Saturday, December 1, 2007 A

"'Dead' of Night"
5:52am

What a strange night! Julia and I were deeply engrossed in the Himalayas, as Michael Palin was our guide. He had gotten to the Mt. Everest base camp, and was preparing to go on, when all of a sudden the TV and everything else turned black. No thunderstorm caused the power outage, it was quietly raining outside. But it had been constantly raining for hours, a rare thing in Yuma.

The UPS box beeped intermediately as it kept my computer powered until I could do a normal shut off. Then all was black and silent, except for the quietly falling rain. I put on extra socks and a long sleeved coat, as I knew the house would soon be getting cold, without any electrically powered heating to warm it.

I thought with amusement of the Photo Friday theme 'Dead of Night', and thought, this is as 'dead' as it gets. But of course, nothing except the dead was 'dead'. I thought of the ancient Egyptian respect for the sun, and realized more fully why they had such. In those days, everything pretty much shut down at night, unless you had a fire or a candle. They did not know about the hidden power in the thunder, the electricity which can through technology make its own light.

Saturday, December 1, 2007 B

"Shopping for Shelving"
5:48pm

Such an ordeal! First, we went to the used bookshop and unloaded all the books previously slated for giveaway, along with a couple of others. The credit system isn't like Bookman's in Tucson. We were given a percentage off the two books Julia chose to buy. It's confusing, but now we have that much more space.

Then we went to Staples. They had a tall version of the cabinet, complete with a small dent, showing it's not that sturdy. After looking at everything with a tape measure, we decided to try Lowe's. Particle board and plastic cabinets caught our eye at first. I quickly decided against the plastic when I noticed a chipped off piece of it in the box.

I was about to decide on the 42" high cabinet orderable from the other store, when Julia thought we ought to walk around the store a bit more. Yes, more choices awaited us, these of the metal wire variety. Much sturdier, these hold up to 350lbs (160kg) per shelf. Yet I still had great difficulty deciding. I was briefly considering a three tier model, but both of us doubted its ability to store our stuff. Perhaps the four tier model would be better. Or would my original choice be better? Julia's mind was blank. I sat on the nearby rolling cart and pondered for quite some time. We'd spent hours at the stores. Finally I made a decision. The wire construction is very similar to that of the CD/DVD shelves I got a few months back. I didn't have any trouble putting that one together, and although this one is bigger, with Julia's help, I should be able to manage it. So soon, we'll have a four tiered 54" tall, 36" wide, 14" deep (137.2cm tall, 91.4cm wide, 35.6cm deep) very sturdy shelf unit in place.

Sunday, December 2, 2007 A

"Excess"
7:05am

This is what readily came to my mind for the Friday Illo theme of EXCESS. At first, it was, "This skirt's shrunk!" But when the next skirt had mysterious shrunk, too, I had to conclude something else was going on!

Perhaps the death of the old refrigerator and subsequent kitchen renovations will impress further upon my mind the need for some changes, if the tightness of my waistband doesn't. Maybe this time something will stick in my mind to change my actions.

Sunday, December 2, 2007 B

"Midway Triumph"
9:35am

I ate a healthy breakfast of brussel sprouts and brown rice, lovingly prepared by Julia. We got the freezer out. The charitable organization will come and get it Tuesday. When we moved it, we found a strange brown pattern of some kind of sludge. Before I took scrub pad to it, Julia and I looked at it, seeing images in it, like people do when looking at clouds. "Here's a man drinking from a tall glass!" I declared. I almost thought to pause the progress to photograph it, but then thought, "That would be excessive!". Now the dirt pattern is all gone, the kitchen floor is all clean. I've got to rest a bit before beginning to tackle putting the shelving together, though!


Clean!
(And yes, it is a small kitchen!)

Sunday, December 2, 2007 C

"Triumph!"
12:47pm


Finished!
(The extra space on the appliance shelf is so she can lift the lid on the tea maker easily.)

Sunday, December 2, 2007 D

"Resting After Labor"
7:07pm

Wow! I worked harder today at home than I work at work. I'm pooped! But the kitchen is decent, the wash has been done, and although the table behind where I sit at the computer is still a mess, I've got more things set out for donations. I'm rather pleased with myself today.

I relaxed later by checking a few of the online groups I don't normally check, and found myself going from link to link until I ended up at this fascinating visage I had to sketch Taharqa, and found him at the British Museum and again at Wiki. Using all those sources, I drew the following:


You can see the skill of the sculpter, showing his Nubian characteristics...

Tuesday, December 4, 2007 A

"Silly Drawing I Did Last Night"
6:50am

Tuesday, December 4, 2007 B

"More Than Meets the Eye"
6:29pm

The little pendent I sent for last week arrived. I am sure surprised at its tiny size, exactly 2cm (13/16 in). The dealer's photo of it led me to think it would be much larger:

I wonder if they copy~n~pasted their pendent image on the text background. Shrinking that photo to make the pendent actual size results in impossibly small text:


If your monitor is 1024x768 and 16inches at the diagonal, this will be real size...

No where in the dealer's page did they give the size. I think they ought to be required to have a size indicator in each picture like museums often do. But I still like it, I just was surprised.

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

"Another Day..."
9:48pm

Feeling rather unhappily uninspired artistically, I put random words into Flicker's search engine, and looked at a wild variety of pictures, until I got to this one. "Princess Freda" went through some changes, as did her environment, but there's that same sort of mild ennui. Or am I just reading that into it? I felt moved to write 'ANOTHER DAY...' on the picture and maybe another day I will get better inspiration. I know it's all around me, I just have to...

(Julia took one look at this attempt, and all she said was, "Boy, that sofa's low, it looks uncomfortable...") Oh, and that's supposed to be chips in that bowl, not 'dog food', as Julia had thought.

Eh well, this was an attempt, with maybe some interest and certainly apologies to the original!

Thursday, December 6, 2007 A

"Man With the Secret Smile"
6:51am


A quick 7 minute sketch from a random Flicker search
The photographer gives 'Creative Commons' license, 'free to use photos with link and credit'.

Thursday, December 6, 2007 B

"Woman With the Secret Smile"
9:42pm


A match for this morning's smiling man!
Yes, I found her in a Flicker search, using "Mysterious" as search word...
(I filled in the missing areas...)

Friday, December 7, 2007

"Primitive"
7:07am

For the Photo Friday theme of Primitive, I chose a primitive artifact at Smithsonian's Natural History Museum

Saturday, December 8, 2007 A

"Those Primitive Fashions of a Bygone Era"
1:03am


(I got inspired by my own photo!)

Saturday, December 8, 2007 B

"Rebellion and Conformity"
1:47am


Maureen thought she was being so defiantly individualistic, but, lo, the others were all dressed as she!
(The age old battle, we want to 'rebel' to feel alive, but also don't want to feel all alone.)

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