To Grass

Pondering fatherhood

Chad Damon Stewart — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 10:01:14 +0000

This is the strange result of a serendipitous confluence of children’s dental hygiene products and would have never hung in my home if I weren’t a father.

Browsing children’s consignment stores during an extended vacation in the USA

Chad Damon Stewart — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 07:40:59 +0000

Bewildering

Finding interesting objects in my in-laws’ house

Chad Damon Stewart — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 15:02:46 +0000

I was extremely happy to discover that what I thought was just a simple thermometer to measure the temperature of my son’s bath actually measures temperament.

Shopping and going to restaurants

Chad Damon Stewart — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:53:17 +0000

One of the more amusing aspects of my daily life in Lithuania is reading the English on products and menus. I am certainly not denigrating Lithuania or Lithuanians for especially improper use of English; these sorts of confusing phrases can be found all over the world where English is used as a second language. And, after all, not a particularly large percentage of US citizens can even begin to use a second language. However, when I read Lithuanian potato sausages called “intestines with potatoes” or potato dumplings called “zeppelins”, I find it funny. “Beef in own juice” is just one of those product names that make me laugh. I haven’t tried it yet.

Playing with my equipment and the first part of an unfinished piece of music for my wife

Chad Damon Stewart — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 16:10:16 +0000

Asta’s Song Intro

The same music plays three times in this mp3. The first pass is the standard pickup sound from my Godin Multiac Grand Concert SA, while the third and final pass is the sound of a software synthesizer meant to sound like a string quartet playing the MIDI data from my Axon AX 50 guitar-to-MIDI controller connected to my guitar with a 13-pin cable. Playing between those two passes is a mix of the two.

Walking through a mall in Lithuania’s fifth-largest city Panevezys

Chad Damon Stewart — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:34:14 +0000

The toy store from afar.

A little closer.

Right there.

The pictures say it all.

Faith healing

Chad Damon Stewart — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:17:56 +0000

I recently performed a faith-healing on my two-year-old son’s stuffed puppy. Usually I feign veterinary skills or at least explain the need to take any ill member of his fabric menagerie to a veterinarian, but this time I needed the bathroom fast, so I simply placed my hands on the little toy canine’s head and cried out “you’re healed” in my best impression of a stereotypical evangelical preacher.
As I mused on my little mockery of that spiritual nonsense, I realized that even doing just pretend science is a more arduous task than doing pretend religion. Science is a rigorous and methodological examination of truth, while religion, astrology and all that nonsense have no such standards. And after all, those metaphysical systems are, in the end, all pretend.

Advertising for a Chinese restaurant in Vilnius, Lithuania

Chad Damon Stewart — Wed, 20 May 2009 18:20:31 +0000

Living in Lithuania, though it has already been a total of nearly ten years, I am forced to face many unfamiliar and, often, disturbing cultural differences. In fact, this particular ad, which I think would be impossible to find anywhere in the United States and which I photographed just over one year ago, really sets the tone for this blog, and, in fact, was partially what inspired me to create it. This Chinese restaurant is actually a relatively new one in a popular Lithuanian chain that mainly sells pizza.