Thursday, October 29, 2009



I started a new painting four days ago, which is finally about done today. The photo above is more or less how it will end up - usually for a couple of days I notice small details that need to be tweaked a bit.

This one was a real chore - as usual I felt that the risk of having to toss the whole effort was high until about half way through. I liked the subject, and have been thinking about tackling this subject I photographed in 2005 in Merida, Yucatan for several years. I especially like the uniquely Mexican touches like the upper left window (to an interior room) with the little shrine shared with a big old fire extinguisher.

Below are a couple of stage photos - these are thumbnails so if you are interested you may click to see larger.










What a difference a week makes...it's the week before Halloween, and already there is that "WTF are we doing in Siberia?" effect. Really - what WERE we thinking when we moved here from a place were there are palm trees and your geraniums aren't turned into unrecognizable mush when the first hard freeze hits in mid-October?

Ah well, the question now is: where to go next? I do think we want to consider turning some of our electron assets into tillable dirt, where the climate allows at least subsistence farming (as in a kitchen garden and henhouse) pretty much year-round. Whether this might be in Mexico or some part of the US that has the elusive combination of civilized climate and affordability (and a socio-economic-political environment that isn't too scary) is hard to say at the moment.

I do worry that the US economy (and as a result the above-mentioned s-e-p environment) is teetering on a precipice over a vast canyon of previously unimaginable hazard. Perhaps people have always worried thus, but I can't help but believe that any reasonable empirical analysis justifies alarm.

I find myself struggling to stay positive and not obsess over little things gone wrong now that there is not daily job routine for a while, but overall it is the preferred arrangement for the time being. The Mdog is aging so fast, I want to spend time with her, and it seems there is no end to the necessary or elective activities that fill most days. The biggest challenge is just to make the most of life day-to-day until we figure out where we are supposed to go from here.

It won't be someplace where you need a snow shovel or a windshield ice scraper.




Saturday, October 24, 2009



Went out to the Greyrock co-housing place today to visit and help out a bit with one of their three annual 'work-days'. This being fall there was a lot of landscape and garden cleanup, among other things.

One of the residents showed us her winter garden, which kind of surprised me, given the harshness of the climate from about now until March. Withe severl mini-greenhouses or coldframes, she is going for quite a variety of produce.


The winter garden is based on Square Foot Gardening and Winter Havest (by Elliot Coleman).









At the end of the day the teen residents prepared a nice spaghetti dinner for the folks who worked on the chores, and we were invited to join them. We are trying to let people there know that we are interested in joining the community, and they are fun to associate with no matter what opportunity might exist some day to live there.




Friday, October 23, 2009

Since the early onset of winter, I've been really resisting the idea of staying here in this house (and Fort Collins), even going so far as to try and figure out the logistics of a return to the Bay Area to live and work. An old boss was at Dolby Labs - a great corporate HQ facility South of Market, and they recently had a network manager position posted that I might have been able to finagle a shot at.

Well, the position is gone, and yesterday I found out my colleague had been axed in a cost-cutting round. Reality check...


Rough sketch for the hotel lobby painting. 16X20.

I spent this morning cleaning the kitchen well, and preparing to get started on a new painting of a Merida (Yucatan, Mexico) hotel lobby from an old photo in my painting idea folder. This is the ideal time of the year to paint here, as the light in the side of the kitchen I use for art is fantastic. This activity has me off the negative loop of escape from here for a while, helped by the return of some semblance of fall. At least for a while...


Saturday, October 17, 2009

Do you check for new Post Secret messages every Sunday? I have a permanent link on the right side of the blog page here.

Frank, who created the Post Secret phenomena, is on a book tour, so he missed this week...but he has a new video on the site.




Friday, October 09, 2009

Operation Hey Mackey! - Whole Foods, Oakland from Jamie LeJeune on Vimeo.


Here's a video of a protest at the Oakland Whole Foods, drawing attention to the publicly stated opinions on the subject of heath care/insurance reform by Whole Foods CEO John Mackey.

I miss the Bay Area.



You'd never know the country is basically insolvent, with NASA spending around $80,000,000 to crash space junk into the moon so they can gawk at the debris it throws up. Maybe there will be traces of water - won't that be useful to know?

Too bad we can't assure safe water for folks on earth due to lack of funds...