a walk in the woods
monday, december 27, 2004

my parents gave my sister a walk in the woods, a travelogue about hiking the appalachian trail, as a gift a couple of years ago. i read it this week while at their house over the holidays. now, i have never enjoyed hiking, or camping, but the idea of the AT is tremendous: 2,200 miles of trail, with a full pack, up and down mountains.

i imagine that walking it would provide the great feeling i know from swimming hard, and the feeling of compulsion and momentum i feel when reading a book and wanting to finish it. but when i think back to the times i've been camping, i really don't remember having any fun. still it is fun to read about it as someone else's adventure. it was especially fun to read mentions of eateries and roads and town commons that i know.

for christmas my sister gave me swimming to antarctica, about a woman who swam a mile to antarctica (and also, apparently, across the bering strait from alaska to russia). this should be inspirational. people really are amazing.

good things
tuesday, december 14, 2004

yesterday was good:

• took the amtrak in the morning (this gave me an extra twenty minutes to have a relaxed rather than frantic morning)
• had tea with becca at her apartment. we only had an hour, so we just sat on her couch and chatted and it was perfect.
• bought and started to read you shall know our velocity by dave eggers
• invented and played a little game while going up about thirty steps at south station. i would start each set of steps (there were landings every ten steps or so) walking and i would finish them running. i liked pushing myself to make the gradient of speed as smooth as possible.
• came home to a big pile of mail including two christmas cards.

flamenco dancer
friday, december 10, 2004

more posable action figure doodles:

finger puppets
thursday, december 9, 2004

over thanksgiving laura gave me a posable art figurine, which now sits on my desk modeling finger puppets.

final crit
tuesday, december 7, 2004

so the final critique in my flash class was actually kind of fun. for a strict nine minutes per project we oohed and aahed over everyone's cool features, and got positive feedback on the parts that don't work as well. afterward we went out for drinks.

here are links to some of the other projects:

birch creations by bob
kbrofilms by keith
lunatiki by alison
plankton biodiversity by jan
synthlabs by andrew
woods hole anniversary by dina
your sovereign rights by chris
z bar and grille by jodie

flash project
tuesday, december 7, 2004

this semester i took a class in flash web animation. our class final critique is tonight, so ready or not, here is my project!

waterfire providence

advent calendar
saturday, december 4, 2004

penelope has recently started some very cool collaborative illustration projects. i have yet to participate in illustration friday (like photo friday).

however, i did jump at the chance to contribute a drawing to her advent calendar, and my illo is up today (day 22). check it out! and while you are there, you might want to print out some holiday gift tags.

festive
thursday, december 2, 2004

there is a christmas tree in the center of the providence train station, a float with a model train running through a wintery wonderland at south station, and the wreaths have been hung above the front doors at MIT.

in our apartment we've hung paper ornaments i made last year on some closet doors. we also whimsically hung a couple of ornaments from the heretofore unused plant hooks in the ceiling.

i love the warm feelings that come with remembering when an ornament was given to you, as you unwrap it and decide exactly where to place it.

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