Anyway sorry for leaving the LA break-in as my last post for so long. Rest assured I'm fine, the car is fixed, and I got a new cell phone for $30. I'm now back in TO, back at work, and all is well.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
It's been a While
Well it's been a while since I've posted to my blog. It may be a while longer before I post again. I was having more fun doing stuff, then writing about it, so I kind of stopped writing. I think I touched on this in my very first post. I didn't want to write so much. I was just going to put up pictures and a few comments. I'll try to actually do that sometime.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
California: Welcome to LA
Yesterday I went into LA for the first time. It's about an hour drive into the city from Irvine. I went into the city to see a show at the El Rey Theatre on Wilshire Blvd. It seemed a rather nice area of town. According to the signs that area is referred to as the Golden Mile. I'm not sure why.
Anyway, I went into the show at 3:00pm. I came out about 6:30. When I returned to my car I discovered the rear passenger window had been smashed. It was kind of a surreal moment. Is the window really smashed? If I look away and look back is it still broken? Why did this happen?
Once I knew it was real the internal swearing swearing started. Then slight panic about what to do. Finally I decided to check to see what was taken. Sure enough my backpack was taken from the back seat. I check around the rest of the car to see what else might have been taken. I check the back of the car and nothing was touched there. I looked in the glove compartment, nothing was taken there. I looked in the arm rest where I had put my iPod, and it was still there. As far as I could tell all they took was my backpack.
I stared think about what was in my backpack. I knew my cell phone was in there, but I couldn't remember exactly what else. I know I had taken out most of my important documents. I did remember there was $300 is travelers checks though. I know I could get those back, but I didn't relish the process. Also the backpack it self wasn't cheap.
When trying to decide what to do next, I though about what this person or persons may have done after taking the backpack. The usual strategy for this type of robbery is to smash, grab and run. Stop somewhere close by, pick out the good stuff and ditch the bag. So I decided to start looking around.
I knew they wouldn't have crossed the street, too busy and the lights take too long to change. I decided to do a sweep a block in each direction and see what I could find. There were still lots of people about so I didn't feel it was too risky.
I was parked on Wilshire Blvd next to a construction site which occupied an entire block. On the corner of the next block was a Hollywood Video store. I decided to look behind that store. There was a parking lot and a set of dumpsters. A quick look showed up nothing. I then walked back towards the construction site and along the small road behind it. The other side of the street was bushes along the side of houses. I looked in the bushes as I walked along the road, but no sign of the bag.
I turned down the next street and looked in the garbage cans that where put out at each house. Nothing so far. I then walked the next block behind another construction site, then turned back towards Wilshire Blvd. I hadn't spotted anything so far. There was a parking garage there so I took a look through the first floor, but it was too well lit, I didn't think they would have gone there.
Once back on Wilshire Blvd. I walked back to the car feeling really dejected. I had a good idea, just no luck finding anything. Once back at the car I realized I hadn't look into the construction site itself. I decided walk around it again and look over the fence at strategic locations. When I got around to the small back street again I spotted a black blob on the dirt just past the fence. It was about the right size to be my bag. I moved closer and took a better look over the fence. It was a chain link fence with tarps attached to it so you couldn't see what was on the other side. It was also setup with no top bracing so the fence would really flex if you put weight on it. Not good for climbing. But I did manage to confirm that the black blob was in fact my backpack.
So I had found it, but now how was I going to get it. The fence was too hight to reach over and too difficult to climb at this point. I thought about various options but the only one that wouldn't take hours to execute was to just hop the fence and grab it.
I looked for a good place, and there was a gate in the fence along one of the other sides. I tried to see if I could squeeze through under the chain that held the two halves of the gate closed, but it was just a little too tight. At that point I said screw it I'll just hop it. I put my foot on the lock chain, hoisted myself up and over.
Fortunately the construction site was just in the clearing stage. I knew there was a small pit back closer to the car, but the rest of the area was a flat dirt field. I walked careful around, following the fence line to where my bag was. When I got to it, it was definitely my bag.
Two of the three main compartments where open. I looked in the front compartment where the cell phone was. Sure enough it was gone. $30 phone, and $90 in minutes gone. My travelers checks were still there though. That was handy from a paper work point of view.
In the large back compartment everything had been mixed up, but nothing had been taken. There wasn't anything of real value anyways. Sun screen, Kleenex and some rice crispy squares.
So I picked up the bag, worked my way back to the gate, hopped back over and returned to my car. At this point I feeling much better. I had managed to retrieve my bag, and was quite happy with myself figuring out how to find it.
I decided I should make some phone calls and went and found a pay phone.
Other then the window the car was fine. Before it got too late I decided I'd head back to Irvine and continue the calls from there. It's always best to move to a safe location and work from there. No-one can criticize you for reducing risk. The car was going to be much safer in my friends driveway, and I was going to be much safer back at his place.
So at the end of the day I saw an awesome show, but was down a cell phone and a window.
Monday, February 19, 2007
California Bound: Day Four
(Sunday, January 1, 2006)
The first day of the New Year was mostly about driving. However we did take an hour out of our day to drive around Downtown Memphis. The downtown was mostly deserted, I suspect most normal people were recovering from New Years parties the night before.
The downtown is like most Cities downtown, but I did like the look of this old building.
Just a little bit out of the downtown is a street with a set of old Victorian homes. My Dad found a reference to these in a guide book and wanted to check them out. They are very cool, and there are more then just these three. Most of them are now Museums. Other then these buildings, which look very well kept the area around them was quite run down. A sign of how the times changes.
This giant pyramid was an odd sight. It's on the waterfront by the Mississippi just north of the downtown. It reminded me of the Luxor in Las Vegas. It's a massive building, but I couldn't figure out what it was for.
After a little research on the web it turns out it's a stadium. Seats about 20,000 for Basket Ball. I was half expecting it to be church of some sort.
Here's a picture of the bridge that crosses the Mississippi. It's a big river.
This is the view from the bridge looking north. The barge in this picture is the same barge to the left in the previous picture. The bit of land to the left may or may not be Arkansas. It's actually an island, and I don't know which side of the river it belongs to. This means it may or may not be the only picture of Arkansas I included.
Finally it's a picture at the first rest stop in Oklahoma. Arkansas was not a particularly interesting drive. The first half was swamp, the second half was light rolling hills.
For the most part Oklahoma was flat. Especially up to Oklahoma City.
We stayed at a Howard Johnson's in Oklahoma City, and had dinner at a classic Denny's. The town was dead quiet. There was no-one at all about. The waiter/manager at the Denny's, which was mostly empty, explained that Oklahoma was in the Fiesta Bowl in Phoenix. Everyone was at home watching the game. It was always like this when the team was playing.
The next morning the complimentary breakfast room had a waffle machine. I like the waffle machine. But that's the next day.
The first day of the New Year was mostly about driving. However we did take an hour out of our day to drive around Downtown Memphis. The downtown was mostly deserted, I suspect most normal people were recovering from New Years parties the night before.
The downtown is like most Cities downtown, but I did like the look of this old building.
Just a little bit out of the downtown is a street with a set of old Victorian homes. My Dad found a reference to these in a guide book and wanted to check them out. They are very cool, and there are more then just these three. Most of them are now Museums. Other then these buildings, which look very well kept the area around them was quite run down. A sign of how the times changes.
This giant pyramid was an odd sight. It's on the waterfront by the Mississippi just north of the downtown. It reminded me of the Luxor in Las Vegas. It's a massive building, but I couldn't figure out what it was for.
After a little research on the web it turns out it's a stadium. Seats about 20,000 for Basket Ball. I was half expecting it to be church of some sort.
Here's a picture of the bridge that crosses the Mississippi. It's a big river.
This is the view from the bridge looking north. The barge in this picture is the same barge to the left in the previous picture. The bit of land to the left may or may not be Arkansas. It's actually an island, and I don't know which side of the river it belongs to. This means it may or may not be the only picture of Arkansas I included.
Finally it's a picture at the first rest stop in Oklahoma. Arkansas was not a particularly interesting drive. The first half was swamp, the second half was light rolling hills.
For the most part Oklahoma was flat. Especially up to Oklahoma City.
We stayed at a Howard Johnson's in Oklahoma City, and had dinner at a classic Denny's. The town was dead quiet. There was no-one at all about. The waiter/manager at the Denny's, which was mostly empty, explained that Oklahoma was in the Fiesta Bowl in Phoenix. Everyone was at home watching the game. It was always like this when the team was playing.
The next morning the complimentary breakfast room had a waffle machine. I like the waffle machine. But that's the next day.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
California Bound: Day Three
(Saturday, December 31, 2006)
A day under Kentucky. The first stop today for my Dad and I was Mammoth Caves National Park in Kentucky. We had been here once before when I was a kid. I really wanted to get back and do another tour.
The day before I had used me brand new cell phone to call ahead about tour tickets. According to the service there were only two tours running. Turns out in winter they don't run most of the tours. In actuality there were 4. However they weren't that busy. Of the 114 spots on the tour I had selected there where only 8 advanced bookings. All the literature on the park says book in advance so you won't be disappointed. With a 106 opening I decided it was unnecessary to book in advance. In Summer I can believe it's a very good idea to book in advance.
The tour we ended up taking was the Frozen Niagara Tour. The tour I really wanted to take was the River Styx Cave Tour, which goes into the deepest part of the caves. Unfortunately it wasn't being offered at this time of year. There used to be a tour that had boats that you rode on the river. This is the tour we tried to take when I visited as a kid, but we just missed out on the timing.
I heard two different reasons for the boat tour being discontinued. The official one seems to be it was affecting the natural wild life in the cave. The less official reason given by a ranger we talked to was the cave was getting unpredictable flooding which was both dangerous and damaging the docks and walkways. He then went on to describe a few tours he was on when he had to get the boats out of there fast because the water was rising. He said the final year they ran the tour they only managed to run it 18 days during the season.
The Frozen Niagara Tour starts with a bus ride out into the woods. From the 8 people who had booked in advance the group grew to around 50. After getting off the bus we all walked down a small path into a depression in the ground. Likely a sink hole. At the bottom was a rather surreal looking stainless steal door.
This was our tour guide April. She did a wonderful job, and had a lovely southern accent. There was a second ranger there who took up the rear of the tour group. He had some good stories as well.
The first part of the tour is through a man made tunnel which was blasted out of the rock. This was only a short distance though. Then began the natural cave, and a long decent down. The stairway was stainless steal. It was apparently installed in the 90s at a cost of over $1000 a step. They replaced the wooden stairs that were there before.
The story behind the installation of the new stairs was quite interesting. They had to go through several contractors before they could find once that would do the job in a way they could except. The resulting contractor turned out to be a submarine refitter. They could work in tightly confined spaces, and only wanted to do a limited amount of blasting.
There were more them 300 steps down in this part of the cave.
Once at the bottom of this set of stairs the rest of the tour was pretty flat. This makes sense. The layers of rock are pretty level in this area and once you reach a cave bearing layer the cave is going to follow it.
One of the things I found interesting was there are no recorded rock falls in this part of the cave. There were some pretty precarious looking rocks though. Apparently the there was a large rock break free in the natural entrance area one particularly cold winter. I think they said the piece was about the size of a car.
One thing thats kind of freaky to me is the large perfectly flat spans of rock across the ceiling. And this tour doesn't have the largest of them. It makes sense that they form this way. The layers of rock are very flat, so as the layers below fall away they will reveal the bottom side of the layer above. If a layer is particularly strong it will form a large flat ceiling over time. It's impressive how large and how flat it can be.
After working our way through a long series of caverns referred to as dormant caves, we came to a section of dieing cave. This is the Frozen Niagara part of the tour. This is where water is actively depositing material in the cave forming classic cave features like stalactites and stalagmite.
The reason this is referred to as dying cave is because it is actively being filled in. Eventually these deposits will close in the cave completely. Living cave is where the cave is actively being expanded by water erosion.
The reason it's called Frozen Niagara is somewhat obvious. It hard to capture the full extend of it with a camera, but the rock does look like a massive cascade of water over a cliff.
Finally we exited the cave through another surreal looking door. I don't have a picture of it, but it was a revolving door, and out into the woods again.
The reason for the revolving door is keep air from entering the cave. The wild life in the cave does much better when the cave is breathing naturally. Having a large opening throws things off. The cave maintains a very constant temperature. Many of the creatures, can't handle more then a few degrees of temperature changes.
After the tour we walked down to view the natural entrance to the cave. This is where most tours start, but is a couple of miles from the section of cave we viewed. The natural entrance is very much the classic cave entrance. We couldn't go far inside though as it was closed off to guided tours in the winter.
We finished up at the park a little after noon. We then headed off for lunch and on to Memphis Tennessee. Along the way we stopped at the John Cash rest stop on the Music Highway. Or I-40 as it's shown on most maps. This highway would take us the rest of the way across the country.
A day under Kentucky. The first stop today for my Dad and I was Mammoth Caves National Park in Kentucky. We had been here once before when I was a kid. I really wanted to get back and do another tour.
The day before I had used me brand new cell phone to call ahead about tour tickets. According to the service there were only two tours running. Turns out in winter they don't run most of the tours. In actuality there were 4. However they weren't that busy. Of the 114 spots on the tour I had selected there where only 8 advanced bookings. All the literature on the park says book in advance so you won't be disappointed. With a 106 opening I decided it was unnecessary to book in advance. In Summer I can believe it's a very good idea to book in advance.
The tour we ended up taking was the Frozen Niagara Tour. The tour I really wanted to take was the River Styx Cave Tour, which goes into the deepest part of the caves. Unfortunately it wasn't being offered at this time of year. There used to be a tour that had boats that you rode on the river. This is the tour we tried to take when I visited as a kid, but we just missed out on the timing.
I heard two different reasons for the boat tour being discontinued. The official one seems to be it was affecting the natural wild life in the cave. The less official reason given by a ranger we talked to was the cave was getting unpredictable flooding which was both dangerous and damaging the docks and walkways. He then went on to describe a few tours he was on when he had to get the boats out of there fast because the water was rising. He said the final year they ran the tour they only managed to run it 18 days during the season.
The Frozen Niagara Tour starts with a bus ride out into the woods. From the 8 people who had booked in advance the group grew to around 50. After getting off the bus we all walked down a small path into a depression in the ground. Likely a sink hole. At the bottom was a rather surreal looking stainless steal door.
This was our tour guide April. She did a wonderful job, and had a lovely southern accent. There was a second ranger there who took up the rear of the tour group. He had some good stories as well.
The first part of the tour is through a man made tunnel which was blasted out of the rock. This was only a short distance though. Then began the natural cave, and a long decent down. The stairway was stainless steal. It was apparently installed in the 90s at a cost of over $1000 a step. They replaced the wooden stairs that were there before.
The story behind the installation of the new stairs was quite interesting. They had to go through several contractors before they could find once that would do the job in a way they could except. The resulting contractor turned out to be a submarine refitter. They could work in tightly confined spaces, and only wanted to do a limited amount of blasting.
There were more them 300 steps down in this part of the cave.
Once at the bottom of this set of stairs the rest of the tour was pretty flat. This makes sense. The layers of rock are pretty level in this area and once you reach a cave bearing layer the cave is going to follow it.
One of the things I found interesting was there are no recorded rock falls in this part of the cave. There were some pretty precarious looking rocks though. Apparently the there was a large rock break free in the natural entrance area one particularly cold winter. I think they said the piece was about the size of a car.
One thing thats kind of freaky to me is the large perfectly flat spans of rock across the ceiling. And this tour doesn't have the largest of them. It makes sense that they form this way. The layers of rock are very flat, so as the layers below fall away they will reveal the bottom side of the layer above. If a layer is particularly strong it will form a large flat ceiling over time. It's impressive how large and how flat it can be.
After working our way through a long series of caverns referred to as dormant caves, we came to a section of dieing cave. This is the Frozen Niagara part of the tour. This is where water is actively depositing material in the cave forming classic cave features like stalactites and stalagmite.
The reason this is referred to as dying cave is because it is actively being filled in. Eventually these deposits will close in the cave completely. Living cave is where the cave is actively being expanded by water erosion.
The reason it's called Frozen Niagara is somewhat obvious. It hard to capture the full extend of it with a camera, but the rock does look like a massive cascade of water over a cliff.
Finally we exited the cave through another surreal looking door. I don't have a picture of it, but it was a revolving door, and out into the woods again.
The reason for the revolving door is keep air from entering the cave. The wild life in the cave does much better when the cave is breathing naturally. Having a large opening throws things off. The cave maintains a very constant temperature. Many of the creatures, can't handle more then a few degrees of temperature changes.
After the tour we walked down to view the natural entrance to the cave. This is where most tours start, but is a couple of miles from the section of cave we viewed. The natural entrance is very much the classic cave entrance. We couldn't go far inside though as it was closed off to guided tours in the winter.
We finished up at the park a little after noon. We then headed off for lunch and on to Memphis Tennessee. Along the way we stopped at the John Cash rest stop on the Music Highway. Or I-40 as it's shown on most maps. This highway would take us the rest of the way across the country.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
California Bound: Day Two
(Friday, December 30, 2006)
Unfortunately the hotel didn't have a Breakfast included, fortunately there was a Bob Evans right next door.
Today was a day it was important to get away in good time. We were going to the Air Force Museum in Dayton Ohio. The one area of the museum I had never been to was the Presidential and Experimental Aircraft hangers. This is a special area in a different part of the base. It requires registering early, because they only take a very few people over there in a day.
On the drive over to the museum one funny thing caught my eye. I wish I got a picture of it. My friends and I always joke about how every thing in the U.S. has corn syrup in it. I swear it's even in the ingredient lists of things like tooth paste and asphalt. Not really but when you start reading ingredient lists on packages it starts becoming surprising when something doesn't have it.
Anyway on the drive over to the museum we saw this massive chemical plant. It looked like it was right out of Steampunk. There were pipes running everywhere and steam was billowing out of everything. I joked to my dad, it's probably makes corn syrup. Sure enough as we passed the main entrance, it was a corn syrup plant.
We got to the National Museum of the USAF just after opening at 9:00 pm, and bee lined it for the registration desk for the Presidential and Experimental tour. We got there just in time to get on the first trip of the day. Good thing too. I thought they just shuttled people over and back every hour or so, but instead they drive you over wait, then bring you back. This means the next opportunity to get over there wasn't until 12:00 pm or so. This would have been impossible with our travel plans.
Here are some pictures from the presidential hanger. From an aircraft point of view, it's the older planes that grab my interest. Beyond that the idea of standing in an aircraft that one or more famous presidents had spend a great deal of time was kind of impressive. Especially when you realize how small and how slow the early aircraft really were.
Unfortunately the hanger is so tightly packed it is next to impossible to get a decent picture of any of the aircraft. The experimental aircraft hanger was equally as densely packed.
These pictures are of the YF-12A. It was to be an interceptor fighter but never made it into operational service. It's more familiar counter part the SR-71 Blackbird was developed on the same basic airframe. I've seen many SR-71s. The main museum has one, I've seen one on the deck of the Intrepid in New York and in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington. It's interesting to look at this aircraft to see the similarities and differences. The biggest difference is there is a fold down tail fin at the rear. There are a lot of other more subtle differences like the shape of the chines around the nose.
The pictures below are of one of my favorite aircraft. The XB-70 Valkyrie. This is one big airplane. It stretches from one end of the hanger to the other. It's so tall there are many other aircraft parked underneath it. It's to the bomber what the SR-71 is to reconnaissance planes. It's got a lot of really funky innovations in aerodynamics. Plus I just love the look of it.
Next we have the XF-85 Goblin one of the strangest looking aircraft I've ever seen. It was designed to be carried on board a bomber to be used as an escort fighter when over enemy territory.
Finally it's the Tacit Blue. OK the Goblin was strange looking but this thing just looks like a bus that had wings stuck on it. I've seen it many times at the Museum. It used to be housed back in the main museum. Every time I see it I just have to stand back and say what hell?
Finally a picture from the main museum. This is actually a rather creepy aircraft in my opinion. It's of Boxcar the B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki. There are a lot of military aircraft that have killed a lot of people, but this one and the Enola Gay ushered in a new era of human destruction.
So after our tour of the Presidential and Experimental aircraft, we did a quick tour of the main museum. It was all pretty much what I had seen in my several other trips to the museum. We left the museum shortly after noon and had Lunch at a Wendy's near by.
One thing I wanted to get was a cell phone. I figured it would be good insurance during our drive, and I might find it handy around town. So we found a local mall and found a T-Mobil store. The choice was simple, I knew someone that had gotten one there and they liked it. beyond that I didn't want to spend the time to do more research. So I picked up the cheapest phone, with a 1000 minutes prepaid time which is good for a year. Unlike Canada, cell phones and plans aren't all that expensive in the U.S.
From here we drove on to Cave City in Kentucky for the night. We stayed at the worst hotel of the trip that night. It was a Knights Inn. It wasn't really bad, but it wasn't very nice either. The included breakfast was weak as well. But that's part of the next day.
Unfortunately the hotel didn't have a Breakfast included, fortunately there was a Bob Evans right next door.
Today was a day it was important to get away in good time. We were going to the Air Force Museum in Dayton Ohio. The one area of the museum I had never been to was the Presidential and Experimental Aircraft hangers. This is a special area in a different part of the base. It requires registering early, because they only take a very few people over there in a day.
On the drive over to the museum one funny thing caught my eye. I wish I got a picture of it. My friends and I always joke about how every thing in the U.S. has corn syrup in it. I swear it's even in the ingredient lists of things like tooth paste and asphalt. Not really but when you start reading ingredient lists on packages it starts becoming surprising when something doesn't have it.
Anyway on the drive over to the museum we saw this massive chemical plant. It looked like it was right out of Steampunk. There were pipes running everywhere and steam was billowing out of everything. I joked to my dad, it's probably makes corn syrup. Sure enough as we passed the main entrance, it was a corn syrup plant.
We got to the National Museum of the USAF just after opening at 9:00 pm, and bee lined it for the registration desk for the Presidential and Experimental tour. We got there just in time to get on the first trip of the day. Good thing too. I thought they just shuttled people over and back every hour or so, but instead they drive you over wait, then bring you back. This means the next opportunity to get over there wasn't until 12:00 pm or so. This would have been impossible with our travel plans.
Here are some pictures from the presidential hanger. From an aircraft point of view, it's the older planes that grab my interest. Beyond that the idea of standing in an aircraft that one or more famous presidents had spend a great deal of time was kind of impressive. Especially when you realize how small and how slow the early aircraft really were.
Unfortunately the hanger is so tightly packed it is next to impossible to get a decent picture of any of the aircraft. The experimental aircraft hanger was equally as densely packed.
These pictures are of the YF-12A. It was to be an interceptor fighter but never made it into operational service. It's more familiar counter part the SR-71 Blackbird was developed on the same basic airframe. I've seen many SR-71s. The main museum has one, I've seen one on the deck of the Intrepid in New York and in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington. It's interesting to look at this aircraft to see the similarities and differences. The biggest difference is there is a fold down tail fin at the rear. There are a lot of other more subtle differences like the shape of the chines around the nose.
The pictures below are of one of my favorite aircraft. The XB-70 Valkyrie. This is one big airplane. It stretches from one end of the hanger to the other. It's so tall there are many other aircraft parked underneath it. It's to the bomber what the SR-71 is to reconnaissance planes. It's got a lot of really funky innovations in aerodynamics. Plus I just love the look of it.
Next we have the XF-85 Goblin one of the strangest looking aircraft I've ever seen. It was designed to be carried on board a bomber to be used as an escort fighter when over enemy territory.
Finally it's the Tacit Blue. OK the Goblin was strange looking but this thing just looks like a bus that had wings stuck on it. I've seen it many times at the Museum. It used to be housed back in the main museum. Every time I see it I just have to stand back and say what hell?
Finally a picture from the main museum. This is actually a rather creepy aircraft in my opinion. It's of Boxcar the B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki. There are a lot of military aircraft that have killed a lot of people, but this one and the Enola Gay ushered in a new era of human destruction.
So after our tour of the Presidential and Experimental aircraft, we did a quick tour of the main museum. It was all pretty much what I had seen in my several other trips to the museum. We left the museum shortly after noon and had Lunch at a Wendy's near by.
One thing I wanted to get was a cell phone. I figured it would be good insurance during our drive, and I might find it handy around town. So we found a local mall and found a T-Mobil store. The choice was simple, I knew someone that had gotten one there and they liked it. beyond that I didn't want to spend the time to do more research. So I picked up the cheapest phone, with a 1000 minutes prepaid time which is good for a year. Unlike Canada, cell phones and plans aren't all that expensive in the U.S.
From here we drove on to Cave City in Kentucky for the night. We stayed at the worst hotel of the trip that night. It was a Knights Inn. It wasn't really bad, but it wasn't very nice either. The included breakfast was weak as well. But that's part of the next day.
Friday, January 26, 2007
Sculpture: Pigon
(May 2006)
This is sculpture is another small one like the Dancer. Like the Dancer I was board of modeling from life and decided to so something from my head. This one was original going to be more doll like, like the Dancer, but as I worked on it I added more and more detail. So it's kind of half way between the doll look and a realistically model.
I also wanted to add cloths to this one, but I ran out of modeling time. Cloths were going to take at least one more class then I had time. I like it as it is, but I wanted to make her look like she was part of a yoga class.
The pose is known as pigeon. This is a tricky pose that I've never seen anyone do live. Although I suspect a few people I've seen in class would be capable of it. My rendition has a few problems with it. When a real person does the pose there is more bending from the lower back, the head is almost upside down and looking backwards and the back thigh is closer if not flat on the ground. There is just a little too much backwards bend in the back leg.
When I stared it I hadn't seen the pose in a while so I was going completely from memory. I was also going for a particular look, and having here looking straight up was an important to the look I was going for.
The top pictures are of the sculpture in its clay form. This is the state it gets to just before beginning the molding process. The design is complete but the structure of the mold has not been completed.
The middle set of the photos is of the sculpture with the mold walls added. In most cases clay is used to build the walls between the different sections of the mold. In this case the sculpture was so small it was difficult to build the clay walls. The teacher suggested I try copper shims. The shims are cut from a very thin sheet of copper.
This particular mold is three pieces. This was done because there are three separate loops of open space in the model. If I didn't make the mold three pieces it would have been very difficult if not impossible to remove the clay and prep the mold for casting. However each piece you add to the mold increases the complexity of building and casting the mold. My rule of thumb is it takes one class for every section of mold you need just to build the mold. From there the prep time for casting the mold is about the same regardless of the number of pieces.
The copper was interesting to work with compared to the clay. The sections of copper closing in the inner loops I actually left in and were enclosed by the mold. This made for some flashing that I needed to break off and clean up, but otherwise worked great.
I treated the outside pieces the same as I would treat a clay wall when mold making. Once one side was built up in plaster I removed the copper and prepared a slip wall so I could apply plaster to the next section and pieces would still separate. I learned later that when using copper shims you are supposed to just leave them all in place. However I think it worked much better doing it the way I did it.
The final set of pictures is of the mold itself. The first one shows the size of th mold when it's all together. The second photo is the inside of the three pieces, and final it's the inverted mold filled with Densite. I cast this particular mold up at a cottage I was renting with friends from work. Casting is one of the few things I can do outside of class, however I have to do it somewhere I can get messy.
This is sculpture is another small one like the Dancer. Like the Dancer I was board of modeling from life and decided to so something from my head. This one was original going to be more doll like, like the Dancer, but as I worked on it I added more and more detail. So it's kind of half way between the doll look and a realistically model.
I also wanted to add cloths to this one, but I ran out of modeling time. Cloths were going to take at least one more class then I had time. I like it as it is, but I wanted to make her look like she was part of a yoga class.
The pose is known as pigeon. This is a tricky pose that I've never seen anyone do live. Although I suspect a few people I've seen in class would be capable of it. My rendition has a few problems with it. When a real person does the pose there is more bending from the lower back, the head is almost upside down and looking backwards and the back thigh is closer if not flat on the ground. There is just a little too much backwards bend in the back leg.
When I stared it I hadn't seen the pose in a while so I was going completely from memory. I was also going for a particular look, and having here looking straight up was an important to the look I was going for.
The top pictures are of the sculpture in its clay form. This is the state it gets to just before beginning the molding process. The design is complete but the structure of the mold has not been completed.
The middle set of the photos is of the sculpture with the mold walls added. In most cases clay is used to build the walls between the different sections of the mold. In this case the sculpture was so small it was difficult to build the clay walls. The teacher suggested I try copper shims. The shims are cut from a very thin sheet of copper.
This particular mold is three pieces. This was done because there are three separate loops of open space in the model. If I didn't make the mold three pieces it would have been very difficult if not impossible to remove the clay and prep the mold for casting. However each piece you add to the mold increases the complexity of building and casting the mold. My rule of thumb is it takes one class for every section of mold you need just to build the mold. From there the prep time for casting the mold is about the same regardless of the number of pieces.
The copper was interesting to work with compared to the clay. The sections of copper closing in the inner loops I actually left in and were enclosed by the mold. This made for some flashing that I needed to break off and clean up, but otherwise worked great.
I treated the outside pieces the same as I would treat a clay wall when mold making. Once one side was built up in plaster I removed the copper and prepared a slip wall so I could apply plaster to the next section and pieces would still separate. I learned later that when using copper shims you are supposed to just leave them all in place. However I think it worked much better doing it the way I did it.
The final set of pictures is of the mold itself. The first one shows the size of th mold when it's all together. The second photo is the inside of the three pieces, and final it's the inverted mold filled with Densite. I cast this particular mold up at a cottage I was renting with friends from work. Casting is one of the few things I can do outside of class, however I have to do it somewhere I can get messy.
Once the Densite has cured in the mold the mold is chiseled off. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the final piece yet. That will have to wait for another post.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
California Bound: Day One
(Friday, December 29, 2006)
California Bound will be the story of my drive out to California with my Dad. Overall the trip was great and we saw a lot of interesting things. Day One however was not as smooth as I would have hoped.
The first day was to be the drive from London to Dayton Ohio. About a 5-6 hour drive including crossing the border as a tourist. However, since I'm going to be working I needed to get TN-Status at the border. I knew from friends this would take at least a hour at the border, longer if there were any problems.
We left London shortly after 9am, for the border crossing at Sarnia-Port Huron. I chose this crossing because it's closer to London then the Windsor crossing and the border is not as confusing as the US side in Detroit.
We arrived in Sarnia and I suggested we go to the bathroom before crossing the border. We might be standing in line for a while. So we stopped at the Tourist Information Booth on the Canadian side. A beautiful new building, with this giant statue of Canada Geese landing in a pond out front. I wish I took a picture, but I wasn't in tourist mode yet.
We used the washrooms and said hi to the lady on the desk. Told her we were off to California.
We got back on the road and drove up to the border. There was a 15-20 minute line of cars. We got up to the booth. I told the guard I needed to apply for NT-status. He gave me a little slip of paper and directed me where to go. I parked the car and we walked in to the building. When we got in line, I was second in line. It still took about 10 minutes before it was my turn. But they had a lot of booths open. At this point things were looking good.
When it was my turn I walked up to the booth and told the guy that I was applying for TN-status. He started into the rapid fire questions. The kind they use to try and trip up someone that's trying to be deceptive. I always feel I suck at this kind of questioning. In fact I suspect I would suck if I was trying to be deceptive. Since I never am, I do fine.
Eventually he asked to see my paper work so I got it out and presented it to him.
This is where things went down hill fast. He was happy to see my degree, but he was very unhappy with the job offer letter I had. I remained calm the entire time, and answered his questions as best I could. I think because of this he was very nice and polite and helpful, but when all was said and done, he couldn't let me in based on the letter I had.
problems. My I was concerned the letter was insufficient when I received it. I knew it had several potentialconcerns were validated when he pointed out each item I thought might be a problem, was a problem. And a significant one, from all my reading, I didn't even know. So he pulled out a sheet of paper with a check list of about 6 items on it. Each item had an explanation of a requirement for the letter. He check off 4 of the 6 as being deficient in my letter.
So what could have been a quick crossing was just starting to get very complicated. At this point the process had taken over an hour, and the only thing we could do now was go back across the border. He gave me a coupon for the toll to get back across, and a letter for Canada Customs and Immigration. He also told me I could try again as soon as I got a better employment letter. If I could get it faxed to me back in Sarnia, I could come back as soon as I got it.
My Dad and I thought it would really suck to have to head back to London. I had my Cell Phone with me. My Dad had his calling card. We started thinking about places we could go where we could call the Professer at UCI and received a fax of a new letter. Just in case she could turn it around in a few hours.
My Dad suggested we try the Tourist Information, so we went there to see if they could do any thing for us. First we called home and got the Fax number for a neighbour in case we had to head home. My Dad talked to lady at the information desk. She was very nice and said she could receive a Fax or an email for us. This was an awesome thing for her to do.
I called the Professor at the University I was going to work for and explained what happen. I then explained what was wrong with the letter. I also told her we had a local fax number and email address she could send a new letter to. She took down the details and said she'd call me back when a new letter was ready. This was great news. If we could get it in a few hours it would save so much effort.
Well she called me back on the cell about 20 minutes later ready with the new letter. She wanted to read it back to me to make sure it covered all the necessary points. We got through the letter and it sounded fine to me. At this point I hear her say hi to her 13 month old daughter. She was at home and her daughter had walked into her office. Then I here, oh, don't touch that! Then silence.
The daughter had hit the power button, on the computer. She said she'd have to call me back.
About 30 minutes or so later I get the call back. Turns out the computer wouldn't restart. It blue screened after being turned back on. So she had to get out her Mac Book, which she was still transferring over to, and rewrite the letter. However it was ready. We reviewed it, and it sounded good to me again. At this point it was easier for her to email it, because she was at home and didn't have a Fax machine handy.
So she sent the email to the lady at the Information Desk's account. It took about 10 minutes for it to come through. When it finally did, it didn't have the letter attachment. Oh great, what more could go wrong. I was thinking, what if the email server for this government office is stripping all attachments. This could really suck. I called the professor back and she checked to see if the attachment was on the letter that was sent. Turns out she had made an error and it didn't get attached. She sent it again, about 10 minutes later it came through.
The lady at the information desk was very kind and printed me of a few copies for me.
We were all set to try again.
We got in the car and headed for the border. We got over the bridge and the line was very short. We got up the booth and who was in the booth but the guy who had sent me back the first time. He didn't recognize me at first, they see a lot of people in a day. I reminded him. He then asked me a few questions about how I had gotten the new letter. He then asked to look at it. He looked it over and said much better, and sent me over to the office.
Well the car line was short this time, but the people line was about 50 feet outside the door. Thank goodness for the mild winter we were having up to that point.
my request, explained what had happened It took about an hour in line before I got to the front. They very generously started taking shorter cases from behind me in line, thus making my wait even longer. At one point a guard looked at my slip and said, "Oh, that's not short." and walked back further in line. When I finally got to the front of the line I saw a different officer. It was very crowed around the booths at this point, so she directed me behind the counter to another area of the office. She looked over my paper work, asked who had sent me away the first time. I explained I had seen him at the booth coming over, and he was satisfied with the new letter. She then took it to her superior. He looked it over and signed off on it. He look up at me and said, this is exactly what we are looking for.
It took another half an hour for all the work to be done. Most of it involved me just standing there at the counter, while the officer pecked away at her computer.
When it was all done and over with, she stapled this small unimpressive square bit of paper into my passport and sent me on my way.
I collected my Dad from the waiting area, we went to the car and drove on to Dayton. In the end it took about 5 hours to get across the border. We were running much later then planned, but decided we should push it to Dayton to get back on schedule.
Our first stop across the border was the Port Huron Tourist Information. I was now in the States all set to start a new adventure.
He stopped just south of Detroit for dinner. Then on to a Red Roof Inn just outside of Dayton for the night. A long day, but we were on our way.
This is the Tourist Information Center in Port Huron. Our first stop on the journey to California. The flags are at half staff for President Ford. This would end up being one of the themes of the trip. There are still places around here that have their flags at half staff.
California Bound will be the story of my drive out to California with my Dad. Overall the trip was great and we saw a lot of interesting things. Day One however was not as smooth as I would have hoped.
The first day was to be the drive from London to Dayton Ohio. About a 5-6 hour drive including crossing the border as a tourist. However, since I'm going to be working I needed to get TN-Status at the border. I knew from friends this would take at least a hour at the border, longer if there were any problems.
We left London shortly after 9am, for the border crossing at Sarnia-Port Huron. I chose this crossing because it's closer to London then the Windsor crossing and the border is not as confusing as the US side in Detroit.
We arrived in Sarnia and I suggested we go to the bathroom before crossing the border. We might be standing in line for a while. So we stopped at the Tourist Information Booth on the Canadian side. A beautiful new building, with this giant statue of Canada Geese landing in a pond out front. I wish I took a picture, but I wasn't in tourist mode yet.
We used the washrooms and said hi to the lady on the desk. Told her we were off to California.
We got back on the road and drove up to the border. There was a 15-20 minute line of cars. We got up to the booth. I told the guard I needed to apply for NT-status. He gave me a little slip of paper and directed me where to go. I parked the car and we walked in to the building. When we got in line, I was second in line. It still took about 10 minutes before it was my turn. But they had a lot of booths open. At this point things were looking good.
When it was my turn I walked up to the booth and told the guy that I was applying for TN-status. He started into the rapid fire questions. The kind they use to try and trip up someone that's trying to be deceptive. I always feel I suck at this kind of questioning. In fact I suspect I would suck if I was trying to be deceptive. Since I never am, I do fine.
Eventually he asked to see my paper work so I got it out and presented it to him.
This is where things went down hill fast. He was happy to see my degree, but he was very unhappy with the job offer letter I had. I remained calm the entire time, and answered his questions as best I could. I think because of this he was very nice and polite and helpful, but when all was said and done, he couldn't let me in based on the letter I had.
problems. My I was concerned the letter was insufficient when I received it. I knew it had several potentialconcerns were validated when he pointed out each item I thought might be a problem, was a problem. And a significant one, from all my reading, I didn't even know. So he pulled out a sheet of paper with a check list of about 6 items on it. Each item had an explanation of a requirement for the letter. He check off 4 of the 6 as being deficient in my letter.
So what could have been a quick crossing was just starting to get very complicated. At this point the process had taken over an hour, and the only thing we could do now was go back across the border. He gave me a coupon for the toll to get back across, and a letter for Canada Customs and Immigration. He also told me I could try again as soon as I got a better employment letter. If I could get it faxed to me back in Sarnia, I could come back as soon as I got it.
My Dad and I thought it would really suck to have to head back to London. I had my Cell Phone with me. My Dad had his calling card. We started thinking about places we could go where we could call the Professer at UCI and received a fax of a new letter. Just in case she could turn it around in a few hours.
My Dad suggested we try the Tourist Information, so we went there to see if they could do any thing for us. First we called home and got the Fax number for a neighbour in case we had to head home. My Dad talked to lady at the information desk. She was very nice and said she could receive a Fax or an email for us. This was an awesome thing for her to do.
I called the Professor at the University I was going to work for and explained what happen. I then explained what was wrong with the letter. I also told her we had a local fax number and email address she could send a new letter to. She took down the details and said she'd call me back when a new letter was ready. This was great news. If we could get it in a few hours it would save so much effort.
Well she called me back on the cell about 20 minutes later ready with the new letter. She wanted to read it back to me to make sure it covered all the necessary points. We got through the letter and it sounded fine to me. At this point I hear her say hi to her 13 month old daughter. She was at home and her daughter had walked into her office. Then I here, oh, don't touch that! Then silence.
The daughter had hit the power button, on the computer. She said she'd have to call me back.
About 30 minutes or so later I get the call back. Turns out the computer wouldn't restart. It blue screened after being turned back on. So she had to get out her Mac Book, which she was still transferring over to, and rewrite the letter. However it was ready. We reviewed it, and it sounded good to me again. At this point it was easier for her to email it, because she was at home and didn't have a Fax machine handy.
So she sent the email to the lady at the Information Desk's account. It took about 10 minutes for it to come through. When it finally did, it didn't have the letter attachment. Oh great, what more could go wrong. I was thinking, what if the email server for this government office is stripping all attachments. This could really suck. I called the professor back and she checked to see if the attachment was on the letter that was sent. Turns out she had made an error and it didn't get attached. She sent it again, about 10 minutes later it came through.
The lady at the information desk was very kind and printed me of a few copies for me.
We were all set to try again.
We got in the car and headed for the border. We got over the bridge and the line was very short. We got up the booth and who was in the booth but the guy who had sent me back the first time. He didn't recognize me at first, they see a lot of people in a day. I reminded him. He then asked me a few questions about how I had gotten the new letter. He then asked to look at it. He looked it over and said much better, and sent me over to the office.
Well the car line was short this time, but the people line was about 50 feet outside the door. Thank goodness for the mild winter we were having up to that point.
my request, explained what had happened It took about an hour in line before I got to the front. They very generously started taking shorter cases from behind me in line, thus making my wait even longer. At one point a guard looked at my slip and said, "Oh, that's not short." and walked back further in line. When I finally got to the front of the line I saw a different officer. It was very crowed around the booths at this point, so she directed me behind the counter to another area of the office. She looked over my paper work, asked who had sent me away the first time. I explained I had seen him at the booth coming over, and he was satisfied with the new letter. She then took it to her superior. He looked it over and signed off on it. He look up at me and said, this is exactly what we are looking for.
It took another half an hour for all the work to be done. Most of it involved me just standing there at the counter, while the officer pecked away at her computer.
When it was all done and over with, she stapled this small unimpressive square bit of paper into my passport and sent me on my way.
I collected my Dad from the waiting area, we went to the car and drove on to Dayton. In the end it took about 5 hours to get across the border. We were running much later then planned, but decided we should push it to Dayton to get back on schedule.
Our first stop across the border was the Port Huron Tourist Information. I was now in the States all set to start a new adventure.
He stopped just south of Detroit for dinner. Then on to a Red Roof Inn just outside of Dayton for the night. A long day, but we were on our way.
This is the Tourist Information Center in Port Huron. Our first stop on the journey to California. The flags are at half staff for President Ford. This would end up being one of the themes of the trip. There are still places around here that have their flags at half staff.
Monday, January 08, 2007
California
I'm in California now!
So I'll be updating with details of my drive out here soon. Currently I'm going through all the head aches of getting settled in at the University. Things like getting a bank account, University ID, computer accounts, room keys, library card, social security number, etc. All of which seem to need one or more of the others to get, which is hard when you don't have any of them.
In the end hopefully all it will mean is just a lot of running around, and nothing more then that.
The drive out in brief, was very good. No problems with weather. I drove out with my Dad and we seemed to arrive in places just as they finished digging out from storms. So it was perfect timing. We left London on the 29th of December and arrived in Irvine on the 5th of January.
I'll fill in further details soon.
So I'll be updating with details of my drive out here soon. Currently I'm going through all the head aches of getting settled in at the University. Things like getting a bank account, University ID, computer accounts, room keys, library card, social security number, etc. All of which seem to need one or more of the others to get, which is hard when you don't have any of them.
In the end hopefully all it will mean is just a lot of running around, and nothing more then that.
The drive out in brief, was very good. No problems with weather. I drove out with my Dad and we seemed to arrive in places just as they finished digging out from storms. So it was perfect timing. We left London on the 29th of December and arrived in Irvine on the 5th of January.
I'll fill in further details soon.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)