Work in Progress

So my self portrait I did a while ago is starting to get a bit worn. I had the idea to do another self portrait of me reclined on the hood of my Falcon, playing my son's guitar.

Since it sounded a bit involved, I figured I'd do a sketch of it on some paper first to see how things come out and try & get my perspectives right. It came out semi-OK, with the laying back on the windshield & the car itself being the biggest points I slated for improvement.

So I made up a new card & started in. I pretty much on all three so far have started with the guitar & the hands thereon and worked my way out. The guitar came out good enough, and as I continued on is where I screwed it up. Ended up with my neck way offset to the right, so I scrapped that one and started again.

Pictured is the third time, a charm. I got the reclining angle pretty good (better than the 2nd attempt) and the positioning of the guitar is a bit lower on my body. I've got the fender and body line roughed in, and will be continuing on from here. As you can see, it's still a work in progress!!!

Aztec Falls

Usually when we head up to the mountains, we've headed up to Deep Creek. Unfortunately, there were some heavy rains a few years back, and it washed so much sand and sediment downstream, so the last few years it hasn't been much in the deep department.

This year, my older looked up to see if he could find any other places. He came across Aztec Falls, probably a little more than a mile downstream. I wasn't holding out much hope for it, being as it's rained less and less the last couple years. Turned out to be far beyond what I might even have hoped for!!! May have to make another trip up there again this year, and definitely we'll be back next time!!!

The close side was about 20 feet up, the far side around 35 to 40 feet. The boy did the biggest cannon ball ever from the far side. I jumped probably half a dozen times from the lower side, and once (since I was there) from the far side.

I didn't take a ton of pictures (I was wet most the time) but I've got a few I may share later on. Only took this one video, and things went awry!!! A guy from another group jumped from the other side at almost the same time!!! Everything came out OK, but you can tell I was troubled!!!

Momentus X3

I'm so very behind, so I'm going to roll three into one!!! I've got Ren Faire & vacation & pictures of the blood moon to do, but for now here's this:

It's been an eventful year for the oldest. He had his prom. Unfortunately, mom STILL hasn't got the flash on the camera down, so the only decent pictures we got were of them getting into the stretch limo...

Of course, he also graduated!!! 2nd highest marks in his class, I've been told.

It was all the way down in San Pedro, right in the middle of drive time traffic. I call bad idea. Supposedly they weren't going to call him up on account of his participation in the Senior Prank, but they ended up doing it anyway.

Finally, just a week back, him and his girlfriend became proud parents to their fur-baby!!! Ain't he cute???

God Bless America

What it said:

What I pictured:

Happy 4th of July!!!

Self Portrait

I've got a chipboard card that I use on my tray at work, makes for a good writing surface, and a place to stash stuff behind it. Some time ago, I was working with this one guy, and he writes "Great job" on one of the cover sheets left for me. When I got back, I handed him my sharpie and indicated the chipboard sheet, asked him if he could make it more permanent. He did, then underneath it he added the word, "Management". Everyone who saw it was greatly amused.

After a while, it was getting pretty worn, so I made up a new one, and stashed it in the back of my locker. A couple months back, I found it and broke it out again, for the sake of the new fillers. Not long after I had it out, I came across a sticker on the side of a box that said, "Mixed Skid". I thought that random, and put it over the bottom part of my chipboard. Not long after that, another filler put a line tag over the "D" and modified it into a "P", making it into my nickname. I thought that was pretty good, and came back with my cutter knife & modified the "Mixed" into my stage persona & the legend from my bowling shirt, Mix-Master!!! Everyone liked it.

It was pretty worn out when I'd first retired it, and it didn't get better. I decided to make a new one up, and do a visual representation!!!

I've only had it a day, and the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive!!! I tell people that it's a self portrait, and that my head isn't that big or lumpy in real life!!!

Dodecahedron!!!

It's been a LONG time since I've posted any bar code artwork. There's something of a reason for that, back when I'd been doing those, eventually one of the supervisors came up to me and made mention about people making balls and "other shapes", and put an end to all my fun. At the time I'd been working on a boat. One of the other fillers had said I should try and make a ship, I think he was thinking of a three masted clipper, but what I was coming up with looked a bit more like an America's Cup racer. All I had at the time was the hull, which I brought home and considered making a post entitled, "They Sunk my Battleship!!!" Also at that time I made up a red circle with the slash logo over the word "FUN" and had that on the back of my tray. It resides there to this day, along with my Mystery Spot bumper sticker & a catalog headline for the Apocalypse Super Sale.

Fast forward a few years. All but one of the supervisors from that era are now gone, and that one has always been cool. I started in with balls again, only doing one a day. Next I started in on a rectangle to amaze all the new hires. After that I tried a pyramid again, once again to less than stellar results. Whilst I was doing that, one of the new guys throws out, "Make a dodecahedron!!!"

I had heard the line before, "One's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains it's original dimensions". One hit attributes it Ralph Waldo Emerson, but most have it as Oliver Wendell Holmes. Well, I guess that's what happened!!! I had to see exactly how it went, and for some reason had it in my head that it had 20 faces, probably when I saw that it had 20 vertices. So here's what I figured to do, I made up 20 pentagons and laminated them kind of thick, like I'd done with the sword. It took a bit of doing before I came up with the proper 72 angle perfect pentagon. Had to stop by the area where we have protractors to check, and only one of my first 5 points was right, so I duplicated that one. Got up to the 20, & was assembling them in my head when I realized that 20 probably won't fit... looked it up again, and discovered the error of my ways. Actually putting it together was the easier part, and it came out fairly awesome!!! Everyone who saw it was amazed. Ironically, the guy who'd suggested this wasn't around while I was finishing it off, so he never got to see it.

The wrap up for all this??? I've got eight extra pentagons in my locker... As I'm walking out that evening, and I'm passing by the manager for warehouse, she asks, "Is that a ball of bar codes???" "No, it's actually a dodecahedron!!!" She asks how I did it, what's inside ("It's full of stars!!!") (actually a question I was asked several times after it was buttoned up) She was very impressed, and asked me if I could make one up for her. This will be made easier by the fact that I've got eight extra pentagons. Tell me something now, supervisors, I've been commissioned by the department head!!!

It's Getting Manny Down Here

My older boy has a group of friends who get together usually monthly or so for a sleepover. Around ten of them. Don't know how much sleeping goes on, they snack & game & watch DVDs & such. He wanted to host next weekend, but I heard how many and nixed that.

He persisted, if he could get the basement somewhat cleared out, could they hold it down there??? Well, two birds with one stone, get some clearing out done and have an area capable of holding 'em all!!! So, he had a few of the guys come over & I bought 'em a giant pizza. Probably can't tell so well, but the first picture is the pizza box pretty much taking up my trunk from wall to wall!!!

The back story on the basement pretty much is that if you have an empty space, you end up storing all kinds of things, things too good to just toss. In other words, of dubious value. I'd always kind of had the idea of cleaning it up and setting it up as the man cave down there.

On the other hand, a lot of the stuff end up damaged or totally obsolete, and aren't much worth anything anymore. Case in point, that sweet super 8 camera down there. Can you even get film for that anymore??? If so, have you got a projector??? Or you could just record & edit it with compact flash memory!!!

I liked the guys who were cleaning out!!! They had an appreciation & love for much of the vintage stuff down there!!! They found my long missing Super Mario Brothers 3 cartridge, then took an hour break to play it on the NES I'd pulled out & hooked up a few months back.

Personally, I wouldn't call it anywhere near useable yet, but it's a start. We've got many cool decorations set up now!!!!

My old Ferrari wall art....

My old lava lamp...

The TV case I'd had the old tube TV mounted in, with a vintage 70's knob tuner TV on top of it, and a old CRT monitor in it...

And a couple of old computer cases on a high shelf...

Not really so useable, but there's a cool built in desk, made back in the 60's probably, but like it was made to set up a desktop computer on!!!

And, finally, a thermoformed plastic head!!! Looks a bit like a mannequin, doesn't it??? Told you it was getting manny down there!!!

Dystopian Dance

So here it is, two posts in a row of cup art!!! Like there have been no other events in my life... This was inspired by a line from The Gaslight Anthem's "We Came to Dance"

We are the last of the jukebox Romeos

We are romantics by the light of the fourway

We came to sing out a chorus, reinvent the good times

And bring it all back home again

Honey, we came to dance with the girls with the stars in their eyes

Do the jump back, jack, stop and slide to the right

Never break their hearts, never make them cry, come on

Strike up the band, play a song that everybody knows

If I'm not your kind, then don't tell a soul

I'm not the one who hates bein' alone, so come on

And in this unstable arena

Of what's left or become of my America

I'm askin' this dance so come take my hand, come on

And in this unstable arena

Of what's left or become of my America

I'm askin' this dance so come take my hand, come on

Honey, we came to dance with the girls with the stars in their eyes

Do the jump back, jack, stop and slide to the right

Never break their hearts, never make them cry, come on

Strike up the band, play a song that everybody knows

If I'm not your kind, then don't tell a soul

I'm not the one who hates bein' alone, so come on

And if they end it all

By the end of tonight

If the big bomb drops down

Over this quiet Edison sky

We'll blow one last kiss

To all the beautiful nights like this

Under this central Jersey sky

Honey, we came to dance with the girls with the stars in their eyes

Do the jump back, jack, stop and slide to the right

Never break their hearts, never make them cry, come on

Strike up the band, play a song that everybody knows

If I'm not your kind, then don't tell a soul

I'm not the one who hates bein' alone, so come on

Cause you ain't never had a night on the town

Like I can show you such a night on the town

And you ain't never had a song you could sing

Well it's a deep dark night and I hear you, I've been there

And these are the songs that we sing

Oh, these are the songs that we sing

You've never seen a two-step

Like when you've seen it from your mama's house

Where the kids flash like lightning

To the very best dancers around

We learned from the very best dancers around

We learned from the very best dancers in town

Come take my hand, cause mama, we came to dance.

I'd always pictured a scene like this from the line quoted on the cup. A tree and shrubbery lined horizon, spanned by high tension wires (which, as pictured, encircle the cup), with that big bomb dropping down behind it. Of course, I enjoy the song. Along with this line, it also has the line, "And in this unstable arena, Of what's left or become of my America" gives this song a distinctly dystopian vibe.

Everyone at work likes it. Before I'd added the text, one of the guys I was working with recognized the mushroom cloud. I was glad for that, that it wasn't mistaken for a big red tree!!!

Around the side, I added in the river from another Gaslight Anthem tune, "Meet Me By the River's Edge", to offset the dystopia.

Collabrative Cup

If you've been following this blog for any time, you may be aware that I always put a "512" on my cup. This tradition started back a few years, when they got a little bitchy about people leaving their cups at the printers at my work, and said that if you've got a cup, you have to put your name on it. I just used my number, and no one messed with it!!! Almost always up near the top rim in green pen. I vary the style I do it in, but often in a circle.

As you can see, this time I put it in a triangle. Didn't come out especially great.

I usually keep the same cup for a week or two, and occasionally will do some artwork on it. A few days in, the fun started when a co-worker added in three possible ways to state the number. Which one is correct???

A few days later, another helpful co-worker added in the Spanish translation for our amigos from South of the Border. Looks like he doesn't have a great grasp of the language, but points for the effort.

For the final touch (at least thus far, and likely this will be all, the cup is looking pretty beat up) yet another co-worker added in the topper, three more!!! First, she put in Roman Numerals (although one could argue for DXII, though I've done V over XII before). I made mention that I was considering asking one of our Asian co-workers to add in, if they could, the Asianic characters. She responded that she could do Japanese, she'd lived there for a year!!! And she did!!! By the way, who knew that my keyboard has the Japanese characters for one and two (- and =)??? Finally, she added in what I think is German!!!

I've Seen Fire & I've Seen Rain

So tonight I was unloading the pics from my camera with the idea of putting together a post of the younger's birthday celebration from last weekend. Those plans have gone awry for now.

Instead, you get this!!! A pair of shots from the night before the event, and a few more from today. The night before, I had been doing a bit of painting in the bathroom, and as I headed outside to wash up the brushes, I saw the chopper I'd been hearing for a while but hadn't even really registered. Looking around (namely at where he was training his spotlight) I located the flashy lights of several fire trucks and the glow of the fire.

My younger & I headed over a ways closer, then up the hill to try and get a better look. A bit hard to tell exactly where it was at in the dark, and we didn't get that close. Sadly, one of my neighbors, a World War II veteran, died in the fire.

The weather changed this week, and we were told by the local media hype that we would all be swept away by buckets of the hard rain that was gonna fall. The first wave swept through on Wednesday night while we all slept, and it was bright & clear the next morning, which of course made my commute take roughly twice as long. Almost no rain that day, and Friday morning there was a light drizzle coming down as I left the house. It picked up once I was to work, but then was dry enough that people were eating lunch and taking breaks outside. Saved it up for the afternoon and today.

This afternoon it was actually coming down pretty good for a bit, as well as having some nice long rolls of thunder. I had my camera ready at this point, and took a few shots of it coming down good, making the canyon and gutters into raging streams. Near the end of the time I was shooting, it was letting up and the sun was glinting off the waters.

Pictured in a couple of the shots are some block retaining walls. The last shot has the latest one I had put up, just a couple weeks back, or more to the point, just in time. Upon having returned from our weekend in Carpinteria, we discovered that a few of the cement slabs had slid forward and a good amount of dirt had come out from between them. The slabs were looking quite precarious, and I took several out and dug some out from behind them until I could get the guy out to put a wall. Naturally, I got busy and it took a while before I dug up his number. He did a great job again, only as you can see, it tends to pool water behind it. I dug out a drainage channel when the rain had let up a bit.

All these great picture opportunities, and I get to title a post with a James Taylor reference!!!

You Can't Take The Sky From Me

Another "Looking Back" post I could do at any time would be from Christmas last year. This won't be that, but in passing I'll mention that I did get a new Ipod touch 5th generation, case for the same, and the DVD set of Firefly. If you're not familiar with Firefly... I dare say you haven't spent near enough time on the interwebs. I've heard of it for years, but other than knowing that it was a short lived sci-fi series that was supposedly THE BEST SHOW EVAR and having seen some pictures of Serenity, (and knowing that it spawned the big screen release "Serenity") knew not much about it. Had my wife wrap it up, and write the tag "To: Daddy & the rest of the House Nerds". Going in cold, I have to say, it truly lives up to the hype!!! I've been taking my time, and am only up to the 6th episode because I'm trying to make it last. I have since picked up "Serenity", too, so I've got that to look forward to. Don't get me wrong, I really like my new Ipod, but I LOVE Firefly!!!

So, if you follow this blog, you know I often put something on my water cup, then use the same cup for a week or so. The last one I did, I put the second part of the line from the episode "Safe" that goes, "Today we were kidnapped by hill folk, never to be seen again. It was the best day ever!!!" Most everyone who saw it was greatly amused.

At the end of last week, I put this design on my cup, from the pilot episode. This has also gotten positive reviews. A few weeks back I came across the pair of toy dinosaurs pictured that have built in voice boxes that recite this dialogue. "Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!!!"

In other amusements, I took the most famous Sweet Bro & Hella Jeff comic and modified it a bit & put in on a T-shirt. I took the last two frames off, took a square from the left bottom and repeated it in a stripe on the bottom, and put the last line of text under it, as well as modifying the text in the first two panels to be more work friendly (AND work related!!!) It's a pretty lame comic, but most everyone who reads it laughs like crazy!!! My older boy got a white shirt with red sleeves that he plans to add Dave Strider's broken record logo to. If you're keeping count, that will make six Homestuck themed shirts in our house!!!

Life Hack ... MY PANTS!!!

You may have seen around the interwebs various "life hacks", little tips for making this or that easier or more organized or cheaper. I happen to enjoy checking them out, although I don't seem to implement many of them. The one I can recall having done that worked very well was getting a couple of large carabiners, then hooking several plastic shopping bags on each one to make a lot fewer trips from the car when coming home from the store. Worked great (except when you'd forget to take them back to the car), then the nanny state of L.A. outlawed plastic bags.

Anyway, here's my little contribution:

I had a pair of pants (Calvin Klein, no less!!!) that are still in good shape, except the fly had broken. It would not latch in the full upright position, and would usually be at half mast, no matter how many times you'd zip 'em up.

My solution: I put a key ring through the tongue of the zipper, then once I zip it up, loop the ring over the button before buttoning!!!

Looking Back III: 13 Shots from LACMA

Back in last October, my firstborn had the option for some extra credit in his art class for visiting one of a few local museums. We opted for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

In case you ever wondered, outside is where several of these cool art deco street lights go to die. If you look close, you can see where it looks like there is either a wedding wrap up or photo shoot going on.

Paid our admission, then went to head in. There's an escalator going all the way to the top of a four or five story building, and go to head in. Closed. Went down a level, and it's only open to a private party. Not making much of a first impression.

Finally back to the ground level, and there's an area we can actually get into!!! First thing is a long, twisty... wall. OK. Next thing was a wall with plastic panels, red, green and white, with florescent light tubes behind 'em. Once again, OK.

Third thing we came to, paydirt!!! Finally something awesome!!! Chris Burden's "Metropolis II".

So, that's something I took the most pictures of. Large format, with a ton of tiny details. Very nicely done!!!

Obligatory selfie in some of the mirrored detail...

And an overhead shot, including the boy. Since it was nearly Halloween, he was wearing a good deal of his Vriska costume. That was part of the assignment, get a picture of yourself with one of your favorite exhibits. In case you haven't figured it out, it's got a couple of conveyor ramps up, four wide, for Hot Wheels type cars, then they split into separate tracks and gravity race down, as well as having some train tracks running through. There's an area inside where the operator can squeeze in and run the thing. Wasn't going when we got there. I asked the docent if I could get in and play with it. She said no, but they do run it a couple times a day, which we'd already missed. There's a few videos of it going on the Youtubes.

Attempted to go to the building across from it, and it was closed to the public, too. A bit farther down also yielded nothing we could get in on. The opposite direction had an exhibit of South Pacific-Polynesian artworks.

The ones pictured here seem to use a lot of actual human skulls, the first shot looking like someone fashioned them into whimsical key chains!!!

Up a level from there, they had a nice exhibit on German Bauhaus art. I think I enjoyed this part of the museum most.

One more shot of the student with some art. Another part of the assignment was to talk to someone who works there about their favorite pieces, and why. He did, but they were closing up and we didn't get to go check out what the girl said were some of her favorites.

On the way out, around the side, there was this odd one, several yellow tubes suspended from an overhead frame. Interesting, but it struck me as probably being pretty grubby, with everyone walking through it.

So, how did he do on the assignment??? He is already doing quite well in the class, so he didn't really need it that bad, which is a good thing, because he was supposed to turn in the receipt for admission as another part of it. Guess I missed that part, because I tossed it out.

Parents can be so irresponsible.

Gatsby

Tonight was the firstborn's Winter Formal at his school. The theme was "A Night at Gatsby", 20's attire encouraged.

He told me this, and I told him, "I've got a 3-piece you're going to want to use!!!" 3-piece works for most occasions, and fit the bill nicely.

His lady looked amazing. To hear her tell it, it took the better part of the day.

Oh, and she was quite impressed with how he looked. I told them that they both clean up pretty nice. (Truth be told, she always looks good)

The second picture is the only one I actually took, in the alley. The rest are pics of pics from what I assume to be a photo booth.

Of course, I had to ask him how it went. Naturally, the only acceptable answer would be, "Great!!!"