Memorial Day memories
Stories are powerful things, and Jamie has reminded me of my father who passed away over 20 years ago. He was a navigator helping get transport planes over the hump in Asia (Burma, er, Myanmar to China and back) during World War II. He told me stories of playing Mah Jongg for money (he got [...]
May 24th, 2009 by alephnaught
Santa Monica
We love going to Santa Monica, so we put the dog in the car and drove out. We go down Topanga Canyon to the Pacific Coast Highway; you go right by the Getty Villa which is a copy of Hadrian’s Villa outside of Rome.
We walked around the Prominade, which is a three block pedestrian shopping [...]
May 24th, 2009 by alephnaught
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 gallery instead.
May 24th, 2009 by alephnaught
Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art
Title: Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art
Author: Stephen Nachmanovitch
Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: Tarcher (May 1, 1991)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0874776317
ISBN-13: 978-0874776317
This is a dense book for such a small volume. The subject is important to me – I used to improvise a lot in bands, and I think that comfort and practice allow me to improvise [...]
May 10th, 2009 by alephnaught
Saw “Star Trek” today
Aviva and I went ot the new Star Trek movie today. No spoilers here.
This is a movie to go see, especially if you watched the original series, Star Trek: Next Generation, and Enterprise. There are a number of wonderful connections made with these series, for example the inclusion of Captain Christopher Pike, who features prominently [...]
May 2nd, 2009 by alephnaught
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 became famous in the ’60s with his thick, realistic paintings of deserts on display. The retrospective began with his early drawings, some from high school, and then continued through recent work (Thiebaud is still an [...]
April 28th, 2009 by alephnaught
Grammarian
The grammarian function at Navigators Toastmasters has four major tasks:
Pick two words for the day,
Describe their function during the introduction,
Listen for incorrect grammar, and
Report on usage of the words of the day and any grammar issues during the meeting
I wanted to suggest a way to pick words of the day.
I went to dictionary.com and picked [...]
April 21st, 2009 by alephnaught
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 also been stopped numerous times when wearing this – everyone wants to know if that is a computer chip?
And they’re easy to make!
Go to Radio Shack or another electronic components shop – purchase one or more [...]
April 20th, 2009 by alephnaught
The fast, easy way to upgrade your Mac hardware
Aviva watched my laptop spin yet another beachball of doom and told me to get a new, more powerful laptop. I don’t have to be told twice!
So I made an appointment and bought new computers for Aviva and I. She got a 20″ iMac, I got a new MacBook Pro 15″.
When I finally had time [...]
April 18th, 2009 by alephnaught
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 studios/lofts in the complex, which used to be a brewery (of course).
The tee shirt I wore this day – “Beware of Perverts” (Chikan chuui), with “Dangerous Persons are in this [...]
English
May 25th, 2009 by alephnaught
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