Awake. Alarm ringing, radio playing. Crap – is it the first go through or have I unconsciously snoozed already? Move carefully, don’t disturb him. Roll over, squint at alarm, press snooze – don’t want to get up just yet.
Twist, stretch, back sore. Gonna be a long day, this will be painful. Alarms go for second time, will have to move now. Turn them off and try not to fall back asleep, all too easy as he’s not going to be getting up just yet. Swivel out of bed gently, trying not to groan. Need to heat water for shower. Pull on jogging bottoms, fluffy boots, robe. Gather up handbag and phone. Don’t look at him, if you do then he’ll wake. Vision blurry, something wrong – ah, glasses, that helps.
Down the stairs, legs sore too. Not looking forward to the day. Alarm off, lights on, heat the house, heat the water. Need a drink, unbearable dry mouth, need a cigarette too, but wish I didn’t.
Sat in the living room in my favourite chair, find the ciggies, lighter, ash try. Light up and take that first greedy drag of the morning. Evil bliss, I hate it and love it at the same time… Grab the netbook, sit back, watch the posture, no point in making things worse than they already are. Headache throbs, need painkillers. Reject ibuprofen, too early in the morning, too empty a stomach, have to get up and go to the kitchen instead, no tablets left in my handbag. Hit the medicine box and grab another pack of paracetamol. Toss back the tablets, swallow, grimace – hate starting the day this way.
Netbook on, mail, feeds, twitter, facebook. What’s been happening since last night. #rtefl? Frontline. The one with the kids, felt old when they said under 30’s for that. Twitterers not happy, complaining, young politicos and idealists rub them up the wrong way. Deaths, laughs, world in a microcosm on twitter, do I have any thoughts or insights to add? No, nothing in the head.
Water now hot, late for work, wish I cared more. Know the shower will do me good but still have to drag myself back upstairs. Run through the motions, the routine so familiar, so done to death. Clothes out, try to look smart yet comfy, casual, but overall must be warm. Office has been cold recently. Strike the balance, satisfied with reflection for today, but still long term changes needed. Don’t want to be average, want to be better than average.
Say goodbye, quick kiss, never leave without saying “I love you”. Wonder if sometimes we say these words so often they lose the meaning. Grab bags, all there, need to leave, look at clock, crap – schools traffic, will be so late arriving in today. Feck it, can’t fix it now.
Drive gently, clutch down fully, slide into the gears, wait for the engine to heat. Big queue, slip through the shopping centre to make up some time. Lights turn orange, right foot to the floor, don’t want to be stuck here for 5 mins or more. Looking, glancing, awareness of those around me. All idiots, trust no-one but yourself, it’s the only way to survive.
Look, indicate, accelerate, feel the power, out on our own now, just me and the machine. Head for the slip road, use the engine to brake, feel it scream as the revs go up then down. At the roundabout, waiting for a gap, first gear, drop the clutch, find the bite, use the power to pull out, take it towards the edge, need the adrenaline to wake me up. Arrive at work, switch modes, slow it down, behave.
Put on the work persona. Serious, thoughtful, knowledgeable, trustworthy. Just another face the actor wears.
Hear the words screaming around my head, let them flow, set them free, see if they resonate with anyone else. Only time will tell.
I don’t normally feature photography on Lines and Colors, not that I don’t think of photography as an art form; I just feel that it’s dealt with better on many other sites, and seems different enough to be in a separate category from the art forms I feature.
But the photographs of Michael Paul Smith just charmed my socks off, and there is more to them then excellent photography. In the images you see above, the houses, cars and streets are 1/24th scale (1/2 inch = 1 foot; 1 m = 4.16 cm).
The cars are die-cast models; the buildings are built by Smith, constructed out of Gator board, plastics such as styrene and Sintra, and found objects (and it looks like the old model makers standby of lichen for shrubs).
The outdoor scenes are set up on a table and photographed against real backgrounds. The interior ones, lit very simply but cleverly, are photographed in Smith’s garage.
There is no digital manipulation, no GCI, no Photoshop compositing; it’s all in the models and the original shot from the camera.
My father, among his other skills, was a museum model maker, so this has a particular resonance for me. He, my brother and I spent many happy hours working on train layouts and even helping him construct his museum models; but we never managed photographs of them that had this kind of emotional depth.
Smith says: “What started out as an exercise in model building and photography, ended up as a dream-like reconstruction of the town I grew up in. It’s not an exact recreation, but it does capture the mood of my memories.’
There is a two page Flickr set of his photographs, (and here), many of the compositions have been photographed in both color and black and white, the latter looking uncannily like actual photos from the era Smith is recreating.
[via]
While delivering a pizza, a guy told me he’d tip a dollar for every digit of pi I could recite. Last week I memorized pi to 20 places for extra credit in math class. IMMD
Submitted by: Chris
Fave Comment
when I looked at this one, there were 3 people who had re-tweeted, and 14 who had shared it on facebook. the pi gods must be happy. -emrez
If you don’t like your bags being out of your sight and it makes you uncomfortable to think that airline workers are rifling through your stuff, you can take advantage of the TSA’s own security rules by—eek—packing a gun.
Photo by Vince Alongi.
Most of the time, travelers are on the short-end of TSA regulations. In this instance, however, you can use travel rules to your advantage. If you’re traveling with equipment you would prefer locked up and watched more closely than your run of the mill luggage, you can pack a firearm with the equipment or luggage. Whether or not you own an actual firearm isn’t important—the TSA considers a starter pistol a firearm, and it must be checked in and secured properly. Bruce Shneier, on his security and privacy centered blog, highlights how some creative professional photographers have been using this rule to their advantage. One of the photographers writes:
A “weapons” is defined as a rifle, shotgun, pistol, airgun, and STARTER PISTOL. Yes, starter pistols – those little guns that fire blanks at track and swim meets – are considered weapons…and do NOT have to be registered in any state in the United States.
I have a starter pistol for all my cases. All I have to do upon check-in is tell the airline ticket agent that I have a weapon to declare…I’m given a little card to sign, the card is put in the case, the case is given to a TSA official who takes my key and locks the case, and gives my key back to me.
That’s the procedure. The case is extra-tracked…TSA does not want to lose a weapons case. This reduces the chance of the case being lost to virtually zero.
It’s a great way to travel with camera gear…I’ve been doing this since Dec 2001 and have had no problems whatsoever.
You can pick up a super basic starter pistol for around $16-20—really nice starter pistols can easily cost $100-200, but you’re not concerned about the quality—a rather small sum to ensure that your case of photography equipment or personal effects will be watched more carefully and only opened in your presence.
Have your own off-beat way of keeping your stuff safe while traveling? Let’s hear about it in the comments.
[via]
Recent Comments