fowl air

New Scientist Tech reported in February of '06 that a new media artist and her students were designing a small electronic device to act as a homemade cell phone which pigeons could wear on their backs. These cell phones would send information on air quality to a blog via text messaging each time the pigeons fly. The information and photos captured by a tiny camera would be on displayed for all to see. Beatriz da Costa of the University of California is one of a number of artists who are combining art and science.

everyone does it...once

This morning my sleepy 8 year old daughter came out of her room rubbing her eyes. I was excited to see her as I had been away the previous night, but my happiness turned to shock when I saw her bangs. It appeared she had taken the scissors to them last night after her bath. The Dad guy, hadn't really noticed the night before and just put her to bed. Well, I stated in a shocked voice: "what did you do to your hair?" She replied, "nothing", and began to cry and clutch her tummy. After a sympathetic discussion about how most kids try to cut their hair at least once, I tried to fix her creative cut. She now has quite the set of micro-bangs. At the end of it all, one questions still remains in my mind. How could the Dad guy have missed seeing that?

sketches

sketches by me for a tryptic I'm working on. Emotional packages, tied up, bound, one cannot penetrate, to see what is inside.

So,

I have been trying to post a set of drawings that I have documented, but, alas this fancy new blogger will not let me. I will go to flickr and try from there.

a late migration

Most others have flow south long ago, but not this bird who has only just arrived at the new blogger, feathers intact. Looking forward to tinkering with this blog, especially to using categories to file my posts. Oh it feels like a shiny, new toy...

bad hair

Remember when your mom had to cut a big wad of gum outta your hair? Let me take you back to those days with my $47.00 hair hack. I have not received such a bad cut for a very long time, but this one is quite nasty. After being miserable for several days, I had to accept that the ONLY thing I can do to improve this is 'wait'. (Or buy a couple of nice hats) And you thought watching the grass grow took a long time ... no way!

cold day

need I say more?

seek and find

Hey, I discovered a wonderful tool for locating Canadian artists. It resides on the Art Dealers Association of Canada website. Go ahead, look up that friend you went to art school with, maybe they are famous by now, Check out that girl who could draw in high school. If there is a registered Gallery in Canada representing her, it will show up in your search.

a glimse of holiday past

Monday is the beginning of a new semester at work. My kids start a new semester at school. "Its a new start.", says my son who was plagued by unfinished assignments only a few short weeks ago. The celebrations are over, we have returned to our home and now we hold our breath and wait... No need to make resolutions, the year will bring changes of its own. My resolution, if I had one, would be to react calming and adapt to whatever comes my way. Live one moment at a time, enjoy and be thankful.

season of consciousness...

I try to stay conscious during school plays, get-togethers, company dinners, but it is difficult when running on less than optimum sleep. Why does so much fun have to be packed into 2 weeks out of an entire 52? It' no wonder people feel bored in January! Should I plug more caffine into my body? Preferably in the form of dressed-up lattes and coffee-spiked eggnogs.

I wish you the ability to stay conscious during any fun event you attend this holiday season! Drinking caffine and driving may not be against any law, but too much caffine may be a reason to hand over the keys. Just ask me!

rippin' mad

I can't express my frustration at this moment. My home email address has been compromised by spammers! I 'never' had that happen when I accessed my mail from a mac! Of all the moronic pastimes! Spam is such a scourge! Don't people have anything better to do? sheesh!

have a seat.

have a seat.

brrrrr.....

It is very cold here today. Our family spent a couple of hours outside working on cutting, splitting and hauling the wood that fuels our heating system. The temperature is predicted to drop to lows in the -30's c., and we want to be ready. Our wood furnace is very old and dearly needs replacing, but that must wait for another year. In the meantime, someone will have to get up around 3-4:00 am to put wood in the stove so we can be warm each morning.

culprit

This tree is the reason I was unable to post for 4 days previous. 8000 residents were out of power for 3 days in the Prince George area due to a wind storm. Our home was out of power and telephone. We have a small generator which ran several lights (and the fish tank). Our wood heater kept us warm and we cooked outside on the propane campstove. The romance of the situation wore off after about 24 hours and the family was so greatful to have power restored on Tuesday.

an exersise in creative...sleeping?

This blurp is an excerpt from a Fast Company article on Brain Calisthenics. If you try it, let me know how it worked for you.

Exersise: Capturing unexpressed potential
Source: Robert Epstein, West Cost editor, Psychology today; visiting scholar, University of California San Diego

Place a pad and pen by your sofa. Relax on the couch, holding a spoon over a plate placed on the floor. As you begin to get drowsy, the spoon will drop to the floor, hitting the plate, waking you up, Grab the pad and sketch out whatever you were seeing during that drowsy state. The goal is to focus attention and preserve the unusual ideas. Epstein says Salvador Dali got ideas this way, and Thomas Edison had a similar approach.

Writer of the article, David Lidsky reports:
"How it worked for me: Incomplete. I slumped off the couch like one of Dali's clocks in The Persistence of Memory, the spoon ended up in the sofa cushions, and it took me three hours to wake up from my nap."