In Memoriam
Two deaths in two consecutive days in August: one a national loss; the other, a personal one:
 | Senator Edward Kennedy, "the Lion of the Senate," one of the most effective senators in a century, one who was steadfast in his advocacy for minorities and for all who did not share his privilege of being rich & powerful. It would be a wonderful tribute to his legacy if the Congress would pass a effective universal-health-care legislation, sad as it will be for him not to be here to see it. |
| Bonnie, the miniature schnauzer, who was not my dog, but who enriched my life as she did so many others. |
Bonnie (1998-2009)
A brave & fearless friend who was rescued, at about six months of age, from the hurricane for which she was named
Music
Classical Music is one of my greatest pleasures and occupies my time in many different ways, including much listening and watching via CDs, DVDs, the Internet (the Berlin Philharmonic broadcasts ("The Digital Concert Hall"), both live and archived, are great), and Live in HD broadcasts to movie theaters by the Metropolitan Opera. In addition, I am more of an active participant with my involvement in two chamber groups in my county: Sundays at Three chamber-music series and the Orchestra of St. John's (Howard County's only chamber orchestra). I serve a variety of functions such as treasurer, producer of program brochures, maker of DVDs documenting performances, and occasional rehearsal pianist and page turner.
Here is a sample from Sundays at Three:
We recently co-hosted the Bennewitz Quartet of Prague in our home and gave them a tour of Washington, D. C. They held a master class for middle- and high-school students here and then gave a concert as part of the Candelight Concerts series in Columbia, Maryland. They performed an early Mozart quartet, the Lyric Suite by Alban Berg, and Schubert's Quartet #13. I was favorably impressed by several things: their technique was excellent, and the blend of their instruments was exceptional; but most importantly, they eschewed flashiness and concentrated on honest and probing interpretations of the music. They did not stray very far from tradition but did employ a noticeably spare vibrato, which served the poignancy of the Schubert exceedingly well.
We also had a visit from another talented quartet, the Calder Quartet, seen April 14 on the Tonight Show, as string backup for Airborne Toxic Event.
As dynamic as our string-quartet friends were sublime, the Simon Bolivar youth orchestra conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, a wunderkind himself, turned in the most phenomenal performance of orchestral music of the entire season -- in Washington, D. C.; Houston, and Chicago.
Travel
Our most recent travel was in 2006 and included a 24-day tour of Italy from bottom to top, culminating in a 2-day visit to Salzburg, Austria, to commemorate Mozart's 250th-birthday year. One of many picturesque spots was Portofino, pictured below; but I've saved the best for my new Europe 2006 pages, including Ravello on the Amalfi Coast, and Bellagio on Lake Como, two of the most beautiful places on earth.
The previous trip was in November, 2005: Australia and New Zealand
Highlights included Sydney; the Southern Ocean with the "Twelve Apostles," Kangaroo Island, Melbourne, and Adelaide; and northeastern Australia, with Brisbane, Mount Tamborine, and Heron Island (on the Great Barrier Reef); Christchurch with excursions across the South Island's "Alps," and to the Franz Josef Glacier; two South Island spectaculars, Milford Sound (from Queenstown) and Mount Cook; and the North Island highlights of Wellington and Rotorua (a center of hot springs and Maori culture), including some spectacular land between there and Auckland. Along the way we also saw aboriginal cultures, Antarctic museums, a Lord of the Rings tour, koalas, sheep, kangaroos, sheep, parrots, sheep, penguins, sheep, sheep....
For all travel pages, you can click here or on the Travel button, or click on the links under each topic below.
August, 2005: Alaska
Highlights included Camp Denali, Prince William Sound, and Tracy Fjord. Interesting people included a woman who spends four months of the year operating a forklift at the south pole; an ex-Marine, ex-Forest Ranger, off to seminary to begin a new life as a future priest with likely service to the native peoples of Alaska; and an Alaska Railroad employee from Belarus. One of these days I'll get around to posting some pictures from this trip, but for now proceed to ...
April, 2005: Italy
For pictures and highlights of our 2005 trip to northern Italy, click on Florence 2005 and Venice 2005. All the pictures of Venice are on one page, so it will take a while to load over slow connections.
The Summer of 2004 took us to Italy and Colorado. For picture stories of those trips click on Colorado 2004, Rome 2004, or Sicily 2004.
I have some more pictures to share on my Windows Live space; they include photos from our yard this summer and a few from a trip I made to Puerto Rico in 2002.
We know an excellent artist in New York, Daniel Roberts; to see some of his art, take a look at his website.
You may e-mail me at don<dot>degeorge at iname<dot>com. I leave it to you to assemble my e-mail address into the standard, workable format because I don't want it available here for spammers' computers to harvest.
Tip: Please do me and yourself a favor and set your screen resolution to at least 1024x728. This will allow you to see the full width of these pages without having to scroll. If this makes text hard to read on your monitor, first use your monitor controls to stretch your Windows desktop to fill the screen--those black borders do you no good at all. If text is still too small, use your Web browser's settings to increase the font size. (In Internet Explorer, go to View....Text Size.) With modern monitors there's no need to have your computer screen display text the size of a first-grade primer; make your computer screen look like a book that an adult would read. (Oh, yes, this particular note is in very small type; if you can read this easily, then you can gain desktop space by increasing your screen resolution.)
A few more words on screen resolution: A common rule of thumb is to set 14&15-inch monitors to 800x600, 16&17-inch monitors to 1024x768, and 19-inch and higher monitors to 1280x1024. Based on these rules of thumb, if you have less than a 16-inch monitor, I apologize for your need to scroll on this site; but I must say that unless your computer is very old or you are due for new eyeglasses or you view your monitor from across the room, I disagree with the above rules of thumb. I find that you can set a 15" monitor to 1024x728 if you make the adjustments I mention above. I run 1920x1440 on my 21" monitor and can read this fine print perfectly well even though I have trouble reading the ingredient list on a food package. Furthermore, the suggestion to use a resolution of 1280x1024 is hogwash for anyone viewing graphics or photographs on a computer monitor (and isn't that everybody?) -- this produces a vertically compressed picture that makes things appear too wide. The correct aspect ratio for a computer monitor is 1.33:1; and that means you need to stick to 640x480, 800x600, 1024x728, 1362x1024 (OK, almost no computer offers this resolution, which is what the 1280x1024 should be--there must be some engineering reason for this; otherwise, it makes no sense), 1600x1200, etc. Oh, and while you're at it, be sure that your monitor's refresh rate is set to 70Hz or more; I've seen way too many monitors set at a flickery 60 Hz. For a few of you, your video cards or monitors won't support high-resolution and higher refresh rates at the same time; in that case, I reluctantly suggest that you use lower resolution and higher refresh rate. Thank you for reading my rant on screen resolutions. - Don DeGeorge
This page was last updated on 09/07/09.