Fridge

Fridge, originally uploaded by Gerald5970.

New Series: Apartment Photos

Shutter speed wheel

Shutter speed wheel, originally uploaded by Gerald5970.

Cartel Rapping

After hours, odd things may happen at the local coffe spot.

Including myself trying to rap. My original lyrics are forgotten, but I recorded what I could remember below.

I went to Cartel where they had a little party/
I took a moment to remember Marty./
They asked for a rapper but I ain't that dapper/
Anyway I grabbed the mic like I was riding my bike/
"I sure as hell ain't Bobby G/
I'm Gerald B, the EMT./
Here I am, Tempe, Arizona,/
I'm gonna save you, when your in a coma./
Heart attack, call 9-1-1,/
they dispatch me to have some fun./
Hook up that old EKG/
'Oh my god, look what I see!'/
Pack you up for the helicopter,/
We're gonna getcha to the doctor."/
That was my rhyme,/
but I ran out of time./
Remember my name,/
'cause it's part of the game./
Please take a moment now to observe,/
the people who are a-willing to serve,/
keeping you alive whether you deserve/
saving your ass when nobody swerves./
Paramedics come; they don't take you home,/
they start the I-O into your bone./
Poor boy stopped breathin',/
His heart ain't beatin'/
A-L-S, come compress his chest/
So he can look his best/
On his wedding day,/
so he can pray,/
"Thank you God for EMS."/
But now of course, I must digress/
'Cause its the fire fighter who opens your car,/
to save your skin from being charred,/
and the nurses at the ER,/
that respond when they hear you crashed your car/
who kept you from being another denizen/
stuck in the world of sin./
Oops, you totaled your Mercedes,/
We'll keep you outa Hades./
Please give us thanks,/
'cause we ain't makin' bank/
This shit is dank and I'll be frank,/
the life is hard; it sure ain't easy/
no one says it'll be breezy/
Don't get queazy with all the bleedin',/
Just a little patch and that's all you're needin'./
Next time you have trouble,/
remember to thank the gentlemen,/
who pulled you outa rubble,/
just to save your precious skin./
I'm Gerald B, it's been a pleasure,/
thanks for listening through my last measure.

A Chunk of the Top Plate

A Chunk of the Top Plate, originally uploaded by Gerald5970.

Here's tonight's photo, looking at the top of the new body.

Almost revelation

Almost revelation, originally uploaded by Gerald5970.

One from last night

Another look…

Another look…, originally uploaded by Gerald5970.

Texture

Texture, originally uploaded by Gerald5970.

So that I may be lazy, but still keep some interest alive, I'll be releasing a number of photos of a surprise. Go ahead and try to guess what it is (most accurate guess gets a pint of homemade ginger beer (pickup only)).

A new page, and security

I've been following blogs in my family for a while now, and lately, my Uncle Jer's been dealing with a few security issues on Muddled Ramblings. I just followed through and created a GnuPG key for signing and/or encrypting my email, just to keep The Man off my back. So that this will work, other people need to get onboard and start using keys. Also, said people must be willing to share and sign trusted public keys. To further that end, I've uploaded my key to the servers and created a page here for my public key, so that it can be used.

Thanks and Memories

As the title suggests, I want to thank Juli for giving me so much furniture. I'm now quite a bit closer to a home as opposed to a hovel; the bookshelf, bed, desk and chairs rock, and they make the place feel much less empty. Scratch loves the fact that he can jump over everything. I'll probably be getting even more from her soon. I'd still like to get a kitchen/dining table, but that's lower priority now that we've got a start on horizontal surfaces.

Onto the memories: I was going through my old molskine notebooks (they aren't that old, I got my first one a year ago) and I found myself surprised at what I've done, and what's happened out in the world since I started writing. I'd set goals at one point, several of which I met, but also several that seem further than before. Despite that those have been forgotten for nearly a year, I'm still disappointed in myself. Last year, I was even berating those who don't live what they want to live, those who have failed themselves. I wrote with vigor, anger, passion and even love, but now those passages seem securely hidden, trapped in their pages, bound by leather, waiting for me to follow with action.

I had thoughts on school, but I only met a few of my goals there.  Despite the turn of events, I know I probably could've done better.

My largest group of thoughts was on my wolf project, which never even left the ground.

After all that, and looking at why I met, or didn't meet my goals, I realized that I'm somewhat aimless, attacking ideas haphazardly, without thought on what I was doing or even why I was doing it. I wrote statement below after finishing the first book and reflecting on what I said.

–From now on, I will do what I need to get done for myself and for others, with integrity and justice; I will follow with what I want to do to further myself and my understanding of this pale blue dot; and I will do my best to hold myself to my conscience, my means and my expectations.

It's vague, doesn't say anything about time, and this statement has nothing to tell about how I can get things done, but I feel that this represents the best realization of a personal mission statement. I took some time to adequately say what I meant.



P.S. I just want to mention that I've gone through a couple pens now. The one thing that would mean quite a bit to me these days is a good fountain pen. I don't really want something too expensive, and there are a number of acclaimed pens in a rather moderate price range.

Searching for Furniture

So I've moved into my new apartment in Tempe. I've lived in it for more than a week now, and I'm really starting to get tired of the empty, furnitureless volume of space around me. It's relatively well laid out as studios go, which doesn't help it feel any more occupied. Anyway, the point is, any Arizonans with spare/extra/unwanted furniture, please get ahold of me. All you have to do is post a comment with some means of getting in touch with you. I'm looking for shelves, chairs, sofas, dressers, futons, tables, stools or whatever else you want off your hands.

Scratch That, I'm in Arizona Now

A general sort of update

I just looked back at what I've posted lately. To the outside world it must look like I've been doing a whole lot of nothing worth mentioning. Rather a lot has happened, however, so here goes.

Scratch! I went to an REI sale last month, and just when I was feeling good about all the good deals I just got, I had to walk by the City of Albuquerque's mobile adoption site. I got tapped by a little kitty with thumbs who wound up coming home with me. It also is looking like I may have bought the last bag of litter Scratch will ever need. The little guy has taken well to learning how to use the toilet.

Arizona! Yeah, I'm in the desert now. Scratch and I moved into my new apartment a week ago. It's not too big, but it has a good layout for a studio. I didn't move with any furniture, but I'm getting there. I'm trying to stay in a minimal budget, but that can slow things down a bit.

Sailing! Last Saturday the ASU Sailing club participated in an event called Passport to ASU, which is for clubs and organizations to introduce themselves to prospective members. We, for the first time ever, brought a trailer load of boats out to be highly visible and attract a number of new people.

School! It goes forward, as I'm enrolled and in a full load of classes, including a couple art histories, photography and a color studio that are all major requirements.

So, that's the big exciting news. Stay tuned for pics; I should have things up Thursday.

Boom

Boom, originally uploaded by Gerald5970.

I haven't posted in a while, I hope to make up for that by posting something spectacular. It's a good thing the weather's cooperative this time of year. Check it out in full size.

The Bacchanal 2010 map

Bacchanal 2010 is coming up soon, so here's the map that includes lots of little bits of info on how to get to the lake, and about the things that will be going on.

So first, here's the link: Link to Bacchanal 2010 map.

Now here's the embedded version:


View The Bacchanal of 2010 in a larger map

To Counter Yesterday

Something Positive


After reviewing yesterday's post, I realized that I was kinda negative. Anyway, yesterday evening wound up okay (rhymes with nothing superlative and nothing terrible, not the author's literary laziness) and we went to the Shroyer Center bluegrass barbecue. 


At the moment I have a warm purring cat on my lap competing with the warm purring computer. Too bad it's 85 out and I really don't need the extra hypothermia protection. Note: a feline toe pad is much more accurate than a human fingertip on the touchpad.


The weather's been interesting, and I got some shots that may be stereo worthy. Stay tuned for details on this and other photo projects.


Good news form ASU: They finally figured out where they put my paperwork, found it, passed it through to the proper channels and signed off on things. The proper people have "recommended [the request for compassionate withdrawal] for approval," which should mean that I will be forgiven a significant amount of debt, and allowed to register for fall semester classes.


One last thing: I only have two block exams and a final left in my summer class at the UNM EMS Academy. In two weeks I get to sign up for the next available state test, on October 2nd.  Also in two weeks, I get to sign up for and take the National Board examination that just about every other state recognizes for licensing (rhymes with getting myself a job in Arizona).

Sailing, sort of.

Today I tried to take out the only boat available to me right now: the MacGregor 26, Syzygy. It's an old, "fine sailing machine," if you don't actually want to sail.

My dad hasn't exactly spent a lot of time with that boat lately, and the time he has spent on it hasn't exactly been the most beneficial to its long term health. The wiring has never been good, but after my dad stepped through our solar panel that kept the batteries charged, the batteries died. He doesn't want to replace them, but he wants me to get the system working again. Also, we've had problems with the stereo. A few years ago the stereo burned out, starting a small fire on board. Since then, we've had the wiring replaced a few times, but that hasn't helped too much: the stereo still has issues when the engine is running.

That brings us to the next fine piece of equipment on the fine sailing machine: the engine. It's an older Tohatsu 9.9, but effectively it's more of a 0.0. It sometimes runs, but only if it's taking you toward disaster. Otherwise, it counts as deadweight. We've replaced every single part on the engine at some time or another, but that just made our wallets thiner.

Now that we've covered the secondary source of propulsion, lets move onto the primary propulsion: the sails. These sails are great if you happen to be a bat: they make nice nesting places, and they already have enough of that guano smeared in to smell like home. They even make a decent place for a bat to die without having to worry about remains being eaten by insects. Unfortunately, those attributes aren't the best for using the sails as sails. These soft, floppy, blown out, torn up bits of canvas mark best of twenty years of aging in the sun. Of course, along with the old sails go old lines. Old stretchy halyards the droop in the slightest zephyr are accompanied by shaggy sheets and other powder filled cordage.

So we set sail at the dock (the motor just wasn't in the mood) and take off. We start tacking out the Narrows, but the shifty winds and 120 degree tacking angle make that difficult. Halfway out, the wind kicked up, and made life rather more interesting (rhymes with, "Why isn't that BLEEEEPing thing working now!?") as the roller furling on the genoa broke and the winches jammed. At this point we fall off, jibe (mainsheet fiddle bearings on the cockpit floor) and start heading back. Once running, the furler started working again, so we furl the genoa in, since we don't need extra power now. The motor really doesn't want to start now, but with the wind in the west we've got a dead downwind shot at out slip. We cop a spin, drop the main and sail in under bare poles. By the time we were done, I could see a person at our slip, so I assumed that the dockmaster was going to help us land. Just then the furler let out six or seven feet of sail, and in the confusion I lost sight of the dock.  As we got the jib back in the wind shifted to the southeast, blowing us straight back, away from our slip. We could've thrown the line to the dock, but there was no one there now. Now we force the jib back out, and we try to sail up wind back to the dock where the dockmasters let us go. Without a mainsail, the boat will not tack, and there it takes a long time and space for it to jibe. It turns out that it takes too long for it to jibe. We wound up on the north shore of the cove, and we were held there while the weather built into a thunderstorm right on top of us. There wasn't much to be done, except to try to use the VHF radio and talk to the folks at the marina. The radio died right when they tried to come back, so we wound up without communication beyond air horns.

Eventually the wind died down a bit, and some samaritans came and towed us off the shore. our stern was further out, so we tied on there. Unfortunately, we found out that the centerboard line that was repaired over the spring, hasn't been repaired. I moved the tow line to the bow, and we eventually swung around and out. Getting to the slip at that point was relatively simple.

I have found that while I have some aptitude for boat repair, I just don't want to deal with the glorified bleach bottle that is the MacGregor. I also have little tolerance for things that have been repaired that don't work, and for things that really shouldn't be breaking that break. On top of all that, I was told that all systems were go, and that there would not be any issues. That is the single thing that annoys me the most.




 


Syzygy is for sale.

Another General Life Update, brought to you by…Caffeine!

As mentioned in the last post, I'm still working out how to get some software from the disks it ships on to my disk-driveless computer. I have a Mac that has a drive but is gradually fading because its hard drive is dying. I have a PC that has a disk drive, but no network to use the drive remotely, and no means of creating a disk image on a flash drive. Also, we've got a laptop with a disk drive that runs Vista, but it also won't burn a disk image, and seems to be incompatible with using the drive remotely. I'm almost think of going to the Apple store to use one of the display machines to copy the DVDs. The other option would be to spend a little dough on getting a compatible external drive. I'd really like to hear any ideas or suggestions from the audience.

In other news, I found out today that my mail to the post office (change of address form) got lost in the mail. Irony or just bad luck?

Stay tuned to the Flickr gadget, new uploads will be coming online soon. Good news is that these are all going to be straight from the camera, no tweaking. Bad news is that these will all be straight from the camera, no tweaking.

Stereo, It's not Just for Music

I'm still getting the new computer to be the full clone of the Air, which means that at the moment I'm still without some of the software I've been using in the past, like iPhoto and the rest of the iLife suite, along with the whole Microsoft office for Mac suite. The issue I'm facing is that the software comes on DVD, and that this computer has no disk drive. I have an external drive, but it's only compatible with the Macbook Air, which isn't even staying on long enough to copy the disk images to a USB drive. The downside of not having the software is that it's harder to do some tasks, and that I got behind in my photo loading. the upshot is that the Mini has a built in SD card reader, and that it handles data much faster than via USB cable to the camera.



This photo is from last sunday, after I was in Los Alamos for the weekend. We drove back to Albuquerque via Highway 4, through the Valles Caldera and down through the Jemez mountains.

These stereo pairs were shot out the window as we rolled down the highway. We were traveling at an approximate speed of 35 mph for this set, so shooting at four frames per second give a spread of about 12'10". I cheated a bit for the web resolution sets here: I just used quick view to  put the images on the screen with a black background and then I grabbed the screenshot.

As usual with the stereo pairs I post, these are best viewed by crossing one's eyes until the two images merge into one. Let your eyes relax and fall into focus,

Good News, Bad News

Good news: The Dell mini 10 v is working, for the most part.

Bad news: My real mac has a failing hard drive. Meh.

A new post, after weeks of moderate busyness

It's been several weeks since my last post, and I've been neglecting the blog and you readers out there. 

I've been keeping myself busy with an EMT class I'm taking at UNM School of Medicine's EMS Academy. The course is rather fast paced (it's sixteen weeks of material in eight weeks time), but it has enough hours to qualify me for passing the state EMT licensing exam. The downside being that I spend twenty-four hours a week in class and more doing homework and studying.

The other thing is of course my little photography habit. Now that I have Sputnik, and I can develop 120 format black and white film, I'll have to get a good set of shots with it, test reverse developing, and mount and view the slides. At the moment all I need to get is a reverse-developer, a slide viewer and slide mounts (and a little spare time to get everything together and do it).

Pagosa

Lunch in Pagosa Springs, Dinner at the Lake

Lunch, as you can see, was decent, neither great nor bad. The french fries were actually pretty good, though the burger was on the greasy side. Even though it's Pagosa, the place had green chile, so the  burger had chile on it.

The rivers in the region are running high with the snowmelt and a little rain from the recent systems moving through.

We pretty much went straight to the lake after our trip, and we got back in time for the NMSC Memorial Day potluck. There were quite a number of people there, so things went over well, with burgers and hot dogs provided by the club, and a whole smorgasbord of sides, salads, desserts, breads and so on. Food and a ton of skipped rocks made for a pleasant evening, finished off quietly around the Koch's campfire.

Overall, a decently decent day.