More Non-8-bit Plumbing

Today the plumbers came early and were finished by the time I got home from working at the train station. They were able to replace the pipe with minimal damage to the yard. The leak was right under the sidewalk, so they barely dug into our yard at all, but they did have to dig by the house so it was a good thing we moved the bushes yesterday. So now all we have to do is replace the missing part of the sidewalk.

Why Can't Plumbing Be Like Super Mario?

Today I helped my dad dig up two bushes from our front yard. We packed the root balls in blankets and carted them to the backyard along with several wheelbarrow-fulls of topsoil. Why? There is a leak somewhere between the house and the curb. There is no way of telling where it is from the surface, so the plumber is coming tomorrow to dig up the front yard until he finds it. Well we got the bushes out of harm's way. How bad can this be? Check in tomorrow to find out.

Family Friday: Field Day

Shawn running the cup-stacking relay

 

Shawn had a field day event at school yesterday, and Derrick and I were able to come watch. There were a bunch of relay races, a tug-of-war, and a bucket brigade. It was a lot of fun to watch Shawn in the games with his fellow classmates. He seemed very excited to see us there - pointing us out to all his classmates. Moral of the story:  Never pass up an opportunity to see your kid at an event.

Me at field day. Shawn is in the background with his water bottle and pretzel stick.

Repenning Fine Arts 22nd Annual Student Show

Yesterday my family and I went to the Repenning Fine Arts Student show in Audubon, NJ. My mom and I each had a painting in the show. I don't remember how long my mom has been taking lessons there, but I have been going there since I was eight years old. As usual, the show was like a big party. Lots of great food, talented live musicians, and swarms of people. Even as crowded as it was, it was a lot of fun to go and see all of the artwork - from a child's first acrylic to the oil of a commissioned artist. Best of all...free admission! Check out Repenning Fine Arts on Facebook.

Local Music Review: Chris Westfall

In addition to showing art that I pick up from local artists, I'd like to start showcasing local musicians. I'm starting with the Chris Westfall concert I worked at last night.

Me with Chris Westfall after the concert. See his website at www.chriswestfall.com

Chris Westfall is a folk singer and musician local to South Jersey. He has performed as far north as upstate New York, as far south as North Carolina, and while he only typically goes as far west as Colorado, he has performed in California (wish it had been while I was there). He even goes to Nashville to record his albums, which I know from my own traveling experience is a grueling trip from New Jersey.

Chris plays six- and twelve-string guitars as well as the piano. When you listen to him, you can tell his original compositions are inspired from some unfathomable musical source. My favorite of these is "Gandhi, Buddha" which ranks right up there with John Denver's "Annie's Song" for exactly how you should feel about someone you are in a healthy loving relationship with. I also love "Down This Road" because it's so realistic and self-aware, and "We'll Be There By Morning" because it's so hopeful and uplifting. He also covers classic tunes from other artists. My favorite's of these are John Denver's "Eagles and Horses" and "Calypso" because they make me feel like I'm flying, and Van Morrison's "Brown-Eyed Girl" because it makes me feel like dancing and because I am a brown-eyed girl myself.

Chris is really an experience to see in concert. He has so much passion for what he does, he sometimes stomps his foot on the stage in rhythm to what he is singing and playing. He is inside the music at these times, soaring with it like an eagle, and you are right there along with him.

Last night, only about 40 people showed up at the concert, but you would have thought it was twice that number by the sheer volume of applause. I know because I could hear it out in the lobby where I was selling tickets. (I clapped too, but I don't think anyone could hear me.)

A little before the intermission, I was able to move my ticket table close enough to the room to hear the rest of the concert. The first song I heard when I got there was "North to Alaska," a song Chris was inspired to write during an Alaskan cruise. He did a cover of James Taylor's "Fire and Rain" that I think was better than the original. It's amazing how much a slight decrease in tempo and a single guitar accompaniment can improve an already great song. In between songs, Chris tells interesting and often amusing stories, sometimes about his music career and the songwriting process, sometimes about his daily life. All of them are worth hearing. After the intermission, he played his catchiest original, "Heading to the Mountains," along with some covers, including John Denver's "Country Roads" which had everyone singing along. He also sang a touching original composition, "I'm Coming Home," for National Armed Forces Day, and "Running River," a song written for him by one of his musical friends. I personally think "Running River" must be his favorite song. All the times that I have seen Chris Westfall in concert, he has consistently put more of himself into this one song, every single time, than he has for any other song I have ever seen him perform. He just rises to a whole other level of awesomeness.

I fell asleep at a Livingston Taylor Concert once. His voice was so soothing and his musical style so comforting that I felt perfectly safe, as though I was wrapped up in a blanket. That is how I felt at Chris Westfall's concert last night, except I didn't fall asleep. I attribute this to Chris' ability to offset his soothing, melodious songs with peppy tunes that have you dancing in your seat or singing along - or both!

If given the chance to go to a Chris Westfall concert, you absolutely should not pass it up. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll sing - even if you don't think you can.

For more information, music samples, and concert dates, visit Chris on his website.

And Bringing Up The Rear...

Phew! Just got the last few stragglers of Decepticons up on Flickr. These include my very favorite Soundwave with his minions (see above) and all the group shots.

Are you intimidated? I'm intimidated.

Family Friday: The Four Agreements and "Domestication"

I interrupt your regular waves of the Decepticon invasion to bring you Family Friday. I want to do a weekly series of family-related posts. Although I do not have any biological children of my own, I have plenty of exposure to an 8-year-old, Shawn. I have watched him grow from toddler-hood and I played a large part in his early development. So these posts will mostly concern my experiences and my thoughts about these experiences. On occasion, I will also spend time talking about children's media, since kids absorb so much from the media they are surrounded by, especially movies, television, and video games. But today, I'm posting a bit of parenting theory that occurred to me while I was reading The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz.

A quick summary for those who have not read this book. Ruiz explains how the belief systems and social norms that govern our lives are made up of agreements that we have made with ourselves, with other people we know, and with society at large. Some of these agreements are positive in nature, while others are harmful to ourselves and others. Ruiz seeks to show us how to have less suffering in our lives by emphasizing the positive agreements and breaking harmful agreements until only the positive agreements remain. Of course, when you break all those negative agreements the will leave a void that you need to fill up to keep the negative agreements from coming back. Ruiz gives us four very powerful agreements to keep our harmful agreements at bay. They are:

• Be impeccable with your word
• Don't take anything personally
• Don't make assumptions
• Always do your best

What I like best about this book is how easy it is to understand and implement the concepts and strategies in the book. Ruiz uses plain language and clear examples. Best of all, four agreements are easy to remember and keep in your mind. If you read the book over and over again, it will act as positive reinforcement that will make it easier to honor the four agreements. It doesn't even get boring, as with each read-through you will notice new points that you missed before, and that can help too. That's a lot of bang for your buck since the book is short and relatively inexpensive (MSRP $12.00) as a result.

My only issue with this book is a parenting concern. Not surprisingly, we learn how to make agreements from our parents. We even learn many of our first agreements from them. Ruiz calls this process "domestication." He gives the impression that this domestication  process is harmful to the child and causes suffering later in the child's life. Adopting the four agreements is supposed to reverse this domestication and return us to our natural state. This sounds great, but those of us who want to avoid inflicting the past generations possible mistakes on the future generation are faced with a problem:  If the "domestication" method of raising children is wrong, what should we do instead? Most of us were raised by a system of punishment and reward - "domesticated" much like a puppy. I can buy into the idea that this method is harmful but I don't know any other way, and this is the one piece of vital information that is missing from Ruiz's book.

I don't have the answer, so I put the question to the collective consciousness of the Internet. Any thoughts or ideas of how to successfully bring up children without a system of punishment and reward? Please comment. For the children you have, the children you one day want to have, or the children you never want to have yourself but at least want to be healthy and pleasant enough for you to share the world with.

Decepticon Invasion Third Wave

The third wave of  Decepticons is up on Flickr! We have even started breaking them down into sets to make viewing a little easier for everyone. This wave particularly showcased the combiner sets.

And Unicron, of course.

Oh, yeah. We went there.

Decepticon Invasion Second Wave

The second wave of Decepticons is up on Flickr! Here we have all those Barricades and Megatrons. Yikes!

Find them all here.

Decepticon Invasion First Wave

Finally, the invasion begins! Got the first wave of Decepticons up on Flickr, and may I just say that there are way too many Starscreams. View them here. Two more waves will follow so get ready!

New Sketches

On May 4th, I participated in a Dr. Sketchy's event. I use the sketches I make during these events as bases for watercolors that I frame and sell. I go over my sketches with permanent marker, erase my pencil lines, and then paint them with watercolors. This time it occurred to me that before I do that, I should preserve the sketches in their original form. So I scanned them into my computer and uploaded them to my Flickr. You can see them here.

Today Is A Good Day To Talk About Decepticons

I cannot be called a Transformers geek. I have enjoyed the new movies, the old movie, and a few of the G1 episodes, but I don't have vast amounts of knowledge on the canon of the show. So my understanding of what makes Decepticons Decepticons is that Autobots were the default mode of mechanical alien beings and then a group of evil-minded mechanical alien beings broke away from the Autobots and became the Decepticons because their unifying purpose is to be anti-Autobot. I could be wrong. Please don't hurt me.

Decepticins have these characteristics:

1. They enjoy destruction/don't care about the consequences of their actions, and
2. They have cooler vehicle (and often even robot) modes than the Autobots

I am not making this up. Soundwave - way cooler than Blaster. Devastator - way cooler than Ultra-Magnus. Even Starscream - much as I hate to admit this considering what an annoying character he is - is cooler than Blurr. And Unicron just beats all.

This said, there are a few pics up on Flicker of Decepticon vehicle modes. Check them out here.

Decepticons, Assemble!

Stayed up so late last night trying to get Decepticon photos done that I passed out before I could post. In the middle of photographing everyone in vehicle mode, Derrick and I decided that when we take the robot mode photos we should splice them together with the vehicle mode photos. This means we can't post onto Flickr until we take some robot mode pictures, which requires Derrick transforming them into robot mode. In the meantime, I have gotten up early and fought to get on the Internet so that I can bring you this, the first Decepticon group portrait. Enjoy!

Transform and Roll Out!

My friend, Derrick, has enough Transformers toys to fill not one, but two china cabinets. For some time, he has wanted to make a photo record of all of them for cataloging purposes. Now he has a week off from work and we have created a stage to photograph the Transformers on. This is THE PROJECT. I will keep a running record of our progress here. You will be able to see the uploaded photos daily, starting tomorrow, on Derrick's flickr page at www.flicker.com/combatantbeast.

May The Forth Be With You

This post is late. Very late. Because when you find out there is a National Star Wars Day it takes a little while to recover. On Friday, Underground - my favorite store in Smithville - had a Dr. Sketchy's event. There were two models and lightsabers and a Darth Vader helmet, and it was awesome. Someone even made stickers of the event and gave them out. We spent several hours sketching the models and listening to a mix of songs about  Star Wars. There were the obligatory Weird Al ones, but also many I had never heard before like "Star Wars Cantina" which is sung to the tune of "Coca Cabana." Check out what Dr. Sketchy is all about at www.drsketchy.com. Afterwards, I slept a lot, got absorbed int reading a lot, and did prep work for THE PROJECT. More on that later.

And Going And Going...

Still working on that project pile. I didn't know some of these pieces were projects until I found them while cleaning out my closet. Now I'm pairing failed projects together to make new pieces. It's a fun, if impromptu, exercise. Also, the art piece that I won in a silent auction is finally hung up. An artist in Stonington, CT ran a workshop on Tunisian Collaborative Painting, and this piece is one of the products of that workshop.

It Just Keeps Going And Going And Going.....

Today I worked on the project pile that I had created while cleaning my studio/bedroom. I finished several projects, but I still have a long way to go. Hopefully there will be time left to continue working on it when I get home from garden work tomorrow.