All posts by eachnee

geek out

the day lee, why artists need math, writings

my mom, in between taking me to assorted rock concerts as a kid, also taught me how to sew, knit, and crochet. sometimes she combined the two: i came home from a Rush concert once and drew her a picture of the black/white seersucker jacket Geddy Lee had worn, and she made me one. kick ass.
in college i started knitting sweaters, but knitting while attending lectures led to miscounts on rows so my sleeves tended to be really, really long.
when skinny scarves came into fashion and were selling for $40 a pop, i turned up my nose and went to the knitting store, only to hand over $200 for crazy fun yarns.
one year over the holidays in New Mexico we scored a huge ream of black fleece on sale so we made backpacking pillows, neck warmers and hats. tons of hats. tall hats, bishop’s hats, arty hats. everyone got a hat that year. my brother, who had slept during the entire hat making enterprise after eating too much for dinner the night before (oh, the days of La Tertulia) woke up and said “i want to design one.” he disappeared for about an hour, then came back and said “imagine a ball made out of 8 equal triangles, can you make a hat just like that, only the 8th piece would be my head?” when we finished there was only one word for it: genius.

i’m glad to say i don’t have the “craft bug” or any other hipster ailment concerning making things, but every now and then i see something and i say “Oooh. i gotta make me one of those.” my enthusiasm for making something drops drastically if i have to go to the store and buy something so i’m a big fan of using what i’ve already squirreled away in my (kind of large) cool-shit-i’ll-maybe-use-in-a-few-years box. i will admit that despite my best intentions i usually end up with things that are ridiculously, shamefully cute, but i think that’s somehow related to not wanting to go to the store, like i am forever dipping into the same stash of über cute raw materials.

so, a couple days ago a friend sent me a link to this bit of insanity:

yay! now i can make things out of my cat that my cat can play with. perverted, but really cool. the only problem was i had to start building up my collection of cat hair. this is what i got from this morning, clearly with some help from the pups:

and this is what BB thinks about getting brushed more:

so, intent on procrastination, i decided to make a fleece sack for my phone! after a long debate over whether to protect the glass with the plastic sticker or carry around an ugly case, i settled on making my own.

it’s a moon on there, though i could easily have made it a fried egg. which got me thinking. maybe i should concentrate on making crafts that illustrate old titles for my novel. it’s a good way to procrastinate. so this one’s for “Moonquake.” the next one’s going to be for “Drink with Clarity More,” though that’s not much of a craft project, more like a lifestyle.

Fear

the day lee, things i worry about,

i am thinking, and i know it’s stupid, to close up shop and do something other than computers. not that i can do anything BUT computers, (seriously, what good would i be to anyone?) but there’s a field of sheepdogs out there waiting to be trained, a garden of organic dirt waiting to be planted, other things in the world out there. OUT THERE.

it’s just that everything i have i owe to the world of technology and there’s no one else who can run the world of technology like Steve Jobs. now that he’s gone there isn’t anyone who can hold up the fort, who’s there in the top rung of the business world, who seems to have the same expectations about taste, the same belief in the integrity of ideas, and my style of nitty gritty control-freaking tweaking.

over the years there’s been a lot of things my father has called me that has pissed me off but the one thing i’ve never forgiven him for is calling me an “Apple nut,” and he wasn’t talking breakfast cereal. he was the person who said “someday computers will be huge” and he was the one that made me take a Fortran class in high school, and even he, didn’t get it.

though it was great fun to program and i still love the phrase “to compile,” i wasn’t that interested in computers themselves in high school, and remained neutral through college, where my first interaction with the PC using Word Perfect turned into pure stupidness when i decided to change the font one hour before my paper was due. my moment came when a friend showed me on the Macintosh using new software called Quark how to change the spacing between letters. we were designing a business card for an old retired city planner (who had need of girls to eat lunch with, not business cards) but after i saw the letters jump one pixel at a time i kept telling my friend “Make it do it again. Again. Again.”

now our little business of “programming and designing the things you need a computer to do” is 16 years old and we still give everything we can to our clients. we care about the little things. we care about the big picture. we follow all our original slogans: “we think for you,” “we’re friends with shortbreads,” “rising above, with soft paws,” and “we’re better with butter.” literally and metaphorically, we’ve been up at all hours, changing the spacing between letters. and all this, because we’ve felt that if we could make things better, make things more efficient, make things more elegant, then it was all worth it.
for one of our first Filemaker jobs we cut our client’s job from two weeks of manual cut-and-paste labor down to the time it took to click on a button and get a fresh cup of coffee. when we showed her that we put a picture of Snoopy on the button she started to cry.
for one of our latest Filemaker jobs we set up a system using Filemaker Go on an iTouch so that employees who drive throughout Los Angeles county inspecting properties for sale can upload their notes at any wireless access point, rather then driving back to the office in rush hour traffic every night and then back home. one of the guys told me he now sees his baby at least three hours a day more than before.

always in the back of our minds we knew we were not alone. somewhere in Cupertino of all places was Steve Jobs and he was showing on a much grander scale that if he could make things better, make things more efficient, make things more elegant, then it was all worth it.

we get a look every now and then when we try to explain how we went to art school and how that makes us exceptional problem solvers and how we see things differently, and the potential client is just not getting it. it’s not like several years ago when an administrator was afraid to mention our company’s name to his boss because he thought our name was… er… well… worrisome. (we ended up telling him that his boss should be more concerned with the names of our clients than our name and after getting that list from us decided to recommend us). it’s not like the look you get if you order a steak at a vegetarian restaurant. in the restaurant they simply think you’re crazy, in the technology world there’s a hint of fear: we’re weird, we’re knowledgable, and we’re sitting in their true black Aeron chairs.
now the tables are turned. suddenly, looking out, there’s real fear on our end.

Route 66 at night

the day lee

a friend of mine who is traveling the world for a year just blogged of all the amazing things that can be seen in Paris at night. hukas, chocolate pencils, astrolabes, men holding signs that say “Cherche nympho.” the world being “flat” i thought i could do the same thing, as i just spent two weeks in ABQ and was about to drive along Route 66 all the way back to Los Angeles. the only problem was the question of darkness. New Mexico at night is simply black matter. bupkis. quietude. nada. there’s jack to see.
so, while i pretend the whole wheat bread from Sage (which is extraordinary, btw) is a loaf from Poilane’s and my macaroon is a macaron, here’s a glimpse of things you see in ABQ during the day:

hot air balloons just hanging out…

roadrunners…just hanging out…

fancy parking jobs at garage sales…

an easy way to move dogs along freeways…

occasional moments of awesome road signage…

and it wouldn’t be New Mexico without a visit from space aliens…

things to note along Route 66: casinos offering child care by the hour, Kodak film for sale, Fort Courage: Take Pictures of Past, and my all time favorite, Meteorites 50-60% off. i just can’t believe the prices of meteorites these days.

hiking ABQ

the day lee

this morning i took a hike in the Elena Gallegos Open Space Wilderness just at the base of the Sandia mountains. though i might be a little feverish from a head cold there sure are some funny similarities between hiking here and hiking the Big Wild in Santa Monica.
ABQ is already a lot of like Los Angeles, a semi-polluted flat expanse of dry terrain with ugly business parks and strip malls dominated by mountains on two sides. there are acres of the heartiest drought-tolerant plants amidst granite vistas of beauty and amazing skies. in the nicest restaurants in town you’ll find fancy outfits as well as the casual garb seen at the Frontier Restaurant where “breakfasts just got sunnier.” personally i’m jonesing for a “Lobo Country” t-shirt, just can’t find one that isn’t XXL or bigger.

like the Big Wild, the EG Open Space is a short freeway drive from town, past some Best Buys, Walgreens, the Apple Store and a Trader Joes. from the trailhead the view back into the bowels of ABQ looks surprisingly like the SF Valley.

the Big Wild is off Mulholland Drive, and most people who care about the history of water in LA or are fans of the movie Chinatown know who he is, and the EG is off a big street called Juan Tabo, but nobody has any idea who he is. Googling “who the hell is Juan Tabo” points to maybe a priest or a sheepherder or a stage coach stopover along Route 66 owned by a guy named John who had a pet fish named Tabo who liked pats on his gills and could live without water. so maybe the connection has something to do with water.

dogs are allowed at the EG, but not off leash, although if i were a dog i’d prefer to be on the leash. the cacti are everywhere except on the trail. on or off leash, there’s always time to play a game of “is that prickly pear larger than my head?”

hiking is hiking though, no matter where you go. there’s always the biker asshole who says “i’m from [insert city] and when i saw the sign that said this trail was closed to bikes i said [insert expletive].” there’s always the large German speaking extended family with the Mutter who makes sure every child over the age of 2 wields a walking stick twice their height and the Vater who makes every rock outcropping a photographic opportunity. at the EG there are free poop bags, but most people don’t make use of them. there’s also drinking fountains in the picnic area, clean bathrooms, extraordinary topo maps, excellent signage and accurate trail markers. oh did i say the park fee was a dollar on weekdays, two on weekends?
here please, take my fiver.

two of my favorite things in the whole world: yucca pods and New Mexico fire ants.

4 ways of looking for a chase

the day lee, why artists need math

week one ABQ tally so far: two yapping dogs accompanied by the classic “No No NO!!!” owner lady, two geriatric heeler mixes, one of which tried to have a little run, several unruly large dogs on 30 ft flexi leashes and one, only one very exciting corgi-heeler puppy, which, even in this altitude, didn’t have a chance with the MO.

with grass this nice and the immense hilly slope, what’s the deal?

“not dead yet”

the day lee, writings

this sentence has survived decades of editing, and now that i have the photo to go with it, it’s probably going to stay:

“In the winter the coyotes hunt in packs, but they all know to walk in the same exact footprints to give the impression there’s only one animal, ever, featured in profile on the cover of Après Magazine, its obsidian eye trained on the moon.”

stand back, i’m doing science

food, the day lee, things i worry about

i always knew at some point i would end up owning my own WOPR.

our kitchen sink clogged up a few days ago and our plumber came out to send in the snake. no, he didn’t have the rotating camera head with the LED lights, but he did say we had need of some cast iron pipe replacement, and also suggested putting in a water filtration system. because 2011 seems to be the year of the giant house expenses we agreed to install these two fat boys in the back, adding an industrial touch to our recent plantings of a straight Meyer lemon tree (just because it’s a Meyer, don’t be afraid to get rid of it if it’s all wonky—lessons from the lemonless), English lavender, Canna lilies, and white sage.

supposedly the system gets rid of chlorine and other chemicals in the water, and it descales the hard deposits that clog shower heads, ruin copper pipes and make your hair fall out and give you skin rashes. plus the water tastes amazing! yes! softer, rounder, not minerally, and it makes a fabulous espresso. now for our tea tastings, we can heat our fat boy water in a Lin’s ceramic pot, brew in Yixing, and drink out of purion… dreamy!

after the install a field specialist came to test our water. he put some white reagent powder into a little vial and filled it with water. the water stayed clear. if the water had chlorine in it, it would have turned pink. we probably didn’t look convinced so he tested water from the hose, which is not filtered, but that stayed clear too. then we sneaked some water from our neighbors and damnit, still clear.

the guy was pretty frustrated, and couldn’t believe that our street would have no chlorine in the water, so he he opened a new batch of reagent, thinking his current powders had expired, and looky – it turned pink! (that’s the neighbor’s water)

being a good specialist he did a second test, which was sticking a vacuum sealed pipette into the water and then breaking the tip so that the water went up into the glass. i think there must be a gas in the pipette, which turns the water pink in the presence of chlorine.

it all felt a little Chinatown (the movie)-ish, because he was full of useful water information. he said Los Angeles used to get water from 200 miles away, and now we get it from 400 miles away, which means we go through 4 chlorinating plants, not to mention the extra miles of pesticides and poop seeping into the H20. he said that Dasani comes from the Detroit River, and though Fiji Water does come from Fiji it has to travel so far in plastic bottles that’s not a good thing either. he also gave us a run down of how filters actually work. water needs time inside the filter in order for the unwelcome particles to wander into the little avenues and get stuck. if the water pressure is too high, or if the filter is too short, like a fridge filter, or a Brita, the bad stuff doesn’t have time to uncling from the water molecule. also, over time the water creates channels in the carbon so that after awhile when you run water through it just goes through the channels it has made, rather than through the filter. big sigh.

why New Mexico is weird

the day lee, things i worry about

usually whenever i visit my Mom in Santa Fe i fly into Albuquerque, and she picks me up and we do all the things in Albuquerque that you can’t get done in Santa Fe. That means shopping at the one and only place in the state to buy Chinese vegetables and goods, with maybe a stop for fried okra and cornbread at Furr’s.

it used to be worse when i visited on college break. my parents lived in Los Alamos and that was a two hour drive home from the airport, and if you would rather starve to death then be deprived of Chinese food like my Dad is, you didn’t leave the Chinese grocery store until you were sure that you bought enough long beans and baked tofu and frozen squid to last until the next child comes to visit. after pulling a million all nighters and racing to make the flight i was generally not in the mood to help find the fish sauce from Taiwan or the pompanos with the flattest bodies, but even more so because the first thing anyone should do when they get to New Mexico is look up and see the sky.

this past week i flew directly from LA to Santa Fe, which was a first for me, on a little plane with propellers. they served juices on board—two kinds of tomato, plain and spicy, and no apple—which goes to show you the clientele they’re used to having. the flight was overbooked and the airline upped the offer to $500 credit to give up my seat and take a later flight to Albuquerque. in my head i imagined the “ground transportation to Santa Fe” the airline offered as part of the deal making the inevitable detour to the Chinese grocery store, so i hung on to my seat.

other than help my mom get to her doctor’s appointment and make her take a yoga class, i did some of the things New Mexico is fabulous for, such as eat as much New Mexican food as i can, go swimming afterwards and die from the altitude, look for Indian pawn jewelry, and spend endless hours at the Plaza watching the ladies try on and buy those jackets. yes, you know, those.

funny things tend to happen in New Mexico, and it’s not just because Mom has this on her front door,

or pictures of strangers printed from the internet pinned up next to a picture of her in the kitchen, though those things are weird, it’s my Mom, so i’m used to it.

on this trip i went for a walk around some new construction and found $20 on the side of the road (that kind of money will buy you 4 bags of dried posole), then i bought this from the farmer’s market, which is extremely good luck according to the Chinese,

and then someone dropped their Black and Decker drill in front of my mom’s house. we left it out all day, hoping that whoever lost it would come back, but after it started to rain we brought it inside.

headbanging

the day lee, things i worry about

a few days ago my mom told me she was planning on leaving Santa Fe and selling the home she’s lived in for the past 20 years or so. it’s not the house i grew up in, but apparently it does have some of my crap, which she of course, suggested that i come and deal with. Mom said that she’s been throwing stuff out for awhile, and this i cannot believe until i see it. when my parents were married my dad wielded the iron fist in terms of preventing crap from accumulating in the house, so after the divorce my mom’s possessions exploded like one of those magic sponges.

spearheading this move is a small surgery that Mom is undergoing, (her uterus, which, come to think of it, is really the old home) and her biggest fear is the Demerol she’s going to have to take. no biggie, i told her, that’s not the part you should be afraid of, but i booked a flight anyway, so i’ll be flying out to NM this week, just in time for more chiles.

not sure what i will find in the closets though. most of my crappy sappy letters and I-suck-you-suck writings i have either tossed or stored in my small current closet, and my paintings that she has hanging on the walls that make me want to die just need to go. what i’m hoping to find is my stash of rock concert t-shirts from the 80’s that somehow disappeared between high school and owning two dogs. back then only hard rock bands came to NM, and they only went to Albuquerque, which was 2 hours drive from where we lived. a lot of my friends were not allowed to go unless a parent did the driving so my mom always volunteered for the job. not only did that make her cool, she didn’t sit in the car during the show, or scream “we’re going to die like at that Who concert” when they unlocked the fence and everyone started pushing. she came to the concerts and head banged with us. Black Sabbath (sigh. R.I.P R.J.D.), Iron Maiden, the Scorpions, Rush, Yes, Van Halen, Rush, 38 Special, Journey, Rush. Rush came a lot. so did (and still does) Ted Nugent but he doesn’t count. i remember one concert being in the second row sitting on top of my friend Tom’s shoulders when my contact lens popped out. i leaned over and said “i just lost a contact.” he said “what?” and let me down. i looked around and found it on the floor and probably gave it a lick and stuck it back in. guess that explains the eye patch i wear these days. rather remarkable considering i lost a shoe for good at a Madness concert in Berkeley, guess that’s the difference between hard rock and ska.

in any case Mom’s probably going to be fine. but here’s to staying healthy. eat your yogurt, keep your head out of the sand, and always look both ways before crossing.

sure smells like New Mexico

food, the day lee

awesomeness like this on the side of an 18-wheeler just screams “New Mexico!” and when it’s Hatch chile season you’re going to smell it before you see it.

The “chile drop” was at the La Puente High School parking lot, with burlap bags everywhere, burritos for sale, and a whole host of confusing canopies separating the people into variations of walk-up, pre-pay, fresh, or roasted categories. god forbid if you wanted to mix and match between the categories.

i was in the pre-paid roasted section, which i assume was the most orderly, as everyone in line was only mildly frantic, confused, or salivating. mostly the conversation sounded like kids talking to overseas grandparents: “what time do you have?” but several people who had been standing in the sun too long offered up their opinion on how to fix the ordering system. in New Mexico you can smell the roasting from the side of the road and just pull over and pick up a bag, but here they assign everyone a check-in time, and then plead with you not to be late, but if you are late, they squeeze you in, making the people who actually do show up on time wait. as an owner of two dogs this is the most egregious example of “rewarding bad behavior,” but i didn’t mind because the chile lady said “there was a slight back up because everyone wanted Chavez,” and i got curious as to whether Chavez was a type of chile or a person.

turns out Chavez is a roaster, and he’s got the art down. some of those guys throw the chiles into the drum and put it on automatic. but not Chavez. Chavez roasts by hand, checking that the chiles are blistered just enough so peeling the skin later isn’t a pain in the ass, but not too roasted so the skin is carbonized to the meat. someone in line before me said “What’s the big deal, what difference does it make who roasts?” and the chile lady gave her a look of “if you have to ask, then it doesn’t matter.”
when it was my turn, the lady asked me whether i wanted to request a roaster. i said yes, and she said which one. turns out there’s more than one master craftsman roaster, but that was the only name i knew so that’s who handled our chiles.

the bagged goods.

the taste test.

the apres roast.

on the freeway coming home we passed a pick-up truck with two bushels of roasteds in the back. when we passed i gave him the sign of the coyote but the driver was too fixated on whether he was going to have enchiladas or burgers for lunch to respond.