:)

People in the snow

 

Solar power

The power loss during the ice storm forced me to use my solar charger.

Quaint church in Holden, MA

I love the alternating colored stones.

Video card busted

The power outage from the ice storm busted my video drive and my computer required no less than 10 reboots to get back to normal.

WTAG

Soccer Field in Holden, MA

I dropped Alyssa and Max off at Sarah Mcrell's house for a cookie party. I had a couple of hours to kill, so I drove around Holden a bit. I was listening to Elliot Smith's Tomorrow Tomorrow off of XO at the time.

Cooling Hand

I worked a bit over thanksgiving weekend and got stressed out. The worst of the 3 burns required my hand to be in water that was below 60 degrees. I used two thermometers to remind me when to add ice. This was a wonderful time to catch up on reading the New Yorker.

New blog called Table Tongue

It all started with rectangular plates that Alyssa and I purchased from Crate & Barrel. These bland innocent plates begged to have food thrown on them in ways that would force me to challenge my food presentation.

Each meal shown on my new blog table tongue only survived a few seconds before Alyssa could perform her ritual of consuming + critiquing new entrees from our kitchen.

Fire

Frost

Walkers

Sage Frost

Orange Leaves

I normally wouldn't go for the obvious this season and take pictures of leaves, but two of my dear friends (dave+penny) don't get to see much foliage since they moved to Oregon. I guess you can't really appreciate something until it is taken away from you.

Hog Brook Foliage

Wheat Grass

I love this little plant. I tossed some compost all up in there and vuala! It started growing and shot up to twice the original height. I've cut around the edges to make wheat grass juice (makes me remember an '03 trip to California). I use the leftover blades as a base for tomato soup.

Bro-In-Law's graduation

 

alyssa and max

 

Indian concert: Tabla + Flute

I liked how everyone sat during the concert. It was very akin to a Jazz concert with long solos, but with the added bonus of crowd participation. Whenever someone was moved by the music they would say something in their native tounge or clap.

Harvest

This is the 5th or 6th harvest from a really good season with tomatoes.

The green pepper on the top right is from the pepper series! It withered in the sun unfortunately.

Worm

Pepper Plant (Day 133)

Tree from the Hoh forest (Olympia, Wa)

Me and Max

My wife

I realized I have no pics of my wife on here! This one I love, because I forced her not to "fix" her hair after the wind hand blown it into this position.

Oregano

Of all the plants in my garden (other plants: cucumbers, sage, purple sage, pepper, 3 types of tomatoes, basil, lettuce, snap peas, asparagus, dwarf apple trees, onions, carrots, and broccoli) the oregano has liked our soil the best.

I forgot to mention that I'm growing grapes. One is in a very structured environment and the other are growing wild through my hedges. I've found the wild one crawling across the ground in several places and I've had to yank it out of the ground and let it dangle from a higher branch (darned wild grapes!)

Max and the mirror

Pepper Plant (Day 43)

I'm trying out a technique used by mountain people documented in the first of the Foxfire book series. It involves figuring out the prominent constellation, factoring in moon phase, and boiling down a chapter of interviews from Foxfire 1. I just read the chapter, and the time to throw these puppies into the ground is coming in a couple days! We'll see how things go.

The shoot on the left with the deepest green color is the first plant to sprout up (Day 4). It hasn't grown as much as the others and has really really thick green leaves that almost look fake. Any farmers out there know why this is happening?

Pink Tree

Willow

Earth Dots

I've started another blog!! It's called Earth Dots and will house the other wordly geometric illustrations I've been drawing since I was in 8th grade.

The style on the site came about through my brother teaching me photoshop and the recent blessing in the form of a free scanner from Freecycle.



Here's the first image I've posted to the site.

Michaels Shopping Carts

Spring

Pepper (Day 12)

Max on the couch

Pepper (Day 8)

Battery In The Wild

On a recent walk I was surprised with the quantities and kinds of trash I found along the way. Given the way rain and water tables work some of the articles I saw could end up releasing chemicals into drinking water. Chemicals like freon and mercury. The photos taken on this walk will be tagged with 'You Will Know Us By Our Waste'.

I had been thinking of this title since I'm in charge of trash duty in my house. Inevitably, the cartons serving as a temporary home to our purchases reveal what is going on in our lives i.e. diaper boxes & mini DV plastic wrapping mean there's a baby in the house.

Similarly, trash on the streets, yards, and woods of a town not only reveal what is consumed, but reflects a strange attitude that presumes the garbage owner has the right to leave trash the land they don't own.

This story is not one I want to do (I like abstract and nice looking photo's), but until I've seen a resolution (I've emailed the local authorities) to the pollution (that one was free Jesse Jackson) I think I'll have to continue with it. Of course the photos you see aren't a reflection of reality. For starters, there were a lot more budweiser cans than I cared to photograph. And there's no way to replicate the dissapointment of seeing a pleasurable walk and a warm spring day go down in quiet flames.

The name of the town will be omitted for now.

Good Films

I was part of a Start on the Street festival in Worcester in 2006. There were lots of things I learned, but one thing that stood out was people passing through wanted inexpensive goods. The smaller it was and the cheaper it was the better. People were selling paintings for $100 a pop and not selling anything. On the contrary, my friend Stacy sold cards for a few dollars and made over $100.

There was a man at the bazaar who had nothing to sell, but was looking for volunteers at a film festival he was running. His name is Robert Newton The film fest was called the Mass Bay film festival and intended to show the _most_ obscure masterful films that Rob had come across. He said he screened 100's of films before selecting the ones approved for the festival. My wife and I had the most enjoyment out of indie films so we signed up.

And hardly anyone showed to the screening where we sold tickets. The movie that played was called Shakespeare Behind Bars, and I only caught half of the film. I did gather the documentary revealed the humanity of those behind bars, how each person who was imprisoned had a troubled upbringing. The documentary progresses and shows the jailbirds really struggling with stepping outside who they were to act in a shakespeare play. With the stigma our society has on jail and those locked up, this film really does well at erasing the vast distance between the viewer and the prisoner.

Another movie I got to check out was the Plagues and Pleasures of the Salton Sea. The film highlights the folly of toying with a natural resource.

The best film of all that I viewed, and the one with the largest audience was The House of Usher. The angles, tones, and pacing of the movie was second to none. After the film finished the director was on hand to answer questions. There was quite a bit of silence after seeing such a masterful movie and seeing that it was directed by the woman who stood before us. Someone asked her how long it took to make the movie (shot in Massachusetts). She said it was planned well and done in a few weeks.

All of these amazing movies and opportunities to hear from directions and actors (Steven Tobolowski) in person was all because of Robert Newton. He is the guy with blond hair in the pic. This was taken in Bocado's in Worcester, Ma during his kick off party for his site called WorcesterMovies.com .

Pepper (Day 4)

3 cheers to new *green* beginnings...

I noticed seeds were sprouting on an old pepper I purchased. In the same soil I attempted to grow kumquats and grapefruits (I figured my cube environment could do it), I started growing the pepper. I did place it in the center of the pot, but the faster growing sprouts showed up near the edge keeping in line with the rule of thirds.

Open

Window Talk

We're Back

If I see this happen again I'm moving the pics of the current stories I'm doing (Worcester, Java Hut) elsewhere.

Sorry for any inconvenience. Carry on!

No pics momentarily

This is a first. The place I'm hosting my pics from says my bandwidth has exceeded it's limits. doh!
My pics aren't lost, but I'll see if I can get them back up soon! Stay tuned!

Live Music

Being a new parent and home owner I end up missing (and don't have the time for) a lot of music shows. Domestication has it's benefits, but it comes with a price.

Fortunately, I made this show. The last night Dave Johnson played at the Java Hut he deviated from playing with his band to using his electric guitar to lay warm ambient layers of sound mesmerizing everyone in the audience. People listening were hooked enough that when he would stop a "song" the room just didn't feel right. In a matter of minutes, Dave had brought back a feeling, that had been previously pioneered by the Tangerine Dream during the 1970's, and gave it to those consumed in conversation and listening.

The Java Hut had a knack for musically mining the town of Worcester and hauling gems onto its stage on a consist basis. This night Dave played for my first exhibit at the Hut called 3. Dave and his wife are the elements in the group called Against The Green.

Annie and the Cowboy

The row of syrups in the top left are called Monin syrups. The problem with Dunkin' Donuts is they are too cheap to stock their shelves with the good stuff. Even Starbucks doesn't have that caliber syrup. But the Java Hut did.

Here are two stars that served up excellent espresso drinks and meals. I was really impressed when the Cowboy handed me a foamy hot espresso that was from a HAND PUMPED Rancilio espresso machine.