Friday, August 15, 2008

Sad Farmer

Help me find the silver lining, the bless in the mess. Through a carefully crafted house of cards, by an elaborate web of lies and denial, I have managed to almost convince myself that Amelia is no cockerel. Sure, she crows, but not every morning. And yes, she is really big and bossy, but hey, I'm kind of big and bossy too, yet you can't say I'm a rooster. You better not say I'm a rooster. Amelia has tail feathers that taper and curl, she has stocky legs and an upright, lean torso. She struts. And. And Amelio has started... ummm... loving Betty. Uh-huh, that's a euphemism.

Amelia, the little flier, was named in honor of Amelia Earhart. Today we are changing the name to reflect his gender, and henceforth the Barred Rock fowl living in our backyard is named Carlos. It's a Latin nod to Charles Lindbergh.

And, Carlos needs a new home. Back to the feed store? I don't know. How many roosters are they willing to take back from us? What do they actually do with them? How long will Maria cry? She still asks for Pip. We still think of Sunshine. Will Betty be happy without her best friend? Are the little ones, Buttercup and Fantam, pullets? Why do we wind up with so many roosters? Why did I ever believe we would have our own home by now? I am plagued by unanswered questions.

I am a sad farmer.
Sigh.

You see, I want to believe that we have some power to influence our destiny, to redirect our path. Waiting for the housing bubble to explode, we have deferred too much. We have waited for that future date, when things would fall into place and we could do the things we dream of. It has been a devastating and damaging experiment and in conflict with the idea that we can steer our own ship... Have I mixed metaphors? I know I am rambling. Sorry. My point is (if I have one) I thought that I was taking matters into my own hands, taking hold of the reins... Definitely mixing my metaphors: Ships are not steered by reins. I thought I could move forward with my whims and dreams and that we had waited long enough. I thought our home was just around the corner.

Dang it.

I know. There are a lot of posts like this... sad, tales of woe. I'm not looking for this stuff, and I am not even putting it all out there. I could delete this, and say something about gas prices dropping below $4, or finding a nice pair of pants. Life is a journey and this section of the road just sucks.

Want to change the subject? I really, really want to love "Mama Mia," but the discontinuity and incongruous time line made me nuts. If I ever rent it, I'll watch it with a shot or 2 of Ouzo.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Oh. My. Goodness.

Did I mention we were going to the big city? I believe I did. And Los Angeles is a big city, no question. Tuesday, bright and early (read: slightly blurry,) we made our way to the L.A. Convention Center. Geoff met us on Figueroa and he took William and Alex with him in to The Conference, SIGGRAPH2008. This is the same cutting edge, mind blowing computer graphics conference that Geoff has been attending since the 80's, when he would come home with VHS tapes of computer generated graphics, rumors of feature length CGI movies, and other seemingly fantastic developments. Maybe you remember the first time you saw "Luxo Jr?" Computer graphics have so seamlessly seeped in to our media, our entertainment, news, our everyday, I think we forget how new it all is... well, new in geologic time. The pioneers of computer animation have been hard at work since the seventies. And since this year SIGGRAPH is in California, we thought the timing was right for William and Alex to have an introduction into the professional, academic, scientific and artistic frontier of computer generated animation.


SIGGRAPH is an adults only conference. La Brea Tar Pits is not. La Brea Tar Pits, Page Museum, is a destination for all ages, and it's the best place I know of to introduce children to the ice age. Max, Maria and I headed west on Wilshire and pulled in to the George C. Page Museum parking lot, and that is where the fun began. La brea is Spanish for the tar, so it's redundant, but there is so much tar, everywhere, maybe it's appropriate to say it twice. Small sections of the parking lot have been fenced off, to protect people from falling prey to the black, sticky ooze that is still seeping up, just as it did 40,000 years ago. But nature has a way of getting out of hand, and cannot always be contained.


Max and I slipped over to a remote section where we found lots of exposed and unfenced tar pools. "Can I poke it with a stick?"
Oh, yeah. I definitely let him "poke it with a stick." He poked it, and pulled it. It came up slow and thick like cold molasses. It smelled like hot, steaming tarmac. Every day about 8 -12 gallons (32 - 48 liters) of tar ooze and bubble to the surface, and apparently animals, including dogs, lizards, rabbits and humans still get entrapped in the tar.


We were very careful. I didn't fear entrapment, but cleaning tar off of hands, shoes and clothes? Yeah, that would be scary!


But, you know, sometimes you have to get up close and personal to learn, to experience and understand. So we got as close as we safely could. And it was really cool.


If you have not been, and you can... Go! It's not a huge museum or particularly expensive. It provides a unique history of Los Angeles, the Ice Age, and a first-hand view of paleontology in action. It is an active museum, where research, and digs are ongoing. And there are creative, interactive displays that make the experience more meaningful. Max remembered 4 years ago, when we were last here, and how he and his brothers tried pulling up the metal bars submerged in tar. It's such an effective way of demonstrating the struggle and strength it would take to try to get out of a tar pit, and probably the futility... it's really hard to pull the rod up, and I am sure it would be worse still with both legs in that heavy muck.


My mom brought me and my brothers here, when we were children. This was the first visit when we were able to visit an open pit, in the process of being excavated. Pit 91 is huge and deep and Maria will tell you "It's stinky." Max thinks he would like the job of being in the lab and cleaning off fossil pieces. This place is where they pull the stuff up... things like the extinct camel, giant sloths, the Dire wolf, saber toothed cats or Smilodon.


La Brea Tar Pits and Los Angeles County Museum of Art are adjacent to each other in the same city block of Hancock Park. Before going in to the LACMA we visited the climbing trees. Max loves a good climbing tree.


By the way, children and their accompanying adult can enjoy free admission to the Art Museum on the second Tuesday of the month. We visited the gallery hosting "The Age of Imagination: Japanese Art, 1615–1868, from the Price Collection." It was beautiful. Max recognized particular Samurai pieces, including armor and katana, favorite subjects of Alex's. I loved this day. We had a relaxed excursion, full of sights and insights. It was a lot of fun.


Throughout the day Geoff was calling me and giving me updates. William and Alex were enjoying the Computer Animation Festival, and Alex got to have a chance to use exoskeletal robot arms; he used the handles to manipulate the robot arms into picking up balloon animals. We made plans to meet, so Geoff could spend time with Max and Maria, while I had my first ever SIGGRAPH experience. My loving husband got me a pass to attend the Competition Screenings. This is a screening of animated short features, special effects, art and scientific visualizations and a preliminary awards competition that selects pieces for Academy Award nominations.


Are you still with me? I am shaking with giddyness. Geeky, geeky giddyness. After the screenings Alex, William and I were sitting front and center in the Nokia Theater to see John Lasseter. Joining him was 2 time Academy Award winning animator Frédéric Back. (Please visit his website.) I was so excited to be seeing and hearing John Lasseter speak, I cannot tell you. What an inspiring, dedicated and talented man, and the funny thing was he was there to introduce a man he is inspired by. Frédéric Back hand illustrated every frame of "The Man Who Planted Trees," inspired by the story of the same name. If you have not seen this movie, I hope you can find it... we were mesmerized.


Frédérick Back is in his eighties. He has planted, with his own 2 hands, the same hands that illustrate such ethereal and poignant images, 30,000 trees. He spoke about the need to steward the Earth and as an advocate of the environment he was moved to hand draw thousands of pictures to tell French writer Jean Giono's story of a man who transforms a barren wasteland into a vibrant, forest, restored and alive because of 1 man planting trees. Mr. Back was grateful to John Lasseter and PIXAR and SIGGRAPH for supporting him and screening his movie, and John Lasseter was as grateful to Frédéric Back for his perspective, his skills in 2-D animation and for being a major influence at PIXAR.

Have you seen "Wall-E?"

Some people, and I know who you are, dismiss animation as trivial, trite, insignificant time-wasters.

Excuse me. I need to step up on this soap box:

Animation, computer graphics, storytelling, graphics software, artists, innovators of an industry that is revolutionizing communication in media, science, sports and medicine... these applications and products and the people of this industry, like Geoff, are amazing and skilled. PIXAR is more than a cartoon studio. It is more than a commercial industry. PIXAR is an exemplary component of a creative force. And SIGGRAPH is an amazing forum for presenting the best of all the applications and frontiers of computer animation. When animation is good, and PIXAR is good, it should be understood that this is because of a merging of decades of effort, study, craftsmanship in many different disciplines, so that "Wall-E" and "A Bug's Life" are more than cartoons. Those stories reflect an incredible history of art, story telling, innovations in technology and developments, and people that work hard, passionately. Those cartoons are a collaboration across industries and across time, and they are pioneers in a field that will redefine the very same disciplines that shared in their creation. And if you think you can blow-off video games too, and you know who you are, you gotta another think coming.

Many years ago Geoff was drawn to a field that was in its infancy. He applied himself, heart and mind, to the scientific, computational and artistic study of computer graphics. Success aside, it has been a journey of love and passion, a quest to make one image better than the last and to keep moving forward. He has worked in business, academia, science, medicine, geology, education and entertainment, and I have a powerful pride about his work. I love people that work, people that can make something, who are curious and creative and willing to get messy, make mistakes, try again and share the knowledge. It's about curiosity, interest and wonder. Those people are awesome. I felt privileged to be in that audience and witnessing the past, present and future of computer animation, and I am, and always will be, grateful to Geoff for making it accessible to me, for sharing his passion.


OKay. Next week: Ub Iwerks: "The Hand Behind the Mouse" and more PIXAR love after the viewing the Leslie Iwerk documentary "The PIXAR Story."

And now, I am going to make dinner, shower, kill ants, feed chickens, unpack, and recover from a day in the big city.

Monday, August 11, 2008

A Whole Lotta Random... With an Update (Please See Below)***


This is purely an exercise in avoidance playing catch-up... a mix of items for my to-do list, musings, deep thoughts etc, before I clean the house, save the world and make breakfast. I was going to post photographs from all of the houses we've visited in our endless quest to stop renting. I thought it would be slightly amusing to share the many places we are not going to buy, however, on careful consideration I decided this might not be such a hot idea. There are several ways it could go wrong. Just picture for yourselves things like dining rooms, tiled pools, wide open lawns, tidy gardens, low ceiling fans, assorted carpet shades, torn out siding, laundry rooms, lots and lots of queen palms, leaky roofs, closet size kitchens, chef kitchens, closets the size of small kingdoms, and a front entry that opens to a tiny kitchen... variety, a spectrum, a dizzying array, and a distant, remote possibility that one of these gems could be ours!


Geoff is out of town for a geek convention. Yesterday was all about getting him ready for his week away and getting us ready to join him for 1 day. Bear with me here. I wanted to update the blog, but I felt I should try to parallel process, so I will blog about what needs to be accomplished before I drive to the big city with the 4 children. The chickens will stay home, this time.

The List
1. go to bank and shuffle, shift, swap and cover... I was trying to be light and vague, but it almost sounds like a euphemism for a crime. I am going to withdraw cash for gas. That is all.
2. go to cell phone kiosk and buy replacement charger for Geoff's phone. Must remember to haggle. Kiosks are like malls... concentrated shopping centers, where someone wants you to remodel your image with purchases. feh.
3. there's something else...
4. leave more messages begging school district to return my calls and answer our request for transcripts. Bureaucratic b@$#@*d$.
5. purchase the big chicken feeder.
6. buy a stylish, hot-mom outfit to wear in big city. Not sure there is room in to-do list for wishful thinking, but if #4 works out, then anything is possible.
7. lens cap. Must buy new lens cap. My camera does not have an attachable one, so I knew this day was coming.
8. get gas. This really should be #1, or it's game-over before #2.
9. pack.
10. clean. It's unavoidable.
11. there's something else... but I'll think of it tomorrow, in traffic, on my way to big city. It'll probably be really, really important and vital.


I wish I could say I've been away from blogging lately, because life is so fulfilling and enriched with activity, but that ain't quite it. For one thing, my missing lens cap is keeping me from carrying my camera around, and the little camera is not producing the quality shots I would like to crop, frame and cherish. Another hold-up has been anger and frustration with someone who insists on being a crushing disappointment, thoughtless, inconsiderate, selfish... uh... sorry, I was going to lay-off this whole topic. Pardon. Well, you know, things are busy and I just have not had a whole lot of note worthy news.

12. I just remembered: Bury Rooster, the parakeet. He died, which is why he needs to be buried. It should have been done a while ago. Don't ask. Or ask: It's called denial, and I need denial to carry me through.


Last night we had an epic combination battle. Alex, Maria and I had water toys and William and Max were armed with Nerf launchers. We were all over the front yard, getting wet and pelted with Nerf darts. There were no teams, no rules and no tears. It was all out anarchy. There were human shields. There was laughter and squeals. We ran, ducked, dodged and danced. You shoulda been there. It was that good.

Well. There you go. Now it's time to defunk our junk and get the day rolling. Drop us a line, sing us a song, tell us about your days and dreams. We're here, drying-out, waiting and listening.

***Please note, I expect tons of feedback on this: "An Engineer's Guide to Cats." All of you cat lovers, engineers, geeks, friends, friends of geeks, friends of people with cats... all of you! Just come back here and tell me you laughed out loud. And thank you Anne. This was the best gift ever!