Imaginary Objects

This was kind of an extended "Hello, world," in Blender. I'm putting it here so Andreu knows I can at least drag wireframes around. He's doing some beautiful work with Blender, as you can see on his blog.

Fly It

Concerts

This weekend cantabile and friends offer up Salomone Rossi, a Jewish Italian Renaissance composer, colleague to Monteverdi. I love the music. I'm studying, vocalizing, taking care of myself.

Boo!

We had a gorgeous and spooky Hallowe'en here. The trees are still in full color, the night was cool and pleasant. I love seeing everyone strolling through the neighborhoods and knocking on each other's doors.

That's Jesse with the chains and two of his schoolmates.

Linnea and Tor with two friends. Man, were they excited!

I ate candy. It started with candy corn, and progressed from there. My swearing-off of sweets lasted a month, then gradually caved in.

Hope you all had a spooky time!

PeerTrainer

I've joined a PeerTrainer group to log diet and exercise and chat about it. You can watch me log, if you want to. I've added some links about my health activities on the side of this blog page.

Still Here

Bruce tells me my journal is "woefully out of date". Uh, yeah. Well, we've just been having too much fun. Phone camera pictures aren't much to look at, but here are Tor (on the slide) and Linnea (underneath, making eyes at a new friend) at Look Park. We rode the train twice, once sitting in the very front, once sitting on the very back looking back at the tracks as we wound through the woods. Then we played here and fed goats and listened to the peacocks screech and saw two young hawks fly down from the clouds to visit their imprisoned brethren and squeak their high, wailing calls.

Jean and the kids are off to Maine. I'll be on my own, with my neighbors, friends, musical get-togethers, books, apartment reorganization, and mellow afternoons at the pool. Oh, yeah, and work. Must. Not. Forget. Work. :)

Joe; Strength for Life

His name is Josef Arnould. He's the most knowledgable and capable fitness advisor I've met. He is coaching me in exercise and other fitness issues, and it's an incredible pleasure. Check out his Stronger After 40 program. I'm working with him at his Strength For Life center in Northampton. His book, available from the web site, is a startlingly good read packed full of insight. What luck to run into him! (He regularly stops by Blue Moon, downstairs.)

Coffee

Coffee makes my hands shake, makes me feel tired, and makes my mind sluggish. Hm. Maybe I should stop drinking it?

Catching up

One month between postings. Water under the bridge:

• Cantabile performance of Rossi repertoire;
• Delightful building of my own Linux system from the bottom up;
• Fascinating beginning of my Fruit Tree organizing project;
  
• Much time with children;
• Much time with friends;
  
• Dietary collapse;
• Apartment renewal;
• Emotional breakthrough;
  
• Bill-paying catastrophe; and, finally,
  
• An amazing, pleasant, and great trip to Arizona and Texas with the kids.

Tor, Linnea, Jesse, and I

1. flew to Arizona,
   
2. had a perfect visit with Grandpa Fred and Grandpa Kay
   
3. with a special guest appearance by cousin Lindsey and her children Dylan and Peyton,
   
4. flew to Texas,
   
5. were treated royally by Aunt Lory, Uncle Kerry, and cousins Carly and Dana, and
   
6. flew back home to Massachusetts.
   

All in the space of a week, with many good connections made between my children and the Olsson side of the family. A triumph! Yay for me! Yay for us! Yay for Olssons!

I have great kids.

The Little Mermaid - Broken

I've always been charmed by The Little Mermaid.

Intimacy. Computers.

The thing about this blog is, how intimate do I want to get? This is basically a public forum, so a reserved approach is appropriate, but that leaves out a lot of fun/interesting/important stuff.

I am way deep in Unix land these days, lifting out mostly just to do some parenting, visit with the neighbors, and eat not-so-very-well. I'm making some computer-space to look at my life, but am I doing it to look at my life, or using a look-at-my-life idea to fuel my computering? You're probably confused by that last sentence. Not enough context. I really don't like to think of computer programming and software and interfaces as mechanistic tools. I'm there to explore a world of relationship, form, action/reaction, personality, ethos. So when I'm there I'm understanding, recognizing, judging, shaping, reshaping, moving, dialoguing. I encounter the ghosts of countless other programmers, and leave my own shades for others to love, hate, fear, be amused by. This romanticized computer world isn't just fanciful. Without this kind of relationship with the machines, they will become more and more disconnected from humanity, more mechanistic, less caring. I'd forgotten that.

Back from Arizona

I am marvelously wrapped up in programming. More on that later, I expect. I did go to Arizona and enjoy time with "the six," my idiosyncratic family of origin. I guess all families are idiosyncratic, only we're more so! Mom wanted for her 75th birthday to fly in a helicopter over the beautiful desert mountains near her home. This is Weaver's Needle, an old landmark that I've never seen from this angle before. It was a really beautiful ride.

Don't forget to click on the picture to see a larger version!