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A bunch of pictures taken on my Blackberry phone

Just a bunch of pictures I took with my Blackberry over the last month or so; no one category deserved a separate post, so here’s a ga...

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A bunch of pictures taken on my Blackberry phone
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Visit to Palm Springs, Wayne Thiebaud retrospective

We visited the Palm Springs Art Museum to see the retrospective of Wayne Thiebaud titled “70 Years of Painting.”  Thiebaud bec...

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Visit to Palm Springs, Wayne Thiebaud retrospective
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Make your very own IC earring

My geekiest fashion accessory is my IC earring; I’ve made several because friends have asked (sometimes demanded!) them.  I’ve...

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Make your very own IC earring
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The Brewery Art Walk

Aviva and I decided to go to the artist community called the Brewery in south Los Angeles.  There are at least 100 galleries and artist stu...

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The Brewery Art Walk
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Some pictures from Little Tokyo

On Valentines Day Aviva arranged for his and hers shiatsu massages.  So we drove down to Little Tokyo separately (Aviva was volunteering at...

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Some pictures from Little Tokyo
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Scrum Master training

I am now a Certified Scrum Master after attending two days of training down in Costa Mesa.  The class was given by Michael James from Danub...

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Scrum Master training
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Paper model of Chartres Cathedral - IT’S DONE!

I bought a model to assemble of the famous Chartres Cathedral in the Cathedral gift shop, and this entry will track how I put it together. T...

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Paper model of Chartres Cathedral - IT’S DONE!
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June 28th, 2009 by alephnaught

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24 Declassified: Head Shot

Title: 24 Declassified: Head Shot
Author: David Jacobs
Mass Market Paperback: 384 pages
Publisher: Harper; Mti edition (April 28, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 006177152X
ISBN-13: 978-0061771521

I try to read the 24 novels when they come out - call it a dirty pleasure, but I grew up reading pulp novels from people like Earl Stanley Gardner, Ian Fleming, and Edgar Rice Burroughs; [...]

June 27th, 2009 by alephnaught

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Sawtelle, Glasses, and a Woody Allen movie, “Whatever Works”

Aviva went to a lecture on acrylic techniques at an art supply store in Culver City; while she was there I went to my favorite news stand at Robertson and Pico, then to Sawtelle, which is the second and smaller Japanese area. I bought a few toys.

Card with picture of Buddha figure I purchased

A [...]

June 24th, 2009 by alephnaught

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Et tu, Brute

This is a poem I wrote a very long time ago:
Thin shadows engulf the man,
They would wound the land.
As metal and human merge into sculpture
The birds fly south to dawn.
As one the glints light the shadows
And Juno cries a bloody tear.
The light scatters into a funeral pyre,
Eulogies shredding the country road.
A pair of bent candles [...]

June 21st, 2009 by alephnaught

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A quick, incomplete guide to social networking tools for business

Social networking is hot.  Businesses see value in improving how team members work together: “Internal social networking platforms more valuable to organizations” .  There are a number of possible approaches; the best choice depends on what problems you want to address first, the size of the business, and the availability of internal Information Technology staff [...]

Dinner at Genghis Cohen in Hollywood

June 20th, 2009 by alephnaught

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Dinner at Genghis Cohen in Hollywood

We went shopping most of the day, including ordering a new frame for me to check out from Retrospecs, which is our favorite optician now.
We walked over to the Pacific Design Center, which is closed on the weekend, and then to the MOCA gallery.

We couldn’t decide where to go for dinner when we remembered Genghis [...]

June 19th, 2009 by alephnaught

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Dinner at Villa Piacere

We had dinner at Villa Piacere, a restaurant on Ventura Blvd. in Woodland Hills.  The service and food were quite good; we parked in their spare lot across the street which is daytime parking for a bank - the bank locked the gates on the lot but the restaurant sent people over to unlock them [...]

June 16th, 2009 by alephnaught

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Marks and Meaning (M+M) 0.5

•    Title: Marks and Meaning 0.5
•    Author: Dave Grey and friends
•    Paperback: 382 pages
•    Size: 6″ x 9″
This book is available as a PDF file because its not done.  This book may never be done.  The book contains a mix of typeset material, hand-written and drawn material, and open areas to make notes and try [...]

June 14th, 2009 by alephnaught

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Séraphine

We saw the movie Séraphine today.  The movie is about Séraphine de Senlis, a famous French “modern primitive” painter; you can read more about her here.  The film is dark, mirroring her internal landscape; there is very little dialog, again mirroring her psychological state.  She works as a cleaning woman and paints because God and [...]

Burbank, Ikea, duct tape wallets and cardboard creatures too

June 13th, 2009 by alephnaught

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Burbank, Ikea, duct tape wallets and cardboard creatures too

We decided to run errands today, especially a trip to the Ikea store in Burbank, CA.
First off, I’ve switched wallets - the leather one I bought in Italy is starting to wear out, so when I ordered some stuff from ThinkGeek, I figured I’d try a duct tape wallet.  it works!  It snaps shut which [...]

Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)

June 7th, 2009 by alephnaught

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Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)

Aviva and I wanted to see the current show “Pompeii and the Roman Villa: Art and Culture Around the Bay of Naples” so we dropped Basil at his sitter’s house and drove to the museum.

A car with the license plate HEATHER - made me think
of the movie “Heathers”

On the way into the museum we saw [...]