Ray Street Rained Out

The Ray Street Art Crawl got rained out so I had my first night in with friends at the condo. This is a polaroid of my friends Kate and Steph, Minneapolis transplants who moved here 2+ years ago.

Tree in Balboa Park Cactus Garden

Real Estate Candy

There's nothing like the crisp smell and orderly stacks of 2500 freshly printed postcards! This 4-unit condo-conversion project took longer than expected to complete but is now finally 90% finished and selling. My girlfriend and business partners undertook this venture as first-time developers and it has been an important learning experience. The ups and downs and in-betweens of this project have driven home some project management rules: 1. You can never be too organized 2. Schedules Change! 3. Money, Money, Money 4. There is no such thing as a perfect contractor, contractors should not be left alone, nor should be they paid up front (so far I believe this is true for everyone except Chris the Carpenter). I also learned that Perfection has its place...and it's not in rehabbing 90 year old buildings. From the Developer's perspective, too much Perfection was bad for the bottom line. From a consumer's perspective, this is an outstanding condo with not bang for the buck but an explosion. We've got 2 sold and hopefully are close to moving the other two. For more info stop by 4101 Grand Ave S or visit http://www.4101grand.com/

Minnie and Seven

Our two girl kittens in Minneapolis. I think this footage is Animal Planet material! It may take a minute to download but it's worth it! http://malindalaunert.com/jen/cats.html

Only Some Want to Fly

Flying from San Diego to Phoenix to Minneapolis : Symbols and Patterns in the landscape. Sometimes the cloud patterns (far right) look a lot like brain matter.

TriMesters

Look at it this way, with school starting part-time in January I've got a 9 month sabbatical for Art, Design, Invention and Engineering. I just have to not blow it. I have to not sabotage, ambush, or defeat myself or waste time when it shouldn't be wasted. This includes avoiding the following; excessive consumption of anything that's not part of my regular diet, quitting JTs Blocks on Yahoo Games cold turkey! And limiting relationships that do not contribute to my goal. These 9 months are my baby, my pregnancy and time is my nutrition for two. So now that I'm pregnant I'm going to need a doctor. I'll need ultrasounds, regular checkups, and reassurance that I'm not going to give birth to something with 11 fingers and one eye or worse, stillbirth, because I might die too. For too long I've treated my creative im/pulses as an after-hours pursit. You know what happens when someone has a kid? Their life is altered and changed forever. They go from person to parent and their kids become everything to them. That's the way I've got to look at this.

Park Patterns

1. Vent cover2. Timken Art Museum Screen 3. San Diego Museum of Art doors

Now that I have long hair it seems an infinite number of strands are settling everywhere. I pick up my own hair many times a day and if I thought about it too much I'd go nuts. So, instead of frowning upon the presence of hair in my space and regarding it as an invasion I posed the question, "is there another way that hair can inform, relate, and/or define my space?". So I set a bunch of hair aside in a box cover. At the same time I've been trying to come up with an organizational solution for the Telephone-Cubby-Hole-Thing in the wall (if there's a more precise architectural term for this someone please tell me). So today, I've answered my question of how can hair inform/relate/define space. Fig. 1 - Scanned Hair Fig. 2 - Plotted Intersections Fig. 3 - Points in space

The last polaroid illustrates how the "Plotted Hair Points" would be represented throough extruded three inch Finish Furniture Screws with hex-heads. The Furniture Screws will (self)organize the cubby space.Here you can see how voids or areas emerge to hold my most often used stuff: Ipod Nano, PDA phone, Business Cards, Mail, Keys, Polaroids, Library Card, Credit Cards and ID. I'll do a follow-up post when the real project is done.

Driving and Food

An hour and a half on my feet at the California DMV in stiletto's and a black swimsuit was harsh! Not to mention a little cold but I did succeed in getting my unofficial temporary driver's permit. The DMV photo was taken before last night's after-art-party-performance-art of eating a Jumbo Jack w/cheese. I looked up the nutritional 'fo on Jack in the Box company website this morning. 690 calories and 42 grams of fat. YUM! I'll have to limit the Jumbo Jacks to a couple per day.

Ocean Beach Dipper and Lifeguard Tower

My patient and methodical combing of Craig's List in San Diego is bearing fruit. Along with acquiring the Apple Red Beach Cruiser Bicycle, I scored an all-in-one printer unopened in the box for 1/2 price and now a dining room table. The table was an especially exhilirating score due to the fact it's retro design mimics the curved art deco walls of my place. My friend Stephanie enlisted her co-worker, John the Accountant, to help transport the table. Afterwards, celebration was in high order, so Steph and I headed to Albie's Beef Inn and sat at the piano bar with Pinot Noirs under the glow of the nude-woman paintings. More celebration followed at Urban Mo's (formerly Hamburger Mary's).

No Lifeguard Today

Sometimes I have to pinch myself. Am I really here? Through my stuffed up nose I just smell air, stripped of Ocean. At the foot of the ocean it seems like there's a lot more air. Right now the water is pulling away from me and it will continue retreating until 2:34pm. It will creep back by 8am. The barnacles are beginning to show on the pier footings like hairy legs. There's a guy with an amish-looking beard, a beer belly and very liberal g-string who keeps glancing at me. I've got my DMV appointment for Wednesday, new retro table acquisition on wednesday and another meeting with my spanish tutor on Thursday and I'm taking an adoptive dog to Dog Beach on Friday. There's no excuse not to be busy in this city nor is there an excuse not to fully, deeply relax with so much ocean so available. This thursday evening I'm heading to the Contemporary Art Museum overlooking the Pacific in La Jolla. They're re-opening after a year of remodeling. This was one of the first places Aunt Muriel took me 15 years ago when I first visited San Diego and my first exposure to the questions of contemporary art. Muriel is a lover of the Old Masters so she definitely took me for my benefit. With school starting only part time in January I can approach my priorities from other angles. There is so much modern design and old design to interact with. Little Italy has some really fun new buildings that I want to walk up to and touch. There are mid-century apartment buildings around every corner and southern california as a whole is stuffed with notable buildings/architects both on and off the beaten path. My perogative in the absence of full-time class will be to get to know these buildings as intimately as possible and with a technical understanding of how they're built. My other priority is to learn Spanish. Mexico is only 20 min. away and there's a lot of development going on in Baja California. In 3-5 years I want to be able to take part in that growth as a designer. I don't think we give those who have feet in two countries (legal or illegal) the due credit for living two languages and two cultures. So far, I can't even get past rolling my "R's".

Two Hours Forwards, Fifty Degrees Backwards

Rumour has it that I'm flying into Minneapolis on Monday Dec. 11th....if that's true...then whoever picks me up at the airport at 11:53am needs to bring me a down coat, flannel hat with ear flaps and thermos of hot coffee, so I can survive the walk from the baggage claim to the curb. I'll be in town until Dec. 24th, mostly buried under six blankets with my girl and many cats but I will venture out twice for Camille and Stephani's fabulous parties. On Xmas day I'm contemplating a drive up to San Fran to catch up with some old friends. For everyone who showed up at Rudolph's and brought me great cd's (Susan, Judy, Jill and Denise) and presents! (Camille, JB, Kris, Nelle, Steph) Here's some music in return >>>>>>>>>>>> click hereAnd for those of you who gave me your addresses...watch your mailboxes, something is coming.

Expression

On Saturday at Balboa park I decided to sit down in front of a ridiculously complicated Baroque-Rococo looking building and draw it. I put pen to paper for about an hour and a half. After 60 minutes and 70% of the drawing completed I began to attract small children who would gasp and go get their parents and vice-versa adults who would grab their children and point to me. It felt kind of nice to be an improvisational civic attraction - especially since I haven't drawn much over the last two years. Sun night I also randomly caught a segment on 60 minutes on a Venezuelan Pianist, Gabriela Montero. Montero is a classical pianist but likes to improvise. She can take any song or 3 seconds of humming and improvise an elaborate arrangement. Morely Safer asked her to do a tango version of Twinkle Twinkle little star and the amazing stream of music came out of Montero in a fluid instant of mind-to-piano. You just have to hear the 10 sec. clip to know what I mean. I forget that expression is simple. I forget that just me, pen and paper, are an unscripted sum of parts. Watch the the 2 min. clip here, it's worth it. You'll have to endure a short commercial in the beginning. http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?channel=60SundayGabriela Montero's official websitehttp://www.gabrielamontero.com/

Balboa Koi Fish

Acquistions

1. Apple Red Beach Cruiser Bicycle - $40 off Craig's List.

2. San Diego Library Card

3. 200 Ibuprofen tablets - $14.99 at the RiteAid Drug Store in Hillcrest.

Yesterday from 2 in the afternoon until 8 this morning I had a headache that went from minor nuisance to sharp throbbing of biblical proportions. I live with a new bicycle, a bed, some clothes, laptop, enough food to last 12 hours, map of san diego on the walll and no ibuprofen. Now I have 200 tablets. This weekend 200,000 people will be gathering 3 blocks from my doorstep to celebrate December Nights at Balboa Park. Amongst the activities are cultural displays of goods, artwork, traditional dancing, free admission to all 13 museums, food from 32 different countries and countless restaurants from San Diego, a beer and wine tasting emporium of which I will sample just enough to make the 3 block walk back home. Last but not least, elaborate displays of lights will adorn the fountains and buildings in the park. http://www.balboapark.org/decembernights/Since I don't have a date for this event I will be going by myself and showing myself a very, very, good time. Spreckles Organ Pavillion

The Differences

Going from the Middle West to the West Coast is a bit like going from Atari to Playstation 3. Instead of flat left-to-right play all of a sudden a third dimension and a million colors are available. In the Middle West I knew lakes with neat circumferences. Now I’m part of a coastline that goes on to trace the shores of other countries. In the lakes and rivers of home I was comforted by the thought that I was the biggest thing in the water. Now I could be the tastiest thing within 100' of shore. In the flatness of Minneapolis I was used to seeing mostly what’s right in front of me. Here I see the streetscape, buildings, valley below, canyon on the other side, more buildings, mountains in the distance, some ocean and more sky further out, and all of this in one big fat lusty look. My mental GPS has been working overtime taking note of successful short cuts and every point of interest along the way. San Diego is quite hilly and it's completely possible to take a wrong turn and drive off a cliff sober in the middle of the day. Last but not least, I could put a multiplication symbol and two digit number after the words: Craftsmen Style House, Sushi Bar and Days of Sunshine. This is where I live.