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EDWARD JACOBS

Author: Ed Jacobs

  • Wednesday, May 31, 2023

    I’ve been thinking alot about failure of late.

    Nothing disastrous here, just an emphasis in my mind lately about the learning opportunities offered when we don’t meet or exceed expectations. I am thinking about elements of my career (first as a player, then as composer, conductor, teacher, administrator), elements of my personal life (husband, father, son, sibling, friend), and pursuits outside of my career (handyman, carpenter, scuba diving).

    In so many ways I have not seen aspirations achieved, and in each of those cases I have learned so very much. And those lessons have offered me an opportunity to broaden and/or strengthen my understanding of both what things I want and how I want to do them.

    Perhaps this comes from being, at base level, a teacher. Music has been the activity I am driven to pursue, but teaching has been the natural strength since I was little. Music has been what I wanted my natural strength to be, but it was really something that took/takes a ton of work to get better at and, as a result, finds me a pretty idiosyncratic composer. Teaching, though, is rooted in a perspective of trying to understand how someone else sees things, and I am unendingly curious about that in a way that is much stronger than the value of my own idiosyncratic way of musical thinking…

  • Thursday, March 2, 2023

    On the cusp of school’s spring break (next week), and almost caught up with everything so that the week can be a genuine break.

    Then emails and texts arrive with work-fires to try to extinguish. In years past, this sort of thing would have really driven me a bit crazy. Now, having only a year of this “interim Chairperson” thing behind me, and knowing that my time at work is limited to only a few remaining semesters, I see these issues as irritants, rather than crises. I do question many things that come my way these days; and even more so the motivations of others who seem to have completely lost perspective on just plain getting their work done.

    It seems clear that some folks only look to ask questions, and truly do not want to come to conclusions about how to move forward with things they wonder about. The curiosity of researchers, for instance, which sometimes lead to paths of inquiry can only lead to insights if they are willing to take steps along a path, continuing to pursue the path. There are those who seem afraid to choose which step to take next, fearing that choosing one step’s direction will cut off too many other possible directions–so better to never take any step at all. This, clearly, just leads to a kind of decision-paralysis which makes any of the options one faces in life an enormous challenge.

    I recently heard a podcast which, in part, discussed the issues surrounding perfectionism. And perhaps this–a perfectionist’s traits–are what lead some into research in the first place. That is, having a sense that the only important thing about inquiry is the asking of questions; not recognizing that the act of research is only concluded when the “asker” reveals some conclusions synthesized from the discoveries found through questioning.

    This is truly fascinating to me, likely because I have difficulty with a perspective that truly believes that “perfect” is something that can be reached, rather that one only pursues. That is, that our pursuits are all practice.

    Alas, a decision-paralyzed person not only finds themselves unable to move forward, but stymies any progress in those with whom they must collaborate. And there’s the source of today’s rub, though it’s been clearly brewing for many months now. I don’t yet know how to put out today’s fire, but am hoping that a conversation I’ll have in a few hours offers a clearer path forward.

  • Thursday, December 1, 2022

    Está hecho.

  • Monday, June 27, 2022

    We’ve enjoyed a few days at the beach in Surf CIty, and it’s been a welcome change of pace. I’ve loved it here since we were fortunate enough to get this place in ~2006, and it remains a place of retreat and refuge.

    Through a renovation in ’17 which was wiped out by hurricane Florence in ’18, the 2-year rebuild then wiped out by Isaias in ’20, finally getting back in here this past winter, this place was really inaccessible for nearly 3 1/2 years. But when we are here, however briefly (this time for 3 days), we just settle in and relax. The space inside is limited but perfectly arranged by Pattie; the space outside is beyond expansive with its ocean view.

    Every visit also involves some sort of home repair, of course. The amazing thing, though, is that each such project reveals the minimal level of quality of work done in its initial construction. This particular visit has revealed plumbing issues, and it seems clear that it’s not only beyond my abilities (copper piping soldering and parts fabrication), but has been causing a problem whose symptoms have been misdiagnosed as hurricane damage for years. Alas, it’s still great to be here.

    This week will bring in the start of July, the summer more than half gone.

    Two more dive trips, which we’re really looking forward to. July 2-9 in Curacao, and August 9-16 in Bonaire. This week a day of learning a bit more about underwater navigation via a class at the quarry near us, as well. Together with my rescue diver course last May, and the diving we’ve done last August (Bonaire), and December, March, and May trips to Cocoview (Roatan, Honduras), we’ve been both enjoying the variety of places, experiences, and people we encounter, and gaining a great deal of confidence in our diving abilities. At well more than 100 dives (120 or so), we’re no longer novices, have enough experience to know how to make these trips (and each dive) safe and comfortable, and have a strong sense of our own limits.

    Back to this morning’s writing time…

  • Saturday, June 25, 2022

    The past few days in the U.S. seem to bring an already deeply frightening time to new, even more abysmal depths. As bad as the state of affairs in this country has been over the past years–many years, to be sure, and we could look back to our founding through devastating destruction of others for the start–since ’16 it’s just been a steady plummeting of ‘other’ in favor of a national narcissism.

    Our ruling institutions–Executive, Legislative, and Judicial–have each taken their own dives over the decades. The trust in each of these, at different times, has seen a deterioration in the American mind each in their own way. The Vietnam war era saw an Executive branch so out of tune with the populace that our world exploded here, and elsewhere. Nixon brought sheer criminality to the presidency. Reagan brought a selfish, financially-elitist perspective to b.s. economic policy, making the “boot straps” metaphor that many aspire to in the U.S. simply impossible.

    Newt Gingrich, the “moral majority,” created a Congressional/Legislative framework in which the populace is trained to see the other as an enemy, ultimately voting against their own best interests so that “they” don’t win. And to look at McConnell and the current Senate/House functionality is to see how the trajectory laid out by Gingrich has continued. McConnell, perhaps, has singlehandedly created the deterioration of trust in the 3rd branch of our checks-and-balances system, the Judicial Branch.

    With his refusal to do his job in considering Barak Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, then pushing through Cavanaugh and Barrett, he has reshaped the court into a third, rotten leg of the stool keeping the U.S. afloat.

    The rulings of the SC–the states do not have the right to determine their own gun laws; the states must have the right to determine their own laws controlling womens’ bodies; the weakening of Miranda rights; and the enforced public funding of religious institutions which do not even contribute to the public coffers–are so extreme, so contradictory to all information related to the American public’s opinions, that the court’s level of respect is lower than that for our ’16-20 White House occupant.

    We are at the lowest point I can ever remember, with none of our governmental institutions respected. States are creating a wild west, with some now making it legal to purchase military weapons without license, training, or background check. I believe it is entirely likely that when we walk into a store, there will be someone in that store–in some cases, many people–openly carrying weapons. We now live in a society where some are encouraged to ‘report’ someone who attempts to control their own fate and future by exploring options regarding pregnancy. We have a Supreme Court justice who is actually advocating for a return to a time when contraception, gay sex (and, of course, gay marriage), are outlawed. [Remarkable that he doesn’t also want to return miscegenation laws, which would have outlawed his own marriage.]

    I do not know how we, as a society, recover from this. I do expect that the pendulum’s swing that seems to find us in the 19th century right now will return us to something more sane in time ahead. But I do not expect that swing will happen during my own lifetime; perhaps not even during our childrens’; but our grandchildrens’, perhaps, is more likely.

    I am 61 now. I have spent a great deal of time and energy trying to improve the miniscule corner of the world I occupy–that of my family, music, and education–and I’ve done ok at that. I don’t know to alleviate the current, larger-world despondency I feel.

  • Tuesday, June 21, 2022

    This past weekend brought almost all of my family together–for the first time since early December, 2019. Fabulous to see everyone, of course, and to celebrate my nephew’s wedding. Just a few pix of Joe, Cristin, Jackson (nearing 3), and Nathaniel (9 mos.)

    Nate & Joe, 6.19.22
    Jackson’s 1st wedding!
    Cristin, Nate, Jackson, and Joe

  • March 12, 2022

    Roatan, trip no. 2, 3/4/22-3/11/22

    Another fabulous trip to Cocoview for a relaxing week of diving. The past months have been busy in new ways, and this break brought much-needed sleep, relaxation, a rejuvenation-via-distraction of a completely different focus. This past week’s diving I made a very simple change: using the GoPro for photos rather than video, and it made the process of reviewing the pix easier/quicker, and made the identification of fish more efficient, as well. Pattie got a wonderful guide-book, produced by a resident photographer at Cocoview, and it’s been a super resource for us in identifying what we saw on dives.

    Anemone
    Barracuda
    Barracuda
    Barracuda
    Blenny
    Blue Tang
    Blue Tang
    Cowfish
    Cowfish
    DCIM\100GOPRO\GOPR0843.JPG
    Just a flounder hanging out
    Dunno, but thought it pretty
    Dunno
    Dunno No. 3
    Jawfish
    Juvenile drumfish
    Lionfish
    Lionfish
    Lobster
    Lobster
    Lobster
    Lobster
    Lobster
    Slipper Lobster
    Squirrelfish
    star coral
    Star Coral
    Pattie the overlord
    Porcupinefish (kind of Pufferfish)
    Porcupinefish
    Porcupinefish
    Porcupinefish
    Seahorse (orange, on coral spike)
    Seahorse
    Seahorse
    Seahorse
    Seahorse (in middle of light)

  • Wednesday, December 15, 2021

    We’re really having an experience that is, as many others have said, like summer camp for divers.

    The friendships we’re striking up are building from time at meals, of course, but that’s largely because almost all the folks on our boat (currently 8 of us, as 4 left yesterday morning) are coming together for meals. We have certainly met others over an occasional drink at the bar, or just getting into conversations with people at adjoining tables…it’s all about community here.

    There are a handful of people who prefer to spend meal times alone, or just with the companion they traveled with, and no one puts pressure on anyone to join in or to be alone. Just very easy.

    The dives continue to be wonderful. We did two dives Monday (no drop-offs), and yesterday we took off a very rainy morning. In the afternoon Pattie came on the boat but didn’t feel like diving, and I did the boat dive and the drop-off. I suppose one of the best testimonies to how much we’re enjoying this is Pattie’s wanting to just come along on the boat ride, hang out with Dave (captain) and get to know him, and be in the on-the-boat vibe. It’s fun; so much laughter, so many smiles. And Dave (whom Pattie learned has two grown daughters, an architect and an attorney, both on Roatan) and our dive master/dive guide Kirk (three kids, one of whom is the night dive master here) are so helpful, positive, supportive, engaging, amazing resources re sea life.

    Walking from our accommodations to the main area is just about 5′. Along the way we pass several maintenance spots which handle various things (mainly boats), and of course other cabins. Then into the main dive operation on the right of the main path, and the dining hall-office-shop on the left. The dining hall is so very reminiscent of the mess hall i remember from the West End House camp of my three years as a camper in Maine as a kid.

    It’s smaller, and has a bar, and almost-nightly music, but aside from that it’s about community. Buffet lines which have servers (rather than self-serve) for meals, but also always-available coffee, tea, ramen noodles, cereals, cookies for those right after dive starving moments. Rafters filled with stickers from dive clubs world-wide. And a super-helpful wall with pictures of the coral and fish most commonly found in this area.

    Every night we head over to dinner at about 6, but don’t leave until 8, when conversation begins to wane as folks’ fatigue rears its head. The running joke is that after a day of diving the “late night” crowd doesn’t leave until 8:30.

    As Pattie says, this diving thing is just good, clean fun.

  • Monday, December 13, 2021

    Yesterday’s dives were again very nice. The first stop was Gold Chain Reef (#56), and the afternoon dive was another stop at Menagerie (#59). The repeat of Menagerie was just fine, as it’s a lovely and bountiful site. We did a drop-off on the afternoon dive, dropping at the Prince Albert wreck, looking around a bit and heading back in. On average, our dives are clocking in at 50-60 minutes; and we’re doing so with about 1/3 tank remaining.

    Sunday, of course, was the first day of diving for the many folks who arrived on Saturday. So now the boat assignments are complete and we know who’ll be on “our” boat for the remainder of the week. We’d already met with 6 of these folks on Saturday, it turns out, so there were only 2 new folks. And of the 10 on the boat, Pattie and I are the only Cocoview first-timers.

    Last night at dinner 6 of us enjoyed a fun few hours of conversation. The Texans, Christina and Ossie, we’d met the day before, and have been enjoying them. And now also Manta, an infusion nurse from Breckenridge, and Ed, a retired Circuit Court judge from Lynchburg, VA, now doing some teaching at both Liberty and Washington & Lee. We very much enjoyed getting to know them a bit, and everyone has interesting stories to share–increasingly, the stories are less about scuba and more about life.

    3am last night brought a pretty significant rain/wind storm, so i imagine the visibility may be pretty poor and murky today, but we’ll see.

    Below is just one video (i’m slow at downloading, sorting, cutting…) of what I’d thought was a ‘flower’ but, as you’ll see at the very end, is a different sort of sea life. Turns out it’s a worm of some sort.

  • Sunday, December 12, 2021

    Yesterday was our first day of experiencing how things run here–at least on a Saturday, which is the turnover day for the vast majority of guests. And it was great.

    All guests who were boat diving yesterday were put on a single boat, all 8 of us. Some of those folks will be on the boat to which we’re assigned for the remainder of the week, some on other boats. Most of them are here for 10-14 days (“we just get started about 6 days in”). I don’t think we’re quite that hard core. And all are repeat guests, one nearly thirty times.

    One Galveston, TX couple, probably about 70 or so, were particularly friendly, and we enjoyed lunch with them, and general fun conversation on the boat. There’s another couple from south Jersey whom we met at our first dinner on Friday, and we’ve also enjoyed chatting with them. She’s a non-diver, so he goes out on the morning boat dives, then they snorkel together in the afternoons.

    Our first dive in the morning was to a site that is one of the longer boat rides, timing in at about 30-35′. (The afternoon dive was a more typical [we’re told] time of 5-6′.). The first site was “Carib”. Looking on the map below, “Carib Point” is #71; and Cocoview is #62. We’re told most dives here are ‘walls’, which means dropping at a mooring site near a reef, and the reefs then drop off to extreme depths. The wall that drops off is teeming with life, covered with all sorts of coral, crevasses filled with various life, and of course you can hang at whatever depth suits you. We found lots to see at the 30-40′ depths, though I did go down to about 60 to see a seahorse someone found in a crevasse–about 6′ long, orange, and very cute.