RyanHarne.com

I remember Ryan “Stack” Clark. Despite his significant involvement in both the RA and Marching Virginians communities, I knew Ryan, first, as a friend. It was our running joke to ignore each other when we spotted the other on campus, wait until we had passed by, then turn around and shout hello, blaming the other for the purposeful ignorance.

A friend passed along this photograph.

The convocation/ceremony today was appropriate and I am fervently glad I attended.

To articulate things in another realm, I am still having a hard time listening to music. Silence is the only appropriate background.

Also, I keep whispering to myself: Wow.

And thank you to everyone for their thoughts and support.

There is just enough power in me capable of combating my speechlessness with a few, subconscious gestures on the keyboard, so we’ll see what happens.

I discovered that the German professor who was killed was the one who encouraged me to pursue my interest in the language and culture. He was glad I had a greater desire than the simple requirement-filling motive. It took me doing a search, but I realized that I was originally signed up for that very German course and session this semester - a fact long forgotten - but had dropped it in order to cater to a lighter workload. I remember that he told me he looked forward to me being in his class this upcoming fall, my deferred selection for the class.

I cannot read what I just wrote without losing every shred of strength in my body. I’m going to be falling apart.

Some queer happenstance additionally prompted me to take my camera to class today, an infrequent but occasional habit. The day was otherwise beautiful.

I am alright. I was a few steps away from Norris Hall when that round occurred. Police kept us there for a very long time, although I did what I could to get updates from them because they took over my class to use the room as a headquarters.

I really need to find out who is not alright.

Thank you for checking in. I appreciate that.

brief update: I lost a friend in the West AJ shootings, a real friend. Still no word about Norris. The grieving in Cassell tomorrow will be tangible.

Just like the Bluth’s, I live in a model home. The hall that I live on and am RA for is the same floor on which is located the campus tour model room. Every campus tour comes through this hall, easily giving me weekly traffic numbers in the thousands. At the moment, campus tours are at their peak and each moment spent outdoors is an opportunity to reroute your trip about campus for fear of coming across a herd of tourists, a true herd.

For what their worth, I appreciate all the quirky aspects of my life at the moment, all of the features and quasi-routines that appear absurd but have genuine purpose.

Like my recent habit of being last to leave the gym, making my exit while people come back from downtown in an inebriated stupor.

Like my ever-concerned friend at Au Bon Pain, the manager, who comments that I could work myself to death, despite the fact that she sees me at the high point of the day - the moment when I buy a bagel and coffee and sit for 30 minutes not thinking of anything but my breakfast and whatever novel I am reading at the moment.

Like the time when an industrial design professor spoke to me Friday afternoon by beginning the conversation with a stare in my direction, walking up to me at my studio desk, and saying, “Not to be rude or anything, but you’re here more than anyone else: who are you?”

This semester is great and would have been my last had I not redirected my future with a yielding to graduate school. Frankly, I want the semester to end because the summer & house combination is as attractive as ever. I’m not sure what’s the big deal about spring; for me, the summer is where all good things begin.

The last time I went to drop off my time card for research-related hours, I grabbed a handful of time card copies so I wouldn’t have to stop by at just the right time to sneak in and grab one. But, I feel somewhat awkward in that office. Perhaps not awkward, but certainly imperfectly comfortable. Something about HR people frequently triggers a new dimension in me, one that I haven’t probed enough to comprehend these reactions.

Anyways, this handful of time cards that I grabbed, as I look at them now, is actually an extended family of over 30 time cards. I wasn’t paying attention at the moment - awkward - and, apparently, walked away with the entire stack available. Awkward.

Then I think about what “30 time cards” means. That’s 60 weeks worth of work. In other words, this stack should last me through July 2008 abouts. Even in the employment realm, planning my life one year in advance seems impractical, if not futile. At my Monday lunch, I spoke to one of my best friends about the future. Our quick conclusion was that the long-term future is pointless to fantasize about, at these points in our lives. We hear peers speak of their plans after graduation and then report to each other in our lunch meetings to scoff at these disillusioned minds.

The university lifestyle should be played as a game of chance, a game where three, mysterious doors lead to three more. There is no right choice, a few wrong ones potentially, but certainly no perfect solution. These time cards may be useless to me by the time I use the 20th, or 10th, and so on.

There is one word of advice I have, a rule of thumb for this game of chance. When things seem to be moving smoothly, it is best to purposely sabotage your comfort. Sabotage is too harsh a term, I realize, but throwing a wrench into the soothing monotony of university life can result in wonderful outcomes. New people, new opportunities, new goals - taking an unprecedented step could lead to one of so many otherwise overlooked futures.

Maybe this applies to all lives, not simply university life. But, given my current supersaturation of academia, I can put this perspective into words.

With the Apple-EMI announcement Monday, I was glad to finally see some end-user-friendly, corporate collaboration. As I saw it, this was the type of result that democratic systems should naturally default to - services that the collective whole of constituents jointly request.

But, for me, for me the audiophile, the part of the announcement containing numbers was the true success. Music labels have been releasing 128 kbps MP3s or AACs for years, a sampling quality so low that middle-fi systems can reveal the gaping holes. Existing music stores’ files were appeared as silk from afar but cheese cloth within reach of a pole.

However, for years I have ripped my tunes in 160 AAC, an equivalent to 192 kbps MP3. The 256 kbps sampling with the Apple-EMI announcement was actually unexpected for me, this “indistinguishable from the original” quality. I had never been given that number as “indistinguishable” in the past. In fact, since my graduate studies are pointed towards perceptual acoustics, as is the host of my academic readings, the numbers I had seen were closer to 128 or 192 kbps MP3. I was thoroughly satisfied with 160 AAC.

The conflict of my satisfaction then appears when I consider that my common audio reproduction method is either the iPod-included earbuds or simple 2.1 Logitech computer speakers that have served me for five years. Once I move into the house in July, actually even for my midway apartment from May to July, I will be using a super-fi system that I have pieced together from high school to today. And I should admit, listening to past-purchased 128 AAC iTunes Store content on that system doesn’t provoke tears.

So, today I ripped a few CDs laying around, ripping at 256 AAC, as a test. Once the PowerBook fan died down, I copied them all to the iPod and grabbed my Bose TriPort headphones. The first album to test: Evanescence’s Fallen.

Some of you may wince, but I have lately been getting nostalgic for my 3 or 4 year-old medium-to-heavy rock albums. You know, Something Corporate, Linkin Park, Chevelle, whatnot. Don’t ask me why. And I won’t ask you about that N’SYNC album you’ve refused to donate to Goodwill.

Ok, so get this. In 256 AAC form, Evanescence sounds amazing. The high frequencies are all there and Amy Lee’s vocals are truly remarkable, albeit likely processed by so many voice synths that supercomputers of the day had to be hired as mercenaries for the job. The whole album, actually, is beautiful at this quality. In actuality, I give this album three stars in my iTunes.

Next up was Diana Krall’s Live In Paris which was remarkably more real-to-life. This album is one of my favorites so I already know each and every part of the quar/quintet songs. But, this time I heard new background guitar timbre that I had never before spotted from the 160 AAC files. Really. That good.

The Apple-EMI deal is going to be huge, and one-by-one the other major labels will fall into place, too. It happened with television shows and is happening for movies, though that content is still protected with lock and key. Still, the 256 AAC portion of the announcement is big. It is important to remember, too, that playback hardware is the key for harnessing the other 128 kbps of these DRM-free tracks. The white earbuds are no good for this tier of playback, but a quality pair of earphones or a stereo receiver with two nice speakers could show you new layers and textures to the albums you love enough to purchase.

Anyways, now that I have experimented with 256 AAC - and also discovered how easy it is in iTunes to replace existing tracks with new files, without losing ratings or playback data - I am definitely, absolutely going to begin buying my DRM-free albums from iTunes. Audiophiles, let us rejoice!