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6-29-02
The next couple months look
quite a bit better financially. I have four classes instead
of two which gives me an income I can almost live on. At least
we should be able to buy food on a more regular basis without
raiding my dwindling savings account. The best part is that
I only work 2 days a week, and while there will probably be
2 more days involved with lesson plans and grading, I can
do the teaching homework, plus my ongoing freelance work,
anywhere and at any hour (have laptop, will travel).
Several of the students were right
in my face from the first 20 minutes. A few complained bitterly
about how hard the program was last quarter, while one complained
about not being challenged. I've come to believe that this
is a sign we, as teachers, are successfully hitting the middle
road. If I teach to the top end of the class, I loose the
bottom, and vice versa. I was pleased to see a bunch of friendly
faces from last quarter. I will also get to know the rest
of the teachers this quarter since all but one of my classes
are daytime. 3 of the other teachers and I spent a companionable
hour in a darkened office talking about the challenges of
teaching to our diverse group of Media students. Media students
are a typically exotic group of creatively minded characters.
They remind me very much of myself at that age. When I was
in my late teens, I would do anything to attract attention...standing
out from the crowd and challenging the "old school"
way of thinking was my primary goal, and the best way to meet
friends. Teaching these people how to channel their creative
energy into acquiring the skills industry is looking for would
seem to be our primary goal.
I was supposed to be climbing today,
but rain is blowing thorough the trees outside and I've decided
to make this a working Saturday. Photoshop and Illustrator
can do some pretty cool tricks.
6-25-02
We spent the weekend in Leavenworth
at my Aunt and Uncle's 50th wedding anniversary. All four
of the children from my grandma's family were there: Dad,
my aunt and both of his brothers. All but my aunt are over
80 and all in reasonably good shape. Several have had joint
replacements and the uncle from California drove up to avoid
receiving the third degree at the airport about metal in his
hip replacement. I saw my cousins for the first time in 10
years. When grandma died in 91 they stopped coming over the
mountains for Thanksgiving and we drifted apart. I enjoyed
renewing our friendships. I was, as usual the poorest cousin.
Ours was the only tent at the reunion. They have all earned
their bachelor degrees decades ago and embarked on successful
careers. It is easy to slip into bitterness and self pity
about the poor state of our finances. Had the dot com bubble
not burst shortly before I graduated from web design college
this would be a different story.
This quarter will be better than last quarter since
I have one more class, plus a large web site to work on. Still,
no money will be coming in for some time while I get up to
speed with my 3 new classes, and my bills come in like clockwork.
Life's a bitch, then you get to pay bills. On a lighter note,
Sue and Lisa did a little climbing every day, seeming to enjoy
themselves. Lisa has never really taken to the sport, but
this weekend she actually asked if she could try a few routes.
I told her to imagine she was on a scary rollercoaster ride
at the fair, something she loves to do. It was fun watching
her make the challenging layback moves up the crack. Belaying
her with a tight rope from the top of the cliff, I could see
her expression changing from moment to moment as her body
told her she was in mortal danger, but the rope pulling at
her waist reminded her that she was safe.
6-19-02
Lisa's middle school "moving
on" ceremony was last night. They are only in the eighth
grade but you would not have known it by looking at the dresses
some of the girls wore on stage. I am not used to seeing 14
year old girls walking around in short black mini skirts and
high heels. One wonders why their parents let them dress so
provocatively. When I asked Lisa about it, she gave a three
word answer: "Because they're sluts". It's much
more complicated than that, but not being a shrink, I can
only guess at some of the more common clichés: daddy
isn't around, or daddy was too busy. Tragically they all lead
to the same place, a young mother without a husband and the
cycle continues.
Lisa's crowd tended toward long dressy
skirts, looking much more comfortable. One of her girlfriends,
who we have known since preschool sang in a duet for the assembly.
I've lost touch with her since they moved to a nicer neighborhood
and had no idea she was talented. Her parents were sitting
behind us and I could imagine how proud they must have been
as their 'little girl' sang her heart out for a packed auditorium.
She and the other girl took turns singing verses of a slow
song about 'being there'...or 'you were there', a number I've
not heard before. It was quite a tear jerker, which, to my
mind is the best kind of song. Perfect pitch is a rare thing,
but she had it in spades.
The rest of the assembly was ruined
by the raucous cheering of the rowdy graduating 8th graders.
The principal didn't seem to care, and it got worse as the
evening went on. The girls worked themselves into a state
of hysteria and brought to mind old live recordings of the
Beatles. I've finally found out what I am teaching next quarter
and have my hands full preparing for three classes. I've done
a little part time work for a former employer recently. Today
I went for a bike ride at lunch just like old times and enjoyed
the hills around Tacoma. I am in excellent shape aerobic wise
this summer.
One of Lisa's teachers gave a great
motivational speech, the gist of which was that each of us
has a special gift or talent that separates us from the crowd;
some talent or aptitude hard wired into our make up. The most
important task in high school (I would argue at any age) is
to discover what this talent is and develop it. He emphasized
the fact that this talent won't come looking for you. You
have to intentionally search it out in your character for
it is often deeply hidden. It was a great speech and I could
tell why he was one of the most popular teachers.
6-15-02
The water stretches out in front
of me in a 30 mile fetch toward Olympia. The evening light
has turned all the distant headlands an emerald blue. Highlights
of bright green and orange on the trees glow brightly in the
evening light. Across the inlet several jet skis are towing
water skiers, their excited voices echo across the water.
I am sitting here on an an old driftwood log with my laptop.
I can tell it must date from two centuries ago by the metal
studs that used to tie it to a logging float. I saw a very
large black bird land in a tree not 300 feet down the shore
and realized with a shock that it was a bald eagle.
This is a welcome change from the
turmoil of the last couple days. Things began going downhill
on Friday when my laptop refused to open Explorer.exe. I am
only two weeks into a reformat of XP for the same reason and
thought my problems were over. Not so...I considered my options
and tried the easy fix first with 256 megs of memory on my
credit card. No luck. Deciding that Dell was right and this
machine really can't handle XP, I reformatted back to win
98. I've spent about a full 15 hour day getting all my programs
back in and working the bugs out of my little two computer
network. Amazingly, I haven't had to call my guru yet.
I didn't win any prizes at the reception
today. It was a national competition, with the judge flown
in from Boston. I did see a lot of inspiring paintings. Most
of my favorites were the loose expressive works. I have a
bad habit of tightening up too much. Bill McEnroe and Jane
Wallis had some marvelous examples of how I would like to
paint in the future. I had hoped to win at least a little
cash to avoid raiding my savings account to pay for food.
We can't live on what I am earning teaching part time. I do
have a big web site in progress, but it's hard to say when
I will get my first payment, since I am still in the interface
design faze and a long way from getting a sign off. Still,
it's fun work...and I will get paid well for it once I find
something they like.
Sue can't handle poverty and has not been
pleasant to be around, one of the reasons why I had to leave
the house for this quiet beach. At least here I don't have
to put up with the constant bitching about my lousy career.
It's tempting sometimes to throw in the towel and return to
something more stable and lucrative like printing. Unfortunately,
I can't tolerate anymore swing shift work. Enough is enough.
Whether she believes in me or not, I still have hopes of "cutting
the mustard" as a designer. My interfaces get stronger
with each design, very much like my paintings when I paint
a lot. It's just a matter of hanging in while my skills improve.
Interface design is a reasonably good fit for my skill set.
It's not painting, but it's close enough for government work.
And I have my weekends free. That's hard to beat.
6-13-02
Painted one of my favorite bridges today. This is a painting I began back in January. Three conditions have to be met before I can work at this location: the tide has to be high to medium, I have to get there by 8 AM and the sun has to be out. Other less obvious reasons have kept me away as well: I have to be "in the mood"....whatever that is...and have to feel I am ahead of the game enough to take time out from web design and teaching. This looked like an ideal morning: the students are handing in their finals and I needed to recharge my batteries after a big push in interface design for my latest client.
The resident bum was in his standard location, leaning up against the bulkhead drinking whiskey from a paper bag. I asked him if he would mind if I painted there, since I needed to set up right at his feet. He was friendly, commenting on how he thought I might be a painter since my easel didn't look much like a fishing pole. This bridge is within a block of my son's high school and several of the kids walking over the top spotted me.
"Hey, there's an artist down there!" one of the boys shouted.
"Will you paint me?" his girlfriend yelled.
"Sure," I answered, hoping to dismiss them and avoid a crowd scene.
The bum, not to be ignored, hollered up, "You'll have to take it off honey....just kidding".
He looked at me, abashed at his own insolence. "Most of them know I'm joking", he said with a sigh and took another long hit of whiskey. All the kids came down to the beach under the bridge on the other side, clearly aware of the dangerous trole on my side. He sat companionably enough nearby, nursing his bottle while I massacred my painting. It was my first trip out of the year and nothing came easy. While I can probably save it the next time I go down, I packed up in a foul mood. Walking up the beach to my car a half mile away, I reflected on the difficulty artists face in pursuing our dreams. Without a sense of humor I'd be lost.
6-11-02
Note to self: to succeed at interface design, follow these simple rules:
- Get plenty of exercise
- work a fancy tutorial in Photoshop to refesh skill set
- Surf your clients competitors for ideas
- Don't worry about not having a full blown concept when you begin. Think Goulash.
6-9-02
Drove up to the Staircase trail on Lake Cushman today with Sue. While I love this place for it's deep sun dappled pools of green water, I've had a running battle trying to complete a painting in one visit. Usually I loose the light when the clouds roll in, or the sun goes over a ridge just as I am putting in the color. Today I was thwarted by the spring run off. I'd forgotten about all the snow we got this winter. The place where I usually paint in the middle of the river was 3 feet deep in racing ice water. I tried to wade out to a flat rock near my usual stance, but good judgment got the better of me and I lived to tell about it. I found another pretty view but the stance (perched in a crevasse on a cliff) was incredibly awkward and I had to balance on one foot to draw. Finally I gave in to the inevitable and spent some quality time with Sue hiking around and relaxing in the sun. The trees along the trail are some of the last remaining old growth in the state. They are at least 6 feet in diameter and soar up into the sky for an easy two or three hundred feet.
We only have one week left of school. My students present their finals this week. A contract I've been pursuing for about 5 months has finally come through and I've been having fun getting back into interface design. It's a fascinating mix of trial and error pixel bending, quite creative and frustrating at the same time. The first interface took me a few days, but now that I am warmed up I am getting into it: design ideas percolate though my mind like a fresh breeze through a stagnant room.
I have a reception at a gallery next Saturday (see my home page) but Sunday I am thinking about taking advantage of the heavy snows and doing another Mountain painting, weather permitting.
6-4-02
With all the climbing I've done
lately I've begun to find myself in dangerous circumstances.
For example, down in Smith Rocks on Spiderman, I chose to
bypass a  difficult
section in favor of an easier, but more dangerous, off route
traverse. Because I wanted Dave to have a safe path to follow,
I pulled the protection after I'd managed to get back on the
main line. This made it much safer for my follower, but meant
that I was without protection for 20 feet. I tried to make
up for it by building a mini belay station at the point where
I rejoined the main line, but the unavoidable truth was that
I had put myself in a dangerous position with only a couple
marginal 4 friends in rotten rock.
This weekend I made another poor choice
on a 5.9 route: I've climbed this route many times before,
but during all the previous ascents I had carried a couple
friends (spring loaded camming devices that attach the rope
to the crack) to place in the run out sections. Sunday I felt
so hot I decided to eschew the extra protection and climb
it like everyone else does: using just the existing bolts.
At the crux/clip, I realized I would have to work my hands
out a horizontal crack on an overhanging wall for 5 feet.
At the end of the traverse I would have to stand on 5.9 slopers
while hanging on with one hand to the crack and maintain my
composure long enough to clip the rope to the bolt, the previous
bolt being an uncomfortable nine feet below. Unfortunately,
there was the possibility of a ledge fall if one fell during
the clip at the end of the traverse. By a ledge fall, I mean
that the fall wouldn't be a clean drop to a safe catch. One
could easily hook an ankle or worse as gravity carried one
down the less than vertical cliff below the crux section.
Visions of a broken back and life
in a wheelchair flitted through my overactive imagination
during the committing moves of the traverse. There was no
possibility of going back, it was either make the clip or
take the fall and endure the consequences. My mind fizzed
with excess adrenaline, causing the muscles in my arms to
tremble when I felt the less than positive holds at the clip
(note to self: do more pullups). Where the hell are
the jugs, I thought frantically , as I struggled to find a
combination of hand and footholds decent enough to allow me
to free up an arm for the clip. Gravity
and the ledge fall beckoned 15 feet below. I found an out
of balance position that at least freed up an arm, hollered
at Sue to "watch me" and clipped a quickdraw to
the bolt. Once again, I had a choice: I could grab the bolt
for safety and haul up the rope for the clip, or (the more
manly choice) I could continue to hang on the tenuous holds
and pull up the rope the hard way, a point at which extra
slack is added to the system, generating the possibility of
a longer fall. I chose the latter of course, don't ask me
why.
One may as well ask why people bicycle
through rush hour traffic, when they would be much safer in
a car. Why do people hot-dog around on the freeways? Why do
people risk their life and limbs hunting elk, when perfectly
good beef can be had at Safeway? I've come to the conclusion
that we have a biological need for danger. If the danger isn't
real, we hunger for it. For some of us, we can feed the hunger
by watching other people experience the danger via spectator
sports or "shoot em up" movies and TV shows. Others
seem to have a more acute hunger that can only be assuaged
through real danger. I used to joke with my friends on the
job about the need to "chase the tiger", but when
the joking is over, the hunger remains.
6-3-02
I've had a busy week. One of the teachers is leaving the college, which will have an immediate affect on how many classes I may or may not have next quarter. My laptop refused to open Explorer.exe, with the result that it locked up at the desktop. With the help of my long distance guru, thanks buddy, I was able to reformat my hard drive, for the second time in 6 months. Yesterday Sue, Lisa and I went climbing at Exit 38. I was hot from my recent trip to Smith Rocks and cruised all the routes that usually scare me to death. There was the usual group of self centered gym rats mobbing all the moderate routes. For example, I saw a party of three climbing a 5.10 route next to a 5.9 that looked about my speed. When I walked up to the base of the 5.9 with my gear, I politely asked them if anyone was waiting for the 5.9.
"Oh yes, we are waiting for that route", said the third climber, who was waiting for his two partners to get past the crux on the 5.10 route."
"No you're not", I replied, "you're on the 5.10".
"Oh, but you're wrong," he replied, "we are definitely doing the 5.9 next."
I considered a number of reasons why he couldn't reserve a route while his party of three was currently stuck on the crux moves of another route, but before I could begin chipping away at his absurd self centered logic, he offered to let me belay him on the 5.9, which would solve a number of problems. I agreed and we roped up. The current generation of gym rats is making me sick of sport climbing. There are too many, they don't have any courtesy to lead climbers and they are so fat, and or unskilled, that followers out number leaders by a ratio of five to one.
I've decided to return to my first love: crack climbing. Fortunately very few of the gym rats have learned to crack climb. Cracks are almost impossible to build indoors, and these "give it to me now" gym rats don't have the patience to learn the hard won art of crack climbing.
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