I just spent an hour and a half shoveling both cars off, clearing the driveway and front walk, and running up the Scout. Apart from my fingertips being painfully cold, I was warm and comfortable (because I was moving around and also wearing Under Armour Cold Gear), the sun was shining, and I had a great podcast playing in my ears.
I’m now eating lunch in front of the Cincinnati/Baltimore game with a snoring dog at my feet. They’re showing clips of the stands in Ohio, where fans are layered in winter clothing, huddled together in snowy seats, and I can’t think of anyplace I’d rather not be.
This morning there’s about an inch of snow on the ground, which fell overnight. The house is quiet while the girls are still asleep, and Hazel is snoring in her bed at my feet. We hosted our friend Christopher yesterday, and were fortunate enough to take in the Amy Sherald exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art. It’s been a long time since I’ve been at an art museum, and her show was inspiring and challenging—just what good art should be.
This evening I’m going to run down to Gaithersburg to hopefully pick up a DJI Mini 3 drone from a guy on Marketplace. The Mini 3 is a midrange consumer model that’s small and portable enough to sneak under the FAA size limit but large enough to carry a 4K camera, and I’d like to pick one up to work with next year for video projects. There is a possible ban on DJI coming up on December 23, which could mean that they will be unable to sell new drones in the US, so I figure it might be a good time to grab something before used prices spike upwards.
The IT folks at work were super cool and gave me a decomissioned PC laptop this summer so that I could run the PC-only Sniper software for the red truck. With the Sniper project on hold, it’s been sitting on my shelf, but I dusted it off this week to load a free copy of the presentation software we use for our yearly looking-forward event. It always takes us a full day to get things loaded on the display machine at the filming venue, and I figured I’d try to set it up ahead of time to speed up the process. I got the program running, went to plug it in to an external monitor via HDMI cable—and it sparked as it touched the side of the laptop. The screen went dead, and I could not get the laptop to power back on.
I’ve never seen or heard of this happening before. I talked to the IT folks and they said they’d never heard of it either, but they’re going to hook me up with another decommissioned unit next week. PCs are weird, man.
I’ve mentioned here ad nauseum over the years how much the Smashing Pumpkins and Living Colour both had an effect on my musical growth and appreciation, so I was pleased to learn Billy Corgan hosted a podcast with Vernon Reid where they talk about the genesis of Living Colour out of the jazz/art/club scene in New York City in the middle 80’s, their shared understanding of the music business, the profits and pitfalls of success, and where they are today.
Mr. Corgan is still a divisive personality (he does own up to saying many, many dumb things over the years) but Vernon Reid just sounds like such a down-to-earth, wise, and personable guy. I could sit and listen to these guys talk for hours.
I’m back at home after a great visit with family; projects at work are ramping up and I haven’t felt much like writing here. This photo of a mercury dime is 20 years old (!!!)
This is the newest video in the Project Slowflake series. Publishing this one means I’m finally caught up, almost three weeks after we shot the last footage…!
On recommendation from Pitchfork, I tried out this album by a band called Quannic, which is a young guy making shoe gaze-adjacent guitar music on his own. I’m really enjoying most of this album, alhtough it gets a little weak towards the end. Apprently he toured with Slowdive, which sounds like it would be a great fit.
I was a big RHCP fan back in the late 80’s, when they still had the original lineup, moving into their first album after the death of Hillel Slovak. At Lollapalooza in 1990, I bought an overpriced RHCP hat that never fit my head correctly, and which I later sold—an expensive lesson I took to heart. My taste for the band tailed off pretty quickly after that, to the point of indifference and outright distaste. They’ve had some highlights in the intervening years, however, and this song was one of my favorites when it was released almost a decade ago. It’s gotten stuck in my head this week, and it makes a good companion for gray fall days: it’s propulsive, but (to my ears) melancholy, almost sad, especially if you ignore the lyrics. When this band hits on all cylinders, they are still amazing.
Here’s a recap of the last three weeks of truck projects. I’m getting closer to catching up on these; I still have another day of EV video to cut and edit. Luckily I was able to finish this one up on the plane home from Florida.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
