Tag: summer

Interminable Heat

The Portly Politico4 Comments

It is hot—interminably hot—here in South Carolina.  I can only imagine how much worse it is for our senior correspondent, Audre Myers, down in Florida.  My European readers will struggle to comprehend the kind of heat we’re experiencing.  I still can’t comprehend entire nations in the developed world that don’t have air-conditioning; it is truly a privilege for Europeans to have the luxury of not having A/C, much less not having to run it constantly.

I’ve often referred to the South in the summer as akin to living on the surface of Venus.  Our poisonous gas atmosphere is in the form of humidity—breathable, but barely.  Imagine walking outside and feeling not just heat, but a kind of all-encompassing clamminess that somehow manages to make you feel even hotter.  Yes, you can get acclimated if you’re willing to stay out in it long enough, but you have to drink constantly, as the combo of heat and humidity is constantly sucking moisture from your body.

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TBT^4: Summertime Schedule Begins

The Portly Politico8 Comments

Well, here we are again—another summer vacation, which means another school year in the books.  This past academic year was not nearly as taxing as the one that came before, but I am always amazed by how exhausting teaching can be, even though I have lived it for over fifteen years now.  March through May are always a mad dash, and then—as I have noted many times before—everything just… stops.

Not precisely, though.  I’ll do my annual Minecraft Camp next week.  Dr. Fiancée and I are also in the depths of wedding planning.  And I am looking forward to my annual visit to Indianapolis to see my older brother.

Every year I think about what I will do with the time, and every year I find that I fail to meet the breadth of my ambitions.  I do want to put in some more work on Offensive Poems: With Pictures, as I think that could be a fun project and might actually move some copies.  Otherwise, I’ll do some more digital composing.

One thing I am looking forward to is the return of the afternoon nap.  Goodness, how I love a good siesta!

With that, here is 30 May 2024’s “TBT^2: Summertime Schedule Begins“:

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TBT^16: SimEarth

The Portly Politico2 Comments

The big news in the gaming world right now is the incredible The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered.  It came as a total shock to the gaming world (yeah, there were rumors swirling that it was in the works, but no one knew it was coming so soon), and managed to update the game’s graphics and fix some bugs while also maintaining the legendary “jank” for which the game is so fondly remembered.

Yours portly has not yet taken the dive back into Cyrodiil (although, goodness, I am desperate to do so), but I am looking forward to the rapidly-approaching summer for a chance to dig into some classic games.  It’s been so long since I’ve really been able to sit down and lose myself for hours into a good game.  I haven’t even been able to touch Civilization VII in almost two months!

Gaming always comes to my mind during the hot, lazy days of summer, when it’s so unbearable outside, I l basically live like my home is a life support pod on Venus, only venturing out when absolutely necessary.  So it was that I booted up old SimEarth some years ago, and took a rose-tinted, nostalgia-fueled walk back to my past, when I first played a copy of the game my Indian friend copied onto a 3.5″ floppy disk for me.  Those were the days!

With that, join me on this extended walk through the past; here is 16 May 2024’s “TBT^4: SimEarth“:

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Memorable Monday: Happy Labor Day [2024]!

The Portly Politico6 Comments

Ah, yes, another glorious Labor Day—the last gasp of summer.  Sure, we technically have another few weeks of the calendrical summer, but Labor Day marks the end of the cultural summer.  Schools all over the country are back in session—or will be tomorrow.  And there are few days off from here until Christmas.

At the time of writing, I’m not exactly sure what I’ll be doing this Labor Day, but I imagine there’ll be a lot of lounging around and maybe playing some video games.  Whatever the case, I’m thankful all those unions made a fuss and got us a day off in September.

With that, here is 4 September 2023’s “Memorable Monday: Happy Labor Day [2023]!“:

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White Boy Summer Out Today!

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Yours portly keeps churning out the hits, and I’m pleased to announce my seventh album this year, White Boy Summer.

White Boy Summer is a collection of ten summertime jams spanning multiple genres of instrumental music.  The title track is a driving retro rocker reminiscent of Super Nintendo side-scrollers, and is perfect for jamming to on the open road.  I also rewrote it as a chorale for the album’s finale, “White Boy Summa (Theologica),” a piece for brass trio.

This album heavily favors trombone, and the three major trombone pieces emphasize the chill nature of summertime:  “Mellow,” “Lazy River,” and “Summer Vibes.”

“The Sea Crab” is the most experimental piece; it’s a musical interpretation of an unpublished poem of the same name by Liza Libes.

And, despite the title, White Boy Summer is for all people of all races—and both genders.

You can pick it up on Bandcamp for $7.  I’ll be posting links to the album on other streaming platforms in the comments.

Rock on!

—TPP

P.S.—Here are a couple of the tracks that have already been uploaded to YouTube:

TBT^2: Summertime Schedule Begins

The Portly Politico25 Comments

Not to rub it in or anything, dear readers, but today marks the first true day of my summer vacation.  Who knows how I’ve started this auspicious day?  Perhaps I lounged decadently while sipping coffee.  Perhaps my dog is licking my feet.  Maybe I’m still asleep—gasp!

Well, it’s an interesting little dip here—this extended weekend, of sorts, before I start my summer camps next week.  I always relish this transitory moment before camps begin, as it’s a good chance to decompress.

Whatever I end up doing, maybe I’ll finally get some work done on my planned third book, Offensive Poetry: With Pictures.  I largely abandoned the Sunday Doodles book, but perhaps I should revive that old chestnut, too.  I’ve got all summer to figure it out—mwahahahahaha!

With that, here is 9 June 2022’s “TBT: Summertime Schedule Begins“:

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FREEDOM!!!

The Portly Politico19 Comments

After what was, perhaps, the most grueling school year I have ever endured, yours portly soon will be free.

Yes, dear readers, today—Wednesday, 29 May 2024—marks the last day of work before summer break.  Yours portly will soon bask in the warm glow of near-limitless free time (for approximately two months).

Not that I’ll be slouching around (well, not the entire time, anyway)—and I’m not quite free from the authoritarian clutches of education.  Next week I’ll begin the first of two sessions of my annual Minecraft Camp, a time-honored tradition to which I dedicate the first two weeks of June.  Then I’ll whisk off to the dentist.

But once that is done, the only real obligations I’ll have will be to the few students who elect to take lessons during the summer.  Otherwise, it’s church, family, Murphy, and Town Council.

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Lazy Sunday CXLIX: End of School Events

The Portly Politico2 Comments

The end is nigh!  The end the school year, that is.  Unlike all the folks that work year-round—the fools!—I get to revel in approximately two months of summertime goodness every year.  It’s a fair trade-off for the brutally long hours I put in during the school year.

With this ending-of-all-things in mind, I figured I’d glance back at some recent posts about end-of-school-year events:

Happy Sunday—and Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

TBT^4: SimEarth

The Portly Politico27 Comments

May.  It’s the superfluous final month of school.  There’s not enough time to cover any new content, but too much time to launch right into exam review.  The result:  an odd limbo in which neither students or teachers wish to dwell.  It’s the time of year when everyone is in on the game of modern education—we’d all be better off doing and being somewhere else, but we’re still going through the rituals of an industrial-era factory.

Naturally, with summer looming, I’m getting the itch to do some gaming again.  Since finishing Disco Elysium a few weeks ago, I have not played any game deeply.  I did purchase Planescape: Torment, the spiritual ancestor of DE, but only managed to get in about an hour of playtime.  One of my students asked me earlier this week about Stardew Valley, which I played religiously for about two weeks in probably 2013.  That’s a modern classic I want to dust off soon.

As for the ostensible subject of this post, my forays into SimEarth have been nonexistent since those halcyon days of May 2020, when America’s love affair with The Virus was in full swing.  Being cooped up in the house got me nostalgic for the classics, but I need to revisit the planet simulator soon.

Big plans for the summer.  If I play all these games as planned, my eyeballs might fall out.

With that, here is 11 May 2023’s “TBT^2: SimEarth“:

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