The Birds

via Scott Fraser and Neatorama

Action Shots #7

Keep your eye on Pete. He's running from 1st to 2nd base.

A Question to Tell You #4

Pete had his first t-ball game this past weekend. It was chaos, and I'll put up some illustrative photos and video sometime soon.

The coach of the other team said while his team was lining up to bat, "Hey, stop picking your nose in line. There's no nosepicking in baseball."

Action Shots #6

Some videos:

Retrospective

So, this blog has been in existence for one year now. I started it last year to give news of Nora's birth, and followed up with 111 mindless posts.

Here's the header images I used this year:

Uncovery #3

Once, at a job I had in high school, I took a poem or a prayer that I'd written, rolled it up, and stuck it inside of a bic pen. I wrote on the body of the pen, in easily missed, very small letters "open me", and put it back in the supply room.

It was quite a creative thrill. My brother Troy has done some really awesome art along the same lines but with a much greater sense of the art and the excitement of discovery. Stuff like adding books to the public library, sandblasting images onto the plastic Wendy's food trays. That sort of thing. It's always anonymous, and is always done in such a subtle way that it might or might not ever be discovered. The best thing about Troy's work for me, and probably for him, is thinking about these gems of artwork, sitting undiscovered right now.

Anyway, this guy's work (under the "hidden" section of his website) reminded me.

Evolution and Innovation

The other day, while running, I had a thought about the connection between evolution and innovation. I'm no biologist, and avoided the subject efficiently in school, but it seems to me that evolution doesn't make sense unless, at some point, there's a fish that wonders what to do with these weird proto-legs sprouting from his abdomen (something that no other fish has ever had) and decides to walk up onto the beach, where NO OTHER LIVING CREATURE HAS EVER WALKED.

It makes it seem so dramatic, and it's an interesting connection between biology and individual initiative. If that unique, genetically mutated fish decides to just go along his way, doing the same things as the other fish, he never discovers his new niche to succeed in, and he never raises special landlubber babies because all of the lady fish think he's weird and deformed, not innovative and sexy.

If I had the attention span, I'd write an essay about this. At least give me credit when the book entitled "The sand between my fishy toes: how innovation can change your career, and your life!" makes the bestseller list.

Action Shots #5

From my trip to South Carolina last week.

Action Shots #4

Took the kids to the "Nature Park" a few weekends ago, and it was great. I taught Pete to play Pooh Sticks, and he, in return, taught me a few new games, including "Pooh long sticks", which is remarkably similar to Pooh Sticks, and "Bench, Bench, Bench, Crocs", which involved, as far as I could gather, stepping onto the bench three times and then noticing that you're wearing crocs.

Some pictures:

The Boat we built

Confusion to the British

Apparently, "Confusion to the British!" was a toast heard at George Washington's dinner table, which I really like. Not that I have anything against the British, but it reminds me that our culture may not be as smart or word-wise as it once was. Do you think that anyone ever toasts our president with "Confusion to Osama!"

Snapshots

I had dinner at Chilis tonight, and it was just filled with cliches:
The young Air Force guy next to me told me a story about being station in Qatar, and he ordered a swordfish and it was as long as the bar (7 feet) and he was pissed because they made him go through all these local customs before he could eat it.

There were a new mom, a 15 day-old baby, and Gramma and Grampa (couldn't have been older than 40) across the bar. It was a smoking bar, and people were smoking (somebody loudly exclaimed that "South Carolina is the tobacco state!") Anyway, Grampa was holding the baby, feeding her a bottle, and was steadying the bottle with his chin while he drank his Bud Light and argued with his wife about which NASCAR race he would get to go to this year.

And this last thing wasn't a cliche, but it was too good not to repeat: The sportscasters on the TV were discussing which Wiggles songs were their kids' favorites. They discussed it for minutes.

Gone to Carolina...

I know we're totally screwing with the new system this week, but come on, I'm in Sumter, South Carolina, and we're doing the best we can. You're going to have to be flexible.

So I was thinking as I went about my business in the airport bathroom. I don't know if I've ever been in a men's room in which there weren't many more urinals than sinks. Doesn't that kind of send the wrong message? Or maybe it just reflects an unfortunate reality.

If I didn't think it would invite very unsanitary confusion amongst men who are drunk or unobservant, I'd propose that every urinal be located right next to its own dedicated sink.

Uncovery #2

Continuing with the theme of last monday, this video features another dance that 95% of America has done in front of the mirror. But only .00001% has done it like this.

My Bro's Show

My brilliant artist brother, Troy, is in a group show this month in Portland, Oregon. The show is called grey|area and it's at the guestroom gallery.

Here's a nice quote from TJ Norris, the curator of the show:

Curating is a full-time role. With thirteen artists from Los Angeles to British Columbia (eight from Portland), twenty-two works of art and gauging chance we are now on view. The gallery, if you haven't already visited, is a lovely 1000 square foot space that lay just under the Wonder Ballroom and is adjacent to Mark Woolley's Annex Gallery. This exhibition gave me the opportunity to work and exhibit with some of my favorite artists on the West Coast, both established and independent. The dialogue focused around issues of abstract transluscence, atonal minimalism and the psychology of the surface.

Troy does really good work. It looks like a good show, and it seems to be getting a fair bit of buzz in Stumptown.

To be honest, the art scene is fairly incomprehensible to me most of the time. I know what I like when I see it, but it's tough for me to judge what will or won't make it in "the scene". So although I like Troy's work, and proudly own a handful of pieces of it myself, I'm not sure what other people think of it. I have to judge by indirect measures, and those all look good. For example, wherever I see a listing for the show, Troy is one of the few listed as one of the participating artists. Like here:

"So-called theme-less, non-narrative, conceptual and abstract minimalism are part of the blurred-line of focus for this show, which could be really strong. Curated by TJ Norris. The 13 selected West Coast artists include Troy Briggs, Ty Ennis, Scott Wayne Indiana, Laura Fritz and Ellen George."

Here's another good review courtesy of Urban Honking.

and another courtesy of the major daily newspaper in Portland, The Oregonian.

Here's a link to where you can see a few more of Troy's drawings:

link

Good job, Troy, and Happy Birthday.

More of the art:

These are on my mantle.

Action Shots #3

Heather and I had an argument about whether or not Tulips grow after they've been cut (I thought they didn't), and so we took this picture as a "before" example.

The "after" picture will not be appearing here because I was wrong and I won't have that documented here.

A Question To Tell You #2

Pete: My brain hurts!
Me: Well, that's funny. Why does your brain hurt?
Pete: I think I ate too much lunch.

Action Shots #2

Sunscreen
+
Dirtpile
=

Pete's cousin Owen

Uncovery #1

Scrubs is one of our favorite shows, and we spit out our ice cream when this scene happened.



So, when you were in middle school, were you pulling these moves at the dance, surrounded by a circle of onlookers, or were you trying them in front of the bathroom mirror? You know it's one or the other.

Routine

I'd like to expand upon a previous post. When I was posting about how routine makes me happy and enriches my life, I was looking for a snappy quote, and all I found were quotes like the following:

"The less routine the more life."
Amos Bronson Alcott

"I began to realize how simple life could be if one had a regular routine to follow with fixed hours, a fixed salary, and very little original thinking to do."
Roald Dahl

"As long as habit and routine dictate the pattern of living, new dimensions of the soul will not emerge."
Henry Van Dyke

I know that these are probably distinguished men. Especially old Roald. "Danny the Champion of the World" made me wish I was named Danny throughout my childhood.

But I totally disagree with what they're saying. Routine is the system for controlling the necessary repetitiveness of life. You control the repetition and mold it into a pleasurable routine, and, at the same time, controlling it makes it more efficient, enabling more unstructured time, which is also important. The opposite of routine is not 100% free time, it's chaos and disorganization, which is not enriching or creatively inspiring to me at all. I'd wager that any seriously productive artist or thinker cherishes and guards his routine.

"Some men like a dull life-they like the routine of eating breakfast, going to work, coming home, petting the dog, watching TV, kissing the kids, and going to bed. Stay clear of it-it's often catching."
Hedy Lamarr

Exactly!

Action Shots #1

Pete had a beach party at his preschool last week for the last day of the year. The thing I like about this picture is the pile of crocs in the background.



Buncha trendy, smelly-foot kids.

administrative

I just realized that the reason there haven't been any comments in the past month is that I was supposed to be approving them all. I approved them all and reset it so that they automatically publish. Sorry about that. I wasn't ignoring all of you.