July 29, 2004

My Monday drawing class was nothing to write about, but last night's session went off a lot better.

Progress. On Tuesday evening, I finished cleaning up the inside of the linen closet in the upstairs hall. When we moved in, it was filled with creaky, overpainted wooden shelves and the obligatory wire rack screwed to the back of the door (I think the good Doctor bought these in bulk.) I stripped everything and pulled the wallpaper out to find uneven, cracked plaster walls over a crudely sawn hole in the floor—for plumbing access. After we had Ben hook up the wiring I installed this spring, we threw a bunch of blankets in there on top of a tupperware and forgot about the whole thing. Because of the rain this past two weeks, I've been able to tackle some of the interior projects, and I finally got around to mudding and taping the interior of the closet. It's amazing how much better the first skim coat makes it look, even if it's still not dry—gotta love 90% humidity. Strange house quirk #74: At one time, the inside of the closet door was painted metallic silver. Yeah, you heard right. Then again, these are the folks that put carpet over linoleum over the hardwood floors...

Tonight Jen and I are driving north to see my family for the weekend. I'm looking forward to some recharge time by the lake, and I hope the weather is kinder up there than it's been down here. We're bringing the Holy Box Of Wedding Photos for them to see, as well as the second half of my Dad's ladder, which I've been holding hostage for three years. If I don't post anything here in the next couple of days, enjoy your weekend, friends. | link

July 28, 2004

Venting. BGE can bite my skinny Irish ass. What should have taken two weeks to do, tops (consolidating two electrical meters into one, and merging two bills) has taken 11 months, four turn-off notices, four seperate promises by different CSR's, and one bottle of Pepto-Bismol. And it's still not done.

Tell Us A Story. Given the tons of feedback I've gotten around here lately, and the haphazard posting most of my online peeps have been doing, I'm going to guess you're all having loads more fun than I am this summer. Or, your computers have crashed. Or, I'm just very dull. Well, here's a story for you, based on a call I got from Jen yesterday about some new freelance work. She asked if I'd be interested in doing some PowerPoint for her current freelance employers.

Rewind to the spring of 2000, when I was employed at a now defunct dot-com. We were still in the rosy pre-crash days, when IPO's were exploding across the financial pages and we all entertained thoughts of buying Ferraris with our stock options. I got called into the marketing VP's office to look at several thick stacks of color printouts on his table.

Him: So, what do you think of these?
Me: (paging through what were obviously PowerPoint presentations) They suck. Boy, do they suck.

And damn, did they suck. Some had the slickee-boy sheen of "consulting firm" all over them—glossy, shiny graphs and charts peppered with New-Economy speak touting ROI and Time-To-Market and Synergy. Others had the beaten feel of "in-house design department", where the dull colors swallowed dull titles set in Times New Roman, the Font Face For Desktop Publishers. It was all incomprehensible gibberish to me, and unfortunately I'd have an up close and personal relationship with it for the next four months. This was the Roadshow: a week-long caravan from city to city, organized by the underwriters to sell the IPO at the highest possible price. The PowerPoint was the glue that held the whole presentation together, and it needed to be perfect.

Him: You can do better than these, right?
Me: (still being the Good Corporate Employee) Sure!
Him: Can you make PowerPoint?
Me: (wincing at the idiocy of that sentence) Sure! (lies.)

Thus began a descent into Hell, where my life became one bar chart after another, punctuated with paragraphs of twaddle pulled from the pages of Business 2.0 and Upside magazine. I had to figure out how to fit thirty company logos into a page with a bar chart and a paragraph of text, while also making our company logo (teal green and magenta, just lovely) larger. Because the program's charting software was so ugly, I built everything in Illustrator and imported the clean graphs. I edited and rewrote their sloppy paragraphs. I rebuilt corporate logos when I was given 30x60 pixel GIF files from the web. My job became a daily routine of tweaking, changing and modifying graphs and charts at the whim of two senior VPs, and soon I was stuck in the middle of an ego contest, creating different versions of the same slide for each person while they flung poo at each other.

I got pretty good at "making PowerPoint", though. I also got pretty good at drinking heavily when I left work. But somewhere along the way, the stories of jetting via private plane from city to city for the roadshow gave way to anxious glancing at E-Trade accounts as the market began to tank. Sometime late that fall the plans for our IPO were scrapped, and the project died on the vine. The three IBM laptops I purchased for the roadshow sat idle in my desk drawer. As we watched the economic news get worse, I began thinking of an exit strategy, and by December I was gone. Luckily, I went to a firm where PowerPoint wasn't on my list of projects.

Back to the present day: We're recently married, seriously planning children, and attempting to fix everything we possibly can before the little bundles of joy start appearing on our bank statements. We're also paying off the honeymoon, eyeing a leaky roof, and waiting for a dishwasher to materialize in our kitchen. Can I make PowerPoint? You bet your ass I can. | link

July 27, 2004

Good Things. Jen and I happened to catch a few episodes of "Scrubs" last weekend on TV, and were reminded of how funny that show can be when it's working. Today on Salon I found a quick interview with one of the stars, who made a movie in the off-season called Garden State. I looked at the trailer and movie site, and found that it's playing at the Charles on the 20th. I also liked the song playing in the trailer, and found it on the ITMS: it's called "Let Go", by a band called Frou Frou. (the other one on the main trailer is "Such Great Heights" by the Postal Service.) | link

July 26, 2004

Progress. Well, this entire week, we've been getting the Big Giant Finger from the sky pilot upstairs, which means the house is still two different colors. I had good intentions of finishing the back corner and moving to the west side, but stayed inside because of 70% humidity and a "chance of thunderstorms", which never did arrive. Instead, Jen and I took a trip to Frederick and wandered around the antique malls on Saturday afternoon. She found a quartet of excellent fruit labels, and I ventured into dangerous territory by purchasing two seafoam-colored Russel Wright bowls.

Sunday, we attacked the doctor's office, cleaning out a pile of stuff for donation (we now have a pile of hefty bags approaching critical mass in the hallway) and clearing out the room. We also cleaned up the atrium for the first time in ten months, so that one may actually walk into the room instead of tripping over paint cans. I also scrubbed the remaining wallpaper paste off the inside of the linen closet in preparation for taping and mudding. If the weather's gonna be crappy this week, I'm going to get something done inside, darnit.

Sunday evening, we decided to drop by Nate and Kristen's with some ice cream and check out the house (they live mere minutes away, and this is the first time we've made it over there). The sound of a very pregnant Kristen settling in behind a bowl of Godiva Belgian Dark Chocolate was worth the trip.

File Under Future. Given that Jen's going to be freelancing for the forseeable future, we're going to need some upgrades to the office. One of the things I've been thinking about is a large-format printer for running proofs. Last night we saw some prints from an Epson Stylus Photo 1280 at Nate's house, which were very pretty. Doing some research this morning, I found some info on it, which was less than good. Instead, I found the Canon i9900 which is at a comparable price and which prints at a max size of 13x23 from USB and FireWire. Given my experience with Epson printers and Canon cameras, I'm sold on the Canon. Of course, it's going to have to wait for a while. | link

July 23, 2004

Hard Work Paying Off. Most of the folks I know have some idea that I do lots of freelance work on the side, and sometimes I get myself into some pretty tight deadlines. Part of that work is beginning to show up online: The new iteration of the Calvert website went live yesterday. While there are still a ton of bugs to be worked out (I'm not handling the update on the server, just supplying pages), the overall update of the look and feel is worlds better than before. Because of the scope of the project, we're going through section by section, so most of the interior areas still carry the old branding and design, but we're making progress throughout the site as the weeks go by. Stay tuned for more updates. (I'll also post some screenshots of the old site, maybe tomorrow.)

I Once Was Blind, But Now I Can See. We are so gonna see this movie if it shows up around Baltimore. (Right. Along with Farenheit 911, Finding Nemo, and all the other movies we haven't seen yet.) Also: RJD2 is playing the Ottobar on September 30. | link

July 22, 2004

Required Reading. Check these three articles out sometime—good on-the-ground reporting from the opening days of the War in Iraq. Also, this hilarious dictionary of drinking slang. Favorites: Agent 21, Chimp In Space, Go-tard. Cheers! (via metafilter)

Colossal Waste Of Time. Cyrkam Airtos. (It'll take a while to load, but it's worth it.)

Last night I got Retrospect to back up the user directories on the tower at home, which means that roughly 1/10 of our personal data is archived. This successful test is a Good Thing, as I haven't been very good lately at making sure things are stored in case of catastrophe. The next step is to copy the entire set of data folders, which will (gulp) include our combined music, pictures, and other portly media files. Time to go find a stack of DVD-R's... | link

July 21, 2004

Done. The final 15 or so wedding pictures have been scanned and posted, so all of you who know where to look can scroll to the bottom of that page to see 'em. *whew*.

(Almost) One Month Jeep Report. My experience with the Chrysler company's flagship brand has been a pretty smooth one so far; I've enjoyed a month of smooth, seamless driving, peace of mind, and general happiness. The steering on the Jeep is smooth, unlike the jerky, nerve-wracking motion of the Taurus—a sustained turn to either side brought on strange pulls and slips in the steering wheel, like the belt was going bad. The radio has a funny habit of losing its stations on hot days, but the buttons aren't obscured by the cupholder, and overall it's a better unit than the Delco model from the Ford. The driver's window tends to rattle when it's rolled partially down and the door is shut—I'll have to pull the door apart and tighten the channels inside at some point. Average MPG is around 21 highway, which is better than the 16 I was told. Finally, the fluids are all still very clean after 3,000 miles, unlike the chocolate soup the Taurus used to make. All in all, I'm very, very pleased. (Added on 7/22: The rear liftgate seems to randomly choose whether to lock itself when the switch on the door is thrown; it's about a 50/50 shot. Curious.) | link

July 20, 2004

Reply.

Subject: RE: the Catonsville 4th of July Parade
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2004 16:18:27 -0400
From: "Mayor Martin O'Malley"
To: "Bill Dugan"
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 19 Jul 2004 20:18:27.0996 (UTC)

Well, I have broad shoulders, but I always feel bad for Katie and the kids.
Thanks for your kind words, and for your support.

Last night I drew some more nekkid pictures at MICA. It was a pretty good evening, although I ignored my own lecture from last week and sketched a bit more than usual. By the end of the evening my mojo was fading, so I packed up a little early and went home.

Meanwhile, Jen had been busy rearranging furniture, and she came up with a fantastic floorplan for the living room which adds the oak library table we were given last year and balances out the whole space. (The living room is a long rectangle, split in the middle by the fireplace and entry arch, which makes it hard to unify both sides.) What a huge difference.

iPod update. I found this repair kit for the 1st gen iPod, so I may be able to fix Jen's unit, but that won't solve the busted Firewire connection. More research to follow. | link

July 19, 2004

dugan discount liquors, reisterstown, md, 7.16.04 (thanks baby)

Weekend Update. Saturday Jen and I put a day of work into the crumbling pile of wood we call a house; I got 90% of the back side of the house painted while Jen waded into the gardens to wrestle the weeds into submission. I will now sing the praises of the Wagner Power Painter to the heavens, build it an altar in the living room, and raise our children to leave it offerings of tobacco and corn. What took me all day to roll by hand in front took about four hours with the sprayer, and I'd estimate that two of those hours were pure ladderwork. (The back of the house features all three main wires to the house: cable, phone, and electrical, which makes moving an aluminum ladder a sphincter-tightening proposition.) Finding the correct mixture of thinning additive to the paint took a few tries, but once I figured it out, the paint went on like butter—and evenly, too.

Saturday I experienced my first book club meeting, which was a pretty harmless good time with a new bunch of folks. Slaughterhouse-Five turned out to be a quick but interesting read, and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is the next book on the list. Thankfully, the game of Risk never made it to the floor after the discussion was over, and we left in good cheer.

From four online form requests for a roofing estimate, I've gotten a grand total of one reply.

(Today I sent this letter to the Baltimore City Mayor, Martin O'Malley, who rode a float in the Catonsville 4th of July parade.)

Mr. Mayor:

As a new transplant from Baltimore City to the town of Catonsville, I was pretty embarrassed by the treatment your family got during the parade a few weeks ago. My wife and I recently bought a house on Frederick Road and hosted a party with bunch of other city-dwelling folks, the majority of whom I'd call O'Malley supporters. We cheered as you passed by (and, I have to admit, my wife has a crush on you. I'm glad you didn't stop long in front of our house, for the sake of my marriage) but I'm afraid we were in the minority.

It took a lot of guts to take part in that parade, considering the pronounced Republican slant of the town, and I have to take my hat off to you, and offer an apology for the boorish behavior of the rest of the town.

I hope, at least, you and your family had fun on the rest of the day. Thanks for coming out.

-Bill Dugan | link

July 16, 2004

Huh. Interesting.

I'm in a funky mood today, and don't feel much like writing. Have a good weekend. | link

Payday

Research. I spent a few long weekends last year fixing the ceiling in the sticky room and repairing the damage in the office from leaks in the roof. I enjoy working overhead about as much as I enjoy needles in my eyes—sanding a ceiling is about as hateful a job as can be imagined. So it was to my dismay that Jen pointed out the growing stains in the ceiling over her bed in the sticky room; after ignoring it for months, I finally crawled up there to find evidence of water leaks down the beams onto the insulation—nothing drastic, but water is water. Our previous experience with roofing repair consisted of several tar-stained rednecks trying to convince me to let them pull all the slate off and replace it with asphalt shingle. So today I hunted around the internet (the Yellow Pages lists nothing for "Slate Roofing") for local shingle contractors, and found several, as well as a link to the Slate Roof bible. I left estimate requests with four companies in Baltimore, and hopefully I'll get some replies in a few days. More on this subject to come.

More Nekkid People. Drawing went pretty well last night. I was able to slip back into the groove after having been away for a year, which made me feel good. Each drawing had its high points, but I don't think I got one solid sketch from the whole night. This one sort of fell apart around the knees and legs, while this one has some relationship issues. Photoshop barfed on the third one (damned OS 8 drivers), so I'm not posting it.

Generally, I start from the head as a reference point—the first thing they tell you not to do in drawing class—and work from there. Resolving the head correctly usually helps me tie the rest of the structure of the drawing together. My drawing style tends towards the draftsmanlike, not sketching—it's more challenging to describe the form with line weight and simple shading than it is to use ten lines to hint at where the form should be. Using one definitive line forces me to explore the reason and shape of the form.

The neighborhood has changed a lot and not at all. 1500 Mt. Royal Ave. looks much as it did on the day my Mom and I pulled a rented station wagon up to the curb filled with all my college crap. The Fox building, of course has changed, and the old rest home is now student housing, but the streets of Bolton Hill remain little changed since my tenure there.

They finally put air conditioners—window units—in the drawing rooms of the Fox building. It's so much nicer to concentrate not on your own stinking body but that of the model you're attempting to draw. The proctor usually brings in tolerable music to listen to, which is a small miracle. Sometimes it's Ella Fitzgerald, sometimes it's Louis Armstrong, sometimes it's Billie Holiday. Today it's a mixture of slow jazz standards and Gershwin, but I find it hard to draw to Rhapsody in Blue. (Given all the time changes, it's more of a painting-type composition.) iPods are definitely mandatory, considering the guy next to me mumbled along with the chorus of every song. | link

July 14, 2004

Problems With The Technology. Jen's iPod was having problems holding a charge, so I plugged it in to the tower last night to troubleshoot. It looks like the FireWire port has gotten loose enough that unless you hold the connector just right it loses connection with the Mac, and sometimes doesn't charge. We're going to have to spend some money to have it fixed, I fear.

More Shout-Outs. I can't go into a list of everything we got for our wedding here (because my little hamster brain can't remember it all), but I'm going to give thanks for some of the things that have touched our lives recently:

1. The food processor Rob and Karean gave us, with which Jen made coleslaw and we've made our first attempt at hummus. This involved two trips to the store in search of tahini, a bucket of garlic, and lots of taste-testing, but was successful. And I could spend all day shoving stuff into that thing just to watch it get chopped up.
2. The lovely candle Todd and Heather sent us to Rome with, which made the hotel room smell light and airy (and not like cigarettes or scooter exhaust.) Plus, their wedding help, the headpiece, the party...
3. The compound miter saw from Renie, while not technically a wedding gift, still made cutting and installing the shelving a two-day project instead of a three-week ordeal like my bathroom in the old house. Also, the amplifier, which we used to bypass the live disco-DJ nightmare at the wedding.
4. A wonderful galvanized tin from my boss and his wife, filled with wine (score!) which we used during the fourth party two weeks ago.
5. A beautiful handmade comforter from the Matejowskys, which we need to find a good home. Currently it's too hot to put anything on the beds besides bags of ice.
6. The Pier One card from Sara, which bought us a wicker laundry hamper to replace the one that got jammed under the sink.

Yesterday Tim and Sue sent me home with an antique basket filled with housewarming gifts—clearly Sue has too much time on her hands, and must be returned to work before she gifts again—it was filled with a glass railroad insulator, a perfect addition to the collection; an iron doorstop (sure, them heavy old wood doors are nice to look at, but when the wind blows, they slam shut, trapping unwitting cats in rooms for the whole day); a unique Ball canning jar (which screams "fill me with coffee beans"), and an absolutely stunning cross-stitched tablecloth from her aunt that I almost feel bad accepting. Until we put it on the table, where it looked immediately at home. Thanks, everybody. (and that means everybody, from those I've mentioned to those I haven't.)

That MGB I mentioned yesterday is listed at $2300 OBO. Right. With as much rust as the Scout, a questionable English engine, and a soft top in its twilight years, I think I'll pass.

Tonight: the first MICA drawing studio in a year or so. I still have to buy a new sketchpad and dig out the 6B's, but I'm looking forward to it. | link

July 13, 2004

Not that I'm that kind of person, but I took about four hours last night scanning and sharpening forty more wedding photos to post for our scattered family members. Because there are so many of them, ( 82 at last count, 5.8MB worth, and I ain't done yet) I can't post them here for fear of the server getting hammered, so if you're dying to see some, leave me a comment below and I'll email you the link offline.

New Music. I've recently become aware of, and addicted to, a number of audioblogs—sites dedicated to semi-obscure music not given lots of mainstream attention; there are a few favorites so far. I also found the audio secion of the Internet Archive, which has a pile of good live recordings by favorite bands such as Soul Coughing and Lake Trout. Check it out.

Random Car Junk. This morning there was a beautiful wine and gold colored Citro‘n 2CV parked in our neighborhood; I didn't have my camera with me, unfortunately. There was also a blue MGB parked further down the road with a "For Sale" sign in the window—not that we could afford one, but it's sure nice to dream. Also, our neighbor gave me his folder of records for the Jeep, and something even more valuable: the Haynes repair guide for the Cherokee. Where the Chilton's books are Cliff's Notes, the Haynes books are the Expanded Annotated Illustrated King James Bible of repair books (unless you shell out the big bucks for the Chilton's shop manual.) I read through the first chapter of the Jeep book last night and learned more in five minutes than a week of puzzling over the alternative.

On the list for purchasing this payday: Web Standards Solutions. I've been looking for a good book to dive into for getting further into CSS page design (this site will be redesigned soon), and it looks like this might be the one. (via dominey) | link

July 12, 2004

Special Superhero Props. Thanks again to Todd and Heather for a wonderful evening of tasty food, good folks, and a slideshow presentation on Rome—they offered to host a honeymoon show-and-tell at their place with drinks and dinner. It was great to get a cross-section of our friends together in one house and get them talking to each other; it's funny how there's so much overlap between each couple. I kept the DVD presentation under fifty slides and tried not to bore everybody too much, and it seemed to go over very well.

Progress. Ever since college, I've lived out of containers as varied as milk crates, cardboard boxes, laundry baskets, and tupperware. My laundry has been organized in free-standing piles for as long as I can remember. Currently, ¾ of it sits out in the doctor's office, a sizeable percentage of which is laying on the exam table. It's a drag to have all of your clothes on another floor from the bathroom, especially when it's wintertime and the porch is about 40°. This weekend, Jen and I decided to follow one of the millions of tag sale signs around Catonsville, and it led us to a $50 mahogany dresser, with five big drawers and two small ones on top. I feel like an adult again.

Other developments: Jen reorganized the whole kitchen, which was a herculean undertaking: not only did she dispose of two garbage bags full of old/bad food from our shelves, but she was able to fit most of the crap spread throughout the room into the new pantry. There are shiny new recycling bins lined up under the shelves, the cat food is out from underfoot, and it's now possible to see all the cans at one time (the rack on the back of the basement door is gone.) She also sorted and culled our varied collection of pots and pans without mercy—the Goodwill is gonna have a big delivery coming.

Meanwhile, I got a coat of primer on about 90% of the back of the house before the game got called on account of weather. I've got the formula for successful paint spraying down, and the job should go much quicker now.

Sunday night we were invited to a barbecue down the street at our neighbors' house, where we met another! couple! under! the! age! of! thirty! After the introductions, we all stood around silently for fifteen minutes, marveling at the novelty of it all, and then got along famously. Good food, good company, and a late evening—we left at midnight and walked home, full and happy.

Monday Links. iPod resources. | Junkheap rocketship. | Morriseydance. | link

July 9, 2004

Greetings.
'Birfday to you,
'Birfday to you,
'Birfday dear Renie,
'Birfday to you.
(actually, it's tomorrow, but she won't read this on Saturday.)

Yet Another Geek Update. It turns out that error correction is only available in the DVD-R format (that little minus sign is the important part) and I was using DVD+R. So today I picked up a couple of DVD-R discs today to rip the iDVD movie I've got prepared for the slide show tomorrow night. I also re-encoded a bunch of movies I shot with the camera and included them on the disc; I'm excited to see how the whole thing turns out.

It's looking like another intensive painting weekend is in the cards for me. The weather is supposed to be upper 80's, and hopefully the humidity will stay down below 40%. I'm going to try to get the back side of the house done, which includes the funky area by the atrium, and a bit of ladderwork around the power/telephone cabling. If it goes as smoothly as the side did, I should be able to punch most of it out by Saturday evening (primer and paint.) Wish me luck. | link

July 8, 2004

Random.

1. I have a nagging, insistent pain in my right wrist, the hand I make my living from, which really started bugging me after returning from Rome. Looks like I've got some kind of carpal issue happening, which is just great.
2. I spent about two hours compiling photographs for the show-and-tell this weekend and dropping them into iDVD for a slideshow presentation. Apparently Toast 6 does some kind of Ken Burns thing with photos but I haven't been able to test that out—too many hassles with "Buffer underrun" errors in the non-Panther friendly initial release of version 6.
3. I'm using the iPod a lot more now that I have the Jeep; the first vehicle quirk on record is the radio's interesting habit of losing its mind when it gets very hot. In that event, I just plug the iPod in and relax.
4. The towing company came and took the Tortoise on tuesday without either the keys or the title, and without leaving a receipt, so technically my car is stolen and being stripped for parts. (They're sending me an envelope to place the title and keys in for mailing.) WYPR had better send me a tote bag or something.
5. A nice lady at the doctor's office took care of the insurance thing for me, so I have to go back to the store tonight and get my $100 back. That should be fun.

July 7, 2004

Revenge. Somebody upstairs has taken umbrage with my snarky mood earlier this morning; about ten minutes ago the darkest clouds this side of Judgement Day blew through the Baltimore/Washington corridor and plastered this little shoebox I work in with an ocean's worth of water. Meanwhile, I've been thinking about the four or five open windows in the house (and the fan in my bedroom window, which is still running.)

It's Dugan, Goddammit. On line this morning at the pharmacy, I was treated to a nice ten minute wait by the two drones behind the counter, who seemed to be sorting out some kind of computer/prescription snafu. When the second drone finally called me up to the counter, I calmly told her I was picking up a prescription for Dugan. She asked for the first name; I gave her my full name. She went immediately to the "D" drawer, found my prescription, and stared at the name blankly for a solid minute until I helpfully offered, "That's it." She then cheerfully told me that my insurance company would not pay for the prescription because I hadn't told them I was getting a script for this medication, and that I needed to call my doctor and have them clear the whole thing with the insurance company. (Isn't that why I have a goddammned doctor in the first place? So that they can prescribe me medicine I need to get better? Perhaps I should have the insurance company prescribe me medication instead.) I could do that first, or pay the $104.85 up front. Exasperated, I told her I'd pay now. She asked, "How would you like to pay for that, Mr. Dug-in?"

Let me just explain something to you folks: The name is pronounced Doo-gan, like it's spelled. Not Dug-in. Not Duggin. And it's not spelled D-o-u-g-a-n. So remember that the next time I pronounce it to you twice and you still insist on saying it wrong, you mouthbreather. It's not like I'm asking you to say Shalikashvili or Gyllenhaal, is it?

A special note to the Kerry/Edwards team: Reform our useless healthcare-insurance industry when I vote you into office, please. | link

July 6, 2004

I'm Back. In case you thought I was sitting around doing nothing all weekend, I'm going to post some boring pictures of the stuff we got done because I pulled the parade photos off the camera and left them all on the server at the house. But I should back up and talk about the party first.

chair, Catonsville, 7.3.04

Friday night Jen and I ran around cleaning and preparing for the party (which is really sort of misleading; she was cleaning all day before I even got home, and I just continued helping chase the dust around the first floor.) After finishing what we could and having some dinner, I decided that good enough wasn't, and ripped up the dining room carpet. You see, my strategy to avoid vacuuming the carpet, the largest repository of used cat hair east of the Mississippi, was to remove it the night before we hosted twenty people at our house. Brilliant, Dugan. (Cue the sound of Jen slapping the back of my head.)

Saturday went off relatively well, considering we were running around doing all the stuff I should have done the night before as our guests were arriving. The day started warm, and made its way to hot by noon, which meant that plenty of cold beer was in order. Our friends brought all kinds of tasty foods to share, and we enjoyed the first sounds of children running around in the backyard since we've lived there (I could get used to that.) Making camp in the side yard, we watched as the people began to arrive on the street—by 9am the curbs were lined with chairs, and a small turf war broke out on our section; my lovely wife graciously defused the situation and made everyone feel welcome.

The parade started with a marching band, and what followed was a spectacle: fire trucks, coronet bands, Shriners in miniature Mack trucks (no ATVs this year), classic cars, politicians (two Senators, the Governor, the Baltimore City mayor, and the Attorney General), Mummers, a baffling POW-MIA float (Catonsville: Setting The Standards For Poor Taste!), our neighbor riding in a Marine humvee, and a dixieland band. We sat the kids under an umbrella at the curb and enjoyed the show—Jen was happy to see Martin's car stop in front of our driveway for a minute—and I shot lots of pictures, none of which I can show you today.

Sunday we were stuck inside because of rain, so I tackled the job of improving the pantry shelving. We inherited two sticky, yellowing wire racks tacked to the east wall, which had served us well for cans and boxes, and a rickety dual shelf under the window for pots and pans. I pulled this all out and by noon on Monday had replaced it with eight sturdy wooden shelves which wrap around the room from wall to wall. By last night I had it all primed for final paint, and hopefully we'll be able to get all our canned goods off the dining room table by Tuesday night. | link

July 1, 2004

split-window Corvette, Ellicott City, 6.30.04 (taken with crappy DC-3400)

Edits. I took 10 minutes on a break this afternoon and updated the interior pages of this site to include the javascript randomizer for the header picture. There's also three new pictures in the series, and I'll be adding more as the days go by.

Out To Pasture. This afternoon, I called up and made arrangements to donate the Taurus to charity; specifically, to benefit WYPR, our local National Public Radio station. In 2-4 business days somebody from the towing company will call to make arrangements to meet me, and they will take away the Grampamobile to chase rabbits on a farm in Pennsylvania. Which means I have to run out there tonight and remove my roof rack and loosen the bolts on the license plates. Apparently they don't take anything older than a '93, so I squeezed in just under the wire. For every dollar of fair market value, you see $0.33 back on your taxes, which is about how much I'd get back—conservatively—if I fixed the transmission and then sold it.

Meanwhile, I put the 100 CD-changer in the Pennysaver for $100 next week so that I can scrape money together for this.

Soliciting Opinions. Jen and I were talking about creativity last night, and what we do to keep it healthy during the times when block creeps up on us. I've had months where every attempt I make at creating something new is met with failure, or does not live up to expectations, and that gets to be a dangerous place when I'm stuck in a cycle of doubting myself. The added complications are those of everyday life- sometimes I'm unhappy with my job, relationships, or simply in a valley, and those other things affect my drive.

So what do you folks do to keep yourselves happy and productive? What rituals do you have before sitting down to make something? How do you deal with low periods or block, and how do you break out of them? Any tips or ideas to share? What do you do when outside factors contribute to your block, like co-workers or job pressure?

(For me, I try to keep several irons in the fire at any given time—photography, this log, working on the house, freelance projects—they all give me a sense of accomplishment and pride, which offsets the boredom I often have in my professional life. Usually it works, but I often find myself in low spots, and the solution is usually a combination of forcing myself to create/draw/photograph through the block, or resolution of the outside issues that are gunking up the right side of my brain.) | link

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