Well, it looks like I got my drone at exactly the right time. The US Government banned all new foreign-made drones in the U.S., essentially shutting DJI out of the domestic market as of yesterday.
- I hauled 32 frozen turkeys in the Travelall to a local church on Jen’s behalf, which made me feel good for multiple reasons.
- Then I drove her all the way out to Reisterstown to pick up a vise for Brian, who’d won it in an auction. My top speed in the truck is 60MPH with the gears it has. The brakes were fine getting all the way out there, but somehow started locking up on the way home, so I’m not out of the woods yet.
- Then I loaded a bunch of broken concrete up into the Scout and hauled it all the way to the only County landfill—on the opposite side of the city—that will take it.
- Thankfully, the landfill is right down the highway from Dan’s house, and I stopped to look at one of the Scouts out in his backyard. The weather was gray but it wasn’t a bad day to be out there, and I didn’t pick up any ticks this time.
- Back at home I did some maintenance on the OG-V, the Travelall, and the Scout.
- Jen got back from Lexington Park late, so I ran out to get the fixings for White Russians and a bouquet of flowers. Mmmmm White Russians. I’ve pretty much cut beer out of my weekly diet, so it went right to my head.
- Sunday morning, Jen and I got a good 2-mile walk in with Hazel and caught up in the sunshine.
- I drove out to Brian H’s house to help him brace his floor with some Molly columns.
- Then, he, Bennett and I worked on removing the broken door on his Hudson.
- Back at home, I suddenly realized I could use the miles of legacy coax cable I’d run in 2006 to connect three TVs to a single digital antenna—one over my workbench in the basement, the one in the den, and one in the bedroom. Given that I only watch TV for football during the season, I was really trying to avoid spending money on this, but with a $8 splitter from Amazon I don’t need to keep messing with antennas in each room.
- I got a little welding done on the second version of my cupholder design for the red bus, and shot it with etching primer.
- Then Hazel and I scooched together on the couch in front of the Sunday night game while I cut video footage from the last two weeks.
This is the newest video in the Project Slowflake series. Publishing this one means I’m finally caught up, almost three weeks after we shot the last footage…!
On recommendation from Pitchfork, I tried out this album by a band called Quannic, which is a young guy making shoe gaze-adjacent guitar music on his own. I’m really enjoying most of this album, alhtough it gets a little weak towards the end. Apprently he toured with Slowdive, which sounds like it would be a great fit.
I was a big RHCP fan back in the late 80’s, when they still had the original lineup, moving into their first album after the death of Hillel Slovak. At Lollapalooza in 1990, I bought an overpriced RHCP hat that never fit my head correctly, and which I later sold—an expensive lesson I took to heart. My taste for the band tailed off pretty quickly after that, to the point of indifference and outright distaste. They’ve had some highlights in the intervening years, however, and this song was one of my favorites when it was released almost a decade ago. It’s gotten stuck in my head this week, and it makes a good companion for gray fall days: it’s propulsive, but (to my ears) melancholy, almost sad, especially if you ignore the lyrics. When this band hits on all cylinders, they are still amazing.
Here’s a recap of the last three weeks of truck projects. I’m getting closer to catching up on these; I still have another day of EV video to cut and edit. Luckily I was able to finish this one up on the plane home from Florida.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
Wow. 9000 days ago, I made the first entry in an online journal. 24 years later, I’m still here writing.
I’m down on the coast of Florida for a football weekend with the extended Dugan family: 15 cousins and uncles, tons of beer and food, and more laughing than I’ve done in months. Given the issues with the airlines right now I may have to hitchhike my way home, but it’ll have been worth it.
Lights Out, by Royal Blood. It’s amazing how much great music two guys with a bass guitar and drums can make. When I first heard this track I thought there must’ve been at least three people in the band, but he’s using a combination of pedals to both mimic a guitar and bass and widen out the sound. And the drumming is really tasty. Their first two albums are killer, and then they changed their sound up a little bit, leaning into disco, which I didn’t enjoy as much.
News from the State Police: They approved my application for concealed carry. Which basically just means I’ll be OK to drive to and from the shooting range.
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Last night I wrapped up a course designed for Creative Directors and taught by a CD at Ogilvy Canada. I went into it thinking it would be good to talk with other people at a similar age and experience level, gain some insight, and share any strategies or wisdom. The class size was close to 100 but seemed to be made up of younger Art Director-level creatives, with some newly minted CD’s looking for guidance. So I found myself to be one of the old heads in the virtual room offering advice more than I was learning. And because the course was taught by and for agency-style creatives, I felt a bit disconnected, being an in-house leader at an NGO. Still, it was inspiring, I did learn a few things, and my LinkedIn profile is full of connection requests.
The final assignment was to pitch a project as if we were in a room with the client, which I’ve always been good at doing. I looked back through my history and did a pitch for the billboard I designed for Deutsche Bank in New York City, when I was at an agency. Thankfully I spent a bunch of COVID sorting through and organizing my digital files so I knew right where to find it on the server in the basement. I set up the camera and did a quick pitch on tape, then overlaid some photos and video of the project in the final edit. I keep forgetting that we won a couple of Addys for that piece.
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On Thursday I’m headed to Florida for a football weekend with a bunch of my uncles and cousins, which should be a blast. Dugans are flying in from all over, and we’re meeting at my Uncle’s house for the Bills/Dolphins game on Sunday. I have no idea what to expect here; my cousins and I are all older than our parents were when we were gathering for holidays regularly, so there is a very good chance we will all be asleep by the end of the third quarter. My days of drinking an entire case of Milwaukee’s Best during a football Sunday are long over, so I’ll have to pace myself and bring plenty of ibuprophen. And hopefully my Dugan’s Beer shirt will be here before I have to leave for the airport!