Basement

We cleaned the carpet we had in the living room after replacing it with a different one a few weeks ago. Now we've laid it in the basement to make our art retreat room more cozy. 

Grapes

I hung an old metal frame from a futon for my grapes to grow on. Three grape plants are in the ground. Just water and cross fingers now. 

Step fixed

Yesterday, before I heard about Rob, I'd spent most of the day fixing stuff around the yard including this step. It had been assembled with a metal part protruding out of the middle of the top step and last week I put a huge gash on heal from it. I'm still limping and don't like to put shoes on until it gets better. Anyway, I figured out a way to remove the middle support and move it so that there is still support, the steps are all still the same depth, but there is no longer this hazard. Today I was going to do more yard work but it was raining. Wish I had some physical work to take my mind off Rob. Difficult day overall. 

Rob Edin

I just got word that my friend Rob Edin passed away two days ago. He's been in Calgary for years now but I've known him 25 years and we were gaming online until a few months ago. We were at his wedding when William was little and his twins' first birthday bash some time later. We've exchanged a few emails recently and he was worried about his health, but he also seemed confident that his doctors would find the right balance of stuff to fix him up. I don't what happened but his sister says it looks like a heart attack. He's at least six or seven years younger than me and loved peanuts but couldn't eat them at home so indulged at Five Guys when he visited Regina. Photo above is from a Five Guys in Regina in September 2018. Rob loved history and brought a wealth of knowledge and passion to his games. He was also a really caring person. He always talked about his kids and put them first. Rob visited me when I was it the hospital in Calgary 19 years ago and this meant a lot to me. I'll really miss him. 

Grapes

It seems like everything is in short supply these days. We drove around looking for grape plants to put into the place I designed in the back yard (pictures at a later date). I was looking for Valiant but found some Beta at Canadian Tire and one of these "Prairie Star" varieties at another place. Shopped for lumber to re-build the back gate and was told that cedar and pressure treated wood are almost sold out. Got enough for a gate. Lucky we aren't building a fence or deck this  year. 

In you can paint it once....

I'm trying to abide by the adage that if you can do something once, you can do it again. I was listening to K-tel records (after hearing a history of K-Tel earlier in the day on CBC) and didn't get the lens on this camera painting right. I blotted it out. Still didn't get it right the next time, but it's closer. Made more adjustments in future. 

Around the yard today

I put together a list of projects (outside of the annual maintenance, organizing, cleaning etc) that I want to accomplish in the next few days to prepare the yard for summer. Margaret was painting the swing that we moved to the front of the house while Nick found a new place to sleep. He wasn't helping, but at least he wasn't in the way. 

More back yard visitors

Allan, Kevin, and later Ang came over and visited in back yard this evening. Earlier today we did some rearranging in the front yard to create some conversation spaces there and also generally tidied up. No bugs yet. 

Lori visit

Nice visit with my sister in my gazebo this afternoon. Talked about painting and accounting and stuff. The wind finally seems to be stopping and we can do some back yard stuff. 

Father's Day

As Father's Day falls on solstice this year, William and I revisited my old tradition of staying up through the shortest night. After Mike left last night, we watched some movies (Roman Polanski's "Knife in the Water" and Sam Fuller's "Underworld, USA") then the final couple episodes of the current season of "F is for Family" which always leaves me feeling like I am in trouble, and then we went outside to greet the new day. 

Slept in, ate biscotti for breakfast around noon, and did some gardening and bbq later in the day. 

Mike at the fire

Mike came to town for the weekend, I think for a father's day visit. We had a socially distanced visit at the fire. Again, the weather is still cold. By the time Mike left, the temperature had dropped to 4 degrees with a frost warning. Great first day of summer!

Mom and Dad visit

Claude Saul

My parents came over for a visit in the back yard. The weather continues to be too cool, so the visit was short. Dad was in great spirits. I cleaned up the yard a bit so mom could take some photos, but overall I'm pretty happy with how the grass is growing and the landscape has tied things together. 

Layers

Was talking with Jeff N recently about layers, which is what he feels is the core to his paintings. I concurred that this was vital to my after effects work. I feel that the paintings and the video are integrally tied. 

Working at home to much...?

William's hair. 

Our obsessions with our work might have a cost in our personal grooming these days. Perhaps having some social life has some value after all. 

Anyway, here are some Sock-Vile stills. I've exported the film and given it to Geremy to look at. William and I actually drove a USB to him, rather than the much more time consuming process of uploading the 7 gigabytes of it. 

Street cleaned

With so many people at home, I thought that there would be too many cars on the street when the cleaning trucks came. To the contrary, everyone moved cars and this is the cleanest our street has been since we moved here. In addition, kids (and some adults) were out on their respective sidewalks sweeping and making it even cleaner. I followed suit and cleared up much of my walkway. 

Last camera from Barb

Barb lent me a few cameras a couple of weeks ago. This is the last of them. William will take them back for me and hang with Emma in the process. Love getting these sorts of "toy" cameras as they really emphasize the issues I'm thinking about with cameras. Not only must a camera be a camera (take a photograph), but they must also feel right in the users' hands and they must look inviting, creating a desire to be picked up and used. These latter aspects of the camera are not essential to it being a camera, but they are important for it being a "favorite" camera. 

Painting

I've not been painting as much as I thought I would. This is mostly due to working on Sock-Vile. This weekend I dove back into it. I've been rendering scenes, which gives me blocks of down time from my computer. 

Slate Gallery

Slate art gallery on 13th Avenue has been open for a few days, albeit to a limited number of people. We walked over there to see the final day of their fabric exhibition. 

Visit Gertrud

We dropped off some heavy stuff from Costco for Gertrud and had a little visit. Fred was watching old curling in side when I put the cat litter away. William donned his new suit and visited on the front step. 

Nick gets a shave

Took Nick (our cat) to the vet for a shaving of his matts. I was allowed to come in with a mask on, but not to help. Regardless, Nick was extremely compliant and the shaving looks much nicer than last year. 

Changing carpet

Changed stuff around a bit in the living room. We have had this red carpet rolled up in the basement since fall. The carpet we did have in the living room is in need of a cleaning, or perhaps a new home. This gives the room a very different feeling. Perhaps it looks smaller, but it also looks warmer. 

Drawing and Allan

William is drawing his own version of a Tarot deck. He'd hoped to draw one every day but school work and other things get in the way. This week he pushed to get one done to show Allan who came over for a socially distanced evening around the fire. 

PC Place

I've been struggling to get my new computer working. It works of course, but what I need is for it to have at least two internal hard drives to store all my video work. However, through perhaps some foolish choices on my part, I ordered a Thinkstation that looked bigger in the picture but in fact only houses one internal hard drive (apart from the c-drive which is built into the components somewhere). However, there is a large bay in which one can put a cd rom or something. I went to PC Place to see if they have a housing to allow it to fit. I used to have one but it was plastic and cracked when I was taking out of an earlier computer. They didn't have one but then the guy remembered that he had some of these very simple braces (above) and they were sized for just this job. For five bucks, the problem was solved! Yeh for PC Place. 

New phone book came. It is thin enough to bend and put into the mail box. 

Huge wind storms

Lost a couple of large branches from our apple tree this weekend. I'm actually surprised that this tree is still alive, as it has some sort of rot in the core of the branches - or at least in the ones that just broke....

New dishwasher installed

We got the new dishwasher installed. It had been nearly a week with it sitting in the kitchen but I suppose hand washing builds character. Margaret had the honour of peeling off the protective plastic. 

plumbing and computer and sock-vile

Our new plumber has able to come by this evening and remove the dishwasher. More progress early tomorrow. My new computer arrived. It's a university computer but for my research. The processor and memory are a huge upgrade from what I have, but I think I've erred in that it cannot house as many internal hard drives as I'd wanted. Upon doing some research, I think that putting 7200 rpm drives into USB 3 enclosures should be fast enough. Only problem then is the additional power the externals require. 

I've held off moving all my data until I get an enclosure tomorrow and instead finished shooting some footage for Sock-Vile including a industrial about how to use a messenger pigeon, and some 2nd unit of Marsha driving. 

Building props

The temperatures outside are supposed to be above 20 so I don't want to turn on the furnace, but I found myself cold all day long and this made my creativity and motivation sluggish. I have made a couple of things for Sock-Vile including a reproduction of the worst prop the students made a "soup spice" can constructed from a soup can and some camera tape (I had to substitute medical tape today). I also made a couple of newspaper pages to clarify details so now I"ve also constructed a newspaper office that can show up in some backgrounds. 

Final touches on the street

Final paving and soil on the sidewalk in front of our house today. 

Sandra visit

I had a meeting with Sandra in her back yard to talk about her thesis as well as a number of other projects she has on the go. I have to admit that as each Covid week passes, I become more and more obsessed with my own projects and need to make a greater effort at keeping up on the work my students are doing. Perhaps for the best as she seems to be pulling herself forward all right. 

Filming in university hallway

I stopped by the office to find a few props from Sock-Vile that I needed extra shots of and I pulled a rather decrepit old 16mm projector down off my shelf and nervously plugged it in. I need a projector and my mantra now is to find the coolest examples of each prop or extra insert that I can find. I didn't electrocute

myself and by shooting for 5 minutes on the floor just outside my office, I was able to save on dragging this heavy thing home. 

Fire in yard with Allan. Weather was perfect. I shot some more flames to use in my films, Sock-Vile and others. 

Dishwasher, trees, sidewalk, and art.

I placed an order through my office to get a new computer for working on my video projects. It should be here at the end of the week. I'll need to transfer hard drives into it when it gets here. I should probably buy some extra drives before that so that I don't need to open it a second time. 

Branches broke off the apple tree yesterday during the wind storms. It's still alive, but a sign that we need a new one. 

Road crew were back and starting to pave the sidewalk at 8 am. 

We delivered my "painted camera" (as opposed to a "camera painting") to the AGR today. It will be part of an online display. I'll post a link when it is ready. 

Our dishwasher broke on Friday and we purchased a new one on Saturday. I met up with Simon at Lowe's today and he moved it home for us. It should get installed tomorrow. Hand washing until then. 

I painted the first of four cameras I got from Barb.