Novelty of the novel wore off
Was reading Neuromancer by Gibson, 3/4 of the way through and had to stop. Somewhere they lost me, just didn’t care about the characters anymore or where the story was going. Tried reading Stations of the Tide by Michael Swanwick and ran into the same thing early on. Both are critically acclaimed, both have won awards. Neuromancer was one of the first books to venture into cyberspace, the matrix, etc… I appreciate it for that, but I won’t be finishing it for now.
Life
Well the wife decided she liked some of my artwork from when I was a student and wants to frame it. Not my favorite pieces, but what she liked. I guess it’s a compliment, and I should be thankful. She rolled up my other work and stored it which is better than it being stacked up somewhere.
Seedlings
Well my seedlings failed to come up. I have been waiting 4 weeks patiently but the seed starters are empty. The garden is full of spring grass and needs tilling before I can sow my other seeds, and then hit the farmers coop for seedlings already ready to go. Not a good start!
The muscedine is leafing out, so has the pear tree, and the blueberry bushes. My privet hedges also look good. Spring has sprung!
Light Reading
I recently started reading “Before They Were Giants”, a compilation of science fiction short stories edited by James L. Sutter. I had picked up this book from Amazon.com as a recommendation when I was about to purchase “Hunt the Space Witch”. I wanted Space Witch solely for the cover, it looked wicked retro. The cover of Giants on the other hand conjures up visions of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
I’ve read about 1/4 of the way through so far, and everything has been good. The piece by William Gibson pushed me to buy a copy of Neuromancer for my Kindle. The most recent story I’ve read was Craphound by Cory Doctorow. I’ve enjoyed his work before, “Little Brother” was a really good read. Craphound was as well.
Giants offers a great perspective as it’s early works by some of the up and coming names in recent Sci-Fi and Weird Fiction. Check it out if you get a chance.
Facebook, Illustrations, Inspiration
Why can’t I copy a Facebook post to my blog with my iPhone? Seriously.
Gripe mode off
GIS for illustration reminds me how much art people generate on a daily basis. I’ve been scanning artwork recently but now I wonder at the futility of scanning in pages of drawings, doodles, etc… What’s the point when it’s just one more drop of ink in an endless multicolored sea?
Winter Tilling
I spent two hours tilling the garden today to a depth of ten inches. My arms felt like they were going to be pulled off by the tiller, but I got the job done.
Can’t fall asleep, suffering from major insomnia tonight.
Orion Starblast 6i
Orion Starblast 6i (with optional intelliscope holster) and Orion Starblast 4.5.
Well, today I took the Starblast 6i telescope out to the backyard after collimating it and pointed the EZ Finder II on it so that it and the scope are ready for some stargazing. I’ve got to contact Orion though, the power switch on the EZ Finder II doesn’t seem to shut off correctly, I guess I got a bum one in the batch. It’s the third EZ Finder II I’ve had, the first being the one on my first telescope, an Orion Spaceprobe 3… and the second one being on my Starblast 4.5.
I took a photo of the Starblast 6i and the 4.5 today for comparison. The Starblast 6 is really much much larger. It doesn’t seem as heavy to me today as it did when I first put it together. I am able to take it out the back door for stargazing pretty easily from taking it out twice today. Hopefully things will be clear tonight, and I will get to try it out a bit.
Long day, new scope
Well it’s been a long day. Got the new telescope, an Orion Starblast 6i. Assembly took roughly two hours. The 6i requires you to disassemble the base so you can install the electronics package and additional parts to support them.
The scope is big, and heavier than I thought. It’s a tabletop scope. 23.6 pounds, but it’s bulky.
My Starblast 4.5 is tiny compared to it. I have a friend who is going to buy the 4.5 for his grandson from me, so that frees up space on my desk for the 6i. Which fits.
I need to go through my desk and organize and purge some things. The cubbyholes are too full of stuff.
Hopefully I can get the new scope collimated in the next couple of days and then we will get a clear night so I can try out the zoom eyepiece a family member gifted me!
Hope you had a merry Christmas, time to turn in.
Mirado Black Warrior HB2
Sharpened the first pencil in a box of ten last night. Have done two decent pen and ink drawings in the last hour. One, a comic book cartoony dragon carrying a sword. The other a quick sketch of a chair that I’ve been looking at that has some character and personality to it.
I did the initial sketches with the Mirado Black Warrior, inked them and then shaded and textured with the pencil. It really does hold it’s point well, and the color of the lead is rich and black. I think I like this pencil better than any of my other drawing pencils.
Merry Christmas!
Well, not sure who reads this anymore but I gave up Facebook until the new year. Trying to focus my energy on other things, and we’ll see how that goes. I really want to illustrate something and haven’t drawn anything in a while. Playing with some ideas, hopefully some sort of inspiration will stick.
