming up a few days later—my, how the time does pass). I'm exhausted just thinking about it.

Karen is constantly bringing home software that she finds at the swap shop, a feature of some of the landfills (actually transfer stations, though where they transfer our refuse to is a mystery to me), where people can leave their discards for others to find to keep them out of the landfills.

Anyway, she picked up a disc that seemed to be some kind of educational title about "The Neighborhood," whatever that was. But inside the package was a different disc, a program called Sim Tunes. I literally had to scrub the dirt off the disc (don't tell anyone at my former employer Philips that I actually scrubbed a disc with an abrasive pad), but I got it to install. It's an old program and I had to tweak it to get it running smoothly, but I finally worked it out.

Now, in Sim Tunes, you have these little moving bugs that roam across colored dots. Each bug sounds like a different instrument, and each dot plays a different note. Sounds like something fun for the kids, right?

Well, it is, in fact. But I'm also having a ball, because I keep finding out how musically versatile this fun little program is. I've actually composed a little piece using it. Stay tuned for more.

Oh, and I'll post a link to what I've already composed as soon as I record and upload it.