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This painting is attributed to Fra Galgario, who painted in the late 1600s and early 1700s. It is one of a series of eleven portraits which we assume to be an incomplete set of apostles. This one was the most severely damaged, and had darkened quite a bit. This evening, I was vacuuming my dining room. I had to use a bright utility spotlight because of an electrical problem in that room. As I was ready to turn off the light, I saw the beam focused on this painting, and I could see its original glow for the first time. I had to take a picture. I know. I know. My home page is always in black and white, but the color didn't come through in the picture enough to do justice to the painting anyway. Now I understand why people put special spotlights on their artwork. *
When I heard that Stephen Hawking had a new book released, I did what I rarely do-- I went to the library and requested a copy. I filled out the form (I may have spelled Stephen with a V). This is a departure for me, since I usually just buy the book, knowing that I'll never read it a second time (I'm trying to re-read his first book now, but never find the time). Yesterday I got a phone message from the library. They said that the Harry Potter book I requested had arrived. I'm sure the Harry Potter book is a fine story, but I'm 42 years old and not the least bit curious about the train station with the fractional name. I was hoping that the librarian was so accustomed to saying "Harry Potter" that she can hardly get another book title to pass her lips. It would be an understandable occupational hazard. I got to the library after work today, and guess what... no Stephen Hawking, nor Steven Hawking, but Harry Potter, with my name attached. On the computer, they had a hold on the Harry Potter book, with my name there too. I thought of the ironies. Stephen Hawking was to adults what Harry Potter was to children. He opened new worlds and got us reading. Plus, if MAD Magazine ever did a cover with Alfred E. Newman as Harry Potter, he would probably look exactly like Stephen Hawking. * Thursday, December 13, 2001
I come from a family of very compulsive people. I carry that compulsive gene and have learned to embrace it. It has made me who I am today (Okay, maybe that's not so good). I have rarely held an interest in any one subject for very long. I'll stumble into something that catches my attention and I become obsessed with it. It consumes my thoughts all day, and I end up taking Excedrin PM at night to be able to sleep. I consider this to be an excellent personality trait. Of all my awful idiosyncracies, this is the one I wouldn't trade. Because of my micro-obsessions I am a decent chess player, woodworker, and artist. I am very comfortable with computers, and I can tell you exactly why clock hands move at the correct speed. While I don't have the time or attention span to become a renaissance man, I can at least be the condensed version of one. I tell you this because I have begun a new one. See my Flash logo on this page? Well that triggered a new obsession. Macromedia Flash is a program that allows the rank amateur to create simple animations and graphics like my logo, but it has incredible potential for programming creativity. The link I posted yesterday is a good example. In order to create something like that, you have to be adept at programming, which I am not. But it has captured my attention and I can't stop obsessing over it. I know I can learn this stuff. A few years ago, I bought a book on programming in C++. It was all gobbledy goop. It was worse than learning a foreign language. What made it worse was that I had no real application for it. I managed to create programs that could tell me the sum of two numbers. Who cares?! Macromedia Flash, on the other hand, gives you the application first, then lets you develop programing skills to manipulate what you have created. My first animated logo contained no scripts. I made it with the basic animation tools in Flash. Then I added the fade-in photos, which required a single line of script. This made things click in my brain. It gave me immediate gratification for learning a simple function. So now I want to learn them all. Macromedia's scripting language is similar to other programming languages, so I believe that if this obsession holds long enough, I could learn a thing or two about programming. Stay tuned. * Wednesday, December 12, 2001
Had a rough day? Need someone to take it out on? Try tossing this little guy around. I think I gave him whiplash :) *
Well, I hope Mark and Shane had a nice lunch. My meeting went longer than expected, so I missed out on my second lunch date in as many days. I arrived at the restaurant as they were coming out of the door. Shane said, "Man, you need a new job!" Where Have I heard that before? *
Janice and Wilda have started a new thing. I think it'll catch on. There's an old-fashioned country porn shop on the highway between New Iberia and Lafayette. Most area residents aren't very happy about it. A while back, Wilda was driving on that road when she saw someone walk out of the porn shop. She honked her horn, smiling and waving. The guy was really on the spot. There he was, buying porn, when he runs into someone he knows (at least he thinks he might know her). Now she does it every time she sees someone there. Janice has picked up on it and now she does it too. I did it myself once, but it's probably more effective if a woman does it. * Tuesday, December 11, 2001
No wonder I don't get much done. I drove to Opelousas for my morning meeting, had to cancel lunch with Janice's parents to make it back to Lafayette for an afternoon meeting,. Returned my phone calls.. looked at some mail, and it was after 4 PM. One more meeting to go, then I can go home. The afternoon meeting was for the purpose of scheduling all of our overtime for next year. C was heard to say "as soon as I find another job, I'm out of here." She's been saying that (and meaning it) for the entire seven years we've worked together. * Archives |
