A Child Of Atom

I know it's supposed to be Tallulah Bankhead... and that they're doing a hand tinted photo look as a way of dating the image or whatever...


But seriously... all I can see when I look at it is this:

FIRE THE GRAPHIC DESIGNER!!

Tron.

Karate Kid.

We Are The World.

Clash of the Titans.

The A-Team.

Teen Wolf.

Dirty Dancing.

Nightmare on Elm Street.

Friday the 13th.

Short Circuit.

Am I going to be forced re-live my WHOLE childhood this year?

Another rainy, nasty day in New York City, but I didn't want to waste my day so I decided to go down to the Library and do some genealogy work in their research room. I love going to the Main Branch on 42nd street. It's such a grand old building, full of high ceilings and sweeping marble staircases and arches and wood. It just FEELS like a place you go to do some serious learnin', you know? I'm also constantly surprised at what they have available in their genealogy section. This New York City institution has things like the book I was looking at today: a history of a relatively obscure and overlooked county in eastern North Carolina. Why? I have no idea, but I'm happy to have such easy access to it.

I have several branches that all came from Anson county, NC, so the biggest work today was sorting through the aforementioned book for references to my family. Now... I've made some interesting discovers about my family, a man with 40 children, a ancestor who claimed "benefit of clergy" in a murder case in Colonial Virginia (one of the very few times that ever happened in the United States), a member of the Virginia House of Commons, one of the founders of Hartford, CT... but no one really famous or historically important yet. I also know that once you get more than 8 generations back the lines become so numerous and convoluted that you can claim descent from just about anyone (yes, if you can find the right combination of ancestors you ARE descended from Cleopatra!)... but I still find the discovery I made today fairly titillating.

It seems that I share a common ancestor with royalty. Well, American Royalty. In fact, the King himself: Elvis Presley. In 1720 John Valentine Preslar came to North Carolina. He had 4 sons. I am descended from one of those sons, and from another came the line that eventually led to Elvis. So nearly 300 years ago my family and the Presley's were one. Pretty cool, huh? Think I can get in on some of the estate?

A little something different for my 12 of 12 this month, 12 short videos, 15 to 30 seconds or so... just little "moments of Zen" from my day. No camera movement or editing, just a sort of moving photo. 12 little appetizers. To see the other 12 of 12 participants check here at Chad Darnell's blog.



Something a little abstract to start off with... the way I start my morning every single day: the view out the window of my subway car.



It was a rainy and wet day in the city today, not a ton of people out. This is the corner just a bit down from my office. In two months we're moving to a smaller space, and I'll have a whole new neighborhood to photograph extensively, since I feel like I've just about exhausted this one!



The ride up to the office in the elevator.



A little fresh air break on the fire escape.



This is what I look at all day. Stretch this into 8 hours of designing, drafting, rendering, and you have my work day. This is a desk for a show that we are designing for ESPN. We designed a new studio space for them last year and they are adding a second show to the same studio, so a new desk to go with the new show.



Headed out for lunch. I didn't actually eat "street meat" today, though I occasionally do. This is a gyro and falafel cart a few blocks away.



Headed home. My day/week is over.



Waiting on a local train headed home, since I want to make a stop along the way.



Stopped off at 40th street on the way home. Andean pipe buskers in the subway station.



Just off the subway at my home stop. I like the romanticism of the swinging lantern and the blinking sign.



My typical Friday night, a Duvel or two for me, wine for Kid Flash at the wine bar around the corner from my apartment.



Stopped off for some Orange Flavored Beef and Baby Bok Choy with Garlic on the way home.

And that's what my day looks like. Hope you enjoyed the little experiment.

Due to my own... ineptitude... I'm over 50 days behind on my Project 365. I've been taking photos, but (obviously) not posting. Rather than overwhelming you with pictures I'll be posting 5 a day until I catch up, which will be just about time for my birthday, and the wrap up of the project! Wee!

I'm late posting the 12 of 12, (see the other participants here) and I apologize. Life sucks a bit right now and I am working to get some equilibrium, but I'll get through it soon enough! For now... let's see some 12 of 12!

See... THIS is why I hate snow in New York City. That's a 3' wide 6" deep slush puddle. Every SINGLE corner in NYC looks like this right now. It's hideous, (though the color in this shot is nice, huh?)

The bodega by my office is geared up for V-Day, in fact every other corner I passed this morning had some sort of Valentines display up. Gee... roses seem popular this year. Is that some new trend?

A little mid-morning snack at my desk. We got a case of honeydrop oranges from a client last week and we've been eating our way through them since.

Lunch! I actually ended up having soup, but the sandwich display was prettier.

On the way back to the office I passed the former Radio Shack down the street from my office. Yesterday it looked like this:

(Not my photo!) The whole neighborhood was sirens and traffic all day, not to mention the rumors and panic up and down the street. In the end it was a manhole explosion which happens with semi-regularity in the winter here (melted snow mixed with street salt, gets into the manholes, corrodes the electric lines, etc. etc.) though it usually isn't this bad.

After work I spot a tropical display... that like everything else around here is covered in snow.

I'll admit that in the right circumstance the snow CAN be pretty.

After work a quick run to the fabric store to scout out some stuff for a show I'm costuming. I was in a panic for a few minutes because my favorite fabric store was boarded up! Turns out it just moved a few blocks down the street though, thankfully!

While I was in the hood I swung by the theatre to drop off my purchases. This is the wall in the tech offices, the most inefficient hardware storage system I've ever had to deal with, but they like it, so who am I to judge?

After the theatre I'm headed uptown to meet some friends so that we can....

make-fun of the opening ceremonies for the Olympics (and drink a lot of wine). And let me tell you what... Canada delivers! From what I am given to understand from the opening ceremonies, Canada was created by a giant bear from outerspace, then destroyed by blue whales... right... so then they were invaded by tattooed kilt wearing tap dancers whose boots were on fire... got it... and a giant glowing vagina gave birth to the mountains near Vancouver and then there was promptly a war between the red skiers and the black skiers for dominance... but they were defeated by beat poetry.

Wow. I TOTALLY understand the history of Canada now, and I LOVE IT!

Then it was off to home, a minorly late night considering how much I have on my plate at the moment, but it was a fun time, and a nice way to end up the week. See you next month!

Jeez... December and January is an AWFUL period for me! In these two months, besides my normal expenditures, I have somehow arranged my life so that I also have renewals on 2 magazine subscriptions, my flickr account, the domain registration on 3 different websites, two support memberships, and two website memberships... how the fuck did I ever decide to stack all this into one time period... so soon after the holidays?! Bleh!

Have a look at these:


Hormel Hot Dog Chili,


and Tasty Bites Madras Lentils.

Two vastly different foods, from far flung corners of the cuisine world, as different as I could imagine based on just personal knowledge of the two recipes...and yet somehow (as I discovered to my great disappointment) they taste very similar?! What the hell goes on in the prepackaged food world that that is possible?

Moving day! My brand new work space! Taking some serious adjustments, but I'm managing okay in the end. For about 2 years I've shared a 10'x40' space with two other people, now there's just the two of us, plus I went on a serious cleaning frenzy... it's so empty in there now.

Moving into my third year of the 12 of 12, (see the other participants here), sometimes it feels like I've taken the same photo over and over, especially when you factor in the Project 365 that I have been working on since last March. Especially when I am spending another day in the office... So today I decided to see if I could broaden the focus a bit, and find a new way to show my environs. Using Photoshop's "Photomerge" command I took several photos of my surroundings today and merged them into a single large panorama for each. Maybe it will provide you a stronger NYC sensory experience...

My home subway station, on the way in to work. This was 24 photos merged. Some of these merged more successfully than others, and I did very little tweaking beyond what Photoshop did for me. Most of the merge process was automated.

Stepping out onto 6th ave for lunch. (Check out a similar view from over 100 years ago, of the same building.) I would have been underneath the train tracks in that photo 100 years ago from my vantage point here. (23 photos)

Buying lunch at "Green Cafe." They have a couple locations in town, my favorite is the North Carolina Chicken Sandwhich, barbecued chicken and slaw on a kaiser roll. (15 photos)
My office space, for a few more days. One of my co-workers recently left the firm so I am shifting over to a new space as soon as I have an afternoon that isn't packed with other obligations. I'll go from working 10' from my office mate to about 30' but I'll have a faster, better computer, and more room. (22 photos)

One of the views that I know I have photographed more than a few times. The view off the fire escape at the back of my building. I come here a lot to use the phone, and to get some fresh air and be out of my chair for a few minutes. (24 photos)


The main area of my office. Long ago and far away when people in my profession made models everyday, and my firm employed 20 or 25 people (about 8 times what we have today!) this was probably a bustling area. Today it is mostly used for sorting the mail, and doing the occassional bit of photo mounting. (27 photos)
On the way out in the elevator. I wanted to test what Photoshop would do with a more confined space. Interestingly this was one of the panoramas that it had the most trouble with. (9 photos)

Broadway and 17th, on my way to the subway. It was a cold clear night in the city. One of the colder that we've had recently actually. (24 photos)

The office subway station. Pretty empty this time of night. (36 photos)

Back in my own neighborhood. Not the most scenic view in the world, I know, but it's where I live. (25 photos)

I stopped off for a jar of tomato sauce for dinner, and few odds and ends. Kid Flash tells me that the veggie mascot guys on top of the case to the left there used to sing and dance. I don't know if I am sad I never saw that, or happy that I don't have to live through it. (19 photos)

Home again, home again. I managed to get my entire family into this one. Both kitties, Ted over on the left (he's black so he blends into the window a bit) Sarah on the right, and there's Kid Flash in the front room. And there I am in the mirror. See my roman shades on the left there? I made those just before Christmas out of a Sari. I've actually made new curtains for most of the house at this point. Just the bedroom is lacking.

Thanks for stopping by!