VerMAZING

View

2009-11-28T13:02:00.000-08:00

One of the greatest parts about my time here in Vermont is that it consistently is a place of space, peace and quiet. Even when the students are here and having a party that starts at 2am on Wednesday. The view is what I always remember.

Form is a Verb

2009-09-10T15:13:00.001-07:00

Ok. . . one more.

2009-04-28T14:56:00.000-07:00

RETIRED

2009-04-28T06:51:00.000-07:00

If you are interested in seeing all that I deem VerMazing . . . . . go here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/28975825@N00/

McLame

2008-11-04T16:38:00.000-08:00

So there is nothing lamer than a dead blog, one that doesn't update, one that never changes. It is like a . . . . it's lame, and I have been guilty of this beyond recognition. Somehow two months have passed and I haven't updated once. There could be a lot of excuses, or at least I could come up with them, but the truth is, there is no excuse. So I apologize.

In many ways I didn't have much to say.

When school started I found the month of September completely disappear. I was gone most weekends traveling; Maine,New York, Atlantic City and Maryland. In an order wholly different. Classes started, and my own class, so I was busy pretty much all of the time. In the month of October it was much the same, except the one weekend I was actually here I was catching up on all that I had postponed.

So there it is two months. One of the biggest problems and it is a surprise was that I have somehow spread out to four different computers so it seems that whenever I need something it just happens to be elsewhere. Over the last two weeks that is slowly getting back to normal. However I am not caught up yet.

So the weather here a few weeks ago was COLD. Today however it was near seventy in the sun and beautiful.
More soon.

Out of Doors

2008-08-22T12:54:00.000-07:00

This week I have been spending my nights out on the porch of Shingle Cottage, the once home of Robert Frost. After a summer living in Manhattan I have to admit that it has been amazing to spend these days out of doors. Even when it drops down into the fifties at night! Curled up in my sleeping bag I have been sleeping like a champ, amidst the peepers of night, beneath the constant light explosion of the stars.

VerMazing!

Summer Oh-8

2008-08-21T15:21:00.000-07:00

It seems like May was just yesterday. It was then that I finished the school year and went out on a summer vacation. It was of interest because for the first time in years I completely removed myself from my daily online activities. I spent my days in more poetical pursuits of introspective reflection. Was there a marked epiphany? Not for certain.

I am a bit older and the summer is gone, but I am back in Vermont.

Spring

2008-05-06T08:15:00.000-07:00

Spring has arrived. . . This photo is not recently.

Northeast Kingdom

2008-03-12T06:57:00.000-07:00

140 square miles. . . . .

. . .

SpringSprangSprung

2008-03-04T06:02:00.000-08:00

so the winter Field Work Term has come to a close and we have resumed classes. I did some work, as could be expected but not nearly as much as I should have. Instead I travelled here, there and everywhere for reasons which now escape me. Not that I didn't have the best time ever! Because, of course, I did. . . . the most significant aspect of the past two months besides a new rather enthralling girlfriend is that I spent my thirty-third birthday in this little cabin:

Alright, so this isn't in Vermont. It was in the White River National Forest, just outside Aspen, Colorado probably the most memorable birthday yet.

Classes have started again and it is good to be back in the swing. My classes this semester are only on Monday and Tuesday which makes for a quick start of chaos. Add that to a distant GF and the situation has waves. But I'm getting the hang. I have been skinning quite a bit in the national park. I actually found a great four mile run off the AT two weeks ago.

As long as the snow stays. . . .

Reign the Rains

2008-02-05T07:54:00.000-08:00

This photo was taken at Mt.Snow while school Vacation was still on. Our early season past with a flood of rain. Today a month later the rains continue.

Train to Zion

2007-12-04T07:19:00.000-08:00

Of all things I am most careful of it is the analogy. On Sunday I had a chance to go Skiing at Mt.Snow. I could go through many layers of how the day was completely wonderful. I spent most of the day solidifying the analogy between Love and Skiing.

After discovering this, in a prismatic fractal, and a myriad of ways. I have concluded that it is most valuable for one to create their own analogies. In the process of this discovery I learned more than I could have expected, both about Love . . . .

and more importantly about Skiing.
In the end, what was most conclusive, after twenty-two runs in five hours, is that I simply love skiing.

giving thanks

2007-11-21T10:18:00.000-08:00

Last night in a blur of season I built a fire.

Tenderfoot

2007-11-17T14:20:00.001-08:00

. . . Mr.Supertramp needed to study a bit more I think. I remember hearing about him back when he was just an idealist kid from Emory, friends of friends knew him. . . something like that. I heard about the book, but pretty much from the get go I realized he really shouldn't have gone out there.

Maybe he should have been hanging out with Grizzly Man?

This is something I have thought about a lot actually. Especially since I am more or less in the wild now. Ok so I'm really only about three hours out of the city, working around mostly girls, which is wild, but not quite the same. It could be part of that that I have been thinking about this quite a bit lately, though it could also be the holiday. Or the fact that I'm getting older. Or that I know that that is something I really need to do. Easier said then done, I know. I am having a bit of trouble with the happily ever after part of this tale.

Not that I'm really bummed out, at all really, I just wonder sometimes how much better it could be? I can rationalize that it may not be better. That in fact it might be quite a bit more difficult making someone else happy in addition to myself. But then again wouldn't the ideal mean that I didn't have that worry, or concern? I don't know. What I do know is that true happiness is shared, and at this point . . . . here I am.

So the questions continue. Do you really know? Does time stop? and birds sing? Despite the baggage I try to drop every day, despite near misses, and close calls, I still believe in that Buttercup fairy-tale. I don't know why. . . . irrational, completely. I should also mention there is really not too much I can do about it. I will say that here in this wild I don't look, I'm not searching. Because of that it really isn't a distraction. More an aspect of my condition.

When I lived down in the Village I couldn't go outside without seeing romantic possibility. After two years that occasion was far less frequent. Made worse by my time in retail. Which kind of brings to light something else, and that is that I'm pretty nonjudgmental. I guess what has happened is that I grew into a New Yorker.

A friend of mine said, and I have actually had this conversation with many different people, that it is impossible to fall in love in the city. I am sure it happens, it has to right? I can't say I know too many successes, but there must be some, right?

My latest plan is to extradite.

But maybe it comes down to my blindness, which could be it also. Maybe I just can't see it, and so it passes me by. Maybe I need to invent a special pair of glasses that can see love. Ones that recognize not the love of memory such as with your dear old friends, but the love spark that launched a thousand ships. The spark that causes the sun to shine. That is what I hope to one day see.

Irrational, certainly, real? Definitely.

Rain

2007-11-13T06:20:00.001-08:00

This morning it's raining. This photo came from a dam not far from my house that could likely have some of the best rapids around, but I suppose thats not until spring.

Mass MoCA

2007-11-11T10:36:00.000-08:00

So while my parents were in town we took a quick day trip down to Mass MoCA in North Adams, which was a nice half hour. It was homecoming at Williams so I got to see something else. Purple blankets and alumni sports fans, something there isn't too much of up at Bennington, which isn't so bad, just different. While I was at the University of Maine I don't think I went to more than a few games, what is interesting is that were I to be in town I would definitely go now. There is something about a cold fall day and a good game of Football. Of course I would, as many Alumni do, have on my letter jacket.

This was my first time at this museum and I was impressed. The shows were good, somewhat. . . . I had my camera, but most of my shots were of the outside, my shots inside. . . ah, photos weren't allowed inside. The (nonexistant) photos from inside were more research based, Spencer Finch who claimed most of the show had a few clever solutions, which I attempted to document. After researching I did find an actually better solution, which I hope to work into a project soon.

Speaking of which, Projects: I am beginning to realize how very important time is. I feel that many, most. . . maybe all of my projects have been rushed. Or one-offs, which this could be looked at as being honest, as I had an idea, and created it as best I knew how. However it could also be viewed as being unrefined. Of late I have considered the latter.

The risk however remains as then the symphony, possibly, will never be finished.

What I see now is that this becomes a fairly accurate acid test as to my interest. If I can do the same thing twice, it probably reveils I enjoyed it the first time. Though I admit that perhaps all that this means is that I am growing more patient.

I did respect the artists however, and they provided me with a few ideas, as mentioned, of my own. Some easier than others. What I admit to wanting to see most was what now black sheep artist Christoph Büchel and his work Training Ground for Democracy

. . . but alas, all there was were the remenants outside. Too bad.

Paths

2007-11-07T09:06:00.001-08:00

First I should say that at the top of haystack mountain, which I had no idea was a ski resort. . . once I found what could be the best single group of trail choices I have ever seen. See you on Oh, No!

Whenever you make choices it seems to always be like this, none of the choices seem that easy and even still you may be missing a few. In this case only a few of the details. It was a great hike, up the backside, it's gotten colder but the ice on the trail turned muck as the day continued. The path we were on never really intercepted with the resort, it was just close, as in a clearing.

The mountain hadn't been open in years, in the patrol hut someone had lit a fire in the center of the floor. It was a bit like Heston seeing liberty in Planet, but not really. Maybe like Moonlight on the OK coral. Ghosts of skiers past yelped through trees still growing. It really made me want to hike up in winter and ski it, which is something I may do.

The other issue Haystack faces is that it is spitting distance from Mt.Snow which, after a short visit the same day, is a cute little local mountain, something I was quite surprised by, it was about half the size of Stratton, not in vertical feet but in terms of development.

The good news is that from my house it, Snow, is less than thirty miles away, along a great, albeit dangerous, drive. The best discovery during my visit were hidden back parking lots, AND most importantly a nice little unmarked back-road that runs parallel to the treacherous mountain road that misses town. All in all this little shortcut could save about twenty minutes in season.

This is probably one of the best paths to choose, there is fear in Oh No, danger in the Avalanche, stumps to jump, yet still there is a last chance, what more can you ask. I can't say that I have made any dramatic life altering decisions of late, save the most obvious and that is my decision to come up here, other than that, though I have been reflecting on the Marching Bands of Manhattan, all I have really done is buy a set of skis, as you might have guessed, for the forthcoming season.

One of the biggest decisions I have on the horizon and one that is a relative tsunami is whether or not I should take an apartment I have been offered in TriBeCa. I have an interview in about five hours. . . .

Decisions, decisions.

Risk

2007-11-05T10:34:00.000-08:00

What on this earth does not involve your own risk?

DesignWork

2007-11-02T20:17:00.000-07:00

So a few changes have occured and I can't say I am too surprised. One is that after plugging in my blower fan I found that it would in no way be strong enough to inflate anything, this is my own fault for not checking, but I am glad I didn't waste too much time with it. What did come out of it was that I remain quite interested in creating an inflatable, just not with that fan, which is really the smallest detail. The second change, though still too early to tell is that the silicone mold I used for the DUNNY™ character has a less than perfect face. This is due most likely to a rushed mixing job. What it means though is that the finished product out of the mold will be rather imperfect. Perhaps this is good, perhaps the ramifications of the intent are materializing throughout the piece. The casting will be in an ultra clear polycarbonate resin, once it arrives, I ordered it last week, I will be able to test possible buff and sanding techniques in an effort to recreate the unmarred finish. If it doesn't work I may have to start over. Experience.

Changes; I can't trace time.

2007-10-29T11:34:00.000-07:00

As the temperature drops I find a realization unexpected. A shadow rejected and neglected for use.

My decision to embark on this adventure was rooted in simplicity. My sole desire was to take a step back, pay some bills and get set for the next path for my life. Almost immediately I began planning, touching down at a sprinters pace. At first I imagined. I was suddenly able to extend my wings and soar.

I imagined the view on high and began devising projects that were enabled by all of this, this world I was now on. What I found was two fold, on one hand I was limited in that I really could never dedicate true time to a project, though I suppose this is never the case, but I found that my vision and expression did need borders, this mainly because what would I do with a six foot wave made topographically of plywood. The presentation would be serene, but the purpose? Which brings the next part, what in a six foot wave actually fits into my daily requirements? So then my projects shifted.

I have since pulled back the reigns. Which is, I think now, what was meant to happen. When I started two months ago I had a momentum unequalled. I came out of the city at light speed ready. What I have found is that, for the most part, is more frustrating than not. Time is the same, it is the distractions that are less. So I now have a host of small projects that serve both as creative endeavors, as well as examples of my own.

The first one I have started is to create a series of DUNNY™ characters. These characters are part of the burgeoning collectable toy market started in San Francisco with Kid Robot. What I found intriguing about these, though I have only two, is that they are reminders; of childhood, of the urban landscape, of our culture, and our neo-postmodernist avant-garde revitalization of pop kitsch. Not long after I bought my last one, they came out with a blank one, which allow you yourself to create that little character. I wanted to see what was inside, to expose, and unvail. For these multiples I am going to cast a series of transparent characters. I am intrigued by the notion of "transparency" as well as seeing inside these previously opaque characters. Everyone can wear a shell, but once we see inside we know more. More about the character, more about ourselves. I am set to start this process shortly, a few will be electronic, and in this I plan to use the visual aesthetic of an exposed wire system as a nod our own systems, be it nervous or circulatory. It is too early to forecast how successful this will be.

Additionally, this week, I am planning to make an inflatable, at this stage I have a container and a fan, as well as the assignment to utilize a relay for demonstration purposes. This project is set as a quick turn around as I have seven days from tomorrow.

The last six weeks I have spent some time adjusting. I feel as though now is the time to ramp up production. Since, that is one of the reasons why I am here. When I finished graduate school I felt as though the extremely fast pace hadn't allowed me to work through a project as much as I would like. Part of the trouble, and this could be a third detail, is that I didn't really have anything big on the horizon, I did, but on that I am still waiting for the equipment, which was due two months ago. After two rounds of NDA I am now waiting for a package. That chance awaits.

One thing that is interesting is that for most part I have disappeared from the world I knew. Since school I haven't really heard from anyone. Here and there two shots across the bow, but nothing. However I have heard this week from a few people at Rugby, which is really nice. One was the visual manager, he called and asked me to help him with designing a video wall. I sent him a proposal friday. It would be pretty grand to be involved in the visual marketing. I have also heard from a few associates. Great people. I never thought I would have such a tie to retail but in truth there is something special there. As with here great people can make all the difference in the world.

Changes. Life goes on. I am making the best of what lies ahead.

Mt.Equinox Fall 2007

2007-10-24T08:03:00.000-07:00

As the season changes I finally find out why this is thee place so many people visit this time of year. The morning dew was a silken sheet on the grass as we set out for Manchester, which is about twenty minutes north of Bennington. We, James Saldana the Video Technician, and I headed up there because hands down the best breakfast is found there. We decided over what has certainly our best Sunday breakfast yet, that we would hike up Equinox and mountain overlooking the valley providing us our eggs, coffee and juice.

Alright, I expand. I had a hash omelet, which doesn't sound that good until I mention that it was hand cut corned beef, sauteed onions and crisp vermont cheddar. It was quite good. That with a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice and some stellar coffee made for an excellent start to the day.

Dates

2007-10-16T07:43:00.000-07:00

September Revisited

2007-09-17T07:39:00.001-07:00

As the end of the month set with a new moon rise. I find I am in a strange place. Teaching is a constant test. What you do know is questioned, and often what you don't, so that research is always necessary. Mostly review with sometimes new.

Everything about everything.
"I don't know but I'm willing to figure it out."
I thought to write down the questions I couldn't answer. During office hours my first visitor of the day was arduino and the the first circuit.

September

2007-09-17T07:21:00.000-07:00

Slowly the decision I have made settles. I have been in Vermont a month and the time is beginning to spread out. This is good because since I started it seems to not have stopped. There has been occasion two weeks ago today in fact I remember a beautiful afternoon spent in the sunshine carried aboard an adirondack set I got for six dollars new. By no means luxurious, plastic. Until however beneath the smiling waves of cool air and hot sun, they are divine.

The weekends especially seem vacant. An island in a sea of green, fields forest and wetlands rustle breeze with the falling season. Today, a saturday, I cleaned up my desk a bit. The chaos of unsettlement was spilling over. Bilge pump maintenance as I watched Oceans 13, which was a good film and Guy Ritchie needs to counter as his style goes mainstream. This week I realized my morning trips to Powers Market for coffee had become a ritual. My interaction was negligible but I found myself drawn. Only because I was too tired to get up earlier to compensate for the walk over which can be done in twenty minutes.

Shingle Cottage

2007-09-04T15:13:00.000-07:00

The legend of Shingle Cottage seems to form tangibly each day. Apparently Robert Frost lived in the house off in the field in 1932 when Bennington Women's College was founded. We like to think in the house that his ghost informs and enlightens us, but we never can tell if it's him or the woodchuck that lives in the cellar.

Vermont

2007-08-30T16:48:00.001-07:00

VAPA - Bennington College

2007-08-30T16:43:00.001-07:00