I'm having one of those days that feel great. Everything seems so interesting. I had really interesting dreams. What do they mean?

My dream ended when I walked into this room of a costumer with all these small but silvery feathered accessories. A small cloak, that seemed to be floating silver down. It glowed slightly. There was a beautiful silver featherd deco hat with a swan design...more hats, a feather necklace...all in the most beautiful silver colors.

Before that I was driving my car around, running from something or to something, avoiding the cops, and investigating something...I ended up in this sort of variation on a street from Disneyland in the French quarter or Sugarhouse (a local district), with tiny streets and shops on both sides of the street...that's where I came into the costume shop with the room of silver feather accessories.

I realized the Duran Duran album doesn't contain a remix for "A View to Kill."

Dinner today before we went swimming was from Koko's Kitchen. It's my new favorite restaurant. They have spam sushi (an oxymoron I know) but being a spam fan, and not a fish fan, I'm in heaven.

I went back up to Ogden today and saw the most amazing stuff along the way. The big planes sitting outside the Hill Air Force musuem were visible from the freeway. It'll be cool to go out there this weekend...maybe I should wait till my brother gets into town and take him with us.

I've been doing work for Woody Printing and they paid me today. How great is that...I'm spending it on Adobe Photoshop. I found a great deal on Adobe's web collection (photoshop, freehand, livemotion, golive) for 549.

Swimming is good. I swam today and fell asleep in the sun, and swam some more. I swam a total of 2600 meters. (a little more than a mile and a half). I did 1 km first and then the rest after I awoke from a nap. Before the nap I read the Mammaries of Tiresias. Then I had odd little dreams a cross between the weirdness of the play and playing Marathon, which has been a bit of an obsession lately.

I went to Ogden today to work on a contract job. It's actually been quite fun. I've been listening to Duran Duran's Strange Behavior. What a great album. 2 CD's and it's such good driving music...technoee remix of classic Duran tunes. It's so much fun driving out there and back listening to NPR first and then as it fades out, to Duran Duran.

And today I saw 4 F16 fighter jets (well, maybe they were F15's, I can't tell...my son could have though) Plus I always see big transport aircraft like C130's or something like it.

Next week we'll go to the Air Force musuem I pass along the way

I couldn't help it. Utrecht is just to enticing. I bought more paint today. It's such a lovely affair I have with colors. I bought pints of silver and gold and ultramarine blue and paynes grey...I forgot I bought the paynes grey...what a wonderful color...I also picked up some florescent orange for the ghumbies...and then I stopped at Reuls and bought some florescent blue (again for the ghumbies) and a pale hansa yellow...it's so yellow...that one would be for grace (like above) but she's done already...hmmm....maybe a yellow ghumbie?

I know I'm not doing many updates. I received an email from a user who find my site via yahoo. I've been getting lots of hits. Lots of new stuff to add, and I've been swamped with tech work too...that and playing too much marathon. It's great discovering old games. I spent an entire day trying to get another cam working on my win95 box, to no avail. It's so frustrating. Maybe I should just pull out my older win95 box and put a cam back on it.

Painting is so much fun. I pulled out lots of older pictures as I work on my bathroom. I stored them in there to get them out of the way...I've got so many pictures to add to the site.

the grace jones surgery picture has mutated into what I'm calling 25$ Carnival prostitute. You can see it on the cam. That and the ghumbie conversation about the god jog are what I'm alternating between. I'm working on more than one picture at a time, which is great fun. Especially when they're both rather good, and completely different. I've been reading Harry Potter's 4th book to the boys and it is wonderful.

We took pictures of the sunsets. Because of the forest fires, they have been rather beautiful.

I've been working on the grace jones surgery picture. You can see it on the cam. I'm stuck with it. I'm not happy about it at the moment. I think I need to be more methodical about my painting.

I've been hit over the head with the notion of tying a serial number to a whole project....I've been struggling with meaning and motivation in my own pictures,and I haven't been studying enough (either in programming, where I'm behind or painting....where I'm also behind)...this is why I don't like vacations, they get me off track.

Sorry about the missing postings.

-calvin

Some things I need to implement are the diary interface so I can update my diary. Possibly an interface for a serial number project system, as well as a good way to organize the ideas that impinge themselves upon me.

I'm frustrated I don't do more painting. My mind seems to turn off at times, and I'm continuially sabotaging my own work. Sometimes drugs seems like a really good idea...lower the inhibition level, ramp up the energy and throw it into work. sometimes...odd thoughts of basquiat....

I finished Hoban's Basquiat book. I've learned lots of stuff from reading it, but mostly it was about his drug taking more than his art making. Very little information about his art making process...there were a few good bits....it was a tragic life in many ways.

Dorian's Birthday. It's a good day, a holiday. I swam and setup the bubble and blew off fireworks and spent time with my family. Yesterday we ate at the other place and went swimming at Steiner. Steiner is so much fun. Can I swim enough? I don't think so. It's a holiday.

Sleepover last night at my grandfather's (Durex) and when I stopped by my parents house on the way home I visited all afternoon with all my brother's and sisters in town from alabama and florida . A day I had hoped to spend working on my house was spent visiting with family, which is certainly more fun. Elek and I had a real row today. I took him to the top of Memorial Hill in Midway, and he got a bit better then fell asleep. He was tired, I should have noticed...I'll notice next time.

I received an email today from my brother about how cool my cam looks. What a thrill. I've been playing around with transparencies and the cam. It's great to watch. I've made a video of it...transparent bodies twisting in the breeze in front of the cam...sharing the visual space.

I woke up early. Of course, I'm an hour ahead of this timezone.

I was dreaming of putting in a wood floor in Jason's house. And somehow I had to haggle with the contractor's and install much of wood myself. Upstairs in the building(which had turned into a multi-story modern warehouse style building) lived a prostitute. I was tired of working on my flat(it changed again) and went upstairs for a little recreation. It was rainy but warm. She was half dressed and crying with her friend on the landing. Her friend had to go to work so I sat down and started talking to her. She had a daughter she was taking care of and her boyfriend/ex was being an asshole and she just needed to talk it out.

She was barechested sitting on the outside metal stairs next to me while I listened to her story and tried to show how she had a good thing with her kid, and just to sit and listen to her. Sometimes it's important to have someone to talk to, especially if it's your neighbor. (I miss Christy).

That's when I woke up. again. It was 6:45. I had woken the first time at 6:15.

I took a quick shower, but had to kneel down to wash my hair...midget shower head placement...what's up with that?

Rode the bus downtown. Rented a bike and explored Seattle looking for Alex. I checked my email first from Jason's unused office G4 Mac.

The bike was great. I'll ride it again tomorrow. I had a breakfast of ham and swiss with tomatoes and sprouts from this soup place in pioneer square. Then I went to Alex's work. She thought I was a courier at first, dropping something off....her Strangers in Paradise comics.

We went outside adn talked. It was nice listening to her. Tomorrow we're eating a late breakfast at a french bistro around the corner.

After Alex I went to a gallery at the end of pioneer sqaure and looked at some really great paintings. I then had a very long conversation with a woman that works at the gallery named Ada. She was blonde and beautiful and knew about art and we talked about style and process and art references in different pieces, and shows we had seen in london and really just had a great time.

After that I bought two, supposedly pre-columbian pieces, from an Native American gallery. Their predominant work was northwestern native work, but these pieces were acquired from an estate for a collector I think. One's for my Dad. I've wanted to buy him this kind of work for a long time.

Then lunch with Jason and Brenda at Noodle Ranch...really quite good...but cafe trang's vermicelli and fried spring rolls has really grown on me. The cilantro in the vermicelli and grilled chicken pieces though made for a really great meal.

Then it was to a cool 60's modern furniture store where they had this bw TV in the shape of a sphere...it had a name...I'll have to try and remember it. I helped the guy get the tv working. It was fun...but too pricey for me.

Then I hit this music store with lots of experimental music. I got cambodian pop music, muslimgauze, some funk style stuff and an asian remix techno thing with a bit of bhangra flavor.

Then back to immunex, stopping here and there along the way. I picked up cards at this paper store for Elek and Dorian to hang on their walls. I also got a cool paper with chinese style prints all over it. And I bought some brown shoes at the Nordstrom Rack.

Somewhere I also got a cut on my left foot.

Then to immunex where Jason was still busy so I went on more bike riding down the water front. I love the modern boxy buildings here. The look so cool with there boxy balconies and big windows...like shoe boxes stacked up...or kids blocks put together by a giant kid for all the little people.

Then it was the gallery walk. I bought a print of naked women jason knows nothing about. He'll find it when he gets back from vacation to utah. Tomorrow I'll pick up a cool print on metal by this artist in a fourth floor studio space. It's a baby head, which is kinda trite, but it looks pretty cool...he also had a baby stigmata hand, but not alone, only framed...together they made a beautiful image.

Jason also took me to a great bookstore where I bought a book on male nudity and sexuality in art...kind of appropriate for the cam and all...I need a better understanding of what I'm doing and why...it's cultural meaning and rebellion...unfortunately the book did not contain the word erection in the index...somehow I think it's important to male sexuality and nudity/nakedness...there were some pictures of erections though.

We ate a very good polish dog while we walked around. I talked to lots of artists. It bothered jason. He didn't talk to anyone...I wanted to talk to everyone about their work...I should have asked more questions about what this or that means...I would have learned more...I got cards...I'll send emails saying thanks. I have to pick up the picture I want tomorrow after dropping Jason, Brenda, and Analise at the airport.

I had many great conversations. It's too bad Jason thinks I'm such dork. I met lots of nice people. There was a photographer that made really interesting multiply exposed pictures...One really grew on me, but it would have been hard to bring home...many of his pictures were in four parts where each was a mutiply exposed image. The ones I liked were 36"x24". Maybe a bit bigger. I have his card too...I liked his card a lot. I've got lots of ideas.

I'm tired now. We're home and I'm the last one up working on jason's computer. I've got some sketching to do and I need to go to bed soon...sketch out some ideas....repititions of images, like 5 consecutive movie frames. writing on top them...drawing them together into one image, not 5 consecutive images...stuff to think about.

I found a 6" artists figure...still looking for the 4"....the place I found listed a 4" but they were out.

Ada was so much fun to talk to, I could have spent the whole day with her.

Tomorrow I'll do the underground seattle tour, then the Seattle art musuem for the african art and then pick up analise for Jay and Brenda and take em to the airport. I wonder what I'll do with Holly and peter tomorrow night? I gotta call em.

I wonder if I can swim tomorrow evening...that would be fun.

Off to Seattle. It's interesting coming to a new city. Even though I've been here before and I'm slightly familiar with it, it's still new...it's not raining.

I visited the ocean, which was at low tide and full of seaweed for the first 30 feet. I would have swum if it wasn't so dirty. It wasn't that cold. Brisk certainly, but not worse than Jordanelle resevoir. I did get my pants so wet it looked like I had peed them.

We (jason, brenda, analise (there daughter) and I) had dinner at Galeria's. An upscale haute quisine mexican type restaurant. I had a really good pablano mole. After that we walked around and I picked up a bioography of Basquiat.

Then it was back home where Jason and I talked for a while, leaving me with the impression that he should spend more time creating and less time talking and he would be happier. But isn't that always the case anyway?

I slept in Analise's bed which is really very comfortable.

Jason gave me grace jones cds. I love grace jones.

It's happened, I bought Elek and Dorian (and me too!) Kirby64 yesterday. And last night they beat it. 50 bucks and the game gets won in a day? Hopefully this situation will improve with Playstation2.

A most amazing thing is getting email from Dave Winer. Wow.

I swam today. 1 whole lap consisting of 100 meters this morning. Then I fell asleep in the sun. What bliss. I woke up just as sick as I was yesterday. Later I got a haircut, then went swimming again. It's those little hairs that stick to your body that need to be gotten off. I ended up swimming a mile. It was wonderful. I over did it. NO MATTER. I swam. I read and slept in the sun. Plus I saw John. Plus I have a lizard waiting for me at work. Elek and Dorian will be so pleased.

I must go eat now...I'm craving a baked potatoe...I need the potassium. It's turned into a beautiful day. Sometimes I wonder if it is okay to accept that paradise can actually happen here on Earth. It's days like today that wake me up to the fact that it is okay to experience paradise. (in fact the more the better, the more shared the more exponentially better!)

...at 5 am. I'm up for a few hours then I got back to bed. How weird. I only slept 5 hours. I feel somewhat better. The sore throat from hell is going away. I must be on the mend.

I try and sleep a lot today. I'm still feeling crummy. I try to find the boy who stole Elek's bike. I think I know who it is. I gotta take a photograph of him. that would help. I hardly work, I feel like crap. I take the boys to Andy/Tonia's stop at work, do some stuff (like play carpool to the airport) and then go home and sleep. Later at Tonia's I figure out how to hang her lights. It shouldn't be to hard...just dirty climbing in the attic.

The boys had lots of fun. We watch a video before bed. I'm out of Niquil(sp?) I dream all night and wake up...

I sleep lots. I want to be better. Jamie forgets we're supposed to see Titan AE. That's okay. The boys and I go see "Small time crooks"...but Eric (of the PCp Beserkers)talks us out of it when we get inside the theater. Eric's an old friend and works at the Broadway. We plan to see Me Myself and Irene instead. We head out for hot dogs from Der Weinershnitzel.

MMI is not for kids. Whoops! Way to adult for 2 eleven year olds. Oh well.

More illness. I'm supposed to see a movie with mom...I'm supposed to work on my house. I sleep all day. I get up only to eat and yell at the boys having a water fight to keep it away from the house. They still break the lightbulb outside the side door. I finally get up at 5p and take daniel home. John's party is tonight and I finally drag myself out of bed again at 11 and head over there. I talk with Mike who just got back from Spain/Europe and talk with Sean who I see at different parties here and there and who just had a baby. John's music is perfect. He's mixing great stuff.

I need a new mix tape from him. I listened to his last one all the way back from Wendover Sunday.

Elek's birthday today. He's 11.

I'm sick. I picked something up...from Tessa I think...the Tessa disease.

I bought Elek a Neon Genesis Eva toy, Gameboy games. The whole familiy ate at The Other Place...always a favorite...all the while my sister is having a baby. The boys have a sleep over. I just sleep.

Haircut land with Allison. I take 40 shots of the boys and Allison cutting their hair. Allison feels ill, but looks awesome. A natural in front of the camera. Her hands are really cool. There could be a picture in there...or at least a drawing. Taking pictures around so many mirrors is great fun. I wonder if I can add that sort of stuff to my studio...it would certainly seem more open.

Elek's bike got stolen from school today too. That was an adventure.

Bike ride up to Steiner with the boys. I swim and get in a half mile before they close the outside pool. Tessa and Dino are swimming too...well, not really. Tessa is just sitting there feeling ill.

I paint late at night. I do a new picture and finish the mickey mouse guys.

No Derick this morning. I expect he's busy. It comes and goes (usually in bucketfulls). But now that python talks to mysql, I'm doing database design in Mysql. What fun. Lots of stuff to think about. Making progress.

More scuba stuff, to make up for not passing the test. It gave me time to visit Reul's art supply store where I picked up a beautiful red color, very close to the color of dried blood. A wonderful color. I also bought a few buckets and raspberries and cherries.

Derick stops by this morning. I'm really kinda tired and wiped out. He says we'll do something tomorrow...techy stuff..maybe I'll get a little help getting mysql to work with Python...that would be nice...but later that night, I figure it all out on my own. Wooh Wooh. I've got python talking to Mysql!

Wake up early and head straight back out to wendover...forgetting the important dive test in the process. But we make good time and have 10 minutes or so to shoot some pictures at the "Tree of Utah". The Salt Flats are so amazing. Of course, I rambled on and on about this yesterday.

I took pictures all the way there and all the way back...until my batteries died out. I took most of my pictures through the window while driving. Some of them even turned out looking rather good. Maybe they will show up in paintings...you never know.

When we got home I unloaded the car and showered giving me just enough time to speed down the street to see "Waltz of the Dog Faced Boy". It was one of the most amazing performances I have ever seen. Never mind nudity in Utah (wooh wooh), the performance was so good you lost sight, rather regularly of the fact that it was a performance. It drew you in seperating the boundaries between art and reality...it blurred them intentionally. It had lots of interesting thoughts on freaks and what makes people freaks as well. Good moral stuff, and personal development all rolled into this really fantastic performance art dance piece...unfortunately, there is no video, I asked.

Yesterday a car wash ticket of mine expired but the woman at Philips66 was kind enough to give me another one...not that it mattered much by the time we got home today...the car had become a bug crash test laboratory.

What an amazing place. It's 146.9 miles from my house to Blue Lake (which is really more of a pond), with a slight detour to Chevron in Wendover/Elko with 8 miles of dirt road, but the trip is pretty fast. it takes 2-2.5 hours depending on how fast you drive. The "lake" is fed by a hot spring which keeps the water temprature fairly nice. It was high 70's, I think it was probably 80 by it's feel. It was rather salty. It is a scuba dive hole. I was the only non-scuba dive person there until some kids (less than 7) showed up about 2:30.

Scuba dive people and classes kept coming and going. There were two guys there that dived three times, then took their required breaks then went down again. They were really laid back.

I swam across the lake twice. I figure it's right around 400 meters across...mabye a bit less. I only say this because that's how much it felt to my body and I really didn't time how long it took me to get across. It's great not having to do any flip turns and just swim. The dive side was really cloudy, but the other side, where only I went, was really clear. You could see about 12-15 feet. The floor of the lake has this really fine sand that a swish of the hand stirs up...but on the edge their are these rock like protrusions you can stand on.

And on my second trip I found this big tube thing, covered by the rock like things, with algae growing out of it's middle. It was about 18" in diameter, and 3' long sitting in 3 fee of water. I stood up on it, then fell backwords into the water to make a big splash. I'm going out to it again tomorrow(if the water temp is okay). I swam freestyle all the way back, as I had swam backstroke all the way out. My left shoulder kept cracking while i did the backstroke but it was a fairly easy swim.

The first time out I swam to about the middle, got a bit scared and then swam to the nearest edge, where i saw a sign. The sign marked the boundary of the USAF bombing range. then I swam along the shelf of the pond to the far end. Once I did that, I knew I could swim back, so I did.

I tried to do some reading but mostly I played chauffer, pack animal, and general nag to get my kids going. Wet suits that don't fit (or even ones that do when you put them on for the first time ever) are a pain. I felt like some victorian changing person. Carrying all their gear was impossible for them in one trip. It just weighs too much (hence pack animal). I'm taking pictures tomorrow of the water stuff...and...

I'm taking pictures of the Salt Flats. coming back, I hope to have the time to stop and take pictures of the tree of Utah. Wow. I'm always more impressed when I see it again. And the Salt Flats are so amazing. I've got to get some video and photographic performance thing going there.

All I could think as I drove by them was that I want to have sex on the salt flats...of course then I thought, I want get video of having sex on the salt flats...because you could walk out and be so far away from the highway, and isolated in this white environment...where the mountains seem like distant paintings, floating above the flats because of the mirage effect.

too cool for words...painted people running on the flats, video, dancing, sex, techno/trance music naked dancing. I need volunteers....I wonder if I could haul a bathtub out there and take some pictures that way too...that would be quirky...especially if the bathers were blue, and hot pink, and florescent orange.

Maybe I gotta go to BurningMan...although that is so much further away...The flats are only about an hour and half max.

Another neat thing coming back was all the writing done on the side of the road with these dark/black rocks. Laying the rocks out in words and symbols on the white sand.

Tomorrow morning I head to Wendover so Elek and Dorian can dive in Blue Lake. Happy Happy...Joy Joy. I think I'll swim, lay in the sun and read.

But today while internally miserable was externally wonderful. I've decided that I just don't do enough. This morning I road my bike to Steiner (all up hill...killer hills), swam 1100 yards and had a nice chat with Marian Rogers. She plays jazz piano at the hotel Utah on Thursdays from 12 - 2 (3?) and the 1st and 3rd mondays as well. We had a nice talk about Duke Ellington, parking downtown and this and that little thing. I was doing laps indoors (all kids swim classes outside) when she got into my lane. I naturally told her we should split and she did her aerobic walk back and forth a few times while I did the backstroke and freestyle in 150 yard intervals back and forth. After I hit 1000 she and I began to talk. Her friend came over to encourage her to keep working out and she said she was having a conversation with this handsome man, and she meant it. It was quite flattering.

Maybe next week I'll have to check out her Thursday show...yet another excuse to wear a white shirt....gotta take em to the cleaners...mild starch and all that.

After my ride home, I took the boys to dive utah, stopped at their grandmother's who had gone to pick them up to do the same thing, and then took them to their friends house. I headed to work...fixed a program (I think), did this or that, and headed home.

At home, I processed more images. Sheesh what a tiring task.

At 7:00 I went and picked up the boys and brought them home, then since it was just past 8, headed out to see a few galleries on this months gallery stroll. Philips had some great work by various artists. I spoke with Francis Zimbeaux about an abstract painting he did (I had not seen anything like that by him before).

His painting looked very much like sky and clouds at sunset. He painted all at once, with no real layering of color and now I know how to do my skies to match his. I still want to get that sense of translucence but I certainly have a base to work from now.

I hit Left Bank Gallery and saw new photos by whitney king. One was very impressive. water ruffles or liquid ruffles or something. 250. too much. I don't like the large frame (where would I put it). but the picture was amazing. It was taken looking up a woman's skirt, while water runs down her leg, but it looks like you're underwater looking at the sky too. I have no idea how it was done...darkroom stuff probably, but it's a very provacative photograph.

I saw some tempting paintings their too, but I can't remember by whom...and there were a few Lenka Konapsek paintings at Philips Gallery...tasty. Cordell Taylor gallery was closed.

Then it was back home to get the kids off to bed, prep for the Blue Lake dive off too bed...until I noticed that 1900 house was on ch. 7 (kued) and I had to watch it.

DragonBall Z. What a great show. It's the only show I know of to get away with incredibly long pauses of nothing, which cause the suspense only to build. I watched 3 Frieza episodes this morning with Dorian and then 3 more tonight with Dorian and Elek. DragonBall Z and spending time with my kids dispells depressions right away. (that and having something to eat).

Gadfly remains an elusive database proposition. It's very frustrating. The more pictures I keep finding and giving serial numbers to, the more important a database becomes. Of course, there is always dbm...

Looking at hotels and places to go when in Seattle. I found somewhere to swim, medger evers pool. The two public outdoor pools are about 4-5 miles outside downtown seattle. oh wow. The links I used were different than the ones I found earlier...Seattle has pools and King county has pools. maybe I can still find one in the downtown area, closer than Medgar Evers Pool.

While in Seattle I think I should stay at the St. Regis Hotel. Or possibly here.

I wonder if I could rent a bike while in Seattle...I know one place I would like to take Jason...hmmm I wonder if he got the comics I sent to him and the pencil's for Analise...

Every day seems miserable. That is my only conclusion when I don't paint enough.

I saw "road to el dorado" with the boys today. it was pretty good. The mayan heiroglyphs were all wrong, they looked great though.

I tried getting gadfly to work on my mac and it generates an odd memory error. Not sure how to fix it yet. I'll try getting sockets to work and then maybe I'll just keep the database on linux and push the images back and forth between the two machines.

Working on processing more images. It's kinda neat to see so many pictures...not enough to satisfy me though.

Image processing takes time. Getting a decent picture of "Tenderness..." which I'm still not happy with, took a long time...waiting for clouds to part, multiple takes. Sometimes regular photos work better. I've loaded all the larger pieces I've done lately. You can see them by serial#. I got python to install correctly on lots of linux boxes thanks to the wisdom of Derick. (wooh wooh).

I found another database to try out, "gadfly". I'll see how it goes. It's a python database so it may work on mac and on linux. If it does I might be in heaven- web automation heaven. It's been really fun getting this setup. Some of my preconceptions on how to handle the images have fallen by the wayside, which is a good thing. Being wrong lets me find better ways to do stuff, even though it's a bitch sometimes. There is no replacement for learning the hard way.

I had fresh raspberries for breakfast. How yummy. I wanted them with grape-nuts, but Dorian ate all the grape-nuts. They were really good with cheerios though. While working on this website I've been listening to Yello's Stella, Duke Ellington/Charlie Mingus/Max Roache's Money Jungle, and John Coltrane Jazz Showcase.

Whew. I've been working on this site for too long. I'm very disappointed in what databases can and can't do. Python is cool, and I love using it, but I can't get anything to work with it database wise (and believe me I've tried). Zope might be the way to go down the road, but it's way to slow. So for now, I'm doing this the old fashioned way and I'll add functionality and maintainence scripts as I go along. Is macintosh/linux and database integration with python too much to ask?