PEI needs a serious school of Computer Science

What we need on PEI is successful high tech development on the scale of Slemon Park. The best way to make that happen is through the establishment of a serious Computer Science program at UPEI including graduate studies.

I don’t mean to denigrate the current department but their own website says it: only 9 in the faculty

‘Students from our department have an excellent record of placement at the country’s top graduate schools, including University of Toronto, Waterloo, British Columbia and McGill.’

If your goal is prepare students to go onto other schools, they will. When they graduate they get jobs somewhere else.

You can’t develop a serious IT sector without brain power: young people with graduate degrees in computer science. Microsoft couldn’t even think about a lab here. They need hundreds and hundreds of the latest graduates to come up with cool technology.

When I had Aquilium here in the 90’s we were doing leading edge stuff for back then. We could not find top programmers et al we needed simply because UPEI was not churning them out.

I gotta go practice guitar. This is depressing.

People have been leaving PEI for 100 years

Out migration of youth is not a real crisis on PEI. Islanders have left the Province for more than 100 years looking for adventure and their fortune. PEI is just too small and limited in resources to support all its sons and daughters.

In 1891 the population of PEI was a surprising 109,000, not far off from today’s 139,000. A downturn in the economy and natural resources reduced the population to 88,000 by the late 1920’s. The population has been climbing in fits and starts since then.

Most of my friends from the 50’s and 60’s in rural PEI are long gone to jobs in other provinces and the States. Everyone has relatives in the Boston States or Ontario. When I came back in 1975, I remember another out-migration to the west for jobs in ‘78. It happened again in 1983 during the recession and so on.

I have 5 children, only one is left on PEI. Will is in the high tech sector: he left here and tripled his income in no time. Laura went to law school away and stayed for a job in Toronto. She needs the income to pay off her student loan. Gabe and Allison have lived in Ontario for so long; I doubt they could contemplate living on PEI.

Except for government jobs and a few well paying jobs in the aerospace, IT, or manufacturers like DCL, there just isn’t the market on PEI for good paying jobs for young people. So they leave which is what they’ve been doing for 100 years. Some people come back but most don’t. Otherwise our population would be 500,000 by now.

Joel’s off to Alberta

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Joel’s off to Alberta, originally uploaded by StephenPate.

Joel left Sunday for the two day journey to Northern Alberta. He called someone on Wednesday and he was packed off on Sunday. He’ll be working where it’s colder than here. Hope he does well!

Caption: Kerrie, Joel, Natalie, Hannah, Edith Larkin, photo by Jessica.
(I blogged this picture right from Flickr which is cool.)

Great night at Baba’s – the jury is out on guitar synthesizer

Sorry to take to long to do this. I had the meeting day from Hell yesterday: big name in medical community on disability and then the Minister and his Deputy on disability.

So Wednesday night at Babba’s? It went pretty cool. The guitar / man / synthesizer interaction was a little rough on the first song, Mean Hearted Woman which has a Hootchie Cootchie Man thing going. I was using the hold pedal for the slide from E to G to A. Thought it would sound great – sucked big time.

Audience feedback was solicited and it came. Ivan told me later it was jarring on his ears. OK. Andrea said it sounded noisy. Lucky I dropped the Hold thingy half way through the song.

Disability Support Blues went great. Got several nods afterward on that one. Ryan came in the door in the middle of the song so I called him up. He tuned up and away we went into Dylan’s Is Your Love in Vain. I am changing organ synths on each song and this one is a retro 60’s sound with finger picking. Ryan was awesome. He is a great guitarist. Sounded cool.

The last song was Your Song a slow love ballad I wrote and my best song yet, I think. It was supposed to have strings. Edith said ‘Where were the strings?’ so I guess not enough strings.

Overall, people were pretty enthusiastic. Lots of high 5’s. Andrea said it was cool but didn’t sound as good as my regular guitars. Granted.

I won’t do it every week, but I will do it again.

Synthesizer Guitar To Perform at Baba’s, Stephen will accompany

Tonight is the big debut for my new guitar. It’s working well enough that if I strum or pick music comes out. That is no small feat considering it has MIDI pickups and is processing everything differently until the output. For example, it makes a music note when fingers hit strings, lift off strings. Adjustments help but you can’t whack away.

With 400 or more different synthesizer effects, its a big job to pick the right one for the song. Will the strings sound silly, too loud or support the mood of the song. This is more complex that just playing. It’s arranging. How well we, the guitar/synth and I, do is up to the audience.

I’d already picked out a great organ backing for Disability Support Blues and a more raucous one for Mean Hearted Woman. The trick was strings for Your Song. My girlfriend, she love that, sat down and listened to the first verse of the song 34 times – one for each string patch. They we narrowed down to 5, then 2 and the final one. Number 2 on the list – would you believe it.

I usually get to do a 4th song so I’m searching for the right song that will benefit from something extra.

Deeter is on the top of his new gym next to the monitor, looking pretty happy. Parrots like soothing music but not rock and roll. He was getting pretty irritated when I was playing fast – the very opposite of people in bars.

Deeter gets a new gym

Deeter got a new gym yesterday but it took him until today to use it.

I saw a parrot gym at Pets Unlimited but they don’t sell them. So I checked it out and figured I could make it. Home Depot had 5/8 dowels and 1.5 x 1.5 poplar and that’s all I needed.

I made the square centre post octagonal with my jointer and drilled holes for the dowels. I drilled the holes stepping down the post one inch and turn. The dowel at the top went on both sides to make a perch for him. They are not really 5/8 but larger than 9/16. Turning the belt sander upside down allowed each dowel to be sized down.

The base was a 9 by 8 piece of 3/4” plywood that was lying around. The base trim – remember those corn pieces – was made from a 2 x 2 scrap piece of pine using table saw, sander and mitre saw. Pretty simple.

Everything was glued; the dowels, the post to base and the base trim. A furniture dowel strengthened the base/post joint. Nailed a few brads into the trim to hold.

Deter went out of his way to ignore it and screeched at me when I showed him. OK so it takes up real estate on the top of the cage where he lives all day.

This morning I move the gym to my office. Again, no dice. He stayed on the bottom and through corn husks at me.

I moved him and the gym back to the kitchen at lunchtime and he rewarded me with the pics and video. It’s all about control.

Guitar Pro Does Not Do Midi Guitar Notation

The primary objective in getting the MIDI Godin guitar and the Roland GR-20 was to use them to produce music notation for the songs I write. Despite written assurances that it would handle the task with the specified equipment, Guitar Pro does not do notation from your MIDI guitar. I wish they had told me sooner.

I have been using Guitar Pro for several years. You can find lots of free tabs out on the web. They can help to teach you what the famous artists are doing. The number of tabs has fallen off as the music publishers threaten lawsuits. At one point the whole Bob Dylan catalogue was removed from the internet! Exactly, you are as shocked as I was. Good news: they moved it offshore and it is available again. Whew!

There are still probably 30,000 tabs available so Guitar Pro, which comes from France, is a good buy. However, it is not the product if you want to get more serious and do music notation.

I cannot believe they mislead me. I asked them directly in an email on January 1st if it would work. My question on Jan 1st was very specific:

‘Can Guitar Pro5 take the midi data and create music notation?’

Guitar Pro replied on the 4th was

‘If your GI-20 install a driver in your system (for MIDI-In), i think is no problem.’

However when it wouldn’t work, the new reply on January 17th was,

‘Actually the MIDI In feature is very restrictive and not adapted to the actual hardware like the Roland GRx interfaces. The Midi In catch only the NoteOn with the Midi Note value (0-127.’

In response I wrote

‘In other words, the first answer was wrong and the second answer was a fair evaluation of the program’s limitations. Since one said it would work an the second said it wouldn’t, that’s a contradiction. You should warn people that it’s not useful for music notation since its not.’

I got the Gallic shrug today when they replied ‘If you want.’
Other solutions, read money and time, are Finale and Sibelius G7. There are more than 20 solutions; however I am going to do trials of those two before I waste rest of my life on this project.

My new song sounds cool though played with 60’s rock organ. Always an upside.

Stephen Nowell Cooks up Breakfast at Farmers Market

There are a few things we look forward to every week. Having breakfast cooked at the Farmer’s Market is one of them. There are lots of vendors to choose from and one of our favourites is the booth simply called “Breakfast Now Being Served.” There owner Stephen Nowell and his wife Deborah prepare fresh breakfasts on the spot.

The menu includes omelets, French toast, pancakes, crepes and Belgium waffles. The variety of ways he makes them is amazing for the small space they occupy. Every once in awhile I shoot the diet and order French toast with the mixed fruit and berries topped with whipped cream. It’s a secret zero calorie recipe. The breakfasts are a bargain; most cost less than $5 for a high quality meal.

They started off with 4 feet of working space and have expanded over the past 5 years to two locations. Stephen does most of the cooking at his station close to the eating area. Baked goods and waffles/crepes are made at the original counter on the aisle. They start baking on Wednesday to be ready for each Saturday.

What’s free with your meal is Stephen’s sense of humour and occasional sarcasm. He always has funny word or two which is difficult considering his job as a short order cook. His secret? “I pretend I’m on drugs. It’s cheaper that way.” A couple of years ago he renamed me Roy Orbison when I got new dark rimmed glasses. I’ve been Roy ever since.

It’s not MacDonald’s. Things are made to order fresh for each customer. You may have a 15 to 20 minute wait some days but that’s the beauty of the Farmer’s Market. Walk around, shop or just sit and spend time talking to friends. The pace is relaxed: the atmosphere convivial. Brianna or Darrah Richardson will bring the meal when it’s ready.

Disability Support Blues

I worked on my new song last night and tightened up the lyrics. I also changed it from a folk broadside to a blues. It’s longish for a blues song but it works and is definately more interesting to listen to, the dynamics work better and the hooks are more evident.

The whole song is published at my other blog. Check it out. I’ll do it again at Baba’s next week.

I was out at National Music yesterday. Dennis showed me a new Breedlove accoustic. Gorgeous and a nice sound. Mmmm.

You Never Can Tell What Will Happen

I promised to get my girl friend’s tires changed yesterday. I wasted an enormous amount of time sitting at the tire place. I did read until my eye balls popped out. The interesting subject? Supports and Services for Adults and Children With Disabilities in Canada.

It was so dry with too many percentages and numbers that all run together. Did you know that twice as many people use scooters as electric wheelchairs? Interesting since the Government here hates scooters and won’t fund them.

My reading didn’t help the tire guys who installed winter tires instead of summer times. Don’t ask. I have to go back this morning. Time wasted but …not.

I barely got home and my computer reminded me of a Rotary Easter Seals meeting downtown at 4 pm. I rushed down to the BDC building. Being late I had to sit in the last chair at the front of the table next to the chairman. Too much exposure.

The meeting was going over the minutiae of the Telethon and everything. A haze came over me and I started writing furiously on the back of my agenda…

There’s a whole lot of people
Sufferin’ on PEI tonight
There’s a whole lot people
That don’t seem right.
They have some problems
No fault of their own
Some of them are at risk
Of even losing their home
They don’t know what to do
It’s up to me and you.

In no time there were two verses and a bridge. The other bridge and coda came together at home later. Last night the crowd at Babba’s heard the first performance with Ryan Mahoney trying to figure out what’s going on. Got applause, some said it was angry, some said smart.

You never can tell what will happen between the mundane moments of life.

Setting up the cool synth guitar

I’ve been busy with the new guitar setup. That is along with blogging the government about disability issues, going to Rotary, paying bills and sundry other things that get in the way of playing guitar.

The diagram, thanks to Godin, is modified to show my set-up. The guitar is a Multiac Grand Concert SA. It has nylon strings, super tuners, a special pickup for each string. It has standard ¼” output and the special 13-pin GK cable that links to Roland’s sythn/midi units.

It works with the GI-20 which is a straight synth to midi and no processor. Or to the GR-33 and GR-20. I liked the idea of the GI-20 which is simple and direct but opted for the GR-20 since I get better triggering and 400+ synth sounds for the guitar. Amazingly there is only a $100 difference between the two.

Better triggering and sensing in the MIDI world is important since early units had latency problems. MIDI notes came after the actual string notes. There was also a problem of picking up ghost notes when you slid your fingers along a string or lifted than off. The adjustments on the GR-20 seem to take care of that.

Output from the GR-20 is to headphones or to my old keyboard amp, a Roland KC300. I tried to sell this all last year and no one wanted it. It is a great amp and works equally well for keyboards, acoustic guitar and now synthesizer. The advantage of the Roland is large speaker, cone tweeter and smooth as silk response. I picked it as the best sounding amp to go with my Gibson EC-20 Starburst that people lust after. Since then I’ve had 2 other acoustic guitar amps and they could not touch the sound, admittedly there are no effects.

There are several other connections from the GR-20 that can be found on Roland site.

The only piece missing is the FireWire or USB computer recording interface. The diagram shows an M-Audio 410, a popular unit, but I don’t have one. My son in Oakville picked one up at Christmas.. They are pretty cool: a couple of XLR inputs for mics and ¼” balanced and unbalanced for gear that mix into a USB or Firewire interface. This would allow me to record into the computer. Then I publish my songs on the web and you could hear them. Not yet.

For now, I am practicing some songs with synth strings and chorus. Sounds cool. I tried the computer notation into Guitar Pro but it’s not right yet.

Roland Canada and Dennis Larocque come to the rescue

It finally came together this week with help from Roland Canada Music and Dennis Larocque of National Music. No more delayed gratification.

I got this cool synth classical guitar from Godin. I was practicing on it daily until I broke the A string – duh.

The Roland GR-20 Synth was inert: the 13 pin cable was missing. That came on Thursday and I was excited. Plugging everything in according to the book, I was disappointed to see the display light up like a Christmas tree. The numbers kept cycling round and round the 400 + synth patches. Argh! No fun today.

I tried all evening to make it work but hopeless. The only way to make the rolling display stop was to unplug the guitar. That didn’t seem like a good solution. After a Friday AM meeting, I sent emails to Godin and Roland in desperation. I was amazed that Roland responded within the hour. They said check the cable or the switches on the Godin guitar.

I took the Guitar and synth out to Dennis at National. Within a few minutes he had loosened the pcb board that held the electronics. The guitar and synth were in sync. I was ecstatic. I went home and fooled around making my guitar sound like 400 things it isn’t, like a female choir singing “oooh” or the string section of an orchestra.

This is not the first time Dennis has rescued me. I have a 12 fret Martin 000 that no one could adjust the buzzing from, including one of the so-called best luthiers in Atlantic Canada. However, Dennis did it. He has adjusted, fix and set-up all my guitars. He is definitely awesome. He also has great sense of humour – check out the picture.

Dennis Larocque has a big reputation in town as the go-to guy. He’s the best luthier around.

The Roland guy sent me three helpful emails. Godin sent none yet.

Baba’s Open Mic

I was glad to get back to Baba’s Open Mic last night. Holidays and a post-Christmas cold/flu had taken their toll in missed weeks.

It’s always a humbling and fun experience to play there.

Steve was reminiscing about how fantastic the Rock On! Live Jam had been at Piazza Joe’s. Guys shredding Pantera next to sensitive singer songwriters.

As I started my first song, Todd King asked out loud if the song was inappropriate sexually. I refused to answer the question!

One of my own songs went over like awful but Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat had them rocking. Mahoney was doing great backup work on his Taylor for me. We should practice: we might get better.

Andrea was telling me more about her trip across Canada with Moe taking videos. It’s supposed to happen in March/April. That will be such a cool trip for them. In you see Andrea, buy one of her CD’s to help her with trip expenses.

Delayed Gratification

The sign of a mature person, they say, is the ability to delay gratification. Maybe but the delays are getting on my nerves.

I got a new guitar at Christmas, a nylon string, classical style guitar with synth access. The purpose: to record songs from the guitar into my computer for notation. Good story eh? So I get the guitar then I have to order a synth/midi controller. It comes but they forgot the cable to connect the guitar. Its a weird 13 pin cable. That’s OK another week to wait and then the guitar breaks a string last night.

Today was the day to Press Release my Privacy Complaint against the Disability Support Program. So I had to get up early, duffy up the press release and start calling people. Yikes right out of the blue, they want to do an interview. So that’s how my morning went, media all the way. Somewhere in there I did a blog.

By 1 PM things are quieting down and I nip over to National Music to see Dennis and get some strings. Oops, there’s the phone. Rush back home and more media contacts.

It’s soon supper and then more blogging. I had some interesting contacts with public officials which I didn’t want to lose.

What to do? What to do? Skip string change, grab another guitar and Deeter and play guitar. Right after I post this. Deeter is screeming in my ear. Guess he wants me to play something too.

My Parrot Won’t be an Accountant

Perhaps you are like me and have a pet parrot. Like all pet owners you have taken a sort of parental role with your pet. You wish your parrot to grow up someday, get a college education and then move on to a good job, to become a professional parrot.

This was my wish too but sadly it will not happen. Deeter, as he is called, seems more destined for some other less lucrative trade.

It’s not that he isn’t likable. Deeter can be as charming as the next person or parrot. However today I discovered a serious personality flaw that will get him jail time should be become an accountant: he loves to shred paper.

It happened innocently. He was on my shoulder as I tried to balance my bank account. He swiftly climbed down my arm and yanked at my neat pile of bills, spilling them all over the floor.

Trying to distract him, I gave him a piece of useless scrap paper. Ha! Do you think my bird is stupid? He tossed it in my face and jumped back into the re-piled bills. He was madly attacking a Indigo receipt and it dawned on me. He was not eating the paper: he was shredding it, all over me, the desk and the floor.

The only way I could get him to stop shredding was to give him an orange post it note. He shredded it all over my shoulder. Then he shrieked in my ear to let me know time to go the the bathroom. Laugh at your peril.

Now we are back. Can you imagine how hard it is to type with a parrot balanced on your finger. He is walking all over my keyboard and shredding a bank deposit. I wish he would shred some bills.

Maybe he will make a good lawyer. If they shred paper don’t they claim solicitor client privilege or something?

Social Media Activist

Will, my son, has given me a new label Social Media Activist.

I’ve been called lots of this before but not that. During my business years people thought I was a right wing type. Things have changed.

I would like to remind Will that during my high school and university days I was a social activist fighting for civil rights and freedom of expression.

I think he knows that and was waiting for the old me to show up again.