Home Notes

Things I found mildly disturbing during my trip home to SC:
The old lady at the Starbucks in the Ohio/Kentucky Airport. Now picture this... Granny from The Beverly Hillbillies, except without a single tooth in her head. Now imagine her ordering a Grande Caramel Machiatto with soy milk. But try to to say like she did... "Grand-ee Car Mel Mack-ee-at-oh wit so-ah meelk." It made my head hurt to see.

Things I found mildly disturbing during my trip home to SC:
Being able to walk into a convenience store and find boiled peanuts, hot or cold, available for sale.

Ahh... at least somethings don't change.

Murry Christmas Ya'll!!

Christmas 2007! I'm tempted to write something in the vein of a "family newsletter" type entry here, we've spent the day reading Kid Flash's family ones and regaling in the tales of "button bucks" that got shot and bake sales that were attended, but I don't think I could ever match the sheer brilliance of them, so I won't try.

KF let me be in charge of the Christmas tree this year, after much discussion we decided on birds and snow as the theme decor, and this was the result. It's a fetching tree don't you think? I bought new lights this year since I wanted white lights and all he had were colored ones. I got the LED kind, they are supposed to be safer, less fire hazards, brighter, and they used something like 95% less electricity. They are a little odd though, the color is bluer than incandescent bulbs, and they seem more pinpoint-y if that makes sense... less spread on the lights. Better for the environment though, and that's what matters.



This was my haul from the friends this year (1) an X-Men sticker book, (2) The Art and Flair of Mary Blair, (3) some romance manga, (4) the Marvel Comics Guide to New York, (5) a stripy pink shirt, (6) some collapsible reusable grocery bags, (7) Dagoba Chai flavored chocolate, (8) some spiffy (and cute) new drawers, (9) a Japanese miniature tea set, (10) a Sasquatch t-shirt, (11) a hand crocheted doll, (12) a Green Lantern Keychain, (13) some Sun Prints transparencies, (14) skeleton keys skull shaped rubber key caps and (15) "I Can Fly" a Mary Blair Little Golden Book.

It's not pictured here, but I also got a Podcacher geocoin from my Secret Santa at the Podcacher message boards, very fun!

I got Kid Flash an AeroGrow, he loves cooking with fresh herbs, and there's a seed kit for salad greens, which I think is the thing that sold me on it as a gift for him. He could eat salads 24 hours a day and be happy, like a rabbit.

Tomorrow I'm off to SC for the official family Christmas!

Did No One Look At This?


A sculpture called "Prodigal Son" that I spotted on the shelf of a discount store while I was in Florida. How did this make it out the door?

12 of 12: Year in Review

I thought I'd do a "Year in Review" type post, going back and looking at my favorite shots from this year. This is the first time in 2 years of participating in this project that I've managed to complete a full year's worth of photos.

January
I had chosen to crop everything to a landcsape style for this month as my "theme." I love the lights in this shot.

February
Working in Brooklyn at a puppet studio. My theme was multiples.

March
Back at the studio in Brooklyn, but this time building miniatures for a completely different project. My theme was the number 3.

April
The first of my Travel Day 12 of 12's this year. This time it was to Savannah and my theme was primary colors. This was also the day my camera screwed up and I had to reshoot part of my day.

May
"These are the people in my neighborhood" addition. One of my favorite shots from the whole year.

June
Travel Day #2, the last month I had a theme for my shots. This was an awful, awful day of airport HELL.

July
Working for DC Comics on the DC Legacy Sketch cards. Funny to look back at that one and see that I thought I'd only be at my current job for another week or two.

July
Subways are kind of a theme around here. I managed to get a subway shot every single month this year, and I considered just using those for this project, but thought that might get boring.

August
Another of my favorite shots from the year. I think I took about 20 shots of this trying to get the lighting right and to keep myself from shaking enough to blur the pic.

October
Ted joins the regular cast. He was so tiny!

November
Another travel day of sorts, but just trains, no planes.

December
Feels silly to repost a pic I just posted yesterday, but I wanted to keep it clean. I had a semi-theme of shiny metal this month.

Here's to another year!

December 12 of 12 (of 12!)

Another 12 of 12, another travel day! For the third time this year the 12th finds me on a plane on the way out of the city. It's funny how you begin noticing coincidences in your days when you begin this project. To see some of the other participants go here, but enjoy my 12 of 12!

I didn't realize until I started laying these out, but I came close to finding a theme for this month, the way I used to! I need to get back to that... anyway... check out how many of these photos feature some sort of shiny metal.

This is in the elevator, on the way up to my office on 10.

The bell in the lobby area of our offices, look closely and you can see that this one's a self portrait.

Yes... I already replaced my iPod, and that's the box for my replacement gps that arrived with UPS this morning. I was planning on replacing the gps anyway, (can't wait to try this one out while I'm in Florida! It has the new High Sensitivity chip!) but the replacement iPod... that one cost me. I can't face a plane ride without it though.

Lunch! A smörgåsbord smattering from one of the deli hot bars down the street. The eggroll looking thing in the middle was full of wasabi mashed potatoes, and let me tell you... iyt was DELICIOUS!

I spent my day on this. AutaCAD is not my strong suiy, and frankly about the most I know about working in it is how to draw rectangles. My task today was to take this room layout and reconfigure it so that it seats 400 instead of the 900 pictured here, with a different stage, oriented a different way in the room. Normally someone else would do the CAD work, but we are sort of swamped at the moment so I had to tray and tackle it. One of my coworkers is perfectly willing to help and give me pointers, but had several meetings over the course of the day, which left me with my second officemate who is far less helpful, and really likes to lord over me when he knows something I don't. So my day ended up going like this:

Me: How do I save this file?
Officemate: Command S.
M: Yes, I know that. But I can't overwrite the old file.
O: Command shift S.
M: (Trying not to sound exasperated) Yes, I know that. But when I do that a command box comes up and asks me some questions I don't know how to answer.
O: It shouldn't do that.
M: But it does.
O: Your settings are screwed up.
M: (Getting increasingly exasperated even though I'm trying...) Well, we can fix that later, how do I save this now? (He comes over and commandeers my keyboard for a few seconds then walks away without explaining anything.) Where did you save that? What did you do?
O: Wherever the original file was.
M: (With a heavy sigh.) How do I save this file?

This was how my whole day went. Rather than helpfully answer my questions he would rather snipe at me and remind me that he is the office CAD guru. It wasn't pleasant. Sorry... I'll stop ranting.

I left the office at 5:00, on the way to JFK to catch a plane to Orlando. This is the lobby area of the AirTrain where you switch from the subway to the train that runs between terminals at JFK.

Looks like I need terminal 6!

Good bye, NYC! I love flying at night! Just look at that city! I guess JetBlue knows that people tend to take these kinds of shots since they've conveniently branded the engine outside my window. Or maybe they think I'm just so forgetful that I won't remember what carrier I'm using?

The happiest, most rosy cheeked baby I've ever seen. She was perfectly content to smile and wave at whoever would make eye contact with her, and didn't cry a bit. (Thankfully...)

The Orlando version of the AirTrain, the shuttle that takes you from the arrivals area to baggage claim.

HUGE mega-lit tree in the Orlando Airport. I really wanted to shoot to palm tree to contrast with my surroundings from this morning, but I couldn't resist the tree. When I left NYC it was in the 40's. It is 30 degrees warmer in Florida. I'll be "missing" what the Yankee weather guys jovially refer to as a "winter mix" tomorrow. They can have it!
And here we are at BFE Michelle's house in Florida. That's Princess (the dog) and Karl (the cat) who are always happy to see me.

There you go... another 12 of 12. Tomorrow I have meetings regarding the show I'll be designing down here in May, and Saturday I'll be going to visit the Ice! exhibit at Gaylord Palms, which my company designs. I'll likely be working on next year's version. Friday is probably going to be all about caching, and I'll be headed home Sunday.

LOST

I misplaced my bag last night. I don't know how really. I am usually VERY conscientious about what I do with my bag, and I've never once left it behind anywhere. First time for everything I guess... So now I have lost: My sketchbook, which though it has been neglected the past few months was 95% full, my brand new touch screen iPod, less than 3 months old, my GPS unit, my gloves, my favorite hat, and the book that I'm currently reading... not to mention my favorite Tom Bihn bag. Blah. Blah, blah, blah!!