Fremont

The Saturn sat sulking in the back of the garage. Abandoned for a week it seemed, no daily jaunt to the nucleus of the high tech industry. Next to it the Explorer ticked smugly as it cooled, the sweat of it’s labors dripping from the condenser of its air conditioner. It had done it’s work, two kids to school, a run to Starbucks, then home again by way of the grocery store.

The 2 ½ car garage stood sentinel in front of the 2.5 bath, 3 beds and large family room that made up part of the half million dollar single family home. The house quietly sucked electricity into its Tivo, its fridge, its air conditioner and the PC. It breathed out a quiet hum of perfume scented laundry air. It listened inattentively to the bumble bee hum of the gas powered leaf blower at the end of the close. It sheltered Meredith from the heat of the day, a quiet seclusion for her work from home, self sufficient self employment. Her cell phone rang with the pomp of Elgar, her 10 am phone conference with Sally.

“So where’s Martin?” inquired Meredith’s marketing department.
“He’s gone to Austin for customer integration, they’re going live this month” Sally had an implicit NDA as the friend of the wife, and so far had either rewarded the trust, or not known what to do with the information she didn’t realize she had.
“While the cat’s away…?” Sally was eager for a girls night out, they both deserved it she reckoned. Silicon Valley widows, collecting the wages at the cost of losing their husbands to the incessant grind of the techno mills.

The evening was planned and sitters secured. A girls night of vino, karaoke and maybe a visit to a club.

Just some random excerpt from my novel.

Del Valle Regional Park

Well, I intended posting these at Montgomery Pictures, but I sent them here by mistake. That's fine as I just wanted to mention this fun looking regional park near where I work, over in Livermore, CA.

Firstly you will see I was treated to near perfect weather. A storm system rolled through a couple of days ago, and it's still cloudy in the wake of it, with temperatures in the mid sixties, not the normal upper 80's. I was also there in early evening, so the sun had lowered.

I was also by myself, well me and my Nikon, so we could take our time. Considering it was a lake, there wasn't an easy lakeside stroll. It's a reservoir, and the lake shore tips steeply into the water. The trails are not remnants of a path from one village to another, as they are in Britain, so they meander pointlessly, and are not afraid of jumping up and down steep hillocks. It's almost like they are service roads which went through gaps in the trees rather than cut from A to B.

On either side of the lake there are swim beaches. Judging by the number of lifeguard chairs it must get pretty crowded, and be very different on the weekend daytime compared to a weekday evening. I can't see us getting a cool summer weekend, so I think I'll leave it until fall before I try bringing the kids out here. I also want to scope out some of the other trails, the one I did today was tiring for the fat and flabby me. I need to get back into shape.


These are digital zooms of some of the birds I saw. Not only turkey vultures, but also real live turkeys, and no cranberries. There were also some deer, but my crunching feet on the dry leaves and gravel denied me a chance to see more than a few vanishing "be-hinds".


They even have huge pine cones, either that or I have a tiny cell phone.

I know what I'll be doing 3 days before my birthday...

It looks like, from the trailer, a post apocalypse movie with a new form of being replacing man. Those new beings are rag dolls.

The cause of the apocalypse is quite interesting too, there seems to be a diesel punk feel to the mecha we see.

I think I took a different approach to finding Burton than most did. The first film of his I remember seeing was Ed Wood, about the legendary movie maker. I really enjoyed the film as it related the passion behind films like "Plan 9 from Outer Space" and "Glen or Glenda". That same evening the TV station ran Burtons "Vincent", a wonderful short tribute to Vincent Price, and the shadowy world of Gothic horror.

My next Burton was to be Planet of the Apes, a film that I enjoyed, but struck me most for its use of the color red. After that I strayed back to Corpse Bride, then Sweeney Todd, before coming to realize common threads like Johnny Depp and dramatic lighting, and an oft Victorian backdrop to black humor.

'9' seems like it could be a Mad Max/Terminator on one front and a Toy Story on another. The doll characters are in a CG world of rapid attacks echoing the groundbreaking Final Fantasy. Seeing this promo I feel I want Burton to film Scarlet Traces, and maybe even War of the Worlds.

The short was too short to tell, but the "stick more in" philosophy of "Captain Sky" and "Finding Nemo" (jellies scenes) doesn't exist here.

Roll on September (but let's relax and enjoy summer first).


Turns out, Burton is one of the Producers for this movie. While it certainly looks Burtonesque, it did have a hint much of a war story, but then again, Planet of the Apes.

Still looking forward to it. AND Alice must be out soon.

Wind Farms, Livermore CA

The interesting thing to note here is the shadows. On the left the shadows of the windmills lie almost horizontal, very cool. On the right they are almost vertical.

The coloration is not differing stone or crop, but time of year. Turns out I hit on the junction of two satellite images tiled together.

Oh what fun.

(Click image to see full size)

My first LDD SNOT.

There comes a time in ones life when one has to try something new. Lego Digital Designer (LDD) 2.0 had just come our, and the placement tools were working a lot better than the earlier version. I decided to make a space ship, and to make it a smooth as possible.

To get a smooth build you need to eliminate studs on top. I have since learnt that this technique is called Studs Not On Top (SNOT). There is one brick that helps a lot wiht that in this build. It is a double high 2x4 brick with an array of 2x4 studs on the two largest sides. With a cunning arangement of these built into the core of the ship I ended up with studs pointing to the cokpit, atop a stack of 2x2 cylinders, and studs facing the rear, as well as studs to top and bottom. I even had side facing studs, the red lattice piece just before the engine pods.

LDD has a ray tracing engine built in, and a series of back drops, so after building your virtual model you can rend it. Then you can buy it. Of course you can't buy this one, it's too old and the parts library has changed. Hey ho, that's life.

A past life.

Used to be I was a modeler. I painted up 1/25th scale model cars. There is a box full at my parent house, and two boxes at mine. The trouble is two fold; firstly I have no decent place to display them, and secondly I elected to use a liquid glue which has failed with time.

This natty looking '34 Ford is actually in pieces, hence the back wheel looking crooked. The radiator has fallen off the engine, and the suspension is hosed. Can't put it in a display case without a lot of re-work.

Here you can see the care I took, and the extent of the damage, the whole suspension for the left wheel has gone, radiator/fan assmebly missing and the body completely come off.

The handles were stick on, but the dash was hand painted, taking a bit of care.

And professionally built it would look like this. I believe there is a disclaimer on AMT boxes saying they use a retouched photograph anyway.

It was nice finding this old car in the box, but I just don't have the energy or passion for a restoration job.

This blue Mustang has a few notes of personal import about it. Firstly, it was the first time I spray painted a body. I'd been doing brushed bodies for the longest time. I actually started with a brush again, but couldn't get it smooth enough, at 15 I'd had no trouble with a good brush job, but at age 20 I wanted it better.
I had actually stripped it a couple of times and restarted, a mistake as you can see the top of the door here started deacaying; the solvent was eating the plastic. That was when I committed to a spray can.

Again, the glue has failed me. Revel liquid glue if I remember, or was it Humbrol. The car is a wreck now, wheels and suspension falling off, mirrors, tail lights all come loose. That and the dodgy door edge as explained before.

I actually had a '93 Mustang as a rental when I first lived in California. It was a rag top, same blue as this one here. It was kinda nice driving a car and having people oohing and ahhing over it. I remember a couple of 12 year olds walking by and saying "cool ride", and there was a girl, my age, driving an '89 Mustang filling gas at the next pump, and she was checking it out. I took that car out for a photo shoot. I used almost two rolls. When I took the film to be developed I remember one of the girls at the camera shop not comprehending taking a whole roll of one car. I'll dig out those photos and scan them for a separte blog entry.
This classic late '60s was only part built. I silvered the door trim myself. I'm not sure I'm happy with the brush work there. This was my last car build to use enamel paint (indeed, I haven't painted cars since). I guess it's silly of me, but while I was painting this we had a 12 week miscarriage. I don't think there was a connection, but you never can tell. Since then I've hardly touched enamels, using them once on a Warhammer 40K dreadnought for some high gloss. Otherwise it's all been acrylics.


One last car. I was first exposed to Holden pick-up in the early 80's when Matchbox released a model of the Holden Ute with a couple of dirt bikes in the back. On arriving in Yankeeland I found that GM had such tucks both in the US and Australia. Here in the US they were called El Caminos. The Chevy Imapala, which is the right size car to base a Holden Ute or El Camino on was just being retired as a muscle car. Sure Impalas still exist today, but they are family mid sized sedans, or fleet cars. In those days they were effectively a Chevy Caprice on steroids.
I took my interest of the El Camino/Holden Ute one step further and extrapolated what they may look like if they carried on past the 1980's. My first idea was to do a retro look with a step side bed. The donor model was a Ford Courier pickup. Later I decided to go fleet side, using a Dodge Ram as a donor. The project got shelved when work got too busy. About a year or two later Chevy release the SSR, a retro car derived pick up. I found Holden still make Utes, a big one called a Crewman and a small one called a Maloo. The Maloo is coming to the US in 2009, not as a Chevy, but as a Pontiac. So in the final years of the Pontiac Buggy company they will have a pick up.

I seldom do any modelling now. The busted up cars above are in the dumpster. Time to move on.

Ever wish...

... that you'd brought your full camera bag. I've got a split field adapter for my camera, and been looking for the ideal subject to try it on. This would have been it.

The purpose of the split field is that it puts a +2 close up lens over half your lens, and so you can shoot half the field 6" away, and the rest 60' away, or so the theory goes. You can keep the bug and the background too. I'd forgotten I had it, until I previewed this photo in my camera, then realized I was half a mile from my bag.