The Comet's Flame

Some prosaic Oracle reached
Her hand languidly down
Into this sea of humanity
With a handful of salt.
That which we already have
Is given in abundance.
The freshness we long for
Is swallowed in our depths.

There have been a lot of changes in the past year(s).  One of them is that I felt motivated to update my blog and bring it back online.  I’ll talk later about my new vision for the blog, but for now, I’ll give a brief update about what’s new with me.

I am engaged to the love of my life, Anna Allen!  We plan to get married this summer, and we are both really excited.

It’s all been very exciting, and I think that 2011 will be even better.  Stay tuned for more substantial posts!  I have all sorts of literary, artistic, and scientific things that I want to talk about.

This is the first blog post I have written in a very long time.  Wow, what a long strange trip it has been… I don’t really even know where to start.  Thus, I think I will start at the beginning.  I want to start posting as if this were a new blog.  I will leave previous entries here for nostalgia’s sake, but please realize that this blog will be moving in a new (and hopefully better) direction.

Family pictures are usually pretty traumatic for the McClurgs, but this year things went smoothly, and the pictures turned out pretty well.

My sister Moriah picked out the outfits, and I think she did a great job.

As you may know, I am a teaching assistant for this semester’s Digital Design class at the U of I.  This is the third time I have helped teach this class.  It is an introduction to digital electronics (binary numbers, boolean logic, logic gates, sequential circuits, etc.), and it’s really fun.

I thought you might like to see what my lab looks like.  I have about 4 office hours, and about 12 lab hours each week, so I spend quite a bit of time here.  It contains all kinds of cool equipment… digital oscilloscopes, function generators, logic analyzers, FPGA development kits, and a huge supply of various IC chips.

If you’re ever in the Iowa City area, stop by and say hi!  We can hang out and do some electronics stuff!

Wow. All I can say is wow.  This performance by Bon Iver is simply amazing.

Unfortunately, they only sing about half of the lyrics here for some reason. You can hear the whole song with less instrumentation if you wish.

I spent most of the afternoon today in Iowa City.  I had a few things that I needed to check/setup in my lab.  After that, I spent some time walking around downtown.  The weather was absolutely beautiful, and the city was surprisingly peaceful.  A few random people smiled at me.

I like being outdoors.

I like seeing nice/happy people.

It was a good day.

As some of you may know, I enjoy searching for interesting and unique indie music, and I feel that it is my duty to share some of my discoveries with you.

Put on your favourite hi-fi headphones and enjoy the ambient bliss of this song by English trip-hop band Massive Attack (with vocals by none other than Liz Fraser of Cocteau Twins fame):

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.

-Albert Camus

While I don’t necessarily agree with that quote (there doesn’t seem to be an overabundance of warmth in my heart these days), I do believe that God has the power to control the seasons.  I am tired of winter, and I am praying that He will bring a summer to my soul.

It seems like this is about the billionth time I have written this type of entry.  I think that perhaps choices I am making (or choices I have made) are preventing God from thawing the ice.  I am going to try to locate those problem areas and make some changes.  Stay tuned…

Check out this adorable and quirky short film which I happened across while perusing music videos on YouTube.