Flower Power

Have you ever met someone you were magnetized by? Someone you instantly liked and wanted to be connected to? Karen is one of those people... a friend of Tracy's, she is a tiny, creative, force of nature. Tracy, Eden and a couple of other friends spent Saturday morning at her house making handmade flowers. Karen had recently bought 500 lbs. of wool sweaters and wanted to put them to good use. You can buy sweaters by the pound?

Before the photos, few things about the host:
- She is (on her tallest day) only about 5' 1".
- She has five or six gigantic looms in her home studio... she can weave almost anything.
- She used to work on movies, among them The Bluebird with Elizabeth Taylor.
- Her son Mike was Bobby in The Brady Bunch
- She keeps a pellet gun handy for shooting magpies. (she prefers the pointed pellets, the round ones just bounce off)
- Her house is a joy to behold... not because it's expensive or large, but because it has an energy that is contagious. You just feel good when you're there.

I wanted to go along... not so much for the flowers, but for Karen. I would have wanted to document her and the whole thing. But I think she would have had none of that... I'd be flower-crafting just like everyone else. So, the photos you see below were shot by Eden and Tracy. I insisted they at least take the camera.

Accidental Spaceman

I had intended to draw a robot. Who doesn't love a good robot? Unintentionally, I made a jet-pack spaceman or something. Not sure why he has a number. I just found this typeface and wanted to try and find a way to use it. I've always wanted to have an edgy or somehow sophisticated style... Instead, I produce stuff like this. Or birds... I like to draw birds. To my knowledge, no one has ever said... "Dude, that is one bad-ass finch."

Facade

- New roof.
- New windows.
- New porch.
- New paint.

An improvement to be sure. Although it does feel like we're building one of those western towns you see in the movies... all front and no back. Either way, it feels better to see less peeling paint and rotting wood. For a time... Maybe just a short time... Our curb might have some appeal.

Were there shenanigans? Of course there were.

The painters were nice, but didn't know a ton about painting. While chatting in depth about Legos, they filled all of the nail holes in our new porch with caulk, not putty. So now the newest thing on our house, on day one, has problems that we'll get to lovingly fix. We could have pushed harder on our guy, but he was just a nice kid in over his head. We could both sense he was about to be at the end of our rope.

Our windows guys brought their A-game when it came to installing and clean up. They also brought the wrong windows... which had to be used anyway. Not quite logically, they removed our old windows before confirming the new ones were correct. Opting not to leave gaping holes in the side of our house, we had them go forward with a pinky promise to make things right at a later date.

Also, Tracy notes... The yellow door was her idea. A nice touch, I'll admit.

Everything isn't perfect. It never is. But for us it's visible progress... And that, my friends, is something.

Meeting Notes

My "notes" from a recent meeting with one of our clients. They do stuff with planes, oceans and satellites. All through school, I used pen and paper to draw while I listened to my teachers lecture. Now I use an iPad to do the same. Apparently some things improve over time... and some don't.

St. George 2011

I know you're thinking I rely too much on photos these days... that I'm not giving you enough of my witty prose. (okay, you never thought that) But I have to be honest. I think this pretty much captures Memorial Day weekend in St. George. Everything but maybe the last five minutes...

High Rollers

Early last month we went to Las Vegas with my Mom and Dad. Yes, I know... another extra late post. Don't know that Tracy and I are really Vegas people... don't drink... don't smoke... incredibly timid gamblers, but it seemed like a fairly easy place to spend a few days. The draw was mostly being able to spend some time together with Jim and Marge... something we get to do too little of.

We stayed here... Pretty place, expensive restaurants, great pools, located way down at one end of the strip. Don't even get me started on the monorail. Also... At the Mandalay, if you see a "Relaxation in Progress" sign on someone's door, that means they're smoking a pungent kind of weed in their room.

Our travel companions: Great sports about everything... even when they had to walk the 900 yards from the hallway where the Lion King wasn't playing to the the actual theater where it was.


Tracy and I spent some quality time at H&M. No, it isn't a casino. Yes, we lost money. While shopping is like kryptonite to me, the store is visually amazing.... A million things to want to shoot. I eventually discovered photography is not permitted. Meh... I got what I came for.



I didn't actually take that many pictures. You'd think otherwise, but Vegas isn't that photogenic. Inside, the casinos are really all the same. And the other stuff... all imitation... like crab with a K. Although, I could have photographed people all day... it's amusing to see someone stumble through a shopping mall clutching a three foot margarita.



The aquarium at Mandalay wasn't bad... Not exactly Monterrey Bay, but storing live sharks in the basement of a desert casino is still something to be proud of.




All in all, a good time. We enjoyed the show, the swim and getting the stink eye for ordering the cheapest thing on the menu... a ten dollar bowl of soup. Most of all, we enjoyed the time together.