Benign Neglect

I look at the date on the previous blog post and realize it was done about the same time as I had my automobile accident. No one was hurt in the accident, but it seems that one effect was this blog being dropped almost totally from my awareness. Writing must not be one of those things I just have to do, though I do enjoy it as a release now and again. Six to eight weeks after the accident I also changed positions at work, and have been working nights. Before that shift change though, I did need to purchase another vehicle due to the aforementioned accident. The picture is of my new vehicle, and I am enjoying it -- 2012 Mocha Latte Pop.

Sitting and Pondering

I have been debating on whether or not to replace my aged PC in the living room that serves as the access point to anything other than DVDs for the television, and also the sync station for my iPod. It doesn't run as well as it could, has a tendency to drop the wireless connection, and takes a fair amount of time to boot up iTunes. All of which seem to be good reasons to replace it, but I just can't figure out what would serve me best as its replacement. If I buy a replacement, I have been thinking about a mac mini, as I think it would do what I needed it to do, work well with my laptop (macbook) and also have minimal issues when it came to syncing either my phone or my iPod, and of course it would take up less space. The current PC just sort of sits on the floor next to the television. While I do use the drives to transfer music from Cd's to iTunes, I don't really use them for much else, so I don't see great issue with not having them. It is really just a minor decision, but one that I will eventually sort out.

A bit baffled

At one point this evening I may have had a topic that fit the heading, but not really so much anymore. I have been reading online news, and whatever insight I may have had from dinner that I wanted to carry into my blog have vanished. I do recall really enjoying some lines from the 1st Elegy in Rilke's 10 Elegies, but don't feel like transcribing them here. If memory serves, they were the last 3-4 lines, and I am sure they can be found somewhere-- and, any other day, I would probably be willing to locate and link to them, or even transcribe them, but not tonight. Tonight is staying awake another 30 minutes or so, and doing what I need to do that, and while it should probably be exercise, at least part of it is going to be spent typing. I rather wish I actually had something to write, but lamenting work and politics seems just a bit too typical, and it doesn't necessarily make me feel better. That being said, perhaps I will do a bit of yoga, as that normally does make me feel better.

Slow picture weekend

While I went to a birthday party at a friend's last night, I took no pictures. I haven't taken many pictures at all this last week, perhaps the fact that continuing Summer hasn't seemed to change the local landscape enough for me to see something new and striking worth the pixels. Who knows, as it could also be that my phone has been left at home often, since I get tired of carrying it about, and enjoy being non-connected every now and again. The weekend has been pretty quiet, and aside from the birthday party, I haven't done much aside from speak with Mom a bit earlier-- always nice that, but it doesn't exactly make for a noteworthy day.

Thursday...

Really, there isn't much to say, except that it is Thursday, and I felt compelled to drop a message of some sort on here. The week has been pretty unexceptional, and there isn't really enough to write to fill more than a paragraph, but the urge was there, so I am fulfilling it. Truthfully, aside from filling a few more minutes prior to bed, I can't think of a single reason for this entry, but, also, for some reason it feels really nice to just type a bit of nonsense and call it a day. The end of one, with only one more until the weekend, and all the promise it supposedly holds.

Beautiful day, didn't get much done

Well, it was a beautiful day, and I didn't get much done-- the bike ride didn't happen because I am not accustomed to the hard saddle on my bike, and my backside was telling me not to repeat that just yet, and other stuff didn't happen because I was reading on the balcony, napping, or finding some other distraction for my time. I still have laundry, but enough clean clothes for the first part of the week, if not the entire week. Since I finally bought some new sandals this past week, I don't use socks on the weekend, which gives me a few extra days with regard to those, but that isn't the real reason for sandals, just a bonus.

The other day I did hit Sonic Boom Records and did some old fashioned music shopping, and ended up with a Klezmer compilation, MGMT, Florence and the Machine, and Hey Marseilles, and today got around to uploading them to my iPod. I don't really know percentages and what not, but since I enjoy the record shop (CD shop) experience, I will continue to buy the old fashioned way, and hope the shop stays in business, as too many shops have closed due to Internet purchases. One of my pet peeves is people who love to go browse in bookstores, find something they want, then buy it at Amazon, or some online channel, other than the store they found it in. When the store vanishes, most likely complaints will ensue, and hopefully they will review their actions and see how they contributed to the store's demise, though I doubt it. I am becoming a bit cynical in my view of many people, who seem to want the convenience and benefits, but are unwilling to pay for them. (If I were to transfer that thought into the political realm, then this entry would devolve into a rant.)

Still Summer

Perhaps it will be more than a tease this year, as the gorgeous weather is continuing once the morning clouds get burned from the sky. I took my bike out yesterday to Gas Works Park and got this photo of Seattle from there. I also managed not to get a sunburn, though my arms definitely got a bit of color. Since I was doing that, I didn't really work on any sort of art, or actually think much about it. The day was pretty and I was enjoying the moment, taking care to enjoy myself, and not worry too much about else. Unfortunately, that makes for a dull blog post, but I wanted to add something, before the time between posts appeared to be more benign neglect on my side.

I did learn something interesting, as I haven't really ridden my bike much, but in one of the stops I made, the bike riding owner of Hub and Bespoke advised me to get lights if I planned on riding much past dusk, as the police do ticket riders for that. That is nice to know information, and since I haven't ridden much, something I should definitely consider if I am still riding regularly come fall and winter. I have always been a fair weather rider, so I don't really know if I will need them, as if I am riding this fall and winter, I will probably want fenders too, to keep splash to a minimum, since I can't imagine there not being water on the roads.

Gorgeous Saturday

It is a nice day outside today. I was out and enjoying it for a bit. I strolled down to the Ballard Locks, but didn't take pictures of anything but flowers, though people were out in force as well. (There is a black and blue bird sunning itself on my balcony right now, but I can't tell what type and since he just flew away can't take a picture of his backside for folks to guess.) As the afternoon progressed and I was reading CNN or BBCNews, I stumbled across some article on Facebook, and there came a mention of Instagram and all the hipster over-processed photos there as a result, and all I can say, is that I don't recall ever seeing any of my friends post something that looked as if it were processed using Instagram. My guess is either none of my friends use that photo app on their iPhone, or else since my friends aren't the twenty-somethings mentioned by the author, they are all too old to be taken in by such trendiness. Oh well, shallow or not, the app is fun, and that is really all that matters to me.

iPhone App stuff

I have been enjoying some new photo apps on my iPhone lately, Instagram is one of them and the other is Nofinder. Instagram is what I have been using for the square photos in all the posts this week. Kind of a neat program that gives a choice of filters for immediate gratification in the processed style of your choice, though there is a no filter option. Nofinder is a different beast, as it really makes your camera a point and shoot and you don't really know what that shot will be since you viewfinder is blacked out.

What really struck me today was how cropping and processing can really change the way things look. These two pictures were taken twenty feet or so apart, but with the same two people walking in the same direction both times. One really looks suburban desolate, in my opinion, while the other isn't quite so bleak. The Nofinder picture with the greenery in the foreground took me by surprise. But I think it makes a nice contrast.

With the phone cameras I can see that I am taking more pictures, and they tend to be of more mundane things, but so many great pictures aren't great because the subject (physical) is great, but because mood, light, and subject all fit together with a degree of serendipity that qualifies the whole as extraordinary. (None of my experiments so far qualify.) Even without qualifying as art photographer, I am having fun with the camera on the phone, and will continue to putter about with it, as long as I am enjoying the results.

Another day, another entry

Perhaps not interesting in and of itself, but I find that when I am making a conscious effort to avoid the time sink that is MMO gaming, I tend to create more blog entries. Gaming is fun, but it is very easy to lose way too much time doing it. After so many levels and whatnot, there doesn't seem to be much to do, unless you have friends online and can chat with them. The games themselves are very similar to each other, and the rewards are as virtual as you can imagine, perhaps if you are lucky, and upgrade to your armor that allows you better use of the skills the game has gifted your character with. There is nothing inherently wrong with spending time like this, but when most of one's time is spent there, there is nothing really gained either. Aside from the social aspect, reading gives better rewards, and forcing oneself to actually do something, even something like typing up a blog entry, I think may be even better, as it is engaging your brain in forcing it to create, rather than just blithely gorging on content.

It seems summer is going to be an "on again, off again" sort of affair this year, as the evenings seem very summer-like, and the mornings do not. Considering I work days, this state of affairs is somewhat satisfactory, though I want my weekend to be all beautiful, all the time-- but that is just me being greedy.

One last thing, I did get stopped by that bridge this morning on the way to work, but rather than the usual single sailboat going by, a larger ship did, so I had a pleasant surprise early in the day.

No more blue sky

The lovely weekend we had has retreated into a gloomy Monday, with weather more stereo-typically Seattle, than what summer should actually be. This is supposed to be the dry season, but it sure hasn't seemed that way.

I wasn't sure when I started writing tonight if I wanted to discuss the politics currently going on in DC, and I think I may pass on saying much of anything, except I hope something is worked out that doesn't just benefit a small percentage of the country. Our republic doesn't feel like it is running they way it was intended to, as the parties in Congress are supposed to compromise and not just hold their breath until they get everything they want. I guess those without children finally get to experience the exasperation of a parent with siblings that refuse to work together.

Overall, I would have to say that today was another generic Monday at work, like so many before, and like so many probably to follow. There is nothing wrong with a lack of crises and fires to deal with, but there is also something extremely deadening about the lack of variety. In addition to the overcast skies, I am sure this is contributing to my less than stellar mood.

Summer and Neglect

Well, this is the second go at this. My earlier post didn't post, nor did a draft save correctly, so I guess I will write something else. I know I had said something about how my hopes and efforts at the beginning of the year gave me some belief that I would actually manage to write on a regular basis, and keep things moving to such a degree that momentum was formed, and the blog kept moving, rather than petering out to the occasional I am still here sort of thing. This weekend has been gorgeous here in Seattle, with temps in the low-mid 80's, which was high enough to cause someone at the neighboring table tonight to complain about the heat, while I was finishing my beer. Oddly enough, we was sitting on a patio at a restaurant that did have indoor seating, and he chose not to go someplace with air conditioning. Since it was very comfortable in the shade, I don't know why he was complaining, but folks seem to do it out here, below 40 is too cold, above 80, too hot.

Rather than bemoan what I thought was a really nice weekend, I have been thinking about glass casting, and what to do in my next class, which is in August. I picked up some beach toys, so I can make glass castles, rather than sand castles, though either way I am still playing in the sand. I have been thinking of what to do that would make my glass pieces even more fun, but since I have three weeks to figure that out, I hope to have some decent ideas.

End of May

The end of the month arrived and I didn't manage to write anything. I guess that is not a big surprise, as writing seems to happen sporadically. Anyway, I finished up one glass class and start another, this one also using hot glass, but with a bit more about mold making and such, I think. It is called explorations in cast glass or something of the sort. I signed up because it started at the right time, and would keep me in glass. Other stuff was interesting, but didn't work for whatever reason. There is another block printing workshop this summer, and I may do it, so I am guaranteed some new images for a quick 4 classes in 2 weeks Casting class I am signed up for in August. Oh well, there is an entire summer between then and now, and at least one trip to home to visit the family.

Hope everyone had a good holiday weekend.

Happy May Day

Well, May 1st is here, and while I have been lousy at updating this the last couple of months, and I don't expect to resume regular posts any time soon, it would be nice if I can keep this going, however irregularly, for some time further, as I do enjoy writing about works in progress and such. Todays pictures are of two pieces of cast glass that I had pressed a block print into the sand as my casting mold. The image, while technically the same, has taken a different aspect, more desiccated from the imagined abuses the gent has piled on himself, or as I like to think, this is what happens when too much absinthe, or abuse of any substance, has been taken for too long. I chose absinthe because the original image was from Modigliani. (See post from 20 February for the block printed image.) What I do know with these glass "blanks" is up to me, as I have been told by the instructor that much of cast glass work ends up as part of something, rather that itself as a unit. Not knowing this beforehand, I have made a lot of stuff that may or may not work well solo, and these will probably end up a series, painted and finished differently from each other, each exploring some aspect, whether it be color, surface finish, or something else that I find interesting at the time I do that work. I did get some transparent glass paints that crafting sorts use to do imitation stained glass, so I am sure a few of these will fall prey to that.

Keeping Busy (with allergies)

While I have no real excuse for the lack of posts these last two months, these past two weeks I have been busy in the hot glass studio at Pratt (with a weekend in the cold shop for good measure). My latest class involves sand casting, which is basically pouring molten glass into a mold created in sand. It is rather fun, and some interesting items can be made. One thing that is a bit different here seems to be how you "finish" the piece, and while cold-working is an option, it still just leaves you with a piece of glass, with very little of the high polish people expect from glass. Some of the other options are painting with glass paint or burnishing with leaf. I am going to explore some of those, I think, and next week may include a few inclusions in the background areas, with the hope that they bring the man in the print more into focus. Only time will tell, since I can also play with colored glass at this point too, so who really knows what is up.

Oops...

It seems that without new pictures from my pattern bar class, I have been neglecting my blog, which is not intentional at all. I have started processing my first pattern bars into something else, but I didn't take any pictures last night of the first piece before fusing, and I haven't taken any pictures of kilns loaded with stuff ready for firing into pattern bars. If I am lucky, I will post a picture of the first piece, prior to slumping, next week, as it should be out of the kiln and ready for slumping. Other than that, next week is really all about cutting up the several remaining pattern bars I have and assembling those into something ready to fuse, and whether I will get the assemblage done next week is probably an open question since I quite a bit to slice and dice. One good thing is I know the blade is about 1/8 of an inch, which is something I didn't know before, but means I need to adjust some of the marks on my bars that I put on them last night if I want to create thicker pieces. The piece I am fusing now will be about the same thickness as some of my previous work, as I managed to do a decent job keeping my individual slices down to between 1/8 - 1/4 of an inch thick. Of course, all this has nothing to do with flowers, but flowers are nice, especially with Spring and daylight savings time fast approaching.

Just a Friday

Here is the finished version of my circle project. I am not sure if I can get a better picture, but I may try tomorrow. I had thought about going out tonight, but walking home from dinner I decided it was too cold for me to bother, though that does mean I need to make a bit of an effort tomorrow night to get out. Yesterday I discovered that my upcoming 2 day glass workshop is cancelled, so I won't get to set up little vertical strips of glass and make things that way. I am sure it will show up again, and the biggest disappointment is that it means I will have less stuff to use as fusing fodder in my current class as well as my fusing 2 class. I was sort of hoping to get some fun bits and pieces from the strip class, but such is life.

While it is not late, I am yawning a bit, so I may just call it early and sleep, which is much more fun than venturing out in the cold and hoping someone will say "Hi" in a bar.

Seattle Snow

We don't have quite any of the snow they are predicting just yet, but today shortly after lunch we had a brief snow shower that had people leaving work in droves, and the news was reporting that the local authorities had urged everyone to get home early. I left at my regular time, on perfectly clean roads, with no scraping of the windows as the snow had already melted, and managed to get home quicker than normal, so the advisory must have worked, since traffic seemed light.

This is one of the final pieces I did in my glass fusing class, mixing glass painting, copper inclusions, and good old fashioned slumping. It is sort of a companion piece to the other square dish, but with brighter colors. I think it turned out well, and I was much happier with the glass painting after the project was done than with the initial view of what I had painted. Crudely painted flowers in my normal sketch/doodle style seem to look much better under glass, as the painting is now fused between two layers. I may play with glass paint a bit more, but don't think it will be in any curriculum until Fusing 2, which is a Spring class, but one I am already signed up for. I have also been forewarned that there will be more circles too.

The class I started last night is a pattern bar class, and there will be a lull in new work to post pictures of since it is a bit more process intensive than this class. Last night we applied kiln wash to kiln furniture, a process that should keep the bars from sticking to the furniture, and built our initial pattern bars. The piece I am envisioning will combine my two pattern bars with two of the coasters I made to build a larger piece where each quadrant will be different, though two will be very similar in their pattern. I can't say whether it will work and be pretty or not, but it gives me a direction right now, and gives me a good excuse to play with green and orange glass.

Monday's never seem to change

Monday's don't ever seem to change that much. Today was a holiday if you are lucky enough to work for the government or a business that recognizes it as such, but I don't, so all it meant for me was that traffic was a bit lighter. I did manage to get a decent picture of this glass piece finally. We had some sunny days over the weekend so I propped it in the window and there was finally enough light to illuminate the whole thing, rather than the bright spot with shadows that my other attempts drew, which were better than the ones were is is just green. Tomorrow starts a new glass class, and a new focus, which will be pattern bars, which from what I can tell can make pieces that are a bit more complex. I do have more fusing lined up, but that doesn't start until April, and by then I should have many more photos and many more projects and a fair amount more experience. Here is to also having a lot more blog entries, and hopefully I have enough commentary about what I am doing and what I learn and what I am attempting that it will be interesting reading.

Weary Sunday

I am not sure what exactly seemed to hit me last night or this morning, but I have been dragging along all day, for no obvious reason. Today's pictures is actually the third image I made in my block printing workshop a few weeks back. I currently have these three hanging as if to dry on a short section of wall, though truth be told I think I will leave them like that, with clothespins rather than mats and frames. In addition to dragging, it seems my brain has decided Jell-o is a better thing to emulate rather than its traditional structure. I was planning on bed in a bit anyway, though maybe it will end up earlier than anticipated.

Coffee and Saturday

A few things, I think this post marks the this as the most productive year in the last three for the blog. Too bad that wasn't such a hard thing for me to accomplish, considering the meager postings for the previous couple of years. Anyway, last night for the first time in several years I headed over to Capital Hill in Seattle to check out visit The Cuff and check in on a friend who I haven't seen in a bit. I am happy to say the friend is doing fine, and to my surprise, and this may be because I left around midnight, I didn't feel that I was the oldest guy in the room surrounded by twenty-somethings. Like earlier visits, most of the guys seemed happy to talk with only those they knew and while I did meet one local, the only other person I spent any amount of time chatting with was visiting from out of town. It was fun to get out, and I am actually going to make a go of getting out a bit more, and maybe, in time, I will have my own little clique to hang out with, though I don't have any high hopes there, as I may get tired of the game first.

Thursday's Stuff

For anyone interested in checking out Davo's writings, his blog has some links to places where he has just published. My congrats to him for the hard work and persistence required to get there.

I was going to go to a glass shop and buy some glass for an open studio tomorrow, but I chose not to since I had nothing designed, so my glass buying would be rather haphazard, and no doubt expensive as a result. I believe the open studios are monthly, so I should be able to design some stuff in time to prep properly for the next one.

I have been posting pictures on my Facebook page that show all the work from my class so far, though my own comments are not quite what they are here. This is the circle image I posted last week, but it has been fused. The bright orange where the other piece had been clear is due to that glass being "striker," meaning it changes into its true color after you have added the appropriate amount of heat. While not obvious in this photo, my nice clean lines between the colors aren't quite abutting each other in many places. I was told this is due to the fact that the upper layer of pieces, while in the kiln heating up begins to float a bit on the lower layer, which is why you can see some bends in the formerly straight stringers that I had placed on top of the piece. Of course, after I asked, I also learned that if I had built my party-colored circle under the piece of clear glass, then there would have been less float and my joins would have been more precise. Of course, my instructor decided to mention that doing that was impractical in a class since it is impossible to move pieces around that aren't glued together if changes in the kiln arrangement had been required to fit other student's work. So I learned a little something, and I still think my circle bowl will be fun. I am thinking it might be cool to make one with white opaque glass on top and a multi-colored layer below, though I would make the lower level fairly simple.

Decisions, decisions...

Pleasantly Surprised

This dish was a lot of fun, and went through many stages before finishing. I think I did some sort of process on it five of the six classes I had to work on it. It started out as a piece of glass we were given to teach us cutting and then tack fusing. Later, I added the color and gave it a full fuse, which melted all the tack fused glass perfectly smooth. The color spots were holes in the original piece. The I flip fused it so the little pieces of frit that looked like stones would be more obvious-- a case of the bottom looking better than the top. After that, I decided it needed to be a dish, so I slumped it. In the last class we learned how to use a sandblaster, so, at the instructor's suggestion, I gave the back a good blasting. The end result is something I like quite a bit and keep finding myself looking at. As a learning piece, I think it worked very well. As something decorative, it is a bit more personal, and will probably live someplace in the house, as it is much more organic than all the line oriented work that I did, which I like, but which has a certain formality to it. Pictures of some of those other pieces will certainly follow, but I thought it would be fun to share all the work that went into this one.

Nice Sunday of games

For those curious how my first real glass slumping project turned out, here is an image I took in the studio-- before is above, and after below. I love the way the light plays off the glass adding the highlights. Barely perceptible in the after picture is the fact the green and purple are transparent, which I think is due to their hue more than anything else. I am very pleased with the way it looks. I won't have before and after photos for most of my projects, as I don't seem to remember to take photos in the middle of class, just at the beginning or end. (One piece I slumped this week would not have made much of a before photo anyway, as it looked just like a sheet of green glass, since the pattern fused into the bottom would not have been noticeable.)

Today was fun, as I went over to a friend's house who was having a game day, so I spent some hours playing "Munchkin" with some total strangers, but met some new people and saw some folks I hadn't seen in a long time. The bridge table has gotten a bit more complex as they have the little boxes now that allow you to bid without having to vocalize, which of course makes a social game that much less social. I was trying not to bother the players too much, but I did ask questions about the bidding box thingy, which just seemed to make things way too formal. I seem to forget that some people take their bridge seriously.

Nothing wrong with straight lines

This is what my typical workspace looks like during glass fusing, with a notebook open to the wrong sketch on the left, though that was because this circle piece was done on the fly and I had not worked out what I wanted to do with it after I cut the circle, which was the days lesson--cutting circles. This is before fusing, but it shows the pattern I developed using the colors at hand, starting with the big square of purple I found in the scrap bin. So much of my work in this class has been geometric, the classmates in my immediate vicinity took to poking a bit of fun at me for all the straight lines, though so far, all those lines have paid off handsomely in nice looking pieces of glass.

Long week

Having taken that workshop over the weekend, this will be a long week, since I didn't get quite so much relax and do nothing time the last few days as I normally would. That isn't a bad thing, but I am sure I will be feeling it as the week progresses. Today's photo from the workshop results is basically different ink and papers with the self-portrait image. It was a lot of fun for me to see how the image would show with a few variables thrown in. Black and white is always nice, but sometimes color, or off-white paper really sets everything off.

I just compared this to the image from yesterday, which is actually the fourth image from the left, and in yesterdays, the color of the paper is totally missing, and I didn't do any processing of the photo besides cropping it, which is something I find interesting. I wonder if it is the contrast with the other images that gives the paper its proper color, or if some auto-adjust happened.

Finished, but not ready for work tomorrow.

Well, I am finished with my two day workshop, and today I did manage to finish the self-portrait shown here. I have it in black, which will eventually link, as I don't think the red on sage colored paper really shows the color of the paper. I printed up my other two images as well, also in a variety of colors, but did not get a start on a fourth image, other than a preliminary sketch. I was worn out around four, with two more hours to go, so I printed a few more images, but spent the rest of the time socializing and helping to clean up and whatnot. I can say I am pleased with the images, and may very well continue playing with this technique, though I am a bit concerned as to where I will do the carving, at least until it gets warm, since my living room is carpeted, and I doubt I want to try and remove linoleum chips from the carpet. It was definitely a fun class, and if you are interested in a relatively low tech printmaking technique, then I would suggest such a class, as you don't really need much in the way of special equipment. Oh well, time to wrap up and hit the sack.

Exhausted at the end of day 1

It has been so long since I spent an entire day focused on something like art making, I forgot just how exhausting it can be. The flamingo and lava lamp motif frequently showed up in my college printmaking and I could not resist the urge to bring them back. This is the first three stages, and the third may be the final, of this particular image. It is fun, and my birds can't help but appear sinister, though I don't recall ever being traumatized by Hitchcock's film. I took a photo of all three as I think it gives a nice overview of how things change during the carving of the block. I am hesitant of taking too much out in the beginning, so I always know the first is not likely to be my last, but with each additional removal I tend to focus on one area, then print to see how it works as a whole, before moving to the next. Of course this is probably slower, and I use a lot more paper and ink, but I like the variations, and changes. Someone mentioned in class that by doing this, I always have at least one image I may like, before I remove too much surface and ruin the piece. I guess tomorrow I find out if I end up doing that, though this process seems to be easy enough that I could do it at home, if I were careful, so theoretically if I don't do it in class, I have plenty of time to mess things up on my own.

Almost forgot a title for little more than an update.

Well, another week has passed and another class of fusing. I am having quite a bit of fun cutting and making glass pieces. Working with color here is very different from working with paint. The image above are some small pieces destined for an exchange at the end of class with the other students. This is prior to the fusing process, and I hope to remember to take post fusing photos of them for comparison, as it should be interesting. Other than the class and work, I haven't done much this week, so there isn't really much to post. I dislike posts like this, but I didn't want to forsake the blog for too long, as having done that in the past, once put to the side, it can remain there for far too long.

Saturday Evening

It is Saturday evening, and I have just finished dinner at Zayda Buddy's, and now I am trying to decide what is next. Since I promised the other two pieces I have made so far in my fusing class, here is the second. It started out inspired by Matisse's paper-cuts, and then, as I was messing with the yellow glass, when I managed to place them in an almost dynamic pose, I forgot the Matisse, and stuck with the pose, as it seemed fun. The purple seen in the image is from the scanner and doesn't actually appear on the coaster, for better or worse. I loaded all the images on Facebook, and Mom took a liking to the one that is made of all transparent glass, so it goes back to the kiln for the installation of a loop that will allow it to be used as a sun-catcher, as we both agree that glass coasters are pretty, but impractical if actually under a sweating glass. I am glad that I have affixed the little rubber things on the bottom of that particular piece, as I would relish trying to remove them.

In a really nice change of pace, I must say that I think I have spoken with Mom more since Christmas than in the first 6-8 months of last year. I can't say why, but she is calling more, and when she commented this morning on Facebook that she really liked the green and blue piece, I gave her a call. Though that call was short, as she was in the middle of something as per usual, it was at least the third conversation this year. I am not really sure what changed, but perhaps something finally kicked in there that email and Facebook posts are not the best way to engage me, for whatever reason.

A Picture

I will upload the other two coasters I made last week in my glass fusing class a bit later, but I thought it might be fun to post at least one now. I was lazy and didn't take a picture actually, but put the coasters on my scanner and scanned them, figuring the scan light and the white background would probably yield better image quality. Of the three, if I wanted to turn any into sun catchers, this would be the one, as it is made of all transparent glass, and the others are made from opaque. The class is fun, and we are working on a slumping piece now. I am hoping I kept mine simple enough, but I worry I added too many things. I guess I will find out next week.

One thing I like about this class is that it gives you an idea of how things work in incremental steps, rather than an intensive workshop where you make all of these things, but due to the firing time, you don't really see the first pieces until late in the workshop, when it is very possible you repeated some of the same techniques, but you didn't know they wouldn't yield the results you wanted.

In other news, I did reactivate my Facebook account, and deactivated virtually every notification the idiotic thing can send me. The main reason is I don't have my adobe photo site up quite yet, and I also figured that some of my friends/family would be interested in seeing the images now, rather than when I got around to writing something to accompany them.

Electronic Stasis

As I looked at my blog, I was taken by the fact I haven't updated Library Thing in ages. While I still own the books that it says are on my shelf, there is a distinct lack of anything newly acquired, or, in truth, anything vaguely resembling a complete list. I am not sure if the partial list reflects my disillusion with the project or the tediousness of the project. Once there, I am sure a book will stay there forever, or at least until I remove it, but the process of uploading all those titles is more than a bit tedious--much like the first time one uploads collected discs into I-tunes or something similar, with the major difference being that you can listen to your music without needing to carry all those discs around; whereas, with the books, all you get is a list. I can't see publishers of either sort ever actually making it so that if you buy a physical version, then you can automatically access an electronic copy of the same thing. While music is easy to move to the PC, the thought of trying to type the next chapter you want to read into your Kindle seems a bit silly. I guess the reason this came to mind is that it would be nice to be able to have a selection to read at lunch while at work, but keeping a bookshelf at work seems a bit overkill. As it is, sometimes while eating I read whatever newspaper I can find, then after eating, in the remaining portion of my lunch, I have been reading a chapter or so of a book. Do I really need to combine those two activities (newspapers and books) with one device? Probably not, but I can understand how it could appear desirable using that premise. For me, at least for the time being, I will continue bringing my book to lunch and hoping to find a newspaper, and if no paper is available, there is always a bit of daydreaming that can be done while I eat.

Buying Music

I figure I must still be old school when it comes to this, as I still prefer to go to a music store and buy discs. Considering the number of hard drive failures I have experienced, and how much I dislike constantly needing to download repeatedly that I have downloaded at least once before, my reluctance to buy music electronically can probably be explained. I still need to download a copy of Dragon Age again, as my only electronic copy happened to be on the hard drive that died on me. It isn't as if I don't trust backing up files on a spare hard drive, but that spare hard drive periodically needs to be backed up as well, since it is as likely to die as any hard drive on a computer. While I would guess that it would be extremely rare for all of one's drives to die at the same time, my guess is that it is a possibility, and then one is really stuck trying to put all of one's files back together again. There is the possibility of storing things on the cloud, but it seems silly to pay for more storage online if you have a back-up at home. If I really wanted to be a bit of a conspiracy theorist, I guess I could just believe it is all a big scam so that we store all our information in the cloud, where it can be accessed by us, but where companies can then scan it, and target advertising more effectively, which would boost the bottom line in addition to the storage charges. While I would not put that out of the range of business practices, I doubt there is a currently a company with that sort of business model.

Anyway, the purchases were Balkan Beats Volume 1 and Balkan Grooves from Eastblok Music. After my time in Romania, I still haven't tired of the Balkan sounds.

Sunday Reading

This article in the New York Review of Books reminds me of the something that was going on in Peace Corps as well. The second half of the article deals with the influence of modern business practices on the American university system, but I found some parallels with some of the requests made of volunteers by the program managers during the periodic reviews that occur during service. One of the requests that was made of us was a count of total number of people assisted, which in my case, being a teacher, meant I would just count the number of students in my classes, then add the number of any students I was tutoring outside of class, and present that. I retrospect, from reading this article, I could very well have added any of the Outward Bound programs that I actively assisted with, though I am sure I did not do that, since I thought this exercise was pointless. Again, in the context of the article, I am able to see, that while I thought the exercise a waste of time, there was probably a bean counter somewhere who would compare totals between the various countries and determine budgets based on productivity, and this bean counter is the reason our program managers really pushed for everyone to be included, like those I tutored outside of my primary responsibility of teaching at the high school. Now, while I believe the end result would be of Peace Corps Romania receiving more money if those totals showed, via whatever formulas used, that Romania was a better return for investment than say Bulgaria. Remember, this is all hypothesis and I do not know for a fact that it the way the country budgets are determined, and even if it is, I do not know if after the budgets are set, if it carries down further, and increases the budgets of the various programs proportionally.

What bothers me a bit about this is that just because as a teacher I have a set number of students I assist directly, that doesn't mean others don't help more people by teaching skills to organizations that in turn pass those skills on. Since the volunteer wasn't directly involved in assisting the second generation, for lack of a better phrase, they can't include those numbers, even if those people were assisted while the volunteer was in country working on a different project, perhaps even with the same group they initially taught the skills now being passed along.

While I have no issues with accountability, I do believe that metrics for social service agencies are not going to be as cut and dried as those in the accounting world, or whichever sphere creates these metrics, might wish.

(Simon Head is the author of the article "The Grim Threat to British Universities" linked in the first paragraph, in case that link dies.)

On pictures (and other things)

I think this picture may have surfaced previously in a slightly different form, but I like it, and it is from one the places I have been lucky enough to visit, Ljubljana. At some point I remember being advised to keep adding photos to my blog so people would know when I updated, and while I can say it would make determining updates quite quick, since they would be at a glance, though the real question becomes, if the picture used is not sufficiently interesting, will anyone bother with the words, whether they are new or not? Either way, here is a picture, and some new words, though I can not guarantee the quality.

It is only Saturday morning, and while I have started Lynd Wards' "God's Man", I haven't finished it, and would like to save my opinion on it until I have finished, likely to be this weekend, but one never knows, maybe I will go get a car stereo instead, since that is one thing my new vehicle does need, since I spend at least 40 or so minutes each way, to and from work, it would be nice to listen to something other than the wind and the engine.

That said, I have finished my morning coffee, and read all sorts of news, so I should get going and get away from the computer for a bit. Perhaps I will get lucky and find something to do that involves leaving the house, which seems rare for me on the weekends for some reason (most likely, habit).

First Week

The first week of the new year is done. And even though the work week wasn't a full one for me, I am pleased that tomorrow is a day off. The week at work wasn't anything new, and much to my pleasant surprise, I wasn't as backlogged as I had thought I would be after the break, so work was a pleasant readjusting to the flow, rather than trying not to drown in a deluge.

Today I received my Library of America edition of Lynd Ward's "Graphic Novels." I used quotes because I don't think that term was active when he created them. They are books whose stories are told entirely with wood cuts. In the brief skimming I have done so far, I haven't seen any words cut into the blocks, so it is definitely a visual style of storytelling vastly different from what we are accustomed to in today's graphic novel form, where the story is told in a combination of words & pictures.

That is probably the highlight of my week, though I am working on "How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe" by Charles Yu right now as well. It has mostly been my lunchtime reading after I have eaten, but it is proving a satisfactory read thus far, and I hope as I get further into it, that it can remain so. This book was a Christmas gift from a former room mate, and as I was an unexpected guest for the holiday there, I am rather enjoying the thought that it was not picked out for me (perhaps it was purchased for his own use), but that he thought I might like it regardless. I sometimes have a tough time with modern fiction, especially if it is too self-reflexive and draws one constantly out of the story, or worse when they are trying to be too clever, and everything falls flat. Initially, I was thinking this was the latter, but that opinion has changed a bit the further I have read, which is something that pleases me.

Today's Interesting Vehicle

Had I had the patience to wait around in the cold today, I might have asked for a tour of this vehicle. I saw it on my way to the Sunday Market today, and thought it was one of the better looking modern RV's I had seen, though my hunch is it may also be DIY, and if so, kudos to the creator, as it is a nice looking vehicle.

Mixed Bag

While today has been a bit of a mixed bag, with it being another sunny and chilly day, I managed to head out to see if there was anything up at the Ballard Sunday Market. There were people, buskers, and vendors, but I bought nothing, though while there I did stop into the new kitchen-wares store, though nothing caught my interest. I really hadn't planned on buying anything, and my cooking has been so sparse that I wouldn't even know what I might need. I also managed to jot a bit in my journal and play a little Age of Conan (AoC), in the latter more trying to catch up with those who I would team with previously, but whom I haven't seen since my hard drive induced hiatus from the game.

The New Year

Well, the New Year arrived, and I slept soundly through any celebration by the neighbors. I didn't relish the idea of trying to stay awake and spend it in a crowded bar with cheap champagne at midnight, so sleep was my solution. Today hasn't been unpleasant, though it has been uneventful. I got the car out and went to Half-Price Books after meeting someone for lunch. The lamb curry was nice, but I managed to refrain from purchasing anything at the bookstore, as I have a few too many unread books already.

Today's entry is mostly to keep things going, but I am wondering if I came up with some sort of theme rather than random commentary if this might be more interesting as well as easier for me to keep going. Time will tell, and maybe something will show up on the radar that makes a good theme. I don't see enough movies to make a review site, and haven't been reading enough books for it to be much of that either. I am also sure there is more than enough commentary on technology and inter-connectedness (including social media) that other than the occasional mention, it doesn't really deserve another blog. Besides, how many rants and questions regarding its merits does anyone want to read, let alone write.

Beer could be fun, but I honestly enjoy drinking it more than trying to critique it, since it is so much a matter of personal preference--some folks like a northwestern style IPA and others do not.

As it is, I will probably just try and write regularly. Perhaps, I will find a compelling voice, and if that happens, then all my ramblings will have been worth the effort. If that doesn't happen, then at least I will still be able to type in complete sentences, comma faults and all.