lets go a courting

so i want, no scratch that, need to take somebody to court for the insane amount of money they owe me. i am not going to talk about it here because im not out to slander anyone. i just need my money yo! so if you know anything about taking someone to small claims, please leave me a shout out and hook me up with some info.

in other news, i got my new issue of relevant today in the mail. god, life progressive culture is their tag line, and they do deliver. good stuff. i got in on the subscription thing early, so i got two years for $15, not too shaby. they review the newest cash album (got it) and talk up 'walk the line', cash's life story being made into a movie starring joaquin pheonix. might be a while before we see that one though...

anyway, the court stuff------->

sumer update

here's more indepth info on my friend sumer's death.

magnificent seven!

well im sittin round the manor watchin the magnificent seven with dj mighty mike and j-glo. its the first time i have seen this that i can remember, though i am sure my mom and i have watched it at some point. its jam packed cast is for good and for awesome. yerba mate and good times

in other news, death continues to spread throughout my world. a girl that i know from back home in cottage grove died yesterday in a car accident. she was a beautiful young girl, and i can remember very clearly teaching her swimming lessons and watching her grow up little by little. her name is sumer.

---->

amazon in space?

bezos from amazon is apperently funding his own space venture, this one called blue origin. this is a great article about techies funding the new race to space. check it out... while i keep painting.

can you buy that with PayPal? ----->

moons over my hamy

while not quite a denny's menu favorite, moons over my hamy is the perfect phrase to talk about the upcoming total lunar eclipse that will happen in mid-may. visable not just from Miami, but from all over most of the northern hemisphere, and large sections of africa, this is the first total lunar eclipse visable to we north americans in more than three years. check it out and remember!

in other news, my painting is shaping up quite nicely. tomorrow (saturday) amanda and i are going up to gorman for a photo shoot we are doing. the hills are lush and green this time of year (about 5 more minutes until they turn brown) so we're going to try and get a couplde good rolls shot. some for fun, some for photo class, and some for the worste class ever.... acts. more to come on that later. its time for me to go home and go to bed.

baby im ready to go ---->

tiger milk

no, im not talking about those crazy people who had 60 tigers in their freezer that were in the news this week, and im not even going to link them. they are sickos. poor kitty's

im talking about the debute by Belle and Sebastian. they are dope. so is tigermilk

im chillin with the maustinator and dj mighty mike in my oface tonight.
we're all churning out good material in our respective art genres. its good times, lots of coffee, and funniness
samples ---->

big man

well its all about the giants, isn't it. about the big people, and big things in life. larger than life events and ideas are the things that have truly shaped my life. for more info on giants and how freaking cool they are (yes are because they really do exist) check out mike's site for all the latest. i can't steal his glory.

so he's got big people covered, lets talk about big ideas and the way that they shape us. i am still coming to terms with the things that have happened to me recently. my life is pretty much a blank slate from here on out. there's so much art that i want to make, but so little money. i keep thinking about winning the lottery and all of the things i could create that way. having a regularly working car and a stable place to live would be nice, but those aren't really the things that i think about the most when i dream big. im talking about 50 foot tall, interior-projection bird scultures made of micro fibers, ten foot tall bug zappers suspended from industrial light poles, an entire wharehouse with platforms for trampolines surrounded by 15 feet of plastic play place balls. oh the possibilities. there's so many crazy instilation ideas floating around in my head, i just wish that i had the means. dont even get me started on my idea to cover Rode Island with televisions and link them together and show a continuous loop of an animated flame .gif so that you could see it from space. i could really give Christo a run for his money! (you have to check his site, i linked his completed works section, it will blow your mind)

crazygonuts---->

space crazy

there's so much good stuff going on out there in the space realm right now, i am pretty excited about it. I am almost done with the frist book in the mars trilogy that i was talking about earlier last week. its great and if you like science and exploration at all, you should check it out. Mars is going to be a great resource in the future for the futhering of human culture. you can check out Mars, as it gets closer to earth now than any other time in recent earth history, by checking out this link. do it and you wont be sorry.

in other space worthy news, after a couple of days without mention in the media, theres more coming out about SpaceShipOne from scaled composites. you can read a couple articles about it here and here. they are good stuff and cover aspects and angles not covered earlier in the week.

in other news, after i eat diner here at amanda's house with her family, i am heading back down to LA. see you soon mike (i know you're pretty much the only one who reads this anyway =)

space is the place!! --KMOB!-->

sad, but true

well i didn't make it home. im at amanda's house near bakersfield. there was a huge head-wind shooting straight down the 5 at about 30 miles an hour. this turned my poor little 4 cylinder jeep into a large brick wall on wheels. i was going about 50 miles an hour and getting about 12 miles to the gallon. at this rate i couldn't afford to get all the way to oregon and still be able to pay my bills. i am super broken hearted right now, and feeling really stupid. hopefully i will get to go home, for the first time in about six months, when school gets out. i am so disapointed. to top it off, amanda and her family aren't even here at their house. they went to the beach for the weekend. they were nice enough to let me stay at their place for the night. they are good and kind people.

in an odd twist of fate, the day i have been the lowest in a long time brings the craziest news i have seen in years, literally. today some super awesome folks at a company called Scaled Composites unveiled a completely developed and functioning space plane!!!!!! HOLY CRAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! you have no idea what hope this gives me for the future of manned space flight. i am so incredibly blown away by today's developments. to top the whole damn thing off, it wasn't done by the US government! there is hope for man in space!!!! read this article to find out all about it, and go to Scaled Composites' website to see more amazing pictures of the White Knight and SpaceShipOne.

praise the lord for space planes! ------>

homeward bound

yes folks, im on my way to the great north west today. packing my bags and leaving town. i've got the jeep all packed up and ready to go. im planning on painting a lot for class, hanging out with my sister, visiting old friends and drinking lots of coffee in the rain. i can't wait.

but in the meantime, before i hit the road, i have some errands to run. i hate how this school completely shuts down the second that classes end. i can't even get a freakin cup of coffee around here. that aughta be a crime again humanity! at least this humanity.

shout outs go out to dj mighty mike and kaleid sheik muhamed (who was sleeping this morning on my couch)

ok i am going to oregon now.
happy easter! He is risen!! ---->

and so it begins

well i have been cut loose, as you readers know, from any future employment i had with the university. speaking of teathers, and all sorts of other super cool things that could be associated with future technology, i found an amazing link. i want to see these shows! check out this stuff on the discovery channel. its pretty amazing. sky city and the trans-atlantic tunnel are all that you can check out right now, but they are worth it for sure.

what do you think about sky city? ---->

lame duck

well since i am a lame duck, i wore my University of Oregon track flats today in honor of my new standing. the UofO Ducks make their home about 15 mintues from my house back in Oregon. viva ducks

in other news, i am looking for a new cool job for next year. i need this to able to go to school. help me out!!

ps. for those of you who can't read between the lines (that is if people read this at all) i was not hired to be yearbook editor next year
more to come on this later

--->

regime change

you guessed it. regime change

hour of reckoning

so it's upon me. in about ten minutes i have a meeting about the yearbook editor position for next year. hopefully things will turn out ok, no matter what the outcome is. i might have to look to the heavens though to find out.

if you want to look to the heavens and have no idea where to look, here's where you can find my favorite planet in the night time sky. check it out

ok, everything all the time! --->

distant shores

one of the more influential works of literature that has had an effect on me throughout my years as a reader, has been the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. The infusing of politics, science, geography, space exploration, multi-ethnic realations, and geopolitical intrigue inside of these three books capture everything. Covering a period of several generations associated with the colonization and terraforming of mars, the trilogy is super high on my list of favorite reads. I'm actually wanting to read them again soon, but i can't find my copies of the books. Anybody have them? I can find them for like 90cents apiece on half.com, but then the shipping is like $4! retarded.

but yeah i am totally into mars. what do you think about the red planet? -->

in the name of love

i have begun to to realize that its all about love, and that though i may posess the ability, i don't really love like i should. all of this war stuff, all of this space stuff, all of my art, its got to be about love, and blessing. God is trying to bless us, through his Word, and through each other, even non-believers. what is my place in this love thing? what is yours?

early morning/ april four/ a shot rings out in the memphis sky
free at last/ they took your life/ they could not take your pride

what more?----->

its about life
well here's a fun little article about mars! atkinson is a pretty dope space guy, i have enjoyed other stuff that i have read by him, and i thought this article was good too. if you can look past his seemingly MIA concept of a creator, and the effect that the presence of a God in the universe has on the way we view things, than its all good. i just take those things that are incompatible, and push them aside. he's got the right idea here, but he's missing the most important piece of the puzzle.

anyway check it out, it about why we should go to mars.

word---->

i am coming home

a week from today i will be back in the GNW sitting with my little sister, drinking coffee, and listening to the rain falling on the roof. im going to go to church for easter and then paint pictures for school and catch up on some reading. there's even word that myself and a few other oregonians from school might hit up the enchanted forest while we are back at home. good stuff.

in other oregon news im going to try and harvest some moss, to bring back here and cultivate. i was doing some research and i found some really interesting information on the wholse subject of moss on apperently the coolest moss sight around, moss acres. so yeah i am going to try and transplant some beautiful oregon moss right here in my whittier back yard.

im about to go have a nice late breakfast at mimo's here in whittier with amanda, and then i am going to continue my quest to make my room all nice and finished.

top siders

well i got my new shoes today, they are comfortable and fresh. zappos.com set me up the bomb with these kciks, i couldn't love em more. The shipping was super fast and their return policy is dope. if you ever need shoes and can't find what you're looking for, go there. ok enough product placement.

today has been a hard day for one of my good friends. a close friend of his from back home took his life today. pray for the young man's family, and for my close friend. traveling mercies for my friend, and peace for all of those involved. may they be drawn towards the Creator with God's spead.

in other less heavy news, i am super into cool japanese woodblock prints and whatnot's right now. if you have some cool info, or links about japanese printing, or gardening, hook me up.

im going down to ryan callis's opening tonight at ghettogloss in silverlake. it should be dope. i am a big fan of ryan artistically, and as a friend. big ups to him.

anyway i gotta go drink some more coffee and head to the library to research some haiku.

----->

son of a son

...son of a son, son of a son
...son of a son of a sailor...

i thought of these wonderful jimmy buffet lyrics while i was picking out my new shoes this weekend. I got the 'ice' colored ones. they will be perfect for working at the pool this summer, and chillin out at the beach. i should get em in the mail on friday.

i ordered them while i was at amanda's house for the weekend. it was nice and relaxing, just spent time hanging out and watching final four games with her dad. ate lots of food and took naps. i love relaxing weekends. on friday i also got hired for a summer job. im going to be lifeguarding and teaching swimming lessons here at the pool at school. should be a nice and relaxing summer in the sun.

after we got back from her house on sunday, amanda and i cruised on down to amoeba records on sunset to get some new tunes. i picked up the neww flaming lips album and she picked up a few fun ones as well. not too much going on so far today really, but its early still, so we'll see what happens.

--->

losing love is like a window in your heart

...everybody sees you're blown apart...
... everybody sees the wind blow...

gotta love paul simon. i stood on the roof of the library here at school today listening to 'graceland' for several hours while painting. im not the greatest painter, so i try to make my stuff look interesting at least. who knows, if i can fingure out how to put some pics up on this thing, maybe i will post one of the finished landscape. you can all laught at me then.

tonight i have a big photo crit for the big shoot that amanda and i did a couple of weeks back. i have to go finish making the frame and mounting the photos, but it should be all good. i made a nice long horizontal redwood frame for the seven photos. the wood is really wide too, so it is really visually pleasing.

in other news i took an IQ test on emode.com and scored 132. i am a genius, we all new this anyway. i should really find a real IQ test to take and find out what it really is, cause these things aren't perfect. who cares about IQ's anyway. when was the last time a genius got taken out by a bunch of hot women... never.

in space news Russia says its going to boost space funding". we'll see i guess

ok ---->

twitters

there's lots in my head right now, and lots of that lot is birds. i have been thinking about birds a lot lately. a good buddy of mine, justin rigamonti also thinks about birds a lot. birds of a feather huh. he lives at freegray. tim, yearbook design master, lives there too. anyway im running around like a chicken with it's head cut off. back to the birds

i helped a bird to live today
or rather it wasn't mine to kill

i watched a bird fly super fast straight into a second story window, then fall still to the ground. i went to it, and felt its breast to see if it was still alive. sure enough its heart was still beating. it was super stunned though. so i moved it gently from the sidewalk, and onto the grass where it could be comfortable. i came back about five mintues later to see how it was doing. i picked it up again, and it started to blink a little bit, though it was still clearly out of it. i turned it from its back to its belly and it spread its wings a little bit. i left it alone again, and returned moments later. the little birdy flew a few feet when i picked him up. then after a short rest i picked him up, stood up and held out both of my hands... off it flew in a big wide circle and landed in trees. i hope it will be ok.

i am so glad it lived, i would have hated to have had to put it out of its misery had it been really hurt but still alive. that might have ruined my day a little bit. instead it flying agoin made my day. my heart is still fluttering. i want to make a giant 50ft bird of white cloth, with the sky projected from the inside out.

tell me im crazy--->

i hear the blood of my blood crying from the ground

ok time for the general, non-springsteen related posts. i know everyone likes to talk about the boss when he isn't around, but there's other work to be done here.

last night, the luck of the irish previaled once again. there's been a heated battle brewing in the manor, my fair residence. we lost darren 'drunken fanatic' harbough to his job out in the antelope valley. so his single room opened up, and carnage insued. to make a long story short, brent lewis and i were the two leading folks dueling in this drama. brent came to the conclusion that the only way we could resolve this without screwing someone over was to be as fair as possible and flip a coin. i just happened to have my kennedy half dollar in the pocket of my jacket at the time, so i flipped and he called. he called 'heads' and it came up tails. to the victor goes the spoils and so i will be getting my first single bed room since like the summer of 2000. gotta love coins with irish presidents on em.

in other news, i am working the ballot tables this morning for the AS elections for next year. hopefully a really good candidate will win that will want to hire me again as yearbook editor. i turn in my application on friday. i've still got some juice left to put out a great book, and Lord knows He's given me the skills to do it. the rest of the day will be filled with art stuff after this morning. i will be criting the rest of my 3D design class' projects, then sitting on the roof of the library painting landscapes for three hours or so. then it's off to home depot to get some wodd to make a frame for some sweet photos amanda and i did for our advanced photo class togther. should be a long day. lots of time to listen to springsteen and drink coffee. let the light shine.

around here

everybody acts the same, everybody acts like nothing's changed...
...the sky is still the same unbelievable blue

more springsteen lyrics. i drive to school listening to this album on my discman in my jeep. i have taken the doors and the windows out of it so it's really just like driving some sort of big golf cart, all open like and cold. i love to watch the morning light play across things and peple and buildings and cars while i hear the music. its a great way to help the commute go by. springsteen has an inate way of moving me with his music. there's been a connection between his music and me for as long as i can remember. when i was a little kid i used to put the 'born in the usa' lp on the record player and listen to it over and over again. i listened to it more than my mom did and it was her record =)

I guess its fitting then that 'the rising' was the first song that i heard after my mom had passed away this summer. i had the single in the cd player at the time and i got the album in the mail that day from amanda. pretty fitting. even though the song isn't about losing a parent, its about a loosing of inocense in a way, and about death. but the lyrics are so full of life-imagery that it acknowledges a hereafter. good stuff.

ok i am going to make a regular post now ---->

the boss

well i posted a really long post yesterday (or so i thought) about bruce springsteen and his latest effort 'the rising'. apperently it didn't make it up here on the sire at all. must be these piece of crap ancient macs that we have here in the yearbook office. its time to get some new hardware. anyway, i am going to repost the lyrics to the title track, because its awesome. i will re-post my commentary on it later.

THE RISING


Can't see nothin' in front of me
Can't see nothin' coming up behind
I make my way through this darkness
I can't feel nothing but this chain that binds me
Lost track of how far I've gone
How far I've gone, how high I've climbed
On my back's a sixty pound stone
On my shoulder a half mile of line

Come on up for the rising
Come on up, lay your hands in mine
Come on up for the rising
Come on up for the rising tonight

Left the house this morning
Bells ringing filled the air
Wearin' the cross of my calling
On wheels of fire I come rollin' down here

Come on up for the rising
Come on up, lay your hands in mine
Come on up for the rising
Come on up for the rising tonight

There's spirits above and behind me
Faces gone black, eyes burnin' bright
May their precious blood bind me
Lord, as I stand before your fiery light

I see you Mary in the garden
In the garden of a thousand sighs
There's holy pictures of our children
Dancin' in a sky filled with light
May I feel your arms around me
May I feel your blood mix with mine
A dream of life comes to me
Like a catfish dancin' on the end of my line

Sky of blackness and sorrow (a dream of life)
Sky of love, sky of tears (a dream of life)
Sky of glory and sadness (a dream of life)
Sky of mercy, sky of fear (a dream of life)
Sky of memory and shadow (a dream of life)
Your burnin' wind fills my arms tonight
Sky of longing and emptiness (a dream of life)
Sky of fullness, sky of blessed life

Come on up for the rising
Come on up, lay your hands in mine
Come on up for the rising
Come on up for the rising tonight --->