lost.

Somewhere in Oakland there is a building lost in time...

...rooms untouched by decades...

... it sits as the cogs that hold it together are forgotten in unknown rooms...

... those who enter dare not disturb objects that preserve the soft whispers lingering in the halls...

... and the building slowly becomes its own museum preserved by stillness.

Butterflies

Well today was grey and dismal. It was hard to be motivated to do much of anything, but I managed to convince myself to go see the Butterfly exhibit at the SF Conservatory of Flowers. I made another of my really simple iMovie videos because the stills I was taking weren't really showing the movement in the room and of the insects. It was pretty cool. After looking around the conservatory I meandered aimlessly around the Golden Gate Park and San Francisco... I can't wait to get back to work, especially if this grey weather persists.

Chrysalis(es):


Forgive me; yet again I deleted the sounds of screaming children and replaced them with music;

Doughnuts made of Gold boullion...

Ok so I really have nothing new to post. This week I've been cleaning, sewing, reading, hiking and just doing normal stuff. This morning Berkeley was hazy with smoke from the Santa Cruz fire... this evening the winds had changed and Santa Cruz continues to burn.  Other than that everything's normal and boring (which isn't bad just not very bloggable) so here's a retro photo that never made it up...


To truly clarify the shock of these doughnuts keep in mind; a doughnut in the USA costs around 60Cents to $1 (in British that's 25p to 45p) the exchange rate makes a dollar worth a little less than half a pound... making these doughnuts about $2.50 each!  Did they fly them in from Chicago or are they secretly made of pure gold? 

Go Giants...

Look I got away from the theater...

It was the Giants vs. the Chicago White Sox... Rachel (in the "CUBS" shirt) is the only true sports fan amongst us.

She tried to tell me about this superstition/ritual thing where you turn your cap inside out to "rail"? for your team to help them catch up... I didn't get it really.

but other people did...

it didn't seem to help though. The Giants lost 2 to 0, and although I'm not really into sports at all, it looked like both teams were kinda weak... oh well it was fun to hang out with my friends and yell at ball players.

A perfect Sunset

This evening I dropped off my final notes at the theater down at Fort Mason... the warm weather was delectable so I started to walk the Embarcadero towards the bridge... Sunset started with a sigh of cool blue mist...

As the sun sank lower the sky began to glow pink and orange...



... until finally the whole sky was on fire with reds, oranges and purples before finally fading to night.

Wow!

Photos

Publicity photos online for Octopus... getting tired... hope to return to the world soon. This show opens on Saturday, the next begins next week.

No rest for the wicked.

Candles...

So... do we think my housemate should be left alone with fire anymore...

... do you think he noticed?
sigh. Adam has his good points but sometimes he's a wee bit forgetful.

Octopus is going well, but I do have to get back to work now.

There's nobody left in Antarctica!

Anybody who reads my blog should know, at least tacitly, about my fascination with Antarctica.  I had been reading four different scientist's blogs who were posting from the bottom of the world and now I'm down to just one... (link on the side)... the other three are done with their Antarctic stay and are returning to their various homelands.  It's sad.  Now I have to surf the nets again to find new blogs and decide which ones I want to follow... I'm going to miss the others, it's like having your favorite columns cancelled from your newspaper.  

So I guess if anyone out there has a suggestion about new science blogs, Antarctic blogs, Oceanography blogs... or other such "nerdy" interests leave your suggestion in the comments... Don't be shy even if I don't know you I'd like to hear if you know of any good blogs.

--Thanks 

Octopus Postcard

Is the water deep enough?

1st day with water, some leakage, actors sick, heading back to work very soon... no time for complete sentences... 

-TTFN

Procrastination

After the third hour of staring at the same fabric, I wish that I weren't my own technical support for my show.  I want to be the designer who draws the pretty pictures, picks the fabric, fusses over everything in the fitting and hands it over to somebody else to "make it work".  Alas I am not Carrie Robbins and cannot insist that the theater import my precious cases of Tab so that I can get through telling everybody how to achieve my vision... really Tony Award winner Carrie Robbins travels the country followed by Tab and Weeatabix (it's all she seems to consume).  I digress.  

So I'm sick of sewing... I packed up the dog and went to (can you guess?  I'm kinda predictable) the redwoods.  This time we went to a different entrance where there are actually less redwoods, more Madrone, oak and pine.  The forest floor was filled with all of these bulb flowers;

Dewalt was Almost patient with me in taking photo after photo of really mundane tiny stuff...

... but really he's not all that patient and I can't say I blame him. When HE wants to sniff the same gopher hole for more than three minutes I'm not terribly patient with him...

As I meander I see all of the good places to set up with my watercolors.  I imagine Carl Pope (president of the Sierra Club) randomly hiking by when he notices my Brilliant painting and instantly hires me to be the Sierra Club's resident artist where I help save the planet from the great awareness to native species that I have so beautifully preserved in art... I aquire a following of fans who proceed to buy up my art for gobs and gobs of money... then the National Geographic Society decides to sponsor new works from me and offers me the opportunity to go Anywhere in the world... of corse I'm unprepared for the offer and tell them that I need to think about it.  I'll need to make a list and get back to them.  hum... where should I go? China? India? Machu Pichu? or... ooh look at that... 

My mind wanders and perhaps it's good for me, but then my work is not getting done, I am not making brilliant watercolors and I am not hemming pant legs.  Ok now, I go back to it (sigh).

An "old people" moment

Sometimes old people have been known to complain about the weather, prices and "kids these days"... well here is where I complain about prices because mostly the rest of my life has been the exciting world of shopping, lots and lots of shopping (in case you don't know, I hate shopping so it makes me really cranky).  Mind you I am at least spending other people's money but it doesn't make it that much better.  A pair of new Levi's is now up to $60 a pair (ouch that's a chunk out of the budget)... Since I am shopping for a full show of clothes, hauling around a full trunk-load of bags isn't exactly practical if you want to hoof it so I've been driving a lot more than I would like to.

Yes this sign says $4.01 for regular (the cheapest I've seen all week has been $3.91)

After a long day of spending gobs of someone else's money I go back into my own account and sigh as I walk through the grocery store and realize that a decent loaf of bread is up to $5 a loaf!  Instead I bought some fresh yeast and a new bag of flour (a total of $5.50 that will bake into probably 8 or 10 loaves)  

I don't know that there's much to be done about it but it is a bit demoralizing... 

Next week I'll be heading into Tech week so I'm afraid this week is all about more shopping (grumble) and a little sewing and lots of time at the theater.  Wish me luck.