When Button first arrived, I was a bit nervous: she was timid and didn't like Ziggy chasing her around and barking at her. Then ten minutes passed. They constantly play now, everywhere.
I didn't think anyone could keep up with Ziggy's energy, but Button hold her own. She ends up winning in most games: tug of war, chase the other dog around the couch at super high speeds, bite wrestle (where the winner gets a good nip at the ear), and many more we haven't been able to decipher yet. They slept together in the crate, and have learned some good (and not-so-good) habits from each other.
It's still too early to call it in the two-dog experiment, but it's looking good.
I didn't appreciate what would happen to the Horribles when I went on vacation (I write this as if anyone truly cared. Oops, sorry. I slipped into consternation mode for a moment). I planned to doodle and post in Hawaii, figuring we'd have time at the end of the day to relax and fiddle around. It didn't work out that way. The little time I had I used to write my short journal entries and choose photos. The rest of the time we were out exploring or eating (we did a lot of eating--it's going to take me days of hunger pains before my stomach shrinks to its normal size) or collapsing in bed at the end of the night. We didn't even turn on the television the entire week. This is unheard of in our household.
Next time, I'll post an On Hiatus doodle for my time away. For now, I'll get back into it. Since Button arrived yesterday, I plan to add her to the Horribles tonight. For now I'll continue going through the queue.
It's good to be back.
Here's the culled photo album for our trip. It was a difficult process removing enough photos to bring this album a shy under 200 photos (I know...who would look through all these photos except my mother and Julie?).
For people looking for even more photos, there is good news: I plan to upload all the photos into separate daily albums. Once done, I'll link them here, so as not to clutter our photos index. We're also putting together all the videos we took into a small movie. No ETA on that project but we've at least talked about it.
We spent our last day in Kauai revisiting the North Shore of the island. We’re sitting in the airport now waiting for our redeye flight to board. It takes off a bit before midnight. Thanks to the late flight, we had a full day of activities, taking our time to ensure we weren’t at the airport four hours before our flight (as I’ve said before, I prefer to get to the airport early to avoid anxiety—just not that early). We traveled up highway 50 for most of the day, reaching its end.
Before we arrived at the North Shore, we stopped at the Pools of Malakae. You reach the pools by driving along yet another dirt road. The entrance to the road has signs warning that the road is closed and it might be a federal violation to trespass along the road. The blue book told us it was okay, and since it is a higher authority than the U.S. government, we trusted it and made our way along the rough road. Our not-so-fancy Jeep did quite well on what was the slipperiest path it has driven. Let me clarify: the Jeep was a wonderful choice. It allowed us to drive on roads that we would have been fearful with lesser vehicles. I call it the no-so-fancy Jeep because it’s a Jeep: it’s not supposed to be fancy. The windows roll up and down with a crank, and except for the A/C, it has base everything. Perfect for what we needed it for, namely driving through hugely potholed roads and over red slippery mud.
Once we arrived at the end of the path, we hiked along a fence separating the bird-protected (and therefore illegal to trespass) part from the rest of the beach. We walked down from the fence to the lava rocks that ran along the edge of the ocean. The blue book described pools and swimming holes, but there was to be none of that today. The ocean was angry throughout the day. There was a high wind and an even higher tide. We stood on the rocks next to where the ocean pounded, trying its best to get to us. It was a bit scary as we hiked as far as we could before trekking back. Besides a few locals sitting in trucks at the end of the road, the hike was deserted. We passed a few joggers as we drove back, but there wasn’t a person on the rocks with us.
We next stopped at the Secret Beach. We mentioned a few days ago that we were going to use the blue book to find a secret beach, which only we would know about. You get to the beach by hiking down a steep wooded trail. (The hike back up was much more difficult.) The beach was surrounded by beautiful houses overlooking the oceans around it. The beach was large and well worth the hike. It had the most sand per person we had seen since arriving in Hawaii. There were a couple of families on the beach, but even so, it was quite secret and mostly deserted.
From the Secret Beach we tried to find the Secret Lava Pools, but because of the high surf, we didn’t get very far. We snapped a few photographs and called it good, hiking back up the steep path that led to the Secret Beach.
We left the Secret Beach and headed west along Highway 50 to Hanalei, a picturesque town with many rice paddies and postcard views. We grabbed lunch at a cute seafood place called Dolphin something, with an outdoor seating area that overlooked the Hanalei River. As we left town, we saw a few cars pulled over and people snapping photographs. I joined them and Julie caught this beautiful photograph.
They just announced that the plane is boarding, so I’ll speed this up a bit. After we left Hanalei, we continued the drive west to the end of highway. It ends at the beginning of the Na Pali coastline. There is an 11 mile hike at this point, but because of the time, and our lack of preparation, we decided to forego the hike, and instead stopped at some amazing beaches, where we watched (and even took video) of a few brave surfers on the waves.
The plane beckons us, and we plan to sleep a few hours before arriving at Seattle and rescuing Ziggy and Button (we have decided to call them the Biggies when referring to both dogs).
We spent the day exploring the West coast of Kauai. This was the only coast we have not yet visited. We started between the south and west shore at the Glass Beach in the industrial part of Hanapepe. It was named because the beach is covered in shards of glass. We saw many tourists combing the beach for the glass and ceramic pieces that cover the beach. Following the blue book, we spent little time on the beach, and instead ventured off to the rocks running along the beach, to the source of the glass and ceramic shards.
Along the side of the beach is an old dump site. This may not sound interesting but it is surprising what the sea does to the old machinery that the locals dumped (and continue to dump) along the side of this former garbage site. Over time the metal and garbage become interwoven with the lava and rock. If someone managed to pack away some of the rusted equipment to a New York museum, they would have little problem convincing the curators of their value as modern art.
The blue book calls the hike past the Glass Beach the Melted Metal and Keyhole Cave at Swiss Cheese Shoreline. The Swiss Cheese refers to the holey lava rocks that like many rocks along the shoreline have worn away under the wavy barrage of seawater. We’re not sure we made it to the Keyhole Cave. There were a few caves we passed as we climbed over the rocks and garbage, but at one point, when the remaining wall of the dump site rose ten feet, and we were surrounded by rocks and garbage, the smell became overpowering and we decided to end our hike early instead of carefully picking our way over the rocks and garbage, trying to avoid the many glass shards and battle that still covered the site.
At one of the holey rocks, Julie came across two fish trapped in a small pond from the last high tide. They were pretty fish and Julie wished she had a bucket to help them return to the ocean. I patiently explained that when the next high tide came around, the fish would swim over the rocks and return to the ocean. Julie nodded in agreement and still wished for the bucket.
After leaving the Glass Beach, we drove along the west shore to the beginning of Waimea Canyon. It is said that Mark Twain dubbed the Waimea Canyon the Grand Canyon of the Pacific. The blue book sets the record straight: although it’s a nice story, from Twain’s biography, it turned out that during his visit to Hawaii he never set foot on Kauai. Even without Twain’s blessing, the canyon is still quite large and majestic. It is a four-thousand foot ascent to the highest point of the canyon. While I would like to say we hiked up it, it was our not-so-fancy Jeep that did all the work. There are well-paved roads leading through state parks up through the canyon. There were a few hikes that led down into the valley, but we did not have the proper clothing for the hikes—and we were tired and the bugs were biting and Mercury was not in the right house.
Along the drive up Waimea Canyon, there are beautiful vistas every few miles, and we shot many photographs of the canyons. To tell you the truth, once you see one photo of the canyon, they all look about the same.
At the very top of the canyon we did find a different and quite beautiful vista. A light mist had followed us up through the valley, and when we arrived at Pu’u o Kila Lookout, the mist cleared to reveal a beautiful rainbow cutting across Kalalu Valley and the Pacific Ocean. While it was a long forty mile round trip (mostly stuck behind very slow cars), it was worth it for this picture alone.
When we entered the canyon, the temperature was around 70 degrees. As we worked up to the peak, it dropped to 60 degrees. When we returned to sea level we entered Kekaha. It was a toasty 80 degrees in Kekaha, the last town on the western side of the island.
Leaving Kekaha, we drove to the end of the highway 50 with the hopes of seeing Polihale State Park. The park was closed, but we did find a few roads leading to Ka-Boom Mountain. That is its name, Ka-Boom Mountain. There are many military bases along the western end of Kauai, and the military dug manmade caves along Ka-Boom Mountain to store explosives and ammunition. Suffice to say the large fences did not allow us to get very close to the mountain. It was here that we decided that our exploration of the western side of the Kauai was complete.
On our way back to the hotel, we stopped by Kipu Falls. We planned to visit these falls on our first day in Kauai. When we asked the parking valet to check our directions to the get to the fall, he told us that he wasn’t supposed to tell us how to get there. It’s a liability thing: many of the sites in Kauai are not run by the state, and when people get injured, they blame whomever helped them get there: the land owners, the travel books, and the hotels. To show that we could, we stopped at Kipu Falls, walked up through the muddy path, and arrived at the falls. They were smaller than the other waterfalls we had seen, and a group of locals were toweling dry. There was a ladder leading from the bottom of the falls to the rocks above. It is likely they had spent the day jumping over the falls. We did not stay long, as we learned from our first hike in Kauai that the mosquitoes have a real affection for red mud, and there was plenty of red mud around the falls.
We climbed the sleeping giant today. It is so named because when viewed from the right angle it looks like the face of a giant. The local people tell many stories about this mountain. (All of which we heard by way of cardboard cards that the hotel leaves with chocolate during its evening turndown service.) The latest one goes like this: A large giant lived in the Wailua area. At his command the people in the local village fed him large amounts of fish. Fed up with feeding the giant so much of its fish, the villagers hid rocks within the fish and gave them to the giant. He grew tired from the large meal, and fell into a deep sleep on the mountain ridge between Wailua and Kapaa.
The blue book describes this hike as moderately challenging. It took us a little more than an hour to climb through the well-maintained switchbacks that lead to a picnic area near the peak. A short hike from the picnic area led to the summit of the sleeping giant. It’s a narrow path with a rather perilous ridge crossing with a straight drop on either side of the rocks. Julie had no problem crossing over. I abandoned my highly polished walking stick and crawled across the ridge on all fours. I don’t like heights, especially when there’s a stiff breeze or the possibility of a stiff breeze. I described this to Julie and asked her what her fears were. It took her a while to come up with one. She said she was afraid when falling. I explained to her that’s not really a fear: it’s like being afraid of a bullet after it is shot toward you.
We summated the sleeping giant and documented it in the this photograph.
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About halfway up to the summit, there is a small trail that leads to the “mouth” of the giant. It is a small cave-like opening on both ends of the head. Others call it the nose or chin of the giant. We crawled into the cave opening and snapped a few photographs. While it may look like I’m being brave, I’m actually huddled at the center of the cave, afraid to move toward either end for fear of the stiff breeze.
After we finished the trek down (which was much easier than the hike up), we went to a delicious Mexican restaurant before returning to the hotel for much napping. The hike exhausted us, and we slept and read until nighttime. We ate at the hotel, and played a game of chess before heading back to the room to write up this report. This was Julie’s first chess game and she played quite well. I eventually managed to kill off all of her pieces, leaving her with just her king and two immobile pawns. She refused to resign, and we played out the endgame. I somehow managed to stalemate her king while growing greedy with a second queen. I guess she was right to wait me out.
I’m still tired from the hike and the bed calls me. We only have two more days in Hawaii before heading home. I’m not sure I’m ready for that.
On our first day in Hawaii we did what all tourists do: we stopped at the local Walmart to stock up on important supplies. Included with those supplies were two sets of snorkels, masks, and flippers. Up to this point, we did not have much chance to use them: the waters were either too rough or it was too cold (relatively speaking) to go in. We decided that this morning we would get our money’s worth. We stopped in Lydgate Park. Well, we tried to stop. The entrance to the park is a semicircle that leaves the highway and returns to the highway. You have to turn off of it to arrive at the beach. I managed to complete the semicircle and return the highway. After a twenty minute U-turn, we made it to the beach and parked.
The blue book tells us that Lydgate Park is perfect for the beginner snorkeler. It’s an enclosed area of the ocean with (man-placed?) rocks forming a half circle around a large swimming and snorkeling area. Beyond the rocks is the ocean with the scary winter waves crashing but not overtaking the swimming area (unlike Queen’s Bath yesterday where the large waves broke and flooded the Bath). There was a smaller half-circle area to the left of the main one, presumably for the smaller children. The park had as many children playing in the sand and water as chickens and roosters. This is saying a lot in Kauai, which is overrun with poultry (they were released after the last hurricane and seem to do well on their own—like stray dogs but without the animal control). Besides the children and chickens, there were a number of snorkelers who worked their way along the outer rocks looking for the three schools of fish that live off the fish food and bread that snorkelers inevitably bring with them to ensure the schools swarm around them. (I decided we were too cool to steal bread from the yummy breakfast buffet, and had to make do with the fish leftovers from other snorkelers.)
With our recent SNUBA experience in mind, we outfitted ourselves in our regalia, and headed into the water. We dunked ourselves immediately to get over the initial cold shock of the water. We then slipped on our flippers and grabbed hands and swam out toward the fish. We found a few schools and paddled around for a while. It was similar to the SNUBA experience except with less fish and rocks, and no post-swim induced euphoria/memory loss. The fish mostly ignored us and we followed the two or three that we found. We lasted a good fifteen minutes before our leaky masks and the cold wind did us in. We spent the rest of the morning lying on the beach, napping, and snapping photographs.
After our morning snorkel, I made the executive decision to take it easy today. We had spent the previous days adventuring and hiking, and I woke with sore muscles and a deep desire to sit by the pool and read. We returned to the hotel for lunch, continuing with our garden burger and fries theme, and followed our lunch with a quick dip in the oversized (and misshapen) hotel pool, and a delightful soak in the hot tub. We relaxed by the pool and did more napping before returning to the hotel room for even more napping.
Before dark we went to the beach area around the pool and watched a fabulous albeit short hula dance with traditional drum and singing. The two male hula dancers stood around looking Hawaiian, while the two ladies did all the work.
We then headed to Caffe Coco, a restaurant that the blue book could not describe. The food was interesting and strange: a mix of Indian and Thai and perhaps a bit of Jamaican thrown in for good measure. It was the type of place we were glad to have visited but probably would not return. A live band started its performance as we began our dessert. We lasted through a few songs before escaping. They played a strange mix of blues, blue grass, and country. The instruments included a steel guitar, an acoustic guitar, a guitar-shaped bass, an electric ukulele, a banjo, and a wood saw—the type you play with a violin bow.
We started the day on the East Shore with the Jungle Hike off Kuamo’o Road. There were two parts to this hike: the first was getting there. Similar to the hike yesterday, a dirt road led to the trailhead. With the winter rains, the road was barely passable. Our not-so-fancy Jeep managed the potholes and mud rather well. There’s a photograph below showing what the road looks like. Each one of the potholes was anywhere from a few inches to a foot deep. The Jeep felt like one of those rides in Disneyland, where the car shakes incessantly but stays in place. I felt a bit seasick from the ride.
At the end of the road, we arrived at the trailhead that led to the Jungle Hike. We walked through a mixture of rain showers and sun. Our hats kept most of the rain out of face, and we scavenged walking sticks at the start of the hike to more easily traverse the muddy roads. The hike itself led along a ridge and up a nice if slippery hill where it ended at a man made waterfall. We have many wonderful photos. During the summer, there’s a large drainpipe that hikers can use to cut through the hill instead of climbing over it. The drainpipe lets out at the top of the waterfalls. During the summer, there is a few inches of water in the pipe. When we stuck our walking sticks into the path leading to the pipe, we found a good couple of feet of water.
Parts of the Jurassic Park movie were filmed at this location. We saw three Movie Tour vans that took tourists up and over the very bumpy road leading to the path. We don’t think they hiked the muddy and dangerous path (like the majority of tourists on Kauai, the Movie Tour tourists were older), and instead likely hiked along the main road to a few side hikes that overlooked the hilly surroundings where they shot parts of the movie.
After finishing the hike and the bumpy ride back in the late afternoon, we headed north. We stopped at yet another hamburger joint (our third of the trip), and shared Boca and garden burgers, and a order of fries—what’s turning out to be our normal lunchtime fare. We drove for a while and arrived at Queen’s Bath in Princeville. Princeville is a recently constructed Golf community. The entrance has a large marble fountain that leads to the golf course. There are many timeshares, condos, and houses along the road.
Finding the trailhead was a bit difficult. The street where we had to turn was not labeled (there was a sign for the road coming from the other direction. We saw it after making a U-turn—guests of the Princeville Hotel, which is at the far end of the main road we followed, would have no trouble finding the trailhead). The parking area was full of cars and we pulled our not-so-fancy Jeep in the last empty spot. The blue book mentioned that before they listed this trail, it did not receive much traffic. Since everyone we spoke with agreed that the blue book was the guidebook to get, it seems all the trails listed will soon be overrun.
We grabbed our bag and headed down the muddy and slippery path that led to Queen’s Bath. It was a short if treacherous hike down to the rocks. Once there, we ran into the first of many people on the path. An older gentleman with a cane greeted us, and told us that he visits often in the winter, and this was the first time he was here that the path leading to the Bath was open. Usually it was covered in seawater.
We took that as a good sign and continued to head over wet rocks. The ocean hammered outcroppings of holey rocks as we made our way further out, where the gentleman had told us we would find the Bath. We passed a few more people heading back, and after a bit of scrambling made it to the Bath. A family had just climbed out of the Bath, which turned out to be an elliptical area that was partly enclosed by rocks. The water in the Bath was calm when we arrived, but after a few minutes, a huge wave broke over and across the rocks sheltering the Bath and the frothy white water streamed into the otherwise calm water. I had already decided I would not climb down and swim in the ocean water. The water outside the Bath looked treacherous and the clouds had rolled in and ocean water is scary: it’s salty and there are riptides that lead to the deeper parts, and unlike my last trip, there may not be dolphins to save me if something went wrong.
I didn’t enjoy this hike as much as our morning hike. I like it when we don’t run into many people. In the morning, except for the trailhead and a few stragglers leaving while we were entering, we didn’t see any people. Julie, who is doing a wonderful job planning our days, decided to take that into account for the remaining days. She immediately thumbed the index of the blue book looking for secret hikes and waterfalls. She found one. We’re going to try it tomorrow.
Finally, we stopped at the Opaeka’a Falls Lookout and snapped a few photographs. This is another one of those side-of-the-road stops, where there’s a small parking area off the side of one of the main roads. There are only a few main arteries through Kauai, mostly having one or two lanes. Julie has managed to navigate with only the blue book as our guide.
We went to a local Sushi restaurant for dinner tonight. We have not left the hotel area for dinner since we arrived. While we planned to explore restaurants away from the hotel, we end up doing so much driving during the day (today we drove for almost two hours, all told) that the last thing I wasn’t to do is get behind the wheel of the not-so-fancy Jeep for another drive.
Another beautiful day draws to a close. We started late this morning, grabbing the hotel’s breakfast buffet before heading to Lawai’i Beach for SNUBA. SNUBA is similar to SCUBA, except instead of carrying the oxygen tanks on your back, you have an air line connected to a raft that floats above you. The air line goes for about 30 feet.
Julie is a certified SCUBA diver, which just means she went through the boring lessons that are required before SCUBA diving. The way she describes SNUBA is like SCUBA but with instant gratification--no lessons required. We went with an older couple, and the dive master took video. We watched it at the end of the tour, and purchased it. I’ll upload a slightly edited version when I return to Seattle.
I’m not a strong swimmer and I was a bit concerned when going down for our thirty minutes of diving. Except for a brief panic about halfway through, I did rather well. Even when the panic almost overtook me, I remained calm, remembered to breathe out (which is supposedly the secret of diving: force yourself to breathe out slowly; breathing in will be done automatically), and regained control. The water moved from cold to warm depending on the currents. There were schools of fish and some coral under the water. It looks as it does on television. The colors are brilliant when seen up close, but look washed out when you move any distance away from the object.
After it was over, I was very cold and a bit confused. I didn’t remember time passing during the dive. I had to ask how long we were down because I had no idea. I’m not used to breathing so deeply or deliberately. Julie thinks too much oxygen went to my brain—something it’s not used to, which does explain an awful lot.
After we finished SNUBA diving, we caught a late lunch and headed to the Maha’ulepu Beaches. The dirt road leading to the beaches was full of pot holes and tested our not-so-fancy Jeep and my sensitive stomach. We took many photos of this beautiful beach. It took a bit of hiking but not nearly as grueling as yesterday. The beach is covered with lithified rocks, which look like Swiss cheese after the years of seawater beating against them. The waves were vicious, and except for a few brave para-surfers on the tamer part of the beach, nobody was in the water.
After Julie finishes showering we’ll head out to dinner. I plan to sleep well again tonight.
Here are a few shots from today using Julie's new fancy camera:
My travel anxiety lifted early this morning as we started our first full day in Hawaii. We woke early (since we gained two hours it wasn't difficult), and after a Hotel breakfast, we headed out for a full-day adventure. We stopped at the local Walmart to stock up before jumping in our not-so-fancy burgandy Jeep, and hitting the open (and somewhat limited) roads of Kauai.
It was warm here with a mixture of clouds and sun. There were a few brief rain showers, all of which happened when we were eating or driving.
We stopped to take photos at Wailua Falls, but wussed out of the hike down to the bottom. Instead we drove to the Ho'opi'i Falls Hike, and went down the river, sliding some of the way on our buts down slick red mud (thanks to the rain), ducking under branches, and walking along steep ridges to catch the two waterfalls. The hike was invigorating and off the beaten path. We had to improvise a bit, as the blue book was light on details, but we managed to find both waterfalls, and even spend part of the hike traversing the edge of the river.
Here are a couple of photos (because of bandwidth issues, I won't upload the full versions until we return home):
We went to a hotel restaurant for dinner. Not the greatest choice, but we're fed and the hiking and the long day are pulling us toward the warming embrace of bed.
We made it. It’s almost 1am Seattle time and I’m exhausted. The travel was stressful but uneventful. I’ll write more tomorrow when I can manage full sentences.
We're in the middle of packing for our trip to Hawaii. We had a whirlwind weekend: my mother visited, we had a Bat Mitzvah, Julie had a Jazz performance, and we dropped off Ziggy at his boarding after he dug a hole in our carpet last night while we were away at the affair. I'll hopefully write more about my exciting weekend on the plane. For now, enjoy today's horrible.
This was one of those work realizations: I can only make a difference when I want to make a difference. It's not very profound, but it has helped me be more aggressive in presenting ideas and trying to change directions and policies where they don't make sense--and there are plenty of opportunities for this where I work.
We pick up Button when we return next Monday. She'll keep Ziggy company when we're away, and hopefully provide Julie with a portable warmer as Ziggy prefers to cuddle next to me when we watch our evening movies. I'm not sure what this means for the Horribles. Drawing Ziggy is a bit of work. Julie always complains that while her horrible is a curvy line and two eyeballs, the Ziggy horrible is a complex dog-like creature. I tried to explain to her that I couldn't do better than a curvy line and two eyeballs when I started, and Ziggy joined us at a better time, but she doesn't buy it. If Button joins the family (we're fostering her before adopting to ensure she fits in), then I'll have to draw two dogs. Perhaps I'll just add a second head to Ziggy's horrible and call it good.
Here's a photo of Button (I'm not a big fan of the pink camouflaged leopard skin[1] coat):
[1] Thanks Chuck!
My mother is arriving tonight for a weekend visit. We all leave on Sunday, Julie and me to Hawaii, my mother back to Brooklyn. We have a Bat Mitzvah to attend on Saturday night, and our regular Friday dinner tomorrow night. I've just about mastered whole chicken. I should write up the recipe one of these days. The secret is rosemary. I've also had a hankering for mashed potatoes. I have a new cookbook, and I'll try to find a good potato recipe.
This book was part of my buying spree based on the excellent Ask Metafilter post: What single book is the best introduction to your field (or specialization within your field) for laypeople?. There are wonderful suggestions in that discussion, and I narrowed down the suggestions to four books.
This was the first of the four I finished. (I read this a while ago, as you can tell by the create date of the doodle I drew after finishing it.) It was surprisingly deep and informative. I was going to say "for a comic book," but that would not be fair, especially after reading and understanding Scott's view of comics. While there are plenty of simple and uninteresting comics, there are just as many uninteresting books, movies, and operas. Meaningful art has little to do with the medium and everything to do with the messenger and the message. Comic books are no less art than novels or plays. But I will return to that in a moment.
The first part of the book discussed the meaning and history of comics. Scott ventured back in history to where comics began to take the reader through their evolution. This is where he arrived at his definition for comics: “juxtaposed images in deliberate sequence intended to convey information or produce an aesthetic sense” (this is the paraphrased definition I used in my doodle when the full definition didn’t fit in the bubble. The actual definition is a bit longer—regrettably, I don’t have Scott’s book in front of me).
The second part explained the mechanics of comics. He moved through how motion occurs between static frames, how color is used, and the basics of symbols: how simplifying a drawing transforms them from mere photographic reproductions to iconic representations that move beyond the mere objects they represent. In other words, the act of simplification actually imparts more meaning on the images.
The most enjoyable part of the book, however, was toward the end. He goes through what it means to be a true artist. He described the different levels of comic book artists. The Dreamer: a child who reads comic books and wants to write them, but doesn’t put in much time or effort and gives up her dreams early. The Dabbler: she draws comics as a hobby, spends a lot of time doodling, but never moves beyond the hobby level. The mechanic: she works hard and becomes an artist, but a low-level artist, who draws or inks comics for other artists. The Expert: she moves past the low-level artist and even writes and draws her own comics, but she never takes risks. She tells the same stories in the same styles as the other artists who came before her. She may be monetarily successful, but she is not, The True Artist: she makes it to the Expert level, but decides to take a risk and push the current boundaries of comics. She creates her own styles and modes of storytelling. She moves the art form forward, not by relying on how others do it, but by taking risks and moving beyond what others accomplish. She sometimes fails, but when she succeeds, the comic world is changed.
I’ve not done Scott justice on this part. I had to read this chapter twice as I love reading this philosophy. It’s similar to what I learned from my former boss (and to a much lesser and flawed extent, Ayn Rand): it’s the independent risk taker that succeed or fail miserably in any worthwhile endeavor, whether it be succeeding in business or creating true art. To change the world means to move beyond how the world currently is. All great artists and people do this. This is what makes people truly great.
Scott ends with his thoughts on the future of comics. He believes that we are on the edge of a new interest in this art form: Society is poised to accept comics like paintings, novels, and television before it. Reading his book, I cannot help but agree.
Even for a person who has no interest in reading or creating comic books, this is an excellent book. It’s useful to understand different art forms, and develop an appreciation, if not a love, of comics.
My first comic! Well, it's kind of "mine." I based it on one of the panels in Scott McCloud's excellent book Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. Besides learning how squiggly lines transform into story and emotion, I also learned that what I draw Scott does not considered a "comic." He spends the first part of the book defining what a comic is (the definition is in the first panel). Now that I consider it, this is the first graphic novel I read: it is written/drawn beautifully in the style of a long (and insightful) comic.
It turns out that one-panel drawings are not comics because nothing changes. All of the action is inferred from before or after the panel. Of course, seeing as I never pretended to tell a story in the Horribles, there's nothing that needs to be inferred. It's simple thoughts or happenings that I color.
I have wanted to take the plunge and draw more multi-panel drawings, or comics, perhaps a web comic, if you will. I haven't, though. I'm not sure I can even put together a story arc worth telling. I guess there's a challenge for me. I have been looking for subjects to draw. I grow tired of doodles like the last one I posted, where nothing happens and I have no ideas worth sharing.
Like most of my plans/dreams, I expect this one to end up an empty promise on an unvisited website.
I've been meaning to read a graphic novel for some time. One of my favorite online comics (albeit infrequently updated) is Copper by Kazu Kibuishi (his earlier Coppers are a bit better than his more recent stuff). When I read about Kazu's new graphic novel on Penny Arcade, I knew it would be a good place to start.
As expected, the illustrations were wonderful. Kazu has an uncanny ability to show emotions through his character's facial and body positions. He has excellent pacing and intersperses interesting "camera" angles to keep the visuals fresh between frames.
I'm always amazed by how much work it must take to create a graphic novel. Besides the story planning and writing (which, I have read, is one of the genres weakpoints), each frame must be painstakingly drawn and colored. Imagine writing a full-length novel, and then going back and handwriting the entire novel, paying particular attention to the penmanship. Now multiple that by ten. Or something like that. (I have dreamed of trying this--like most of my dreams, it usually fails because I don't have much in the way of interesting stories to tell, and, more importantly, strong artistic skills outside of squiggly sperm-like characters.)
MINOR SPOILER ALERT: The opening sequence of the book is very strong, as it starts with the death of the two protagonists' father (this is not much of a spoiler since every synopsis contains this tidbit). From there, it spirals down into a standard fantasy tale, where they meet characters who want to help them, and others that want to hurt them. There is a slight twist at the end--although the twist is more of a foreshadowing of who is the real bad guy in the story.
Overall, I enjoyed the hour or so it took me to read. I plan to go back through it to study his amazing art. While I doubt I will purchase the next book, I am glad to have read the first one (similar to how I was happy to have read Philip Pullman's Golden Compass, but was content to watch the rest of his story on the big screen).
The weekend draws to a close. We had wonderful weather today: sunny and almost warm. We tried a new restaurant last night, and will head to our normal haunt tonight for dinner. We took Ziggy to an Iggy meetup, and Julie tried out her new camera. The foster parents of Button, our possible second dog, stopped by today with Button for a home visit. Ziggy played well with Button--although she was a bit overwhelmed by his energy. We'll take over fostering her when we return from Hawaii in two weeks.
Other than that we didn't do much. I pretended to write Saturday morning, and spent too much time dreaming of video games (the ones I create, not the ones I play). I always get riled up and write pages of documentation and specifications, before realizing that my dream is just that. It's a lot of specialized work to write a game, and I'm a lazy man. I'll feel inspiration for a few hours, and then find myself staring at old Diablo screenshots and realizing that it took thirty 3D artists six months to draw and animate the little people and monsters that populate that world. How many hours do I have?
Perhaps it's good to dream. It gives me something to look forward to thinking about, even if I know I'll never do much more than think or install the odd compiler or gaming framework. Either way it gave me something to type tonight.
The Little Guy in the golf course. It wasn't originally a golf course, but it somehow became one. It's hard to control these bad doodles.
Ziggy started day care today. Yes, our dog is growing up so quickly. He's attending once a week, mostly to get him out of Julie's hair and give us a chance to clean his pee from the rugs and couch.
The weather continues to be overcast and rainy. I need to put a sweater on the Little Guy. It has been downright cold lately.
Ah, Julie's singing career. That's me in the front row (even though I missed Julie's first concert in Taiwan last year). Julie's joined the Bluestreet Jazz Voices, a Seattle jazz ensemble. It's a great chance for her to stretch her voice into a new genre.
We bought new pillows this weekend (the second time we've attempted to replace our current pillows, which date back further than I care to admit), and we went with extra firm. Julie claims the first night I slept without a pillow. I don't remember. I plan to give them a few more days to see if they grow on me.
Do you get it? Shades of gray!?
Okay, I got that out of my system. Sometimes my lack of cleverness knows no bounds.
Things are quiet this weekend. Even though the masthead tells other stories, the weather has been better than expected. Today is looking to clear up nicely as I stare at a beautifully cold blue sky. I woke up early after a dreadful headache day yesterday. Even after my magic pill, I spent yesterday sleeping and hiding under the covers until early evening. The dog park (combined with the magic pill kicking in) took me out of my funk late in the afternoon, and we managed to go to Indian food for dinner to pretend that we did not waste yet another Saturday.
I'm not sure what it is with Saturdays, but I've ruined too many of them with headaches. Maybe there's something in the air, or I feel that I can sleep late without paying the penalty. I quickly forget how much pain I was in the previous Saturday and justify sleeping in by thinking that since upon waking my head already hurts, there's no harm is staying asleep a few more hours.
My dreams of waking to a wonderful PHD (Post-Headache Day) today were dashed when my head still hurt this morning. I managed to drag myself out of bed (fool me twice in a weekend, shame on me), and I'm in the coffee shop typing away, having escaped the possible Sunday headache by the skin of my fingernails.
Not all is bad, of course. I'm still tweaking NAIS, but most of the big administrative functionality is done. I had hopes of using Javascript to make very user-friendly photo functions, but I decided to pare down my plans. I did manage to create a nifty Javascript box moving thing that allows me (and the Julies) to choose the square thumbnail from the slide. When I get a chance to clean up the code and get it to work in Firefox, I'll share the code.
Speaking of sharing, I have written the past two days pieces of something that resembles a story (sans plot or action or anything that would be of much interest to readers). I won't make any promises, but I do hope to continue to work on it and eventually post it.
For now, I'll suffice with a Horribles post and call it something new.
Ah, the "suffering" tagged doodle I planned to post on the first of the year before I had second thoughts. I realized it was bad to start the year on a sour note. There are many suffering Horribles, almost too many. I draw these when I feel like sitting in a dark corner and avoiding everyone. Or it could be I felt like drawing a spiral at the time. It's always hard to say.
We're almost finished organizing the second set of photographs from the wedding. As soon as Julie double checks the ordering, I'll post them.
Jennifer visits for New Year's and Julie experiments with photography on Ziggy, who's now 8 months old.
The masthead on NAIS changes based on the local weather, temperature, and sunset and sunrise time. I added the daylight check at Julie’s request. She didn’t understand why my weather doodle showed sunny at 5pm. This time of year, the sun sets at 4:29pm, and rises at 7:58am. I wish I was making this up.
First, I read in the XML file from the very helpful National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Weather Service. They provide a number of great RSS feeds, of which I chose the hourly observations. I picked KRNT.xml, the feed for the Renton Municipal weather station, because it felt closest (knowing my geographic sense, I could be way off). Here’s the PHP code (remember, I can’t use file_get_contents() on a URL because of the PHP.ini security setting. I replaced it with the CURL call):
<?php
if (!file_exists($file) || !filemtime($file)>time()-30*60) {
$ch = curl_init('http://www.nws.noaa.gov/data/current_obs/KRNT.xml');
$fp = fopen('weather.xml', 'w');
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_FILE,$fp);
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_HEADER,false);
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION,true);
curl_setopt ($ch,CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT,3);
$result=curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
fclose($fp);
if ($result) {
$xml_parser=xml_parser_create();
$data=file_get_contents('weather.xml');
xml_parse_into_struct($xml_parser,$data,$values,$index);
$weather=$values[$index['WEATHER'][0]]['value'];
$temp=$values[$index['TEMP_F'][0]]['value'];
file_put_contents('weather',$weather.','.$temp);
unlink('weather.xml');
}
}
$weathertitle='Seattle WA: '.$weather.', '.$temp.'° F';
$s.='<a href="/" title="'.$weathertitle.'">';
The code checks the weather once every thirty minutes, and saves the parsed result to a flat file. I use this file as a cache so I don’t have to reparse the XML file each time. There is higher-level page cache (which I plan to write more about) that also uses flat files to take the load off the MySQL server, which seems to be the bottleneck in serving pages.
I plan to generalize the above code a bit in the future so when I travel, I can replace Seattle with my destination (and its corresponding weather station). While this would be a trivial change, it’s not very high on my list.
After I load the XML file, I use the PHP xml parser to parse the document and find the weather description and temperature. I called xml_parse_into_struct() to perform the parsing. I still don’t quite understand how the structure is created. Through trial and error, I found the appropriate structure and array elements.
For the daylight check, I used the convenient PHP functions date_sunrise() and date_sunset(). These functions use the longitude and latitude and return sunset and sunrise times for the requested day.
<?php
if (time()<date_sunrise(time(),SUNFUNCS_RET_TIMESTAMP,45,-122) || time()>date_sunset(time(),SUNFUNCS_RET_TIMESTAMP,45,-122))
$doodle='night-'.$doodle;
And then I have the weather parsing code. As I add more weather doodles, I continue to tweak the code. It turns out the weather service uses many phrases to describe weather conditions. Some examples: “Thunderstorm in Vicinity Hail Haze,” “Showers in Vicinity Fog/Mist,” and “Heavy Sand Storm.” At first, I created a huge switch/case statement to capture all of the phrases. After a bit of thought, I decided to fall back on simpler phrase searches through an if/else statement. I set it up as a hierarchy to ensure the most desirable doodle is selected, e.g., if it’s “Light Drizzle Fog/Mist” it chooses the fog doodle—mostly because it’s less common. Similarly, if there’s a mention of snow or frozen rain, it chooses the snow doodle.
I will add a more robust temperature/season check once I have more relevant doodles. I’m hemming and hawing because I’m not satisfied with the following code. But I’ll include it for completeness.
<?php
// Here for terminology: http://www.nws.noaa.gov/data/current_obs/weather.php
if (stristr($weather,'thunderstorm'))
$doodle='rain.png';
else if (stristr($weather,'ice') || stristr($weather,'snow') || stristr($weather,'hail'))
$doodle='snow.png';
else if (stristr($weather,'fog') || stristr($weather,'smoke'))
$doodle='fog.png';
else if (stristr($weather,'rain') || stristr($weather,'drizzle') || stristr($weather,'showers'))
$doodle='rain.png';
else if (stristr($weather,'cloud') || stristr($weather,'overcast'))
if (stristr($weather,'partly') || stristr($weather,'few'))
$doodle='sun-cloud.png';
else
$doodle='cloudy.png';
else if (stristr($weather,'breez') || stristr($weather,'wind'))
$doodle='rain.png';
else {
if ($temp>50)
$doodle='sun.png';
else
$doodle='sun-cold.png';
}
My next step is to get doodling. It’s great to have all this code, but it’s wasted if my weather doodle is always the same. I plan to have a bunch of rain and cloudy doodles for the winter, and many sunny doodles for the summer. In Seattle, the word rain is much like the word snow is to Eskimos: you need many words (and doodles) to capture its essence.
Anxiety builds in me, whether sitting in unexpected traffic or waiting for a table at a restaurant where we never wait. It’s the unanticipated part that causes most of my anxiety. Where the wait is expected, I mentally prepare for it, leave myself plenty of time. I have fought anxiety lately with strange levels of failure.
It’s the first of the year, the time to push anxiety aside and reflect on important yearly goals. My new quest: write words that make me smile. I sometimes forget why I started writing. Sure, there was my dream of writing the good life: living off the acclaim of my best-selling great American novel while the Julies supported me in my quest to visit as many different coffee houses as possible in the great state of New York City. Not that I have given up on that dream. It still hits me at strange times along with my dream of starting an independent video game company (they’re now more popular if not profitable). These dreams wait in the wings to rear up at unexpected moments and threaten to take over my better (or is it worse?) senses.
Getting back to smiling, as I read through my old entries, even the consternated ones, it sounded as if I was having fun. I don’t remember if I was, but there was character in the writing that seems missing in my shorter entries and storytelling. I’ve noticed this absence for a while. Part of the dissonant tone comes from the amount of writing. It’s most apparent when I keep travel journals. Since I force myself to write every day, even when I am tired or headachy or downright bitter, I capture my personality better. With lots of writing, I end up focusing less on the act of writing and more on the content. That I’m doing activities that I can write about doesn’t hurt either.
Julie and Jennifer joined me at the coffee shop. Julie has picked up photography as a hobby. She is carrying around our wimpy digital camera and shooting lots of photographs. She bought a book (with lots of photos!) on the basic techniques. Ah, she just left us. She exhausted all photographic opportunities at the coffee shop (lots of coffee -mug and expressive-David shots) and decided to wander the neighborhood for new subjects. She’s still trying to decide what type of camera she wants. My digital camera has seen better days. It has terrible shutter lag—that’s the time between pressing the button and taking the photograph—and an awful flash that never seems to get the timing right. The big question (at least in my mind) is size. How big of a camera is she willing to carry around, since I already told her I will not carry her camera when we travel. (With that said, Julie is very persuasive—or what it as: manipulative—and it is likely I’ll end up carrying it. Just don’t tell her I said so—I’m sticking this in the middle of lots of words, where it is less likely to be read by her. I should go back and remove any mention of her name from this paragraph. She tends not to read text unless she’s in it. Seeing to the quality of my writing lately, this is a very valid strategy.)
Before they joined me at the newly renamed Caffé Vita, I was rereading old sewcrates.com entries. I know: my narcissism is truly boundless. Clearly the length and consistency of writing will help improve the quality and apparent sense of enjoyment, i.e., the sense from the reader, since we know my sense will be: it’s time to write . . . again? Lately, my words feel like words. They don’t have energy. I need to return to clever writings. I’ve been warned that cleverness is a bit of a turnoff in writing. Trying to impress people with fancy words does not a good essay make. But the thing is (and you should start worrying when I talk about things), I don’t care. I want to enjoy writing this, which means I have to enjoy reading this, which means, well, I need to use the voice. And yes, Dune did pop into my head after writing that.
I started this entry on my comfortable recliner. I worried over whether I would write and my general level of disinterest. Because they’re words, and I love all my words, I’ll glue them below. They’re slightly related to what’s above. We watched “The Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind” again yesterday. (I had hopes of watching “When Harry Met Sally” for my New Years activities, but Jennifer had never seen Eternal Sunshine, and we had to remedy that oversight. Kaufman, the screenwriter, did wonders with the way time flows. I don’t have his skill.
I planned to write today, and here I am. My fingers are tired from all of the photo and website editing. Once I start organizing and categorizing, it’s difficult for me to get away. You’ll notice all my photo albums are tagged at the album level. I still don’t have the functionality to mass-tag the photos at the photo level. I can tag them by editing each photo, but that would take a long, long time.
I finished a short coffee after waking up this morning. I started writing before it kicked in. I hoped that funny would follow the caffeine. At least that’s how it used to work. It hasn’t worked that way in a while. Perhaps I’m hungry. Or maybe I had my coffee a bit too late. Instead of drinking coffee, I settled into internet perusing, which is never a good way to start the day. I have this feeling I missed the important part of the day. It’s a good thing the day is extra long and work free.
The last thing I wanted to do is to sit and write. I keep thinking of little NAIS projects that could fill my time. I’m in the process of ripping all my DVDs to put them on my home server. I have this dream of watching all my movies without having to get off the couch. A movie is churning away downstairs. It must almost be finished. Perhaps I’ll go and check on it. Anything would be better than this.
One of the excuses I keep giving myself for not writing is that I don’t have time to write. I look over my schedule and it’s full. I have to wake up early, which means going to sleep early. When I sleep early, I barely have time for dinner and a movie with Julie before washing up. Then I’m at work most of the day, and with the exception of the little-work holiday season (which I filled with NAIS development), I don’t have extra time to write. I usually only take the van in the morning (Julie picks me up on most evenings for my HOV-ness), and before my coffee, I’m not sure I could write. I’m thinking of drinking coffee before I go to the van in the morning. I’ve said this many times before: I’m a man of habit. The problem I have is creating good habits. Once they’re there, I can stick with them (until I accidentally break them—picking up broken habits is as hard as starting fresh). The key is to create good habits in the first place. Perhaps writing in the morning should be my next attempt.
These are just long-winded excuses, of course. And these aren’t my usual fancy consternated excuses, where I’ll look back in a couple of days in amazement at my clever words and ill-formed sentences.
Julie is cooking breakfast downstairs and I’m getting hungry. Maybe I’ll continue this later. I don’t know. I should push through. I think there are some useful words in the later paragraphs that I haven’t found yet. I’m not sure I even know what useful words look like. They would probably be organized and directed at something. They wouldn’t be random meanderings of useless intentions. Ah. I don’t even know anymore. I’m not sure what if anything I bring to the party.
Ziggy joined me with his oversized bunny rabbit. He ripped its nose off some time ago, and he continues to chew at its plastic stump. He pulls stuffing out through its nose and leaves a mess on the rug. We’re good at cleaning up after him. His housetraining is getting better. Some days he’s better than others. He had a particularly good day on Sunday. Today hasn’t been as good.
I’m writing to fill up space. What other type of writing is there?
I left the Castle and forced myself to go to the coffee shop. Not that there was much forcing necessary. I’m very easy when it comes to sitting in a quiet place and drinking coffee. I need to do things. I have had this revelation before. When I do things, I have things to talk about. Looking back at my better writings, besides my pitiful story attempts, the writing comes about when I’m travelling, usually when I’m too tired to write and I sit down to relay all the happenings. I am most interested in rereading those.
I had an idea for a story last night. It’s gone now. I’m sure it would have been terrible, but it’s sad that I can’t remember it. I have to write things down. I need to talk to people. I need to be less scared of talking to people. I need to meet new and interesting people. Hell, I need to meet boring people and give them a chance to interest me. I need to stop judging or guessing what people are thinking, and instead listen to them. It’s so easy for me to write these thoughts sitting alone in the corner of a coffee house. If only these words transformed into actions.
Transformation of thoughts into actions. That was something the story was about. I keep grasping its edges before it slips away again.
The internet calls and like its obedient dog I slither into its cold embrace. This writing is harder than I remember, harder in every way. I need a project to get me moving again; something to take the cobwebs out of the brains and start them spinning. The hourly NEQID initiative needs another initiative.
I finished this entry at a respectable 1,853 words. I’m not counting again, so don’t worry. I just like to check in every now and again. I should have meshed those two halves together. I repeated many of the same ideas, and I could probably slice off about a thousand of those words and have something tighter and more interesting. But it’s getting late and I’m hungry. Julie and Jennifer are napping. I’m going to check if they’re ready for dinner. I’m hoping for pizza, but they might have their hearts set on chicken legs in the oven. I’ll leave you not knowing which they decide. Mysteries work better that way.
It's past New Years and this is the first Horrible of 2008. At the last moment, I switched the doodle. The next Horrible in the queue had a suffering tag, and I decided that wasn't a good way to start the New Years.
We had a relaxing day at home. Julie's sister Jennifer is in town until tonight, and we visited the local coffee house (where I managed to write something. I'm not sure if it's post worthy. After I finish this I'll take another look and see if I can clean it up), took Ziggy to the dog park, and I took a long nap. I don't remember the last time I napped. I think it's been a long time, way too long. I feel groggy but my soul feels rested, if that makes any sense. I definitely need to take more naps.
Besides the new mastheads at sewcrates, this is the first Horrible I've posted using my birthday gift.
Happy New Years!
