Dan, the Graduate, Walking Last May
Happy Birthday, Dan!
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Tag Archives: California
My Mom the Art Collector
Our living room in Monterey circa 1956
Pop Art Lithograph
Street scene on the Isle of Capri, by Patricia Stanley Cunningham
My dad has offered to send us a couple of paintings that once hung in my parent’s house. Now they sit in storage and need a good home. One is a pop art lithographic print, title and artist unknown. He didn’t remember much about this picture, except that it was likely acquired in either Ann Arbor or Texas. The other painting is oil on masonite, “Street scene on the Isle of Capri”, by Patricia Stanley Cunningham. Mom got it in Carmel, about 1956. It is pictured above and also can be seen hanging above the fireplace in the photo of our first Monterey living room. That’s me on the couch next to her. Mom got the house in a nice spread in the Monterey newspaper. The title of the article was “Tract but not trite.” This picture was featured in the article. This sort of launched her career as an interior designer and collector of fine art.
Left Coast News
Mask In Progress
Finished Mask on Set
Mask Being Carved
New Dining Table – Another View
New Dining Table – Side View
New Dining Table – Top View
Dan sent us an update on his doings this week. The film that he was working on wrapped up about two weeks ago. In addition to set building he also carved a wooden African mask that played a larger symbolic role in the film then he at first realized, “no pressure”. Photos show it in various stages of the carving process and then finally finished on the set. The film was about a Japanese man who wanted to commit Hari-Kari and then asks an African immigrant man, who he has taken under his wing to help him. I’m guessing that the shot pictured is of the shrouded body of the Japanese man, with the African facemask on his chest.
Additionally, he had two job interviews for a position as a library assistant working for at a downtown art school. He hasn’t gotten it yet though, so keep your fingers crossed. The other big news is that he finished the most recent dining table and it came out well. See for yourself. Dan has also landed a couple of more commissions, one for a kitchen island and another for a pair of desks.
Down in the Valley
Looking Across the Yosemite Valley at Half Dome, From Above Columbia Rock
Down in the valley, the valley so low
Hang your head over, hear the wind blow
Hear the wind blow, dear, hear the wind blow;
Hang your head over, hear the wind blow.
It was particularly windy last night, but today was just one of those blah kind of days. Work was an obstacle course. Every time I managed to work myself around one obstacle another one would rear up and sit there implacably in my path. At four of four I gave up for the day.
There was some excitement earlier in the day, courtesy of the National Weather Service (NWS). A winter storm watch was issued for Thursday, what the Weather Channel calls “Q”. This winter the Weather Channel has come up with a sequence of cutely named winter storms, similar in concept to the NWS named tropical storms. Needless to say, the NWS is not amused. Q is a perfect example of the cuteness involved with these storm names. As any James Bond aficionado could tell you, Q, played by Dame Judi Dench is his boss. The cuteness comes in when the Weather Channel claims that they are not referring to a copyrighted character, but to the letter of the alphabet.
Our initial forecast for Q was for 12″ of snow. All my office co-workers were in a twitter anticipating the prospect of a snow day. Later the initial forecast was downgraded to only 6″ and then finally only sleet. What can you do with sleet? It makes for terrible sledding. It always reminds me of the artificial ‘snow’ that ‘Mount’ Brighton use to feature, at the end of my downhill skiing career, many years ago. At this rate, Q will dwindle to only rain and Saint Louis will find itself only being drenched by Dench.
To make matters worse, I realized today, I missed Karen’s birthday yesterday. Happy [belated] Birthday, Karen!
So today since I’m feeling a little down in the valley, let me reach back to last summer, to our Yosemite visit. On our last day in the park, we, Anne, Dan, Dave and I hiked up to a point between the upper and lower Yosemite falls. Trolling through my photo archives, I came upon this unpublished view across the valley floor to Half Dome. To go with this new picture, I’ll dredge up the following story of this hike.
I felt old and creaky the day after our hike up the mountain. My feet hurt from all of the rough terrain that we traveled. When we set off, the boys took off up the mountain. We only saw them again when we reached our summit. When I say our summit, I don’t mean the summit. We only made it as far as Columbia Rock and then the lower fall’s overlook, but that is all we had time for. The full trail runs three miles and climbs 2000 feet. We only did half that, but it was enough for me. Near our summit, a crew was working on the trail. I wise-cracked, “You’ve got one heck of a commute.” To which one of them responded, “Yeah, but when I go on vacation, I can spend forty hours in a cube.” My only reply was, “Touché!”
Bite Me!
The questionably safe table saw setup and out feed table he devised, 4 days and no injuries from it yet, knock-on-wood
Dan’s Potemkin Village
The Finished Doors
It’s the weekend! So, it is time for another fun Friday family news roundup. I’ll go first. In and around work today I attempted to re-title Dan’s car. It has been in LA so long that a Missouri registry is no longer tenable. Missouri’s Department of Revenue, what every other state calls the Department of Motor Vehicles, was its usual pointless purgatory. For one brief shining moment, I thought that I might skate free and clear of this process, but the doors all too quickly slammed shut and I was sent back to the beginning of this latest paper chase. Grrrr!
Speaking of Dan, he is working for the scenic designer on a movie. I neglected to ask him which movie and he hasn’t volunteered a title either, so maybe I don’t have a need to know? He did volunteer that it is a film that is mostly set in mid-century San Diego, with flashbacks to World War II, where the protagonist served in the Japanese army. Filming is in Orange County. Dan says that he is having fun doing this work, but he also finds it grueling. He works 12 and 14 hour days. So far he has made a pair of doors from scratch out of about the cheapest materials that exist. The film industry is apparently held together with contact paper, but next he’ll be carving an African mask.
There is not much to say about Dave. I texted him today, and asked for “proof of life” and got this brief response, “Still alive, just busy”. I guess that’s all I have to report.
Meanwhile, Anne has been feeling chilled, on the verge of feverishness and definitely has had a sore throat for a couple of days, so it goes to figure that she ended up working in plague central again, kindergarten. This morning, she was greeted by a chorus of sniffles and coughs and it only got worse from there. One child complained that she wasn’t feeling well. Anne sent her to the nurse. The nurse returned the child, saying that there was no sign of fever. A little while later the child threw up. The principal had to move Anne and her class to the library. On the playground, one child bit another, because she was crying and it hurt his ears. It was just that kind of day. Thank God it’s Friday!
Western Indian Paintbrush
Western Indian Paintbrush
They announced bonuses this week and mine was a good one. Of course, I have effectively already flushed the money down the toilet. I’ll use it to pay off last year’s sewer work. Even though the media seems to be hating on us and trying to make our dream look like a nightmare, none of that will be booked until next year. Live for today and let tomorrow take care of itself, that’s my motto.
The Dow, reached 14,000 today, for the first time in five years. This is a sign of recovering markets, if not the full economy. Last quarter’s GDP was down and last months unemployment was up, so it’s not all rosy news. Although, private sector hiring is up, government employment is down and as I mentioned, the markets are way up, critics still see President Obama as a socialist. He must be the worst example of a socialist ever. 😉
My house is underwater. Not the whole thing, just the basement. Our basement seems to have found a new way to get wet. We got a lot of rain this week. Our new sewer and gutters seems to have been circumvented by last year’s drought. Anne thinks that the dry weather has caused the soil to pull away from the foundation. I think that one of the supposedly uncloggable downspouts has clogged. The result is that now ground water is weeping up through all the cracks in the basement’s floor. At least it is now relatively clean water and no longer poo water. So, I don’t have to bleach the floor afterwards.
After Monday’s balmy 75 °F high, we’re back in the ice box again. This morning’s low was in single digits. It is enough to make one want to run away. Consequently, we started planning our Spring Break and now we are looking at New Mexico as our vacation destination. I was there, last year on business and this business trip to vacation trip model that we first pioneered several years ago in Florida looks like a repeat. When I was there on business last year, I mainly hung out in southwest New Mexico. This time we are looking at the north end of the state, Santa Fe and Taos. We are soliciting ideas on places to stay, places to eat and places to see. Please let us know your recommendations.