"Bikeride"

Lincoln has learned a new word, rather quickly this time.  "Bikeride."  Not "bike ride," but real close together where it sounds more like some kind of foreign dessert than the individual words.  Two days ago he went for his first "ride," where he runs alongside me on my bike.  Once we switched to his long leash rather than the short one he uses for car rides (it buckles in, it's fantastic), he was thrilled with it.  Ran like the wind about half of a mile down, then came back, only veering slightly for a beagle that only appears if there's another dog on the road.

I asked him today if he wanted to go for a "bikeride" and he went crazy, running back and forth from me to the door until I was ready, then led me to the shed for the bike, and straight on to the gate.  He even was eager for the harness.  Then we were off.

And not even halfway down the driveway I was off, of my bike in this case.

Apparently in his excitement, Link completely forgot about how he had learned fairly quickly "stay to the right of the bike and go straight" and decided to weave  like crazy back and forth, making me have to veer, hit the breaks, and hit the driveway.

Thankfully, I have a dirt driveway, and this was not in the rocky portion, it wasn't even the muddy one, surprisingly.

After we were back on our way, he continued to forget how to stay to the side, and wore himself out.  We went the same distance we had last time (after which he was tired, but still capable of running).  On the way back, however, he was too tired to run at all quickly, which gave him time to decide to try to veer off suddenly to inspect the mailboxes.  By the time we made it back to the driveway I was about ready to pick him up and haul him back, but he finally made it back inside and immediately splashed his water dish across my freshly mopped kitchen floor.  I suppose some of it made it down his throat, but I'm not sure.

I'm dreading tomorrow's "bikeride."  Definitely not taking him to Sparky's place, way too much asphalt and way too little soft grass there.

The Raccoon Returns

I know it's been a long time since I have even touched this blog, and I apologize for that.  My time and urge for creativity has been taken up by other projects, such as a gallery show and another long term project I still have in the works.  But more on that another time (if you're lucky).

This past fall I had a couple of encounters with raccoons, namely them waking me up at four in the morning, pissing me off.  After that, I had a small rat problem, during which a single mouse was caught as well.  The final solution involved a barricade in my air duct, blocking the passage, while leaving a pair of glue traps on the side from which the rats accessed that portion of the duct (which led straight to my bedroom, robbing me of sleep as they tried to eat a hole in the metal).  After the rats disappeared, I simply left the barricade and associated trap in place as a preventive measure.  I spent the next few months checking it periodically, eventually letting this drop off completely as there was nothing to find.

Yet another time there was a drunken, injured, sick, or simply stupid bat flying around my front door, freaking out both my dog and myself.  This is why, when over the last week or so I heard high pitched squeaking sounds, I assumed that it was from bats outside, as for a number of nights my window next to the bed stayed open.  It only would happen at night when I was in the bedroom, so I thought nothing more of it.

Until it happened when the window was shut, and I could finally tell that it was not coming from outside.

As per standard reaction, I immediately grabbed my knife and flashlight, and followed the dog (who was going crazy) out to the other room.  My first thought was "crap, the bat's inside," especially as the dog himself was looking up at the ceiling in confusion.  Then we both realized (thanks to the cat, to be fair) that it was coming from the vent.  I opened it up, shined the flashlight in (shone the flashlight?), then told myself that I refused to deal with it just then, and put the vent cover back on.

What it was, as it turned out, was a mouse stuck to the glue trap, along with three additional mice who had already died (I assume, I did not check to be sure, but the live one was obviously alive, so I assumed that the others were dead).  There were also the hairs of some larger animal, neither mouse nor rat, stuck along the barricade, though the traps themselves were not overly disturbed and there was no additional sign of the creature.

I tossed the traps out, replaced them, and cleaned out the hair.  Last night, nothing happened.  Tonight, I heard some sound (I was watching a show online with Sparky, wearing earphones, so I cannot say what exactly it was), followed the boys out, and heard a panicked squeaking.  I did not check the trap as I felt it safe to assume it was stuck, then went back to the show.

There is no mouse stuck in the trap, and the squeaking stopped by the time I went back out to take the mouse out of its misery (and so I would not have to hear it all night), but there was another big tuft of hair in the duct.  Looking online at my most likely suspect confirmed both that they do eat small animals and the colors of the hair (they were an inch to an inch and a half long, with light and dark bands with frosted tips, vaguely wavy), so I am fairly confident that I have three things, one of which is a big hole in the duct-work, and I know exactly where it probably is.  Another is a gap in the siding that I was not aware of.  And finally I have a raccoon stalking mice in my air ducts.

Of course, it is entirely possible that I had a raccoon under my house and then sealed up his escape hole, and he is simply starving and trying to find his way out.  I will have to consider that possibility.

Now I am faced with a dilemma.  If I assume that the raccoon is finding his way in and out and I seal any gaps, I could be trapping him in there, or I could be keeping him out.  If I assume he is trapped in there, and I open it, I could be letting more things under there.  Furthermore, regardless of that, if I (or rather, Sparky, as I am claustrophobic) seal up the hole in the vent, I could be keeping him out or trapping him in.  In which case he will either die in my ducts, which would make me feel guilty and create a horrible stench, or he will create a bigger mess by breaking his way out of it somewhere, or even figure out how to come up out of the vents themselves into the house, giving me a heart attack, giving the cat a heart attack, and giving the dog a new playmate, which the raccoon would not be happy about and would then hurt the dog.  All said, that is a low possibility, but I am learning not to underestimate these things.

I'm making myself dizzy and uncomfortable.  Time for bed.

When Enough is Never Enough

Some days nothing is enough, even when there is enough.

First off, there's time.  Realistically there is plenty for all that I want to do.  I have enough down time to prove that, even if I cannot motivate myself to get working, due to tiredness, illness, rain, cold, or dark.  Like right now I could probably do some stuff in the studio I just don't want to do.   But it's really cold, and I'm all comfy and warm.

Warmish.  There's a purring cat on my lap that seems to think I'm warm and comfy enough though.  Even that, however, is not enough, as he wants attention too.

Then there's Sparky.  I've seen him every day this week except Monday.  I'll see him tomorrow.  But I was still sad to see him go. It was enough, but it's not enough.

Art-wise, I probably have enough for a project I'm working towards, but I really don't feel like it is enough.  And what I could do to make sure that it is, I just don't want to do.  But I'll go to the hardware store tomorrow and pick up a few things.  After the dentist.  And before the art thing tomorrow evening.  Hmm... back to time again.

But why is it that I, and people in general feel this way?  Why are we never satisfied with what we have?  Like so many things, regardless of the cause, it's good and bad.  On the bad side, to do things backwards from how I laid it out just now, it can cause unhappiness, dissatisfaction, even depression.  However, at the same time it's good as it motivates us and is likely the root cause for our entire civilization.  I don't mean America or globalization, I mean everything since the discovery (or is it taming?) of fire.  Or agriculture, but I would imagine that fire came well before.  If you want to go that route, however, there are tool-using primates.  Primitive tools such as blades of grass, but tools.  So they do it too, to some degree.

Whatever.  I'm going to go be happy with what I have, and snuggle in bed with a purring cat (fittingly, he stopped purring right as I went to type that) and a dog with his jacket on (yes, he has a jacket for when it's cold), and watch old tv shows on the computer, and be happy.  Sparky might be gone home now, but I got to spend enough time with him.  Even if it just wasn't quite enough.

Incommunicado

Lately I have had great trouble in making myself do much of anything that involves communication technology, be it computer or phone.  Apart from Sparky, it's been very hard to make myself do so much as send a simple text message, much less call someone.  Not that I've had to much, of late.  By email I only correspond with one person, and he finally sent another email asking what was going on since I hadn't responded to his last email in quite some time (weeks probably).  Even that took me three days to respond to.

To be fair, those three days were pretty busy.  Highlighted by Saturday, when I went to Epcot with Sparky, Sparky's mom, Sparky's mother's friend, and Sparky's mother's friend's daughter.

I feel a bit guilty here for making that seem much more crowded and complicated than it really was, but it was rather fun to build upon each level of acquaintance.  There were five of us, and we've done stuff together before.  This was no different except it was all day (a very long one, but very fun) and involved two two-hour drives, as well as insufficient road signs.  It's just wrong to have a sign for one road at every single intersection for a while then to suddenly stop mentioning it.  Makes you think you missed it.

But oh well, we all had fun, and we all got home in one piece.  The photo was taken there, in what was the best section of the whole park in my opinion.  No rides there, but that was perfectly ok for me (although I do love the rides, and was wishing for an all-out roller coaster).  The only point of contention for me (apart from crowds and prices) was knowing a bit too much about certain things than is good for someone trying to enjoy an educational ride.  Partly out-dated animatronics, partly artistic liberty unchecked by scientific fact.  That and the fact that it was so incredibly euro-centric that it wasn't even worth a joke about.

I have once again strayed from my point.  Let me just wind it up because this whole anti-communication thing is kicking in again.  It's been getting harder and harder to do these blog posts lately because I just haven't felt like doing anything about it.  Possibly part of that part is that I'm doing enough art-work that I'm getting my creative fix.  Who knows.

This is amusing though.  I just clicked the spell checker included in the blog editing mumbo jumbo magic box that I type and things appear on the blog page (which does not like for you to type more than two or three letters while it's on, it cuts you off), and it isn't nearly as good as the Safari (or is it just the Mac itself maybe?) spell checker.  Namely "ok" and "animatronics" were picked up by this thing, while the Safari (web browser) knew they were ok.

One last note.  I am very proud of myself for being able to type animatronics correctly on the first try.

The Beggar King

This is the story of Ralph: The Beggar King.

Ralph was born Prince Ralph of the Land of Junk.  After the death of his father, he became King Ralph.  Soon, however, the evil Old Man of the Mountain (of old AOL CDs) took over the Land of Junk, and deposed Ralph, stripping him of his finery.  All he was allowed to retain was the following: 1 royal sceptre, gold, 1 begging cup, 1 crown, gold, 1 royal pendant in the form of some kind of shiny tool of unknown purpose, and his tattered cape with the words "Danger: Dad at Work" emblazoned upon the back.  He wasn't sure that emblazoned was the right word for something printed on a t-shirt, but it had a nice ring and sounded appropriate when describing his cape.  Now, Ralph is the Beggar King, reduced to begging for spare change at the side of the road.  He is no longer capable of standing upright, and simply sort of squats, bent over nearly double as he pleads up tot passers-by, which he incidentally insists on referring to as passer-byers, asking for spare change.  His dream is to one day rise up and reclaim the throne of the Land of Junk, or at least to save up enough change to buy a pair of shoes.

Hey, I said I'd give you a story with the head shot, I didn't say that it would be a good one.

Link and Michael: Hypocrites on Ice!

At least that would be the title if they made a figure skating version of this, which would completely and utterly fail.  If you haven't read the previous post, scroll down, read it, then come back to this one.  I'm not going to go back and recap, nor do I want to just tag this onto the end of it because that would both change the date on it and rob me of this fun chance to title something "Hypocrites on Ice!"  So there!

I know I said that I was refusing to work on the sculpture until I fixed the problem or until daylight.  I lied, as it turns out.  After trying to sleep, Link and I gave up (or rather I did and he woke up to join me) and went out there anyway.  As it turns out this was a wonderful thing despite an inadvertent decapitation.

I'll get to that.

The sculpture went from being a sort of frog man to a Beggar King.  He also went from being about three and a half feet tall to my height, if not a touch taller.  So let's call it 6' or so, maybe an inch or two shorter.  He's no longer a squat, awkward thing, but a dynamic, comical (he makes me laugh looking at him) character with a back story.

The back story will get its own blog with a picture of him.

Of course, there is the decapitation incident... in the process of attempting to give the king his cape, I dismantled part of his back, which rocked the not-yet-firmly-secured sculpture.  In a horrifying instant, his head and neck came tumbling off of his (for lack of a better term) neck stump.  The main part of the neck was reattached, but his entire lower skull was broken off.  That has been bolted on, more securely than it was to begin with actually.  His crown was also reattached after flying off.    But long story short, his cape is attached, and everything up to the neck is ok, and his head is sitting on the floor waiting for more JB Weld to attach it to his neck (once that's secured a bit more).

Meanwhile, in the yard...

Lincoln was absolutely loving all of this activity, and seems to have missed my working in the studio (I've been sick, so I've been saying in), and kept dashing around the yard, keeping the motion lights on most of the time in the process.  Of course, to make sure I was properly awake to do all of this work (a good two and a half hours of it) I ended up having three cups of coffee, so I was/am pretty buzzed as well, so we did a good bit of chasing around (remember, I have to recharge the creativity!).  To be fair, part of the time was spent staring up at the stars, and wishing the motion light would go off so I could see better.  But it was a great view of Orion, so I was happy.  Bit chilly, but I like that, and a warm cup (and another and another) of coffee was very pleasant on such an evening.  Then the dog would come up, challenging me to a game of tag/chase/jump/attack-the-hand and that would end that.

So now here I am, basically at 3:30, having had three mugs of coffee since 12:30.  Rather awake.  So I guess I'll take a shower and then settle in for a movie, and hope to get this song by the Eagles out of my head.  Love them, but their songs do stick easily for me.

Artish Ramblings

Being an artist is fundamentally weird sometimes.

For one thing, at least most of the artists I know are somewhat unable to "turn off" their artist brains for any worthy length of time.  This involves fighting the urge to go out to a studio on a cold night to work on something that you know you just need to wait a few more hours to work on so the adhesive has time to properly set.

For another, it's hard to know when to stop.  It is very easy to ruin an artwork by simply working more on it.  Most people have trouble understanding that, but it's really simple.  Ever see things that are just too complicated for no reason?  Someone just couldn't stop.

The other weird thing is the whole creative process.  Few jobs exist where it is legitimately useful to sit down and do nothing about a project, to simply relax, focus on something else, or at least just sit there doing nothing of any import.  Because otherwise you burn out and cannot make anything worth more than a buck fifty at Walmart.  Not to devalue Walmart's merchandise, but it really is cheap mass produced crap.  But they are the only ones who seem to carry a really good glue, so I'll be headed back there one of these days.

Anyway, the point is, I'm only typing all of this to talk myself out of going to my studio to work on a sculpture that I need to let set for a while, partly for the adhesive, partly for the creative process.  And partly for my nerves.  It's frustrating when you fix a problem and then cause it again by being careless.  So until I figure out another solution, or at least until it's daylight again, I need to take a break from it.

Random Pictures

I don't really feel like typing anything tonight, but I feel like I should share something.  I've been busy all week getting ready for a festival tomorrow, and now just about everything's ready.  So here's some random pictures to look at.  Enjoy.

War: The Epilogue

In the time since the rat trap was set off and blood was drawn from the rat, there has been no conclusive evidence of its presence.  All has been quite apart from the occasional sound, which could be easily explained as things other than rats.

Until tonight.

After chatting with Sparky, who is back in town (yay!), I sat down to unwind watching a somewhat boring sitcom that I am oddly attached to despite only laughing on occasion.  Suddenly, there was a large bang.  My first thought was "bloody hell, did a huge branch just fall on my roof?"  Mind you, I have a metal roof and many trees above it, so this is not unreasonable.

My second thought was "crap, is the rat back?" so I checked the trap behind my rat barricade, which was still set.  Then I checked the other trap in the ducts, and found the culprit.

A young rat or an adult mouse was caught in the good old fashioned wooden trap, with its hip more or less crushed.  Gruesome detail, which I would normally omit, but for the fact that despite this rather serious damage, the rodent was still alive.  Not only alive, but struggling.  You would assume that it was struggling to get away, but you would be wrong.  It was squirming in an effort to (and succeeding in) get to the bait and eat it.  In fact, the only time it panicked was when the cat began investigating and sniffing around the vent.

So I closed the cat out of the bathroom, went out to the studio, got my gloves, grabbed my knife (and camera as you can see), and went back to the bathroom vent.  The camera was mainly for later identification of the rodent if I was unable to determine from examination wether it was a rat baby or a mouse, but Indy was persistent so he got to be photographed.  When I'd taken the trap out and set it down, he even began trying to reach it from under the door.

At this point, I stopped to consider what I should do.  My first instinct was to use the knife as I intended and kill it quickly.  But the more I thought about it, the more I considered something somewhat cruel, but with a reason behind it and annoyance at sleep disruption to back it up.  So really, if you haven't gotten the point about don't f*** with my sleep, take this as proof enough.

I took the trap, rodent, and cat out to the porch, and let the cat investigate, much to his delight.  Don't worry, he did no real harm to it, none at all even apart from nipping at its ear lightly and to no effect.  My reason for this was to let him see what it was, get the smell, and know that I approve of him "playing" with it, and even of him considering killing it.  However, trapped as it was he became fed up with it.

I took the thing out to the studio and used the knife to finish it off.  Upon examining it more closely, I found that it was an adult male mouse.  If you don't already get how I determined all of that, just think about it a bit.

So I went to toss it over the fence where nobody goes and the dog cannot reach, but I ended up dropping it.  I found it again with the help of a flashlight and a curious dog.  Thankfully, he was less sure it was food than the cat, and he just sniffed at it.  So I went and tossed it over the fence, and almost had to drag the dog back with me as he had decided that since he couldn't have it it must be something wonderful.

I got back in and realized that my sweat pants (I was all set up for a night in; big flannel shirt, comfy undershirt, baggy sweat pants) were covered with the really nasty prickers, the ones that hurt like hell when they get stuck in your skin and are hard to get off.  So I sat down, put the sitcom back on, and started pulling the stickers off and dropping them on a plate.

Then the cat walked by.

Of course, being a cat, his tail was straight up and wrapping around the edges of everything.  Including the plate.  So about a dozen of the things got stuck to him, but fell of quickly... leaving them for me to find by painful searching (and a few times stepping on wearing nothing but socks on my feet by now.

Eventually, I got them all (I hope) up and off, including one last one on the way to the garbage can that got me in the big toe.  55 in total.  Plus the cat is still a bit upset with me for getting rid of his toy.  Really threw a fit when I returned without it.  Checked out the dog, chasing him down to do so, then came, checked me out, and stalked off to moodily groom himself and throw me evil glares.  But the prickers did not bother him at all.  Go figure.

So much for unwinding though.  Think I'm going to have to watch something else now just to relax from all of this commotion.

Oddly, the last of this ended after midnight.  So the name of the blog is actually appropriate for once.  Go figure.

The Hundredth Monkey

This is a copy of an email my cousin sent me a long time ago.  I've always loved it and saved it.  Just thought I'd share it.  Don't know how real any of it is, but it's interesting nonetheless.

Maybe I just feel like a monkey today...

The Hundredth Monkey 

                        by Ken Keyes Jr.

                The Japanese monkey, Macaca fuscata, had been observed in the wild for a period of over 30 years.

                In 1952, on the island of Koshima, scientists were providing monkeys with sweet potatoes dropped in the sand. The monkeys liked the taste of the raw sweet potatoes, but they found the dirt unpleasant.

                An 18-month-old female named Imo found she could solve the problem by washing the potatoes in a nearby stream. She taught this trick to her mother. Her playmates also learned this new way and they taught their mothers too.

                This cultural innovation was gradually picked up by various monkeys before the eyes of the scientists. Between 1952 and 1958 all the young monkeys learned to wash the sandy sweet potatoes to make them more palatable. Only the adults who imitated their children learned this social improvement. Other adults kept eating the dirty sweet potatoes.

                Then something startling took place. In the autumn of 1958, a certain number of Koshima monkeys were washing sweet potatoes -- the exact number is not known. Let us suppose that when the sun rose one morning there were 99 monkeys on Koshima Island who had learned to wash their sweet potatoes. Let's further suppose that later that morning, the hundredth monkey learned to wash potatoes.

                THEN IT HAPPENED! By that evening almost everyone in the tribe was washing sweet potatoes before eating them. The added energy of this hundredth monkey somehow created an ideological breakthrough!

               But notice: A most surprising thing observed by these scientists was that the habit of washing sweet potatoes then jumped over the sea...Colonies of monkeys on other islands and the mainland troop of monkeys at Takasakiyama began washing their sweet potatoes.

                Thus, when a certain critical number achieves an awareness, this new awareness may be communicated from mind to mind.

                Although the exact number may vary, this Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon means that when only a limited number of people know of a new way, it may remain the conscious property of these people.

                But there is a point at which if only one more person tunes-in to a new awareness, a field is strengthened so that this awareness is picked up by almost everyone!

                The Hundredth Monkey by Ken Keyes