hoover

Reading about Tamara Hoover, the art teacher in Texas who was terminated for posting pictures with "too much information", aroused my curiosity.
I went to Flickr, the site where the "top heavy" pix were posted. I typed "Tamara Hoover" in the search window.
I got this reply...”We couldn't find any photos about Tamara and Hoover.
Would you like to try a search for photos about dam, nevada, lasvegas, hooverdam or arizona instead?”
Maybe I should have tried J.Edgar Hoover.
Or, Elton John... he liked to "Hooverize around the house”. It helped him relax.

286 snail

Fathers Day

SmartCard

"SmartCard" was under the driver’s side window of my work truck this morning.
1- I am a good person because God lives in my heart.
2- The coward who left this card for me is lower than snake poop. He left this drivel anonymously, so that I had no way to reply to it. (I apologize for the reverse chauvinism, but I don’t feel like being gender inclusive. Besides, the perpetrators of stunts like this are usually males) Also, he forgot the most important step in witnessing...earning my trust.
You see, anyone can talk about religion. Many of those who do have shady motives. Only when you have the trust and respect of the person you are "witnessing" to, should you proceed. Anything less is an insult to God, and creates ill will. And when you use the name of God without trust, you are speaking in vain.... any questions refer to the third commandment.
3- The coward who left this card does not know me. If he did, he would know that I do not appreciate his babble.
He also would not know that last night I wrote."I am so alienated from Jesus, I wish to never hear his name again"(comment#14)
4- When you are driving for hire, you have plenty of time to think. I could have done without the stress that this card caused.
5- To anyone who ever leaves "cute" messages to strangers about Jesus...You are creating ill will for Jesus. If you want to have a Jesus Party, go to a church and talk to someone who wants to hear what you are saying.
6- The first commandment is very simple...Have no other God before you. This does not say " except for the Son of God". This does not include books about God. It says, God. Period.

beans

Watering the garden today, I found beans on the trellis. While this should not be surprising, it was an exciting moment.
Now, I have enjoyed working the earth in the back yard. The exercise, the fresh air, the energy I get from the weeds I pull…all of this gives me enjoyment. The fact that I get to eat fresh beans tomorrow is a bonus.

Sunday Morning

Sunday Morning, 11:48 am.
Ministers are yelling at jesus worshippers. They are there by their own free will, leaving a quieter world for the rest of us.
My picture is starting to come together.

Saturday, I finished the model, and, as usual, the first take was garbage. Of course, I saw some changes to make at once, and sunday morning I got in the studio, started to change things, and before long I was "guided" to the right changes to make.



Performing on the cd player is Bob Dylan. The cd under the laser is "John Wesley Harding", and the song is "The ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest". After a week of dubious opinions put forth forcefully as "truth", it is fun to hear 40 year old poetry with uncertain “meaning”.
"Don’t go mistaking paradise, for that home across the road"
You have to enjoy life when you can.



According to legend, as I understand it, purgatory is a place somewhere between heaven and hell. In modern times, there is a website called Purgatorio, whose location on the internet is a bit more certain. This was the source of the above image, which started this adventure.

two pyramids

Decorative pyramids have long been an interest of mine. Today, I am going to share two with you. The first is a yin yang model. This is similar to one that hung from the diffuser in the design department of an architect’s office in downtown Atlanta in the nineties. The Yin Yang motif works well with the shape even before I learned about the magic of arithmetic involving pyramids.



Mathematically, the pyramids of Egypt have an interesting feature. You take the height, and call it the radius of a circle. The circumference of the circle is equal to the four base sides. Now, on my cardboard pyramids, the height is 6", and the base is 9 3/8". Thus, the four base sides are 37.50". The radius of 6", x2 x pi, should be equal to this. Okay, 6"x2x3.14= 37.68. This is a difference of .18", or .48% of the four base sides. This could be the result of a measuring error, or it could be that my pyramids are not perfect.




Lizards crawling on a pyramid are the other photo feature for this installment. The work of M.C.Escher is another fascination of mine. Now, this picture is based on hexagons, or six sided figures, which can be reproduced to infinity. These figures have 60 degree sides, while a pyramid has 58-58-64 degree angles. The question arises, how can you transpose a 60 degree figure on a 58 degree base? The answer is, you cannot. At least I cannot...I imagine some student with high powered computers and math skills could, but a slacker like myself cannot. So, to make it all come out even, I drew a series of "mutant" lizards.
This, btw, is the last image that I drew by hand. Of course, I kept my templates, erasers, and straight edges, and may make a manual comeback someday. While I was drawing the "lizard" pyramid, I learned how to draw on a computer, and have not looked back since.

Pyramid

Pyramids have long interested me. I read an article about “pyramid power”, back when that was the flavor of the month. It gave the dimensions of a model pyramid…. 9 3/8” base, 8 7/8” sides…that were allegedly the same as the dimensions of the “great” pyramids in Egypt. I have been making pyramids ever since.
I take the claims of razor sharpening and fruit preservation skeptically. However, pyramids have aesthetic value, whether they were invented by Egyptians or were imported from Outer Space. During my years of working “In House” at an architectural firm, I was encouraged to build pyramids to hang from the diffusers on the ceiling. While this is not technically the way pyramids are supposed to be displayed, they did create a striking image.
My “art” pyramids will be the subject for a future post. Today, I am showing pictures of my new Backyard Pyramid.
This object has a base of 48”x48”. It is 32” tall. The model pyramids I have built are 6” tall, with a 9 3/8” base. The height is 64% of the base on the small pyramids, and 66% of the base on the stone pyramid. This is very close to the original dimensions, especially when you consider that the stone pyramid was made with found blocks of stone (with no cutting) and with a minimum of planning.
The border was an idea that presented itself after the pyramid was built. It has 58 blocks of granite, and adds to the feng shui of the pyramid. I made a piece of cardboard that was 48”x48”, and used it when I was preparing the site and measuring the sides of the base. This cardboard model was used again in the building of the border. The inside of the border is 48” from the base of the pyramid, so the inside of the border is 144”x144”.