My mother, in her incredible foresight, collected everything I ever brought home from school. Even stuff I don’t remember. My report cards from K-4, soldiers from the same army, tucked neatly in their manila envelopes, represent the longest continuous attendance of any one school in my life. There is a series of typed sheets from 1977, when a brilliant 1st grade teacher transcribed our thoughts and recorded them for our parents to keep. Then there is a pile of construction paper covered in crayon, or my favorite, a tabloid sized sheet with lines at the bottom and acres of drawing space above.
firetruck, undated
There is a refreshing looseness to all the drawings, and also a distinct need to tell a story as the years go by. Somewhere in the third or fourth grade a stylized character appeared, and it’s funny to see how I tried to reconcile the different sizes, expressions, and even angles to make it work. The writing is secondary, existing only so that I could draw pictures of the Blob, car chases a la Dukes of Hazzard, or planes from World War 2.
I have results from the PSAT’s, SAT’s, a pile of California Aptitude Battery Tests taken through my travels in the New Jersey school system, and even an ASVAB sheet (looks like I would either have been officer material or a clerk/typist) which led to an embarassing amount of calls from bored Armed Forces recruiters who were mortified when I told them I wanted to go to art school.
I also found an entire binder of fiction writing, done from about the 9th grade to the end of High School, scratched out in my illegible script on three-ring looseleaf. Reading that made my head hurt, but it also remains as a record of what i was thinking about and what I wanted to be.
There is a good chance that I am doing something wrong, but I wasn’t able to get Appletalk over IP working this morning. And I even have the same router this guy does. There must be something I’m missing.
What I learned in Art College, Revisited or I Still Don’t Like Patchouli:
- The Greatful Dead didn’t inspire me to make great works of art when I was in school. Box of Rain may be pretty, but I always hated sloppy jam bands.
- Turpentine still makes me queasy.
- If I can’t resolve a short-pose drawing in 15 minutes, it probably isn’t happening.
- A number-two pencil is my friend.
- I love to draw, but I suck at painting.
Somebody sent one of those totally annoying email viruses to my Verizon address. Apologies to any of my friends who may have gotten it from me.
This is a real nice set of fonts by Susan Kare, the original designer of icons for the Macintosh. At some point, I will have to pick some of these up.
I set up online bill paying via Bank of America today; we’re going to see if I can pay a few of my non-essential bills (mostly phone and utility bills) with it for a month or two, and then if that is smooth I’ll switch the mortgage and insurance bills over as well. It’s good to see they finally made the service free (since May 1); seems to me they will save even more money in transaction costs if they make it free.
Jen called me today to giggle at the new Cidera site; somebody over there got hired on to make some kind of a Frankenstein monster out of the original 2000 design, some of the 1999 graphics I developed, and some of the old advertising materials. Wow.
Catonsville, Thursday July 4
Well, the weekend was a good and productive one. The Fourth was kind of blown by the work situation, but we made the most of the rest of the weekend and had a good time. There are updates on the planters- lots of good news and good luck there, and there is joy in Mudville. Jen and I happened on a massive sale of dirt at Home Depot (and those of you who garden know how frickin’ expensive dirt is) where they had pallet loads selling for $10. Pallets covered with bags of dirt. So we bought about 800 lbs. of dirt and hauled it home. Finished are the two square planters and the front circle planter; long with the dirt I bought about $80 worth of pretty flowers and herbs and we put them all in on Sunday, through clouds of yellow smoke from the Canadian forest fires.
Album of the day is Abductions & Reconstructions, by the Thievery Corporation.
I’m reading about WorldCom and wondering what all that means- more book-cooking and backdoor deals with a huge company. I sure hope the SEC is granted some kind of power so they can create and finally enforce some strong bookkeeping laws to put an end to this kind of stuff. NPR did a great piece a few weeks back on the Enron mess and how they were able to get away with a lot of what they did.
On other telecom fronts, apparently Cingular is buying ATT Wireless, my cell carrier, so I don’t know what kind of disruption in service I’m going to suffer through here, but it should make life interesting.
By the way, you know you’re getting older when your car radio is permanently tuned to the local NPR affiliate. I haven’t listened to song-oriented radio in months. But at least I don’t have to sit through the country’s worst local news telecasts for the information of the day.
One of the programmers here wrote an email to the staff:
Exception 14
… buffer overrun error occurred when attempting to
… write soda to device fridge:
… your soda may be warm.
I need to keep an eye on this series of articles on O’Reillynet about Mac OSX and ColdFusion MX.
Attempting to remain excited about my future career prospects today. I woke up this morning tired, and wandered around my house in a fog. Coffee cleared the cobwebs and I focused on the tasks at hand, but I couldn’t shake a sense of boredom and stagnation. I’m not getting a damn thing from my current job, and that has me very depressed right now.
I am getting a lot of freelance stuff in the pipeline, though, and if I can maintain my current pace I’ll be in good shape at the end of this summer. Right now I’m trying not to overload myself with too much stuff, but there’s two big projects which are very exciting that i want to tackle for different reasons. Kind of makes me wish this was last summer and not this summer- I would be able to segue smoothly into lucrative, exciting freelance work at a time when I was not working at all.
It’s interesting to read the log from last year and see where I was at this time- on the 11th of May last year, I was laid off. on the 22nd of May, I was talking about getting my website redesigned and running again, as well as illustration work going again. it’s bizarre in a way to see the difference a year makes.
I found a few links that I had lost from the December log. Here’s the definitive G-Force/Gatchaman fan site, and a link to Rhino home video, where you can buy the first 8 episodes on DVD.
Here’s a link to a site dedicated to the 1973 Ford Falcon XB GT and the Mad Max movies.
Tomorrow I go out with Jason to take Dan to his bachelor dinner at the Prime Rib; that should be interesting. Jason got a bunch of old ex-System Source employees together for a surprise dinner at Akbar in town last Saturday- that was very interesting and fun and bittersweet all at the same time. I was just thinking about Mike H. last week, and there he is across the table from me. The good thing was that Jason and Shelly showed up as well as Joy on our end of the table, so we had good conversation. That with the lunch I had with Melissa last week just makes my heart heavy sometimes; I miss those guys terribly, and that time period (work-wise, at least). Plus the fact that Greycube is for all purposes ending and I’m kind of blue about all that. I’d like to get some kind of organization together to do some other off-site freelance work.
I found this site today: Steinbergerworld. There’s a list of a lot of fantastic info about these instruments, and considering I have an XP2, I have some reading to do tonight. I also found an Ebay auction with a black XP2 currently at about $400.
Remember Pearl Harbor. Don’t see the movie, which I’m told sucked; read this book by Gordon W. Prange. From what I understand, nobody that produced the movie did; maybe you’ll learn something.
Some little jerk walked past the Scout this morning and sprayed a red line down the side with spray-paint. I hate this city so much. I can’t wait to move out of it.
An interesting quote from Richard Parsons, the (now) CEO of AOL Time Warner:
Q. Do you think the Web can remain free?
A. No. No, I don’t think so. Not if it’s to achieve or realize its ultimate destiny as the global interactive marketplace that it can be.
Go to hell, Richard. And take TIME magazine and all your spamming AOL subscribers with you. Do you understand anything about the Web? The best part about it is that it’s free, you ignorant fool. The best thing about it is that I don’t need to pay narrow-minded greedheads like you to publish whatever I think or feel; I own this site and you don’t. Mouthbreather. Keep the ‘interactive marketplace’ on your pretty AOL sites and leave my web alone.
2:46 PM – </vent mode off> OK, I’m feeling better. Life is good. Please process the above vitriol through the “had a crappy morning” filter. Running was good, and I had a good time with Jeff and Dwight.
Remember Pearl Harbor. Don’t see the movie, which I’m told sucked; read this book by Gordon W. Prange. From what I understand, nobody that produced the movie did; maybe you’ll learn something.
Some little jerk walked past the Scout this morning and sprayed a red line down the side with spray-paint. I hate this city so much. I can’t wait to move out of it.
An interesting quote from Richard Parsons, the (now) CEO of AOL Time Warner:
Q. Do you think the Web can remain free?
A. No. No, I don’t think so. Not if it’s to achieve or realize its ultimate destiny as the global interactive marketplace that it can be.
Go to hell, Richard. And take TIME magazine and all your spamming AOL subscribers with you. Do you understand anything about the Web? The best part about it is that it’s free, you ignorant fool. The best thing about it is that I don’t need to pay narrow-minded greedheads like you to publish whatever I think or feel; I own this site and you don’t. Mouthbreather. Keep the ‘interactive marketplace’ on your pretty AOL sites and leave my web alone.
2:46 PM – </vent mode off> OK, I’m feeling better. Life is good. Please process the above vitriol through the “had a crappy morning” filter. Running was good, and I had a good time with Jeff and Dwight.
Whew. Back from CT and a trip back into time- the first time I’ve been back up to the old Dugan high-school era homestead in about 3 years- that was a trip through time. Some random thoughts about the journey:
- Mahopac has not changed.
- The area in a 60-mile radius around New York City is still the Land of Classic Rock. I heard “Hysteria” by Def Leppard twice in 2 days on the radio. Basically the choices for radio up there are one of three: classic rock, sports talk, or latin dance music.
- County Adjustment Bureau is still as ugly as it was when I went to college, times two. We drove up and peeked in the driveway: there are lots of tractor trailers parked in there, but I took it as a good omen that a Scout 80 was parked over in the driveway.
- Ridgefield is still as rich as I remember it.
- The leaves driving back through New Jersey on Sunday were absolutely incredible.
Today I’m going to hit the Home Depot and order the carpeting I’ve been waiting for for 2 months. They’re having a special, with installation, where the padding is free. I took measurements last night and got all the relevant info I need. I also need to get the stain today and begin on the woodwork; once I get my paycheck I’m also going to pick up the wood for the stairs and get those installed. Luckily the side shelves, which were cupped slightly after I installed them, sanded down smooth and look clean. So after the underside caps are stained, I’ll install them and finish off the side walls. I also am going to measure the junction box at the store, cut down a piece of sanded plywood, and mount it on the wall in the closet. Then we can start the wiring…
Salon is no longer listing its main news stories for free- they’re putting them under the Premium service, so if you want to see good reporting by them, you have to shell out $30 or so. Now, I’ve been reading Salon for about the past four years. I love the magazine and have always supported it, talked it up, and browsed/read it daily. But in this economy, when I have to rationalize and justify a $15 bottle of wine, $20 worth of paint, or full gas tank in the Scout, I don’t have $30 to offer. Too bad. I suppose I’ll be looking at them a lot less now.
I read today that the guitarist from Limp Bizkit is leaving the band. While I wipe away a tear from my eye, I sit and meditate on this thought: What makes Fred Durst so important that his views on the tragedy in NYC are quoted in the paper? How did he and the pretty-boy guy from the Goo Goo Dolls get so famous and talented that they were allowed into the recording studio to do a cover of ‘Wish You Were Here‘ in memoriam? Now, don’t get me wrong, it was a cool idea (and a great song) but, man, was that bad. Those two dudes can’t sing.
Perhaps the guitarist just go so damn sick of Fred’s whiny voice that he couldn’t stay in the band? That’s my personal opinion.