email comes in at 10:30pm from jesse ledoux, who has just relocated to tokyo.
ichat is a miraculous application. then we switch to skype.
talking to my friend on the other side of the world.
Saturday, October 6, 2007
late saturday
sitting here drawing, sweating, listening to meshuggah and giggling to myself about my drawing for the poster for my talk and demo at minot state u. in north dakota.
email comes in at 10:30pm from jesse ledoux, who has just relocated to tokyo.
ichat is a miraculous application. then we switch to skype.
talking to my friend on the other side of the world.
email comes in at 10:30pm from jesse ledoux, who has just relocated to tokyo.
ichat is a miraculous application. then we switch to skype.
talking to my friend on the other side of the world.
saturday, the rest of the day.
seth and i finished our walk, i drove to lovelace park, on the other side of town, to pick up two rain barrels from the half dozen the park district had there. i dropped them at my house, and went over to the evanston police dept for a 10am bike auction.
as if i need another bike.
mostly magna and taiwanese schwinn mountain bikes, though there was one old 'ranger' bike, circa maybe 1960, which was pretty cool and british.
the one bike which grabbed my interest was a large blue schwinn traveler, c. late '70s. i decided if i could get it for $40 or less, i'd take it and strip it into a path racer. thankfully, of the hundred and fifty bikes on the lot which were being auctioned in order, it was #5, so i didn't have to wait long to see it go to $90. thank you, ma'am, goodbye.
text messaged diana: "great news! didn't get anything at the bike auction!"
stopped at the hardware store and picked up primer to paint the bright blue and bright orange rain barrels. also got a wedge for splitting wood, which i should have bought last spring, but which i now have for next year. looks like this one, but in estwing blue:
home again, let seth out in the yard and primed the rain barrels in the garage. once those were drying, i wandered back over to the ecology center to properly visit the 'green living festival'. cool idea, would like to see a bigger event. everyone who was there was into it. 'the recyclery', where i built up my two fixed-gear bikes, was represented. had a weird "hey, you're the guy who makes posters" moment with some nice folks who run a chemical-free lawn care company. i may do some work for them after the new year.
home again, went across the street to liz & barry's house for miles' first birthday party. fun to be around all those kids and the two italian greyhounds. ate a hamburger. started to get too warm, so i went back and painted the side door of the house. the first coat of "anodized bronze" (aka dark grey brown) went on kind of poorly, but the two coats i put on tomorrow will look great.
fell asleep for 15 minutes on the futon, until jason, hilary and the twins showed up. we rode bikes over to the park about five blocks from here for TJ's 4th birthday party. two bikes: jason & hil rode the old schwinn 'twinn' tandem, and i rode the yellow schwinn speedster with the boys in the trailer.
my wife leaves town for the weekend, i go nuts: rental movies and kids' birthday parties. woo-hoo!
good fun at the park with all the neighborhood kids, pizza, cake, etc. i ate four slices of hot cheese, and then ran around carrying three- and four-year olds on my shoulders, quickly followed by soccer. then, surprisingly, i didn't feel too great.
five of us back on the two bikes after cake was consumed (not by me). i had arthur and clive help me feed seth and the cats. they headed out, and i walked the dog up to central street again to return the movies and get an iced chai. i thought of a couple directions to take on the drawings i'm going to try for tonight, for my upcoming visit to minot state university, in north dakota.
did i mention that it's fucking 88 goddam degrees?
as if i need another bike.
mostly magna and taiwanese schwinn mountain bikes, though there was one old 'ranger' bike, circa maybe 1960, which was pretty cool and british.
the one bike which grabbed my interest was a large blue schwinn traveler, c. late '70s. i decided if i could get it for $40 or less, i'd take it and strip it into a path racer. thankfully, of the hundred and fifty bikes on the lot which were being auctioned in order, it was #5, so i didn't have to wait long to see it go to $90. thank you, ma'am, goodbye.
text messaged diana: "great news! didn't get anything at the bike auction!"
stopped at the hardware store and picked up primer to paint the bright blue and bright orange rain barrels. also got a wedge for splitting wood, which i should have bought last spring, but which i now have for next year. looks like this one, but in estwing blue:
home again, let seth out in the yard and primed the rain barrels in the garage. once those were drying, i wandered back over to the ecology center to properly visit the 'green living festival'. cool idea, would like to see a bigger event. everyone who was there was into it. 'the recyclery', where i built up my two fixed-gear bikes, was represented. had a weird "hey, you're the guy who makes posters" moment with some nice folks who run a chemical-free lawn care company. i may do some work for them after the new year.
home again, went across the street to liz & barry's house for miles' first birthday party. fun to be around all those kids and the two italian greyhounds. ate a hamburger. started to get too warm, so i went back and painted the side door of the house. the first coat of "anodized bronze" (aka dark grey brown) went on kind of poorly, but the two coats i put on tomorrow will look great.
fell asleep for 15 minutes on the futon, until jason, hilary and the twins showed up. we rode bikes over to the park about five blocks from here for TJ's 4th birthday party. two bikes: jason & hil rode the old schwinn 'twinn' tandem, and i rode the yellow schwinn speedster with the boys in the trailer.
my wife leaves town for the weekend, i go nuts: rental movies and kids' birthday parties. woo-hoo!
good fun at the park with all the neighborhood kids, pizza, cake, etc. i ate four slices of hot cheese, and then ran around carrying three- and four-year olds on my shoulders, quickly followed by soccer. then, surprisingly, i didn't feel too great.
five of us back on the two bikes after cake was consumed (not by me). i had arthur and clive help me feed seth and the cats. they headed out, and i walked the dog up to central street again to return the movies and get an iced chai. i thought of a couple directions to take on the drawings i'm going to try for tonight, for my upcoming visit to minot state university, in north dakota.
did i mention that it's fucking 88 goddam degrees?
saturday morning
it's october in chicago. this means it *could* snow, or it *could* be 88 degrees out.
today it will be 88. no snow forecast at this time.
seth and i went walking down to the park along the channel, just north of us, then wandered past the ecology center, which is having their big 'event' today. i bought two rainbarrels. going to pick them up from lovelace park.
today it will be 88. no snow forecast at this time.
seth and i went walking down to the park along the channel, just north of us, then wandered past the ecology center, which is having their big 'event' today. i bought two rainbarrels. going to pick them up from lovelace park.
friday night
i cut films a bit more and got the first two layers finished.
seth and i walked up to central street to get a gelato and rent some movies. i got mint chocolate chip gelato, and pan's labyrinth & hot fuzz.
coming home, we saw barry & liz and the kids in their front yard, had a brief visit.
capitalizing on my wild bachelor weekend, i made a frozen pizza and watched the movies. right as hot fuzz (which i watched first) was ending, barry came by and asked me to help him move a couple pieces of furniture. got to see their house, and hung out with their italian greyhounds for a while on the kitchen floor. mario and pizzicato. mario eventually took to me, though he wasn't too happy at first.
went to bed late - 1am.
seth and i walked up to central street to get a gelato and rent some movies. i got mint chocolate chip gelato, and pan's labyrinth & hot fuzz.
coming home, we saw barry & liz and the kids in their front yard, had a brief visit.
capitalizing on my wild bachelor weekend, i made a frozen pizza and watched the movies. right as hot fuzz (which i watched first) was ending, barry came by and asked me to help him move a couple pieces of furniture. got to see their house, and hung out with their italian greyhounds for a while on the kitchen floor. mario and pizzicato. mario eventually took to me, though he wasn't too happy at first.
went to bed late - 1am.
Friday, October 5, 2007
friday 1pm
woot.
got a call back from the plumbing inspector, and now know what i need to get the permits through.
got a call telling me that a huge project i did for a hotel went through and was greenlighted by everyone up to the CEO of the hotel chain. this is very very good news. more info on that as it actually happens.
got a call back from the plumbing inspector, and now know what i need to get the permits through.
got a call telling me that a huge project i did for a hotel went through and was greenlighted by everyone up to the CEO of the hotel chain. this is very very good news. more info on that as it actually happens.
friday noon
have received various sympathetic emails from the dozen friends i've shown this blog to. thanks.
just got a call from the village of skokie re: my plumbing plans i submitted last week (see last friday's post). something is apparently missing, but they can't tell me what. or rather, i can't get in touch with the plumbing inspector who actually has issues with the plans as they exist now.
have called the plumber, who is busy on another job for a couple more weeks. will try to schedule time with him to re-draw the plans again.
just got a call from the village of skokie re: my plumbing plans i submitted last week (see last friday's post). something is apparently missing, but they can't tell me what. or rather, i can't get in touch with the plumbing inspector who actually has issues with the plans as they exist now.
have called the plumber, who is busy on another job for a couple more weeks. will try to schedule time with him to re-draw the plans again.
friday morning.
dogwalk, coffee. came home and picked a bunch of old broken glass out of the back of the garden. found an unfired .38 bullet.
diana's getting ready for a weekend camping trip with her girlfriends.
last night i read chris ware's intro to the 'best american comics 2007' compendium, which was edited by my friend anne elizabeth moore. read the first handful of stories, including crumb, spiegelman, brunetti, and some folks who's names i dont recall. looking forward to plowing through the rest of this book.
back to today: finally getting somewhere on the nada surf prints.
i'm showing this blog to jason, mat, andrew, dan, geoff, kevin, and grant. hi guys.
oop, also invited kleinsmith, hastie, and ralf. hello.
diana's getting ready for a weekend camping trip with her girlfriends.
last night i read chris ware's intro to the 'best american comics 2007' compendium, which was edited by my friend anne elizabeth moore. read the first handful of stories, including crumb, spiegelman, brunetti, and some folks who's names i dont recall. looking forward to plowing through the rest of this book.
back to today: finally getting somewhere on the nada surf prints.
i'm showing this blog to jason, mat, andrew, dan, geoff, kevin, and grant. hi guys.
oop, also invited kleinsmith, hastie, and ralf. hello.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
later
this afternoon i visited the client for the cyclocross poster to make sure they were on board with the drawing, and it went well. spent a bunch of time working with jason on some changes to the current website, preparing files for a much-needed update.
also spent some time connecting the dots relating to some asswipes who have been selling bootlegs of my prints on ebay.
i told michael from aesthetic apparatus about this blog. now i have told two people.
i think i should start keeping track of the times i get asked to design wedding invitations or birth announcements, both of which i will not do anymore. today i was asked to do one birth announcement and two wedding invitations.
i worked more on splicing and cleaning up the keyplates for both the cyclocross and nada surf prints, then moved on to the drawing for the new metropolis coffee poster. got it most of the way to 'good'.
tony, owner of metropolis coffee, stopped by...
... to see what i was working on, and made a suggestion about the paper which i think will bring the poster up to the level of the coffee shop the poster is for.
tony took me out to an amazing store in skokie called cigar king.
came back, and di wanted to watch 'the office', which led me to sit through half of '30 rock', and half of 'ER', two shows i have never seen before. 30 rock was funny.
put in a rather large order with french paper, for the next several jobs. about 4000 sheets. oof.
finally figured out how to make my cam *not* reverse the pictures it takes, so it doesn't look like i wear my wedding ring on my right hand, as michael apparatus pointed out.
now i'm settling in to finish cleaning up the nada surf film, and hope to start cutting rubylith.
also spent some time connecting the dots relating to some asswipes who have been selling bootlegs of my prints on ebay.
i told michael from aesthetic apparatus about this blog. now i have told two people.
i think i should start keeping track of the times i get asked to design wedding invitations or birth announcements, both of which i will not do anymore. today i was asked to do one birth announcement and two wedding invitations.
i worked more on splicing and cleaning up the keyplates for both the cyclocross and nada surf prints, then moved on to the drawing for the new metropolis coffee poster. got it most of the way to 'good'.
tony, owner of metropolis coffee, stopped by...
... to see what i was working on, and made a suggestion about the paper which i think will bring the poster up to the level of the coffee shop the poster is for.
tony took me out to an amazing store in skokie called cigar king.
came back, and di wanted to watch 'the office', which led me to sit through half of '30 rock', and half of 'ER', two shows i have never seen before. 30 rock was funny.
put in a rather large order with french paper, for the next several jobs. about 4000 sheets. oof.
finally figured out how to make my cam *not* reverse the pictures it takes, so it doesn't look like i wear my wedding ring on my right hand, as michael apparatus pointed out.
now i'm settling in to finish cleaning up the nada surf film, and hope to start cutting rubylith.
thursday
last night there was an unusual amount of tire-squealing and police-chasing, so i spent some time out on the front steps watching the street. ended up talking to barry from across the street for a good while. glad that he and liz and the kids are here.
this morning, di and seth and i went for our walk up to central street. yesterday marked (for me) the move to fall - i stopped getting an iced mocha, and now get a hot mocha. with soy.
saw most of seth's dog buddies, except alex, the borzoi.
now at home, i've started splicing together the films for the nada surf key plate, and will cut rubylith in a while. i hope to get to screwball press tomorrow to start printing these.
this morning, di and seth and i went for our walk up to central street. yesterday marked (for me) the move to fall - i stopped getting an iced mocha, and now get a hot mocha. with soy.
saw most of seth's dog buddies, except alex, the borzoi.
now at home, i've started splicing together the films for the nada surf key plate, and will cut rubylith in a while. i hope to get to screwball press tomorrow to start printing these.
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
sneak attack
got frustrated with the metropolis coffee drawing (again), so i jumped to my *next* project, and got the drawing done really quickly.
the illinois state cyclocross championships, in chicago, in december...
di came home, and we walked over to kinkos to make keyplate films for this cyclocross print and the nada surf. di explained what had gone wrong with the scanner.
we went to linz & vail and got gelato. pumkin pie flavor.
feels like midnight. ready for bed.
the illinois state cyclocross championships, in chicago, in december...
di came home, and we walked over to kinkos to make keyplate films for this cyclocross print and the nada surf. di explained what had gone wrong with the scanner.
we went to linz & vail and got gelato. pumkin pie flavor.
feels like midnight. ready for bed.
wednesday
got up around 6:30 for an early morning photo shoot for a magazine. diana, seth and i went to the arboretum near our house. it was a bit colder than expected.
10am at the bird machine - today we got a fence installed across the back lot of the building, so we can keep the big overhead door open during the day, and seth won't wander off. i puttered around, hoping the building permit would arrive. tore up some more floor tiles, tore down some ceiling tiles, moved some stuff around, filled the dumpster with tiles i pulled up last week.
the dudes finished the fence at 2pm, and i came home to draw.
working on a new metropolis coffee print.
10am at the bird machine - today we got a fence installed across the back lot of the building, so we can keep the big overhead door open during the day, and seth won't wander off. i puttered around, hoping the building permit would arrive. tore up some more floor tiles, tore down some ceiling tiles, moved some stuff around, filled the dumpster with tiles i pulled up last week.
the dudes finished the fence at 2pm, and i came home to draw.
working on a new metropolis coffee print.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
'house of leaves'
monday was very unusual.
as i mentioned on sunday, i bought 'house of leaves', a novel recommended to me on saturday night.
sunday i sat down to read it. i went to bed at some point, got up monday, walked the dog to the coffee shop, cleaned the house a bit, did some laundry, and went back to reading. finished the book by 10pm monday night.
528 pages, plus some of the appendices. 24 hours.
diana baked an apple pie using apples from her parents' trees.
today, tuesday, will be more productive.
as i mentioned on sunday, i bought 'house of leaves', a novel recommended to me on saturday night.
sunday i sat down to read it. i went to bed at some point, got up monday, walked the dog to the coffee shop, cleaned the house a bit, did some laundry, and went back to reading. finished the book by 10pm monday night.
528 pages, plus some of the appendices. 24 hours.
diana baked an apple pie using apples from her parents' trees.
today, tuesday, will be more productive.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
sunday
yesterday diana and i went to the evanston farmers' market on our bikes, spent what little cash we had, then came home.
i went out to my folks' house to help my dad remove the trunk of an oak tree which had fallen into the neighbors' yard during the major storms a month or two ago, while di stayed home to draw. i swung an axe all afternoon, and brought home a civic full of freshy split oak to stack in the near-full garage. the wood stove will be well-fed this year. i split this stuff small enough that hopefully it will be somewhat dry by late winter.
later, i went to an extremely pleasant small dinner at john and jennifer kenzie's house. fiona, their three-year-old, is beautiful and hilarious.
today, i walked seth to the coffee shop while di went to the gym, then met up with jason, hilary and the twins in our yard for trade-offing some masonry tools, dianogah money, a tiny bike, and some prints.
di, seth and i ran out to the western suburbs to see her folks, then stopped to see my grandmother, since we missed her 98th birthday last weekend (while dianogah was in iowa city).
picked up 'house of leaves', by mark danielewski, which was recommended to me last night at the kenzie's house.
uneventful non-working weekend.
i went out to my folks' house to help my dad remove the trunk of an oak tree which had fallen into the neighbors' yard during the major storms a month or two ago, while di stayed home to draw. i swung an axe all afternoon, and brought home a civic full of freshy split oak to stack in the near-full garage. the wood stove will be well-fed this year. i split this stuff small enough that hopefully it will be somewhat dry by late winter.
later, i went to an extremely pleasant small dinner at john and jennifer kenzie's house. fiona, their three-year-old, is beautiful and hilarious.
today, i walked seth to the coffee shop while di went to the gym, then met up with jason, hilary and the twins in our yard for trade-offing some masonry tools, dianogah money, a tiny bike, and some prints.
di, seth and i ran out to the western suburbs to see her folks, then stopped to see my grandmother, since we missed her 98th birthday last weekend (while dianogah was in iowa city).
picked up 'house of leaves', by mark danielewski, which was recommended to me last night at the kenzie's house.
uneventful non-working weekend.
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