Although I feel like I rarely have anything going on in my life worth blogging about, I find that if I go for four of five days without posting, I have stored away in my mind too many things I want to comment on and don't have the time or energyt to write about them. Even though they are just little things.

I went to the First Friday trolley hop downtown on the fifth. I saw some good stuff. One gallery had a couple of violinists playing; their music filled the small space, and it was beautiful.

Swanson Reed Contemporary had an exhibit by Louisville artist Ted Bressoud. Mr. Bressoud has cut up paper money (ones, tens, twenties, hundreds...) and arranged the pieces into crosses. He says in his artist statement "Making a religious icon out of money was, at once, destroying what I worshipped and deitizing it." The results were, I found, fairly simple in their elegance, pleasing to the eye, and provocative.

Another highlight was David Schuster's studio and gallery at 211 South Clay Street. His paintings are very approachable. They are realistic without being photographic, they're colorful and vivid, and they display a love of both drawing and paint application. He paints the way I want to paint. He also seems like a very nice guy and I enjoyed my brief conversation with him. His work is a lot of fun to look at, and I recommend a visit to his gallery space to anyone who's visiting galleries downtown.

Other weekend highlights that I hope I get some time to post about: I harvested some bamboo from alongside Interstate 71, and cut some of it down into dip pens. I greatly enjoyed Erin's soccer game on Sunday, and it wasn't even miserably hot, although the thermometer said it was. Last night we had dinner with the Gilberts, and had the privilege to enjoy a visit from Shagufta, who regaled us with fascinating tales from the last dozen years of her life.

Kyrill & Methodius

St. Kyrill, or Cyril, invented the Cyrillic alphabet. He and his brother, St. Methodius, are considered patron saints of Europe. They were born in Thessaloniki, Greece in the 9th Century, and converted a lot of Slavs.

There you go.

Erin the builder & destroyer

Here's a Slovakian coin I bought at the coin show. I thought it was sort of pretty; that's a nice design. Those two fellas are St. Kyrill and St. Methodius. I'll have to look them up.

Saw in its final stages

My workspace in the dining room.

Finished saw

The Wine Tasting

Saturday evening’s wine tasting party was a lot of fun. Each of the twelve guests was to bring a bottle of wine under $10. I didn’t know until immediately beforehand that we were also supposed to dress up like our bottles of wine, but I think I looked smartly TV wine commercial-like in my green jeans, black T-shirt, and tan sport jacket.

Kim and I brought a bottle of malbec and a bottle of strawberry wine from a Kentucky winery.

Disclaimer: I don’t know anything about wine. I don’t know a malbec from a zinfandel from a merlot, except that I think all zinfandels are white. And, actually, I think I might have had enough merlots over the past decade that I might be able to guess if it’s a merlot if I haven’t been told. I swear, though, Saturday was the first time in my life I ever heard the word “malbec.”

Laura wrapped each bottle of wine in a paper bag and numbered it, so that we could only go by the numbers, not the labels. Then we were seated outside on the porch. It was a beautiful evening. Pat and Laura had a long table with candelabras, and place settings. There was a fire in the yard. It was very dark.

Chris G. was dressed as a butcher, Loraine as a gaucho (gaucha? Gauchita?), Chris S. like a Kentucky Colonel. Helga was in her tango outfit. Ed wore a long wig and a sleek black dress that showed off his tattoos. Everyone else was dress strikingly, also.

We all had scorecards, passed around the bottles as we dined on salads, bruschetta, rolls, and these awesome hors d’oeuvres consisting of almond-stuffed figs wrapped in prosciutto. (Hmm. My spell check function wants to change “prosciutto” to “prostitute.”)

There was a main course of chicken, pork, noodles, and vegetables, but I had very little, as Kim and I had just eaten. All the food I had was excellent.

The two wines that we brought fared well, getting generally favorable comments. The strawberry wine was mild and sweet, and the malbec was decent and somewhat interesting, though not a favorite. The greatest commotion was over an elderberry wine that Aaron brought, with the opinion seeming to run from “Hoo, what is this crap?” to “Wow! Undrinkable!” My comment: “Like a pack of Smarties dissolved in Alka-Seltzer.” Although the beverage was dislikable (really, it might not be bad poured over vanilla ice cream), I must give thanks to Aaron for providing great entertainment.

After a tiramisu dessert, we all sat around the fire and chatted. Then Kim and I had to go home to relieve our baby sitters, who were asleep on the sofas.

And now, your weekend update

Weekend synopsis:

Friday:

Coin show, already mentioned.

Dinner with the Sparkses at Wendy’s, just for the fun of it.

D&D at Brent’s house. We started at about 9 p.m., and stopped at 1:15 a.m. David brought bourbon. At the end, I accelerated game time to get the chronology of in-game events up to about where I wanted them to be. Now, though, I have a list of things I really need to get together before the next game night. I need to get a map of the island of Thanos and the ruined city of Marding. I need to work on weapon enchantment options and prices. I need to complete details of another location they may end up very soon, and another location they may go.

Saturday:

Up with Jillian at 6:15, after a somewhat more than 4 hours of sleep. I spent a couple hours ruing my Dungeon Master status. Jillian was in a really good mood, though, and very cute.

Kim ran errands and worked much of the day. I played with the girls and cleaned. Cleaning in our house is like using a small plastic shovel to clear a long driveway during a moderate snowstorm. One may take a small step back and see the progress made, but another step back reveals that the task is overwhelmingly big and that the work that’s been done will be swallowed up again quickly. That’s why it’s best to focus on little areas. I used the dirt devil on the upholstered glider-rocker and parts of the family room carpet. I took some old toys out to the garage. I cleared off parts of the kitchen counters. Erin and I made fudge.

Mom and Dad came over to watch the girls while Kim and I had a date night. Bless my mom and dad! They do so much for us, as do Kim’s parents. We had a great night. After dinner at Rocky’s, we went to Pat and Laura’s for a wine tasting party.

Sunday:

After we worked at church, we went to Erin’s soccer game. Those games are a hoot. The weather was much nicer than last week, although the sun was still hot. It’s fun seeing the three-year-olds watch the ball roll past… Sometimes it even bounces off their shins, and they don’t move.

I played with Erin and Jill in the back yard, which is where we also had dinner, despite the mosquitoes. I pulled some of the gourds off the fence. I think some of them will be cured soon.

I went to bed at a reasonable hour.

Coin Show

Last weekend’s annual Fall coin show seemed to be a success. I don’t know how things were on Saturday, but Friday went well, for the time I was there. I worked from the time it opened, at 10:00 a.m., until 1:00 p.m., at the front table. We handed out name tags to dealers, prompted visitors to put on name badges, and sold raffle tickets.

There were about fifty dealers and eighty tables, and the venue was spacious. I could have spent much more time and money if I’d had either. As it was, I spent 1 ½ hours and $20.

I had to return in the afternoon after work to take back one of the coins I purchased, for I became convinced that it was a counterfeit. I wish I’d taken a picture of it so that I could show people what I was talking about. I was a little excited when I first found it: In one dealer’s binder of world coins, he had a couple of pages of 18th and 19th Century reales and half-reales. I’ve been looking for such a coin from the 1730s, because that’s the kind of coin that would have been in common usage in the Colonies when the first Tablers came over during that decade. I spotted a 1737 half-real for $18.95, and the dealer said he’d let me have it for $15. It wasn’t in great shape, but that was a good price, so I purchased it.

When I got back to work I looked at it a few times, and became troubled. The more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that this was a replica. Finally, I became sure that it wasn’t just a fake, it was a poorly done fake that screamed “I suck.”

The details on the coin were poor. There was metal between the bars on many of the letters. Importantly, there were bubble-like raised nodules of metal, which is what would occur if the coin were cast in a mold that had bubble-holes in it that had formed when the mold-making material had set. Most damning, there was a broken flange of metal protruding from the top edge of the coin from where the metal had been poured into the mold.

At least, this is what my eyes told me. (For anyone reading this who doesn’t know, all those hints of the coin being cast in a mold are important because legit coins are not cast in molds.)

I took the coin back, explained to the dealer my concern, and handed it to him. He looked at it with his loupe and mentioned something about the quality of the coins at that time varying considerably, and then he gave me my money back. So I have no problem with this dealer, except that I think it was a seriously problematic coin that he himself should have caught. There were a few other world coins I bought from him that I’m satisfied with.

The best deal of the day: In found a 1960 Franklin half in nice shape marked with a price tag for $10.00, and a 1971 Eisenhower dollar that was sort of worn, marked at $2.00. However, both of these were in a bin marked “half off,” making the Franklin half = $5.00 and the Ike dollar = $1.00. I thought, “A dollar for a dollar? I’ll bite.” I took both of them over to the dealer, and he said, “I’ll just take five for both.” So, essentially I got the Franklin for $4.00, which is significantly below today’s bullion value for the silver in the coin.

Why do we say, “Dinner is ready!” but say, “The meal is ready”? Why is there a “the” in front of “meal” but not “breakfast,” “lunch,” or “dinner”? We also say “The snack is prepared,” not “Snack is prepared.” I’ll have to think about this a bit. I’m guess it’s related to our reasons for saying “at the seventh hour” as opposed to “at seventh hour.”

We ate the breakfast at seventh hour.
We ate meal at the seven o’clock.

“The” seems to be a place-holder for something more titular. I don’t know. I know how to use it, but I don’t know how I’d explain it if I were teaching a class on non-English speakers. I’m sure there are explanations, and I’ll have to poke around.

King's Island

My brother Kevin and I went to King’s Island on Saturday. It was the first time either of us had been in more than ten years. Here is a review.

General review
We had free tickets, a free buffet lunch, and a five-dollar vouchers that could be spent anywhere in the park, so money wasn’t a factor for us. With normal adult admission somewhere in the vicinity of $45, and food prices very high (2 slices of pizza for $5.95, a bottle of Desani water for $3.65), I wouldn’t normally consider going. If, however, I had $150-$200 to spend on a one-day getaway for a family of four, I’d certainly consider it. The park was well-kept and clean, and attendants were plentiful. I had a lot of fun.

Some Specifics
King’s Island opened in 1972, and the general layout hasn’t changed. I was pleased to see many of the same features I recall from my first visit in the mid-Seventies, such as the massive topiary clock near the Eiffel Tower, and the huge row of fountains along International Street.

The parking lot, sadly, is no longer divided into Hanna-Barbera character-named sections. One can no longer park in Boo-Boo Row 20, or Quickdraw Row 41. We parked in Face/Off Row 42. I assumed that the sections are named after Paramount movies, since until last year Paramount owned the park. It just occurred to me, though, that the sections could be named after park attractions, and Face/Off is the name of one of the rollercoasters.

Kevin and I both noticed that most of the graffiti that had been scratched into the railings around the attractions, the result of untold thousands of youths waiting in lines for millions upon millions of man-hours over several decades, was gone. The wooden railings all over the park, once heavily adorned with intials, dates, and wads of chewing gum, were in many cases replaced entirely and always painted in a heavy layer of glossy enamel.

It was hot. Despite the awnings over many of the waiting areas, the longest lines always had their tail-ends in the sun. For popular attractions, the tail-end is long. The most grueling part of the day was our wait to get on the FireHawk rollercoaster; that was nearly an hour long, and most of that was in the sun. It would have been fine if it had been in the seventies, but it was in the nineties, and there were no clouds. Park attendants set up a stack of coolers with cold water and plastic cups, which was a great idea. I got the last plastic cup. I hope some cups arrived for the people behind me. One girl in line, evidently suffering from the heat, was being aided by friends and park employees.


The Racer: This was our first ride of the day. It’s 45 years old, and has been at King’s Island for 35. This was probably the first “grown-up” rollercoaster I ever rode, and it’s the yardstick by which I measure all the others. It’s fast and lurchy but fairly painless. There was almost no queue at all, which was a great bonus.

The Beast: Still ranks as the best rollercoaster I’ve been on. The violent beating one takes on it isn’t quite bad enough to keep is speed and drops from topping my list. Kevin and I individually noted the sensation of the meat on our calves vibrating: Wub-wub-wub. I got slammed back and forth quite a bit, but not enough to really remember the pain. Which brings me to…

Son of Beast: Sounds like a kiddie coaster, right? Like a miniature version of The Beast? Holy crap. Constructed from an entire forest’s worth of lumber, its speed and drops are exceeded only by its violence. We both felt sharp pain in our lower backs when we hit the curve at the bottom of the second hill, and then could do nothing but hang on and watch in dread as we continued the horizontal curve and hit the same sharp turn again. This ride kicked my ass, and more than half of that was in the bad way, not the good way. I won’t ride it again.

Flight of Fear: Like Son of Beast, this ride does some unpleasant chiropractic work, with the added terror of working you over in a dark enclosed warehouse. It’s like a gang fight with strobe lights. It’s fast and loopy and worth riding once, but I’ll avoid this one in the future. Which is what I said last time I rode it. I just forgot.

Firehawk: This coaster, the park’s newest, is a “flying” coaster. One is strapped in very securely, then the car flips and you spend the entire ride hanging from your harness. You’re flat on your stomach looking down at the ground. It’s light on the bone-crunching, but heavy on the “Oh-God-I’m-Going-to-Die” feeling, so I rate it highly. This had the longest line we waited in.

Top Gun: Not a bad ride, but one must endure the movie-themed junk all over the place. The ride is relatively smooth and fast. The fact that it’s a hanging coaster may once have been a nice gimmick, but it’s not so novel now and the supports from which it hangs tend to obscure the view. Note so self: If I ever ride it again, try to sit in the very front car, where I’ll be able to stare death in the face more clearly.

Delerium: This ride is similar to that swinging galleon ship ride, but on a grander scale. About fifty people sit all around the edge of a saucer, which hangs from a tall support beam. Then the saucer and beam start to rock, going higher and higher as the saucer slowly rotates. Shortly, one finds oneself being giddily lifted well past vertical, then plummeting earthward, over and over. Peaceful yet terrifying, I think this is the best ride there.

Someone else's pic of Delirium


Some very old favorites are still around. The Monster and the Scrambler are still there, and still fun. We didn’t go an any water rides.

Sick, Profit, Coin, Saw, Freud

1. I started feeling a little ill on Thursday, and by Friday evening I knew that I had the cold that pretty much every single one of my co-workers has been passing around for the past two weeks. I stayed home yesterday. Today I feel much, but not 100%, better. I suspect that my quick recovery may be due to those zinc lozenges.

2. I watched the pilot episode of “Profit” last week. It was pretty good. I think maybe that was the only episode I ever saw. My Netflix disc has ep. 2 on it also, and I’ll try to watch it soon. It’s odd; in 1996, that was a show that was absolutely an oddball, very original, and doomed to failure. If it came on now, it might be a minor hit on Showtime, or USA. TV is a little weirder now, I guess.

3. I missed Erin’s second soccer game to attend my coin club meeting on Sunday. I must admit, I would have enjoyed the soccer game more. However, this meeting was the last meeting before the big coin show on the 28th and 29th, and I knew that they’d be signing up volunteers to help. I signed up for Friday the 28th, 10:00-1:00, and I figure I’ll probably be working at the front table like last year. Also, at the coin club auction, I purchased a 1982-P Lincoln cent with a clipped planchet error. I think that’s my first purchase of an error coin.

4. I think I’m done with the saw. I sat down last night with my painting supplies, and my two dead butterflies and one dead bumblebee, and my insect field guide, and my sketchbook, and tried to figure out just how to paint in a nice bug or two. I created a couple of small pencil sketches, and then I painted a butterfly (a European cabbage white) on an artist trading card. Finally, I decided that I was NOT going to add anything else to the saw. No bees or butterflies. I spent fifteen minutes doing a little touch-up on the blue sky behind the trees, and decided I’d be an idiot to work on it any more. I’m pretty happy with the results.

5. Last night I dreamed that I was fishing on a big boat with Paul. He hauled in a 15-foot pike. There were many friends on the boat—it was a regular Otter excursion. I was worried that the huge pike would start thrashing and injure someone, including Erin and Jill, who were nearby. Pike also have large, sharp teeth, by the way. I was holding the pike on a stairwell was we tried to get the boat into a dock. Erin and Jill came close to look at the fish, but I was really concerned that the fish would break loose, so I told them to move away. Jill did, but Erin didn’t, and I woke myself up yelling “Hurry!”

Conversation exerpt

I: “I saw some hot air balloons last night.”
Co-worker 1: “Did you? I see them all the time out where I live.”
Co-worker 2: “Balloons are stupid. They’re so slow. Why would you want to go anywhere so slow? There are a lot cooler ways to get there. Airplanes go fast. Airplanes are cool.”

Another dream

The alarm sounded this morning, and I hit snooze, and immediately fell into an annoying dream. Until the alarm went off again, I dreamed that I was on the phone with a bill collector who was trying to get a “tracking number” (dream-speak for routing code) for a check I’d sent in. I spent some minutes searching, and then found my own hand-written notes, but the numbers I’d written were indecipherable. The resembled the graffiti one sees on innumerable passing train cars, obviously comprised of letters and numbers but somehow inscrutable. Finally, I found another actual check from which I could read the numbers, but there were so many numbers that I had a hard time figuring out which were the ones the caller wanted.

Black Walnuts

I will now be on the lookout for black walnuts. I’m not sure, but I think almost any walnuts growing in this area will be black walnuts. They can be used, I’ve heard, to make a very nice ink.

If you have any walnuts growing near you, please let me know. I have a few good leads on obtaining some, but there is no such thing as too much information.

If and when I get a bunch of walnuts, I’ll chronicle here my efforts to turn them into drawing ink.

I have big dreams for a Halloween costume this year. But will I actually make the time to do this? I need to price PVC pipes and PVC glue, and solidify plans to make a big scary yead. I've done a couple of very small sketches, and need to work on more.

Last night I had an unpleasant dream that I was watching televised film from an aircraft cabin camera as the plane was catching fire. People were out of there seats trying to get a view of another compartment on the airplane where a garbage can had caught fire (thanks, Brian.) One lady was on fire and another lady was trying to wrestle her to the ground to put out the flames. I knew the plane was going to crash.

Saturday morning I went to the St. Regis Park city-wide yard sale with Kim and Mom. I obtained three items, two of which were purchases and the other of which was a freebie. First, I bought for a dollar a little three-pronged gardening fork thing. Second, I was given a bunch of plastic poker chips. Thirds, I bought a 3-ring-binder slide-holder page of coins and little bits of junk for fifty cents.

The coins and junk—it really, really is junk—was a good deal. Nothing actually valuable, but there are several eastern European coins (Yugoslavia and Turkey, mainly) that I could put in my collection. There are also three Office of Price Administration rationing tokens from WWII, and one or two more tokens I have not identified. As for the junk: One rabies vaccination tag that I think is from the 1960s, a campaign pin which I’ll have to look up but I suspect is from when Bert Combs and Julian Carroll ran for Governor and Lt. Governor in 1971 (Thanks, Wikipedia!), a pair of cufflinks, and part of an earring or something.

The poker chips I got for use with various games, but my main intention is to use them for D&D. I won’t go into it unless someone asks*, or until I turn this into a roleplaying game blog, which could happen some day. I was standing at a yard sale looking at the poker chips in a cookie tin, wondering what the price was, when a lady walked up as said, “You want those? Just take them. Let me find you a bag.”


*For David and Aaron, since I know you read this and probably are wondering: The chips will replace those colored index cards.

The result of car-drying. An undried one is included for your reference.Dried tomatoes

Painted saw

Yesterday I decided I was done with the saw, but today I'm really having second thoughts about that bee. I'm not satisfied. I would appreciate any comments you'd care to make. I may just turn that bee into a monarch butterfly.

More dried tomatoes

Several days ago I cut a bunch of cherry tomatoes in half, salted them, spread them in a pan, and heated them in the oven at 190 degrees for an hour or two. Then it was bedtime, so I pulled them out (there have been times in the past where I’ve accidentally or intentionally left them in the oven overnight, and the results were crunchy and bitter.) At that time, they were showing slight signs of shriveling, but still looked pretty much the same as when I put them in.

I put the tray on my dashboard the next day and left them there. It was a hot and sunny day. By the time I left work, they were done. In fact, they were a little over done. I think they might have come out better if I had not put them in the oven.

I’ll have to make some more before the weather cools, if I can manage it.

D&D

Why would I post a D&D game recap? I don’t know. I just broadcast. I hoist my banners with pride. It’s not as weird as a knitting blog.

We played D&D on Sunday night. This was with Team Beta, or the Ensley Group, or whatever I feel like calling them at any given moment. Team Alpha, or the Arlay Group, or whatever, traveled south to Arlay to get their comrade the half-orc barbarian resurrected. Team Beta is still at the ruins of Ensley Keep, cleaning and making repairs. They had a lot of relatively amusing character interaction.

Actually, I won’t post any real recap. Some of my players read this blog, and there isn’t much I can say that wouldn’t possibly provide too much information to some players who maybe shouldn’t get that information yet.

tomatoes & other garden stuff

I am attempting to make some sun-dried tomatoes. Last year I made some in the oven, and they turned out very well; I tended to eat them like raisins after they were done, so I didn’t get to keep as many for use over the winter as I had planned. But the ones I did keep were pretty useful. I just dropped them into boiling pasta for the last few minutes of cook time, then drained it all together, then added some butter or olive oil. That was good.

Unfortunately, drying in the oven can be a little annoying, because one must run the oven at low temperature for a long time—six to ten hours. I over-cooked quite a few. This year, the idea of keeping the oven running while the air conditioning was fighting off the 90+ degree heat just didn’t appeal to me at all.

So I am trying a new method. I happen to have a Ford Festiva-shaped solar-powered dehydrator, which I brought with me to work. I placed it so that the front solar screen was facing the sun, put a tray of little sliced tomatoes on the front panel, and went into the office to work.

I think this might take two days. Wish me luck.

Also, the newspaper mulch I’ve attempted to use in my watermelon bed has failed catastrophically. It is now difficult to see the watermelon vines under all the 18-inch-tall grass, as well as the volunteer tomatoes and basil (I won’t complain about the last two. The basil is especially welcome, and has a pleasant lemony flavor.) My garden, almost every inch, looks terrible. It’s extremely weedy, overgrown, and browning.

Just like 8th grade

Book Report

A Book I Read on My Summer Vacation by Mark T.

I just finished reading a novel! That makes a total of two for this year, which is as many or more than I’ve read in several years. I turned the last page yesterday as I sat at the Mall St. Matthews food court, waiting for the Goodyear mechanics to be done with my car.

Since I spend so little time reading fiction, I must select great monuments of literature, right? Yeah, sure. This particular book was Riders of the Dead by Dan Abnett, and was published by The Black Library, the fiction-publishing arm of Games Workshop, which produces the popular Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 miniatures wargames and roleplaying games. You can clearly see the tie-in because, above the book’s title and the cover art depicting a bunch of men killing one another with giant medieval weapons, is the big “WARHAMMER” logo. The book was recommended, and loaned to me, by David.

Well, I thought it was pretty darn good. There was a time when I primarily read science fiction and fantasy novels, but I left off with that because…well, I was going to say that so many of them were lame-o, but that’s not really why. There are countless titles, and among those countless titles are many, many very good books that I’ve never reached for. I think it actually comes down to this: I don’t allot much time for fiction. I read (or, most often, browse) non-fiction. When I do get around to reading fiction, I want it to somehow matter. I want it to be something important, or educational, or unforgettable. I don’t often set aside time for reading fiction for the joy of reading fiction.

I sure used to, though. When I was a teenager, I’d often start a novel and not put it down until I had finished it, opening it when I got home from the library and finishing it sometime before dawn the next day.

A month or two ago I read American Gods by Neil Gaiman, and I really enjoyed it. It wasn’t a great or important literary work, but it was well-written and clever. I loaned it to David, and he loaned me Riders of the Dead. One evening I cracked it open and read a few random pages involving some guys killing one another on horseback in the middle of a stream, and it was pretty engrossing. So I decided to I’d read it soon.

This is the first swords & sorcery novel, besides The Lord of the Rings, that I’ve read in 15 years, maybe more. I call it swords & sorcery although there is little sorcery in it. The Warhammer setting, clearly but loosely based on late medieval Europe, keeps magical fireworks a rarity. There is, however, plenty (buckets and buckets!) of limb-hacking, decapitating, bone-smashing, blood-puddling, horse-toppling, chest-impaling, skull-stacking, and war-whooping. In between, Abnett does a fine job of painting cultures and landscapes in a way that feels quite real and down-to-earth without becoming overlong or wordy. Having a pseudo-European backdrop certainly must have helped; the cultures didn’t need to be created from whole-cloth. But it’s imaginatively told.

The story involves two horse soldiers from the continent’s great Empire. They travel with a large army to the steppes of the northeast, preparing for an incursion of brutal barbarians. They are quickly overrun by the hordes of the north; one is captured, and the other escapes to join a local band of horsemen in their resistance fight. The bulk of the book skips back and forth between the two over the course of a year.

I found the writing to be surprisingly good, as was the editing. The language is descriptive and evocative. My only real complaint is that the final scenes—the climax of the book—seemed rather abbreviated. Perhaps the author wanted to convey the sense that the reader was rushing unstoppably towards a fateful confrontation, but it instead feels like he just wanted to finish because he was tired of writing it.

That flaw, however, is minor. I’d have to file this book under “ripping yarns.” I’ll add, for any of you knitters who read this, that a “ripping yarn” can be a good thing in certain contexts. But I bet you knitters aren’t too likely to read any novel in which the stacking of trophy skulls is featured prominently.

And so the cosmic dance continues

At ten minutes before six this morning, I walked out the front door in nothing but my boxers, crossed the lawn, and stalked up my neighbors’ driveway. Then I was able to see the moon. The Earth’s shadow hid our milky whiteness, hers and mine. The eclipse had ink-washed the moon’s top three-quarters; the bottom still shone a bright salmon hue against the grey-brown of the morning sky.

Every time I view a lunar eclipse, I think of a story that a professor at U of L told me once. He was in France with a bunch of friends. After dinner, they were all outside as a lunar eclipse was occurring. He knew some French, but was not fluent. Looking up and noticing the moon, he blurted in French, “Look! The moon! …It isn’t there!”

Movie review, random thoughts, restaurant review

The Host

David came over last night and we watched “The Host,” a Korean monster movie. I thought it was pretty good. After a fairly standard set-up in which an uncaring U.S. Army doctor orders the dumping of scores of bottles of formaldehyde into the Han River, I was treated to scenes of a hideously mutated, bus-sized creature (fish? lizard? salamander?) trampling and mauling panicked pedestrians and picnickers.

After the initial rampage, four family members band together to rescue another who was kidnapped by the beast.

The monster, at least as it appeared on the small screen, was nicely done. There were a few scenes it which it was a dark shape moving underwater in which it didn’t look very convincing; it had a “painted-on” look. But for the most part, as it ran, tumbled, and jumped through the cityscape in broad daylight, it had a natural look.

I found the main characters to be interesting and appealing. Although I’m not sure I got some of the plot nuances (I feel like I’m missing a few grains of understanding with the whole virus/no virus/ “agent yellow” deal), it all held together and progressed in a more-or-less believable* fashion, taking into account the bumbling-comic aspects of the family’s situations.

*******
Yesterday I mowed my front yard and about a third of the back. I had to quit in order to fix dinner for the girls and relieve their Nana, who was sitting them while I cut. The grass really needed it; the front lawn had not been mowed in more than a month. It was hot and humid and the cut grass came out chunky and gloppy. When I came in and picked up Jill, she kept reaching down to touch the front of my T-shirt. She’d make a “Gee-ahh” sound, some sort of commentary on how wet I was.

The night before last Kim and I had a date night. We had dinner at Puccini’s, again while Nana watched the girls. Thank goodness for grandparents—Erin and Jill have the four best. Puccini’s was good. I had a small pizza with artichoke, olives, mushrooms, and bacon. Kim had fettuccini with pesto sauce. Both were very good, as was the garlicky cheese pepperoni bread appetizer. Prices were reasonable. We’ll go back, some day.




*edited to add: When I say “believable,” I mean as compared to similar movies.

Last night, as that crazy storm was winding down, I headed over to Carrie’s to work on that saw. I am almost done! A couple more hours of work, maybe less, should do the trick. Really, it might be less than an hour of painting.

The night before last I finished “Revenge of the Sith.” The second half was a definite improvement over the first. Instead of rating the movie a 3 out of 10, I’ll raise it to 5. That means, to me, that it was watchable, some parts were fun, but overall my reaction was tepid.

Hop on the ferry

You're Siddhartha!

by Hermann Hesse

You simply don't know what to believe, but you're willing to try
anything once. Western values, Eastern values, hedonism and minimalism, you've spent
some time in every camp. But you still don't have any idea what camp you belong in.
This makes you an individualist of the highest order, but also really lonely. It's
time to chill out under a tree. And realize that at least you believe in
ferries.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Well, it’s at least as accurate as my horoscope.

Yoda says

Paul, Aaron, and Karen came over a couple weeks ago for D&D. Paul brought his two sons, who watched movies while we played. The next day, I realized that they had accidentally left their DVDs. Some Scooby-Doo cartoon movie and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.

That, I thought to myself, is great. I haven’t yet seen the final Star Wars movie, since I’d sworn I wouldn’t pay money to watch it. I just didn’t think it would be worth it, after seeing the last two.

Last night I started watching it. Eh. Perhaps it is the best of episodes I-III, but still. I like the ‘splosions just fine. However, it (like Episodes I, II, and VI) lacks the …something… of III and IV. What is that “something”? Charm? Focus? The sense of drama and comedy and character that arose from a more limited special-effects palette, budgetary constraints, and the relatively short (several years, as opposed to thirty) period of mythos-building and commercial tie-ins?

It’s stupid for me to post about it. Thousands upon thousands of Star Wars nuts have discussed this to death; I really don’t care that much. I’ll probably try to finish watching the movie, but if I don’t get the chance, oh well.

All of this is just leading up to the following point: My very favorite part of the movie so far is when Yoda, sitting on the Jedi Council, says, “Good relations with the Wookies I have.”

Un sol de oro

I really like this Peruvian coin. It’s brass, but it looks rusty, which would normally be a bad things but seems quite nice here.

I’m fond of coins with animals, especially ones that are simple, straightforward designs. They don’t get much plainer than this. It’s a very nice little llama; what more can you say?

This is one of the ones my parents found at a yard sale.

blackberry picking

The girls enjoy picking blackberries. They usually come back in the house with maroon juice stains on their faces and clothing. Also a hit are the cherry tomatoes, although Jill usually just gnaws on hers for a moment before taking the mess out of her mouth and either throwing it on the ground or handing it to me. I think she likes the flavor but doesn’t like the thick skin.

The blackberries are usually fairly tart. It’s possible to get them when they are perfectly ripe and quite sweet. However, at that point, they are so tender that they can easily fall apart in my hand as I try to pull them away from the plant. They are also more likely to be damaged by bugs or to have been chomped by birds. I’ve seen cardinals eating them. I suspected insects were responsible for the chunks missing from the ripe ones, but I finally witnessed some cardinals in the act. That explains why the ones that are damaged tend to be ones that are easily visible; berries that are hidden down low and under leaves stay safe.

Also pictured is our first watermelon. I picked it a little too soon. Yesterday, though, I got another one. I haven’t cut it yet, but its stem was starting to shrivel, so it must have been time, right?

George's Birthday/American Splendor

Happy Birthday to George! He’s this guy I used to know. He’s super-kind, generous, good-natured, clever, and thoughtful. Unfortunately for me, I just didn’t live up to his expectations and he stopped wanting to have anything to do with me. He finally realized I was like Harvey Pekar without the charm or air of success.

Speaking of Harvey Pekar, I re-watched a movie about him last night. I first saw “American Splendor” in theaters when it first came out a couple of years ago. Last night after it was over I told Kim, “I feel just like I did after the first time I watched it: I don’t know exactly all the reasons I like this movie, but I really, really like it.” In fact, it’s one of the 15-20 movies that are on my top 10 list (yeah, the list is pretty loosey-goosey.) Although the film focuses largely on negative emotions, depression, and loneliness, it’s really very positive and very funny. I highly recommend it. Funny and uplifting. And remember not to get it mixed up with that Kevin Spacey movie; they are not at all the same. That one was called “American Beauty,” and it was a downer.

Produce

Today Erin and I hauled in a watermelon. I suspected it was ripe, and I was eager for the first one, and I hated the thought of one being ripe and then getting over-ripe or rotting because I hadn't been on the ball.

So we brought in the bowling ball-sized fruit and I cut into it. Disappointment dripped and oozed across the cutting board, for the inside was still mostly white. There were, however, rows of seedy pinkness, which I dug out with a spoon melon-ball style. Enough to fill a large plastic cereal bowl. We ate it, and it was pretty good. The worst part was the seediness, which will pose a bit more difficulty for my two small children than for me. I spit out most of them like an old pro, and crunched up the rest. They were very crunchy, like watermelon grapenuts.

Erin and I also picked two bowls of blackberries. This evening I ran them (about 5 cups) through the food processor, then pressed the pureé through a colander and added a little sugar. This we spooned over vanilla ice cream, and it was quite good.

Wert-Marke

Here is a German (I presume) 20 Wert-Marke token. I don't know yet what a Wert-Marke token is, so I'm about to make some inquiries. The reverse is featureless save for the dots circling the perimeter.7-29-07, 9:00 PM: Various private manufacturers minted these in Germany, I'm told. This one may have been minted between 1900 and 1940. Many examples are countermarked, because the token manufacturer would sell these to businesses to be given to customers for later redemption. The private businesses would countermark (stamp) some letter or symbol to signify which business was using it. There are many tokens that look like this, so tracing its exact origin may be impossible.

A little Googling on Ethiopia...

There are numerous languages spoken in Ethiopia, but one of the main ones is Amharic. That’s the language featured on the coin below. It is the second-most widely used semitic language in the world, after Arabic, according to Wikipedia. The letters are from the Ge’ez alphabet, also a semitic language.

The numerals used to write the date on the obverse are Ethiopic (I think: I hope I’m not mixing up the various languages and number systems). From what I’ve read, the typical Ethiopian can read the date about as well as you or I, which is to say, probably not at all. They generally use Arabic numerals, like us, and the Ethiopic numerals are a traditional holdover.

Haile Selassie I became increasingly unpopular in 1973 and ’74, as parts of the country fell into drought, famine, and political unrest. A communist military junta seized power, imprisoning him and later killing him. The famine and brutality, however, continued. Things seem to be improving a little since the 1980s, though the country is still one of the world’s poorest.

Hmmm.

12:44 a.m. 7-21-07: I don't know this one yet. I will add to this post later with more information. It's a pretty coin, about the diameter of a dime, but thicker. I don't know the language, I don't know the dude. This means lots of page flipping. It probably dates to the 1950s, since it's my Uncle Mark's, and most of the world coins he has are ones he was given in the '50s. Fun! If I can't identify it in the next few minutes, I'm going to bed.

12:15 PM 7-21/07: Found it this morning. Ethiopia, one cent. The dude is Haile Selassie I, last of the Solomonic emperors, who ruled for a couple of thousand years, until the military booted him out in the 1970s. This is dated EE (Ethiopian Era) 1936, but coins with this date were minted 1944-1975 for Ethiopia in several other countries, including the U.S. The catalog I have give an approximate value of 30 cents, but it lists total mintage as 20,000, which is very low. I'm guessing that figure is a mistake.

7/30/07: Yeah, it's an error. The actual mintage is 2 million. That makes more sense.

Kohlrabi

Here is some kohlrabi from my little garden. Uncooked, the skin is quite purple. Pictured here after a half-hour in the steamer, it has developed a creepy translucency to its peel, making it seem to me not so much food-like as Roswell-artifact-like.
But hey, peeled, heavily buttered, and lightly salted, it provided delight. I gave Erin and Jill a little each; both asked for more! It reminded me of boiled, buttered, and salted cabbage, and also made me think a little of well-cooked broccoli.

I am having trouble posting.
This is a test.
Outside, I'd be roasting
Like a spitted chicken breast.

Dream, Crumb

Last night’s dream...

... involved me visiting the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary with a friend of mine. The identity of the friend kept changing. Sometimes I think it was Travis, and other times I think it was David or Aaron and we were looking for Travis, and other times it might have been Kim.

Anyway, the most vivid part of the dream involved me entering this huge, huge auditorium where a professor was lecturing. This hall was amazing. I entered on the balcony level, and the professor was giving a Powerpoint presentation (accompanied by Christian Rock). There were thousands of desks for students, and everything was paneled in stained wood. And the really amazing thing: There was no lower level over which the balcony level “hovered.” Instead, there was a wood-paneled “cliff” over the balcony’s edge, dropping down 200 feet to the floor of the auditorium. Affixed to this cliff were rows and rows of swiveling desks. The chairs were bolted to the vertical wall, but were angled so that the students who sat in them were facing outward, as one would be in a normal chair.

We were trying to get to the bottom of the auditorium and we had to climb down the wall, from one desk to another. After finally climbing all the way to the floor, I looked up and was impressed by how far we had descended.

One of Travis’s friends came over to me, happy to see me. I suspected that he was thinking that I had converted, or that at least there was hope for me. We all went together looking for Travis, and climbed up these stairs to a hall that was under construction. There was an unfinished door, unattached to the wall, which I had to slide out of the way. That’s all I can remember.

Movie

A couple of nights ago I finished watching the documentary “Crumb.” I had seen a little bit of it a few years ago. What a great movie. It’s a series of interviews with artist/illustrator Robert Crumb, his two brothers, and others (critics, ex-girlfriends, etc.). Totally weird, quite humorous, dark and sad, and thoroughly engrossing. This is one of those documentaries that go into the category of “wow, this is how great a documentary can be.”

Next, I want to re-watch “American Splendor,” which is an almost-documentary about the writer of American Splendor comics ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Splendor ), and in which the character of Robert Crumb appears.

Wow, I just realized that last Wednesday was the 16th anniversary of my attendance of the Boiled In Lead / Mekons concert at Uncle Pleasant's. I sure wish I could remember that, because I bet it was utterly cool.

I’ll see your “Lost” Geek bid and raise you one RPG nerd:

Sometime several years ago, I think in late Spring 2004, the Dungeons & Dragons game that I was running went on hiatus. The impending birth of my first child, along with a few other factors, provoked my announcement that I would be taking a break from dungeon-mastering the game. DMing generally takes quite a bit of preparatory work. In the meantime, we played D&D in someone else’s game for a while, then Shadowrun, then Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, and a few other little things mixed in. There were long periods of not playing at all.

After years of promises, we finally picked up my game again on Friday night. I feel pretty rusty with my DMing skills, especially the rules. I’ve forgotten many details. Despite that, I feel like the game went smoothly, and I had fun. The adventuring party had someone cast “raise dead” on a fallen member, in return for which they were sent to wipe out a band of evil cultists. Good, clean fun!

Garden News:

Erin and I ate the summer’s first ripe cherry tomatoes yesterday. The one I ate was a bit tough-skinned, which I hope is not a quality shared by its sisters-on-the-vine. It might have been just a tiny bit under-ripe; Erin at the ones that looked reddest. She is a real tomato-hound.

My gourd vines have taken off, and their per-day growth rate seems easier to measure in feet than in inches. OK, that’s exaggeration, but I do think they are growing at least six inches per day.

Coins:

I attended the monthly coin club meeting on Sunday afternoon. There was discussion about the Annual Fall Coin Show, Sept. 27-29 at the Best Western Brownsboro Road. Should be good. I’ll probably volunteer to work at the front table for a few hours, or I might help with setup or takedown.

One guy I spoke with a couple of months ago brought in two boxes of Lincoln cents in 2x2s so I could flip through and look for ones I needed. I bought a couple from him for a dollar each: A 1921-S and a 1924-S, both around G-8, I suppose. Two more I can cross off my list. He said he would bring some more next time.

I auctioned off one of the 2001-P mint-wrapped rolls of half-dollars that I found. I put a reserve of ten dollars on it, which is face value; this seemed to amaze the auctioneer, but he of course didn’t realize that I had got it at face value to begin with. Light lightning, it bid up to eleven dollars! And stopped, because the eleven-dollar bidder was The Kid (see my post about the kid at the coin club a couple of months ago.) No one wants to bid against The Kid, and even the auctioneer was actively discouraging it. I wish I had put a higher reserve on it. I might have got fifteen dollars.

There are attendance prize drawings each month, and I won a 1947-D Walking Liberty half dollar. My grading skills aren’t the best in the world, and I’m not particularly familiar with these halves, but I think it might barely rate a VF. Not an exceptional coin, but a great free prize. That other club member who is interested in world coins, Mike, won a prize, too: A Liberian-minted John F. Kennedy, Jr. commemorative ten-dollar piece. (Liberia is one of those places that has a huge commemorative coin industry.) Kind of a funny piece of junk, but hey, for free, who’s complaining?

World coins/Neko Case/Cucurbitae

My Uncle Mark has a bunch of world coins that were given to him as a child suffering from polio by his uncle. He’s had them just sitting around in a bag, and when I was talking about coins (as is my wont) one day, he mentioned them to me. I told him that I’d like to see them, and eventually he did. I am now looking through them. They are very cool, and I want to give him an idea of what he has.

I’ve only just begun researching them, but it looks like there is nothing of great value. There are three large, worn silver coins from the first half of the 19th Century; all three were apparently once glued to something.

Almost everything else is from the 1940s and 50s, with book-prices of under a dollar (most worth less than 50 cents). They are, however, interesting. Quite a few are from colonial Africa. I’ll be posting some photos later.

My parents also bought for me a few little plastic baggies of world coins at a yard sale a month ago. Again, all very low-value stuff, but there are things I don’t have, and it’s interesting to look through.

***

For my birthday I got the Neko Case CD “Fox Confessor Brings the Flood.” It’s like an invasion: First, take over the radio stations. Then, force your conquered populace to blog about it. My brain is the conquered populace. Since Monday, I have had one song or another running through my head AT ALL TIMES, NIGHT AND DAY. The songs are great, but my mental machinery has been 90% co-opted by this music and my ability to function normally at work and home, questionable under normal circumstances, is terribly diminished.

***

I now have in my garden at least two watermelons that are larger than softballs. I don’t know how big they are supposed to get. They are icebox watermelons, which means they don’t get too big, but I don’t know how big that is. Chihuahua-size, maybe?

My birdhouse gourd vines are growing six inches or more per day. They also smell funny.

I worked a little more on the saw last night. I think a couple more hours of work might do the trick.

I have several pieces of panel primed and sanded for painting. After reading a bit of commentary about mechanical adhesion problems of oil painted over acrylic underpaintings, I’ve decided to use only light acrylic sketches on my canvases. I’ll probably make an attempt to forgo that altogether.

The reason this is an art/coin/gardening/& more blog is because I don’t have enough of any single subject to post about more than once a week.

There are watermelons on my vines. The largest one I’ve seen is an inch-and-a-half; they are very cute and look like little striped green eggs.

Better said by someone else

This is not a political blog at all...but, oh, what the hell.

Source: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8Q57VP00&show_article=1

The prosecutor in the case "went after somebody even when he knew no crime
had been committed," Romney said. "Given that fact, isn't it reasonable for a
commutation of a portion of the sentence to be made?"

...(snip)...

As governor, Romney twice rejected a pardon for Anthony
Circosta, who at age
13 was convicted of assault for shooting another boy in the arm with a BB
gun—a shot that didn't break the skin. Circosta worked his way through
college, joined the Army
National Guard and led a platoon of 20 soldiers in Iraq's deadly Sunni
triangle.
In 2005, as he was serving in Iraq, he sought a pardon to fulfill
his dream of becoming a police officer.

...(snip)...
In his presidential bid, Romney often proudly points out that he was the first governor in modern Massachusetts history to deny every request for a pardon or commutation during his four years in office. He says he refused pardons because he didn't want to overturn a jury.

What should I post about when I haven't painted, and I don't have any coins to talk about, and the most exciting thing I can say about my garden is that I ate a blackberry from it this morning? Other people have crazy stories about attempting to teach music classes at VBS or making cute aprons or children who throw unholy fits or about how many miles they plan to run barefoot or expressing deep and considered opinions about Who's Hot in the Beltway.

I ate a blackberry. I found no silver in two rolls of half dollars I looked at. Anything I'd care to say about politics is always sounds better coming from someone else.

I'm working on the saw. Now that I've actually started the work, it's going pretty quickly, and I'm please with it. This is a progression over the course of several hours.

Here I am gesso-ing a panel in my studio. Note the rustic workbench I use. And another view of my workspace. Do you think I get lonely here? No. I have ten billion spiders to keep me company. There are also wasps and barn swallows. That's why I keep that yellow-handled axe close by.

The hollyhocks came back just swell this year. The spent blooms looks pretty ugly, but one must take the good with the bad, I suppose, cuz' there's just no bustin' skulls in gardening. I have, however, cracked a fair number of carapaces. That was a Japanese beetle reference.
And here's the kohlrabi. Want some? I have no idea why one is green and the other is purple. They'll actually kind of cool looking. I should paint their portraits.

Oh, this is for Ed. DJ-G’s max-rappity comment on my previous post reminded me.

Last night Erin was watching a Sesame Street video (“Potty Time with Elmo” or something like that) and there was a musical sequence showing plumbing parts being made in a factory. I was in the kitchen cleaning, and had to run in watch—the music was M. C. Frontalot! Or at least I’m pretty sure it was.

I just Googled him. It was him. MC Frontalot falls into the “nerdcore” subgenre, which I just learned of. I mean, I just learned the name. Thanks to people like Ed and mekimeki, I’ve been feeling the nerdcore vibrations before I ever heard any actual nerdcore.

Ed put one of his songs, “I’m Gonna Be Your Man,” on a CD for me a few years ago, and it rocks sportingly.

Interpret This Dream

I was training in martial arts. My young instructor, Ming Li, felt I had done fairly well. She thought it was time for me to face her instructor, Mama-Ji*.

In our outdoor classroom, on the grass, I was set to face her. Mama-Ji arrived. She was a silent elderly Asian lady, with long gray hair. I was to spar with her.

It was also dinner time, and Mama-Ji ordered pasta for delivery. It arrived, just as we were preparing to face one another. She was delighted to receive her plate of couscous.

She held her plate of food in her right hand, up and behind her, as we faced one another. I got the sense that she saw me as far beneath her, and that no one saw me as worthy to face her. It was expected that I would be no match for her.

She held her plate of food as she used her left hand to strike at me and to block my blows; we struck at one another a few times. I used both arms, and she, her face impassive, just used her left, keeping her food level with her right.

I was very annoyed by this. She was toying with me, showing how she could fight me even without any great effort. I decided that she needed to cut the cr*p and leave off the arrogant display; I was going to push her, so that I could either show her I didn’t want to mess around, or provoke her to really put me in my place so that I’d know exactly where I stood.

I quickly reached out and knocked the plate of pasta from her other hand. This really angered her, but she just glared at me for a moment, then turned and left. I realized that it was offensive for me to have even touched her food. What little welcome I might have had was gone.

I picked up my sword and followed Mama-Ji to beg forgiveness, but she ignored me and went inside. I waited in the stairwell for her to come back out. After a long time, she did (it was night, and raining.) I called out that I was sorry, that I realized too late that I my behavior was offensive. But she paid no attention to me at all, and walked away.

Oh, well, I thought. And I went home.

When I woke up I was a little annoyed that I went back to beg forgiveness. I should have picked up the plate of pasta and hit her with it.

* Mama-Ji is another name for Kali ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kali ), who was featured in the novel American Gods, by Neil Gaiman. I just finished reading it last week.

The River Cities Concert Band, of which Kim is a clarinet-tooting member, played at St. Matthew's Episcopal a couple of weeks ago. http://www.stmatt-ky.org/band_concert_and_ice_cream_2007.htm My two girls can be seen in the photos that are fifth and eleventh from the bottom. There is a picture of all three of us walking across the drive, with the band in the background, near the top. The photos were taken by Dr. Varley Wiedeman, who taught my Biology of Populations class at U of L, about...oh, 16 or 17 years ago.

My family planned to attend a zydeco concert in Willow Park a couple of days ago, but it was rained out. We stayed the afternoon at my parents' house, hoping for a break in the weather, despite the fact that every little bit of rain we received was greatly needed.

I went on a field trip with my dad, while Jill napped. Dad has a couple of tomato plants in his back yard, but the moment a tomato even thinks about ripening, a squirrel takes it. There are lots of squirrels, and competition is fierce, especially if you are the tomato-grower.

So my dad traps them in cages. I watched him pick up one of the cages with a nervous, skittery squirrel, spray its hind end with some red spraypaint ("So I can see if he comes back. I should be able to tell from that.") and put the cage in the back of the car. We drove a few miles away and let him go at the Baptist Seminary.

Everyone needs hobbies, I guess.

I told Dad that if it came down to tomatoes or squirrels in my garden, I might not be as gentle as he. In this Age of Information, squirrel recipes are just a click away.

Solstice

Happy Midsummer's Day!http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_170b.html
C'mon over tonight. We'll find some upright megaliths to dance around. I have a little rum.

Last Friday I finally started painting on the saw. It’s coming along pretty well. I’ll post photos if I can remember to take my camera next time I go over there.

Still thinking about linoleum block prints. I found my single tube of black water-based Speedball printing ink.

The little robins left their nest a few days ago. I was looking out the front window with Erin and we saw a fledgling hoping around the front yard. The other two were still in the nest, I discovered when I went out to check. By that evening, all three were gone.

It amazes me how fast they learn to fly. A few years ago we watched some young cardinals in Kim’s dad’s back yard. In just a few hours they went from helpless-looking, flightless fluffballs to birds that could fly from ground to branch to fence-top.

I ate some kohlrabi from my garden. I peeled it and sliced it raw. Eh. Perhaps I can add it to some soup or stew. You’d think that a vegetable that’s described as a cross between a radish and a turnip would be a lot more enjoyable. That was sarcasm.

For Father’s Day, my super-sweet wife and daughters gave me a membership to the J. B. Speed Art Museum. http://www.speedmuseum.org/

Bird Prints

Here is a discussion about some stunning bird prints...sometimes, artwork just seems to fly right up and create itself:
http://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=401932

In other avian news, we have a robin's nest over our driveway. Erin and I watched the three chicks poke their heads out, crying to be fed. I really hope we get a chance to watch them learning to fly.

For some reason, this morning I keep thinking that I want to do some linoleum block prints (or use a similar medium).

"Daddy, know what rhymes with freejerator? Heejerator!" --Erin

The other day on lunch break I was having a discussion with my pal Possumbooger—that’s not his real name, we just call him that—and he looks at me and “Alonzo,” he says, "Alonzo, what the hell’s new with you?”

So I think for a moment and I tell him, “Well, Poss, I finally found me a 1988-P half dollar last night. Now I have a complete set of JFK half dollar business strikes.” Then he whistles and nods appreciatively.

“Yeah,” I say. “It’s taken a long time. Now all I have to do is keep on refining it, by which I mean, I’m going to look for nicer versions of the ones I already got.”

“That kind of thing worth much?”

“Well,” I tell him, “determining the value is sort of complex. You have to count the number of coins and multiply it by fifty percent. That gives you the approximate value in U.S. dollars.” *

“Huh,” he says, and offers me a Swisher Sweet. I give him a Shasta soda, and we sit and watched the fog roll by the breakroom window.

* Not exactly true. You can also add the bullion price of silver for the coins minted 1964-1969, plus the value of the year 1987 coins, which you don’t usually find in circulation because they were only made for mint sets. All those things together add a few dollars. However, to paraphrase the mobster appraiser on “The Simpsons,” they might not be worth much, but their sentimental value is through the roof. Now, if I could find me a 1974 double-die obverse…


See some of Possumbooger’s antics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sK3AqFYAWQ

Jillian in the back yard a couple of weeks ago. I love this picture and can't stop looking at it.



Yesterday, when I got home from work, Kim told me to go look in the living room. There I found Erin asleep on the floor. Kim said that she just fell asleep among her toys.

Two more for category A

Here are the finished versions of my two most recent paintings, previously posted in unfinished form. The first is about 18x24”, the second is about 8x9”. Both are oil on panel. I invite comments.

I painted on Saturday, and finished both of the paintings that I posted photos of last week. Now I need to let them dry a little while and frame them.

I worked in my studio for a little while, on the saw—I sketched on it, and decided on a composition. I’ve actually hardly done any work in my studio. And I also discovered that it’s a supremely spidery place. I cleaned it a couple months ago, and now it has lots of cobwebs again, and there are spiders all over. My dad suggested spraying, which I might do, especially if end up spending more time there.

After I worked in my studio a bit, I went over to Aaron’s house and painted on his porch. That’s where I finished the two paintings previously begun. As I painted, I got to chat with Aaron and David, and had a beer. Very pleasant.

David, Brooke, Kim, and I played Puerto Rico on Thursday night. It was only the third or fourth time that we’ve played it. I really enjoy it, but it’s pretty time consuming (Thursday’s game lasted, oh, I dunno, three hours).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rico_(board_game)

David won.

Dairy manipulation

I've been wondering. How come you get butter when you agitate cream, but get whipped cream when you whip it? Why isn't whipped cream butter?

This is obviously a question from someone who hasn't actually tried to make either, or bothered to look it up.

Works in progress

The blue in this one shows up brighter in the picture than it is in real life. This painting is pretty small, and it's almost done.

This is the one that I started painting while it was snowing, back in early April. It needs a little more work than the small one, but it will be done soon, too. There is also too much glare in this picture, but it's the only one I have right now.

On the pig/in the hats/in the car

They like my hats.
The nice neighbors across the street gave them a car that their daughter has outgrown.

Here we are with one of the pigs outside Mark's Feed Store.

Lost

I will now show myself to be a “Lost” geek.

What a season finale! Whoa! And two hours of it! Jack revealed himself to be just as useless in flash forwards (sneaky “Lost” writers, darn them) as in flashbacks, although he had some fine moments in the present. I’m glad he didn’t cave in during his one-on-one with Ben.

Best part: Unexpectedly, Charlie. As sad and awful as his death was, he did a great job, exhibiting quick thinking and courage. The whole build-up to his final (? <-- obligatory question mark) scene had some good twists and just played out well.

Worst part: Locke killed Naomi. Every bit as egregious and near-inexplicable as when Michael shot Ana Lucia and Libby. Sure, he must have been inspired by a sense of I-must-stop-this-at-any-cost desperation, but obviously it wasn’t enough to motivate him to kill Jack. Or maybe the revolver wasn’t working. Fifteen years sitting in a tropical corpse pit might make it sort of inoperable.

For a show that primarily involves castaways on a tropical island, there sure are a lot of people killed or mangled by motor vehicles. Three more in last night’s finale, not including Jack nearly being run over as he crossed the street to the funeral parlor. And who was at the parlor? Kim suggested to me that it was Ben, and I think that’s probable, although Michael comes to mind as well.

Another annoyance, although it’s really a blessing: The ending really didn’t give us much more to speculate on over the summer regarding the nature of the island. Obviously, it has some sort of effect on the timeline, including events of the past. Not much more than that can be nailed down. Unless Jack’s references to his father in the present-tense was a product of his drug and alcohol abuse.

Who was Naomi working for? Why was Penelope transmitting to The Looking Glass station? In what way does rescue from the island end in regret or doom?

It looks like the whole dynamic of the show has now shifted. Next season seems likely to start with most or all of the surviving characters rescued, or put in a whole new form of peril.

I note that no core mysteries in the show’s mythology were solved. I hope that, when more is explained, I won’t regret ever getting hooked.

At the Louisville Coin Club meeting on Sunday, a gentleman who was sitting in front of me struck up a conversation. He asked me what I was interested in—that’s the general ice-breaker question among coin collectors. What do you collect? What do you focus on? It’s a question that’s a little awkward for me to answer, because I have little money to spend on collecting, and my interests are so varied. I’m not much on being a completist, like many numismatists. Key dates—those coins that are rarest in a series—are usually well outside my price range. I don’t have a key date of anything. But this is actually a digression.

My answer to that question now is that I’m most interested in the detective work. My favorite thing about coins is when I get something that sort of stumps me, and I have to look it up to identify it. I find it a lot of fun to find a coin and have little or no idea what it is, and then have to hunt around for information on it. This always ends in some new little window opening for me on some other culture or bit of history. Ancient Roman coins bore plenty of political propaganda. That Indonesian coin I have depicts a congklak game board, which is a version of mancala. The four small pictures on Icelandic coins are depictions of Iceland’s four guardian spirits—dragon, bull, vulture, and giant.

In regards to being a completist, I have almost finished a complete set of business-strike Kennedy half dollars. I’ve been pulling them from circulation, so that means that they each cost me fifty cents. The only one I still need is a 1988-P, which is ridiculous, because it’s not a rarity at all. It had a huge mintage, but for some reason none of the hundreds of coins I’ve searched in the past year has been that one. The only coins of the series that I had to spend money on were the 1987-P and 1987-D, which were available only in mint sets and not released into circulation. I bought those a couple of years ago. Besides finding that one coin I’m lacking, I need to keep searching for better examples of the ones I have that are pretty beat-up.

At the coin club meetings there is always an auction at the end. Last weekend I noticed an old Whitman folder of Lincoln cents, 1909-1940, missing only key date coins. All the coins were worn; I doubt any would grade higher than Fine. But there were many coins there that I needed for my collection. I decided that I’d gladly buy that if I could get it for less than $8.00. Unfortunately for me, one of the club members brings his young son (or maybe grandson, I don’t know.) Nobody really wants to get in a bidding war with a five-year-old. He got the Lincoln cents for $6.50. A little sad for me, sure, but also very cute.

If you’ve read all of this post, you are either crazy or interested in coins. Not that the two are in any way mutually exclusive. Why don’t you just go read the sports scores or the blog of someone totally hot? Obviously, I just write this for myself. And that one guy someplace who Googles the terms “congklak” and “guardian spirits.”

I spent a short while last night planting watermelon seeds. I turned over some soil, and then piled on some dark wormy compost from the compost cage. I was eager to do it before last night's thunderstorms arrived. Now, with a little luck, we'll have a half-dozen watermelon vines shortly. I also put down a few newspapers as mulch, weighted by bricks, flower pots, and sticks. I didn't have time to finish that, though.

There are buds on the hollyhocks. There are flowers on the blackberries.

5/8/07

Again last night I set up my easel at E. P. Sawyer Park, this time with a very small canvas on it (I’m not sure of the measurements, but it’s about 9x10”). The subject was a pair of trees. I’ll have to find out what kind of trees they are. The painting is pretty much finished, but I have to do some touching up after it dries in a week or two. Photos will follow.

After I finished painting and the sun was sinking behind the distant houses and trees, I went over to the studio and worked on the saw. A co-worker gave me a saw that her mother wants me to paint. I’ve had the darn thing for a long time—like, two years, or maybe three—and I’ve just let it sit around. Finally, last night I sanded it, cleaned it with denatured alcohol, and primed it with gesso. All the while, I was wondering if my co-worker’s mom even still remembers it or wants it.

I got home late, and Kim had some very delicious pasta set aside for me. I ate and began watching “The Departed,” but couldn’t finish it before I had to go to bed. Not only did I go to bed much too late, but I also had trouble sleeping. I woke up frequently, had trouble falling back to sleep, and had long, tense, vivid dreams of cops vs. mobsters. Not a good night.

Last week I asked a teller for all her half dollars, and she went back to check. All she had were two rolls—but when she handed them to me, I saw that they were both unopened mint-wrapped 2001-P.

I’m not sure what to do with them. I’ve never had a mint roll before, so they’re kind of neat, but at the same time I realize they have very little premium over face value. Maybe I’ll try to sell a roll at the next coin club auction.

5/7/07
I haven’t had much time for gardening. My peas are growing well, but I need to make a little trellis for them. The kohlrabi is getting bigger, forcing me to wonder: What the heck will I do with it when I harvest it? Kohlrabi? Will any of us really eat it? Will we eat all of it?

I noticed today that I have dill and cilantro volunteers growing. Seeds that fell from last year’s plants. Cilantro is a very nice little plant. Besides adding interesting flavor to dishes, it’s sort of pretty in the garden and required little maintenance. The dill, though less attractive, doesn’t look bad, and it was a lot of fun adding it to various dishes.

When I can, I’ll have to plant the watermelon seeds. I also have gourd seeds, but I’m just about out of room. I either need to make more garden space, or just give up on it for now.

5/7/07
Yesterday was another painting day. I went to E. P. Sawyer Park and continued the landscape I started a month ago. One of the dangers of painting [i]en plein air[/i] in sunlight is that, once the painting is taken indoors and viewed in typically poor interior lighting, the whole painting looks much darker. Some paintings I’ve done in years past looked like bright sunny scenes while sunlight was on the canvas, but when viewed indoors they’ve looked like an oil paint version of those night scenes that were actually filmed in daylight using special filters in old movies.

I tried to be conscious of that while I was painting, and it worked, although I’ll need to make a few adjustments. There are a couple of areas I need to brighten. I also want to work on the sky a little. However, I could stop right now and call the painting done. I’m quite happy with it. I’ll do a little “tightening up,” but it looks good. I’m especially happy with the tree limbs.

I was painting in a weedy area that bordered woods. One really nice thing about painting in such surroundings (and this is one of my favorite things about fishing in an isolated spot, too) is that the wildlife comes out around me. Painting is a quiet and relatively motionless activity, so lots of little critters come and go and don’t pay much attention to me. The underbrush was so thick, though, that it was often hard to figure out what I was seeing or hearing.

There were all kinds of interesting bird calls, and things rustling through the leaves. Squirrels and chipmunks and mice. I saw some huge bird of prey, probably an owl, flying up into the trees carrying something in its talons.