I’ve also set up a Tumblog for illustration here. I’m going to post 1-2 images from the archives per week, and maybe add some inspiration as I go. We’ll see.
I got a Facebook message from Mike in Colorado the other day, who said he’d found a local junkyard and scored a pile of Scout badges for his resto project. He asked me if I needed anything, and I told him I was looking for a set myself; Peer Pressure was clean-shaven when I got her (minus one IH badge on the driver’s fender). Lo and behold, look what appeared on my doorstep yesterday afternoon:
The real miracle is that ALL of them still have their mounting posts. Getting pot-metal badges off without breaking them is something akin to magic; he was able to keep them all intact. Now I must find a suitable gift to return the favor.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
Friday evening I drove to meet 1/2 of Jen’s family in Columbia for dinner after work. We hung out and shot the breeze for a while, then reconvened at a nearby Coldstone for ice cream. YUM. As usual my eyes were bigger than my stomach, so I had to pack up half of what I’d bought and bring it home. The evening was capped off with a moonlight drive home in the Scout, which was actually quite pleasant after the sun had gone down. One thing that’s nagging me is the absence of license plate lights in back–I have the plate zip-tied to the swing arm in front of the mount. Last thing I want right now is a moving violation ticket.
I spent much of Saturday laid up with the girl on the couch, watching Nick Jr. and coughing up my lungs while Jen worked on a photo shoot in the dining room. At this point I’m about done with the Fresh Beat Band, though in their defense they appear to be the happiest four people walking the earth. I suppose it’s only a matter of time before a sex and heroin soaked “Behind The Music” is produced exposing the seamier side of life as a Rock Star. We regretfully opted out of a barbecue with the Hoerrs that afternoon; the heat was too much and I for one would not have been in top form.
Sunday was much the same; mostly relaxation and low-key activities. We rose too late to get ready for church, but the presence of two Trane service trucks in the parking lot spoke volumes: my guess is that they haven’t got air conditioning in the summer wing fixed yet. We did rally by noontime to go out and see Brave in a blast-chilled theater down by the airport. Finn seemed to like the movie, though I think she had a hard time following plot threads. Being a Pixar movie there were more than just a few simple themes to grasp, so we did our best to fill her in as the movie progressed. As an adult, I liked it a lot; while it’s not their best movie, it deserves more credit than it’s getting by the critics. Jen and I talked about it briefly over dinner–the rap on Pixar is that all their movies are about boys with daddy issues; this is a girl with mommy issues. What I think the critics forget, though, is that these are all, at heart, kids’ movies. As a kid, the biggest source of conflict is usually with one’s parents. So mommy/daddy issues are the bread and butter of a real kids’ movie. This is generally why Pixar movies work better than, say, Shrek, which is an adult’s movie masquerading as a kid’s fairy tale (and stuffed full of stale adult pop-culture references).
Anyway, I enjoyed it, and I think Finn did too. She crashed out on the way home, right around the time I realized I’d left my phone in the theater. I activated the Find My Phone service through iCloud, which told me it was sitting at the lost & found waiting for me to pick it up. Well done, Apple.
File this under awesome: Streamlined Soviet Passenger Hydrofoils were made and used in the 1960s through the 1980s. I think my favorite is the “Meteor” of the ’60’s—the rear deck, the observation bubble leading into the fin—perfect.
I’ve been sitting on this one for a while, not knowing how to finish it off. I think I’m going to do another version with more detail, which means the source material will be larger. So, consider this a study for the final.
Our FIOS TV signal went out the other day after the storm and wouldn’t come back up. We had phone service, we had interwebs, we were even getting the program guide on our TV but the picture wouldn’t appear. So the Verizon guy comes out and replaces the box with two spares he had in his truck. No picture. Then he traced it down to the big FIOS unit in the basement and replaced that. Success!
While showing me how everything was set up, I explained how I was going to upgrade to the digital box so I could run an HDMI cable to the TV instead of the coax; he looked surprised and said, “You have an HDMI output on this box–it’s a newer model. Wanna hook it up?”
Two minutes later, he was showing me how to access all the HD channels via the shortcut on our remote. HOLY SHIT.
Holy shit, I’m tired.
It appears the light meter in my D70 is shot; I had to push the exposure in these photos a lot in Photoshop to get anything worthwhile.