Happy Halloween

This is my head.
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Second Due

I answer to the question below, "second due" seems to refer to the second to arrive at an emergency scene.  They're making fun of the pokey firefighters behind them.
 

 

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What does the sign on the back of this fire truck mean?
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Big Rock work -in-progress

It's creeping along.

pumpkin picture

 

The text is the first part of a Halloween rhyme: "5 little pumpkins sitting on the gate/ the first one said, 'Oh, my, it's getting late!'"

 

I quite like this for a number of reasons.  One of them is that it reminds me of the peripheral legend on an ancient coin—encircling the picture and difficult to translate.  In that regard, I love the dots that separate the words.

 

 

 

Construction

 

 My 6-year-old made this all on her own.  I think it's very nicely done.

comets and meteors

 

I went out to look for comet Hartley 2 this morning and thought I was barely able to make it out (by not looking directly at it).

 

However, now that I've looked more at some star charts, I think was I was seeing was the stars Nu Aurige and Tau Aurigae.  The comet was riiiiggght theeeerre close to them, but was probably just a little too faint to register.

 

The moon was full and up, so viewing wasn't great.  Perhaps if I'd been further out from the city I could have seen it.

 

I did see three shooting stars inside of a minute, though, and I saw another one as I was driving to work.  The radiant for these is very near Auriga, the constellation that the comet is currently passing through, so I was staring straight at the first three meteors when I was them. Very nice!

 

These meteors are the Orionids, which are the remains of Halley's Comet.

 

Horse and Jockey

I did a lot of this work sitting in Jury Pool. I think it's done, though I might decide to darken a couple of areas. The size is about 8 x 10 inches.

Books

A couple of days ago I finished The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, which I enjoyed, and now I'm reading the oddly engrossing Mr. Jefferson And The Giant Moose. I've nearly given up on The Case For Christ, which I'm about half way through.

Yesterday I also finished a drawing of a horse and jockey, and I'll post a photo when I get a chance.
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Jury duty
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Last night/Day so far

Last night I took another progress photo of my Big Rock drawing. I want to post an update on Wetcanvas.com. I also worked a little more on it. I took a photo of myself to use as a model to finish the guy swinging on the rope.

The power was out this morning so I overslept. No shower. Power came back just before I left. Made it to work only a little late and worked on budget data entries. Left work at 9:30 for jury pool. Now I'll sit and continue reading my novel.
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Indo-Sasanian coin

Here's another coin show purchase. It is Indo-Sasanian drachm, and I have tentatively identified this as a Chaulukya Dynasty era coin from Saurashtra, Gujarat, or Malwa in western India. This would date from AD 950-1150 (the guy who sold me the coin had it labeled 800-900, but I think it's probably in a slightly later date range.)

The obverse shows the stylized head of a Sasanian king, and the reverse shows a fire altar with two attendants.

...What, you can't see it? I'll outline the pertinent features in red to make them more obvious.

The design is hard to see because this is an example of something one sees from time to time in ancient coins: A very popular design that outlives its cultural context but keeps getting repeated. Over time, the people making and using the coins lose consideration of, or just forget, the original meaning of the symbols on the coin, and just keep using them because that's what money is supposed to look like. This means that the imagery becomes stylized and warped as it is repeated over the decades and centuries, sort of like a message being passed from person to person in that telephone game.

This coin was probably minted centuries after the deaths of the Sasanian king or kings that were depicted on the original coins. I don't know whether or not the die maker knew what he was depicting. Did he know this was the bust of a long-dead king, an altar with two sets of arms tending to the ritual? Did he ever see an example of the older coins?

There are many versions of these coins from a pretty broad region over a long period of time. I don't know if I'll ever nail down a more exact time or location for this coin.

Big Rock, Beargrass Creek WIP

Work in progress:  this is a drawing I'm working on of kids swimming at Big Rock.  It's been a bit of a struggle, and I'm not sure it will turn out.  It's pretty busy, and I'm having to really work to make it "read" right spacially and to give a good sense of values.  Also, there have been a few minor drawing screw-ups that have been demoralizing.  However, it's still coming along (slowly), and I'm optimistic that I'll be happy with the finished piece.

 

 

St. Pierre et Miquelon, Vanuatu

 

A little over a week ago I attended the Louisville Coin Club's annual Fall Coin Show. I was only able to spend about an hour-and-a-half there.  There were about fifty dealers, I guess, and I visited three of them.  The one I spent the most time at was the last.  He had many boxes of inexpensive world coins, and I found some fines ones to fill some holes in my collection.

 

The coin from St. Pierre et Miquelon sent me to do research, for I didn't recall every hearing of those islands before.  I should have, for it's the only North American territory still held by France; a tiny bit of space, but interesting.

 

The other coin is from Vanuatu.

 

The scans of the coins aren't very good.  I might have to see if there is a better setting for the scanner.

 

I bought four other coins, of which I will post pictures later.