Catching Up

I haven’t really had a chance to give a general update since the start of the school year back in early September. My deadline at work come and gone. The new rev of my product is in QA with the release slated for 11/15. It seems like I’m always in the middle of things.

It’s November now, halfway to winter break. Although the weather is starting to turn cold at night, it’s been really warm until a couple days ago. One day last week I walked up thru Central Park to the American Museum of Natural History to drop off my origami models for the holiday tree, and the temperature was in the 70’s. Now it’s in the 30’s in the mornings. Time to break out the hats and warm socks.

Jeannie and I got back to our house painting project. In the fall of 2008 into the winter we painted all three bedrooms, including the ceilings, plus touch-up in the living room, halls, kitchen and downstairs room. Last winter we didn’t do anything cuz I hurt my back. So this fall and winter we’re gonna finish the house. We did the ceilings in the upstairs hall, kitchen stairs and half the living room a couple weekends ago, and then the high part of the living room last weekend. It looks great and was not an overwhelming amount for work. We started Friday night with the taping up and edging. Saturday we did the roller work, and were done by mid-afternoon. The hardest part was the stairs because we needed the big ladder, which is hard to move around. We did the high part of the ceiling in one night. The only difficulty was that the extension handle to the roller broke midway thru, so I did a lot of trips up and down the ladder. The plan now is sometime before Christmas do the ceiling in the downstairs. Then it’s down to touching up the trim, which we’ll start after the new year.

We’ve had some time for fun in there too. Way back in September, we went to the Maker Faire when it visited NYC. Had fun playing with robots and electric hula hoops. Plus the event was at the New York Hall of Science, which I’d never been to before. Jeannie and the girls had been and love the place, and they’re right – it’s very cool. In particular there’s a really great discovery playground. It was also the first outing as a family with the new Prius. Tons of Prii in the parking lot. Don’t know if it’s just the effect of noticing when you get a new car, or maybe the Maker Faire is the kind of event that tends to attract the same kind of people that drive a Prius anyway.

We took a day trip up to a farm near New Paltz in October. Met up with Martin and family, and picked apples and pumpkins. Came home with three giant pumpkins, which have been carved into jack-o-lanterns and placed on the front stoop, where they are now serving as squirrel food. When we were done at the farm we went into town for lunch, and ended up walking around the historical district, where houses dating back to 1705 and older are still standing as a sort of park or museum. Pretty neat. The motivating excuse for the outing was to give Prius a good run on the highway. The car did not disappoint. It got 46 mpg.

Inspired by Maker Faire Jeannie finally got around to getting herself a Lego robot kit from her gambling winnings way back from our trip to Tahoe. While she was at it, she picked up a minifig of Jedi Master Yoda to hang from the rearview mirror of her car. “It’s a toy Yoda for my Toyota, see?”.

A friend lent us season one of the new Battle Star Galactica. The idea is to make it our main video entertainment for the coming winter. So far we’ve only had a chance to watch the pilot, which was excellent. I’d forgotten what a compelling actor Edward James Olmos is. I hope does some origami in this show.

Somewhere in there Jeannie and I celebrated our anniversary, Halloween (Lizzy was an aqua witch and Michelle a devil), and put on a birthday party for Lizzy. Now it’s time to make plans for camping and ski trips. Hopefully the end of the year will be a little less hectic. I know I have some vacation time that I have to use soon.

Hollow Heads

Happy Halloween everyone. This year we had not one but three pumpkins. It’s November now, halfway to winter break. The weather is starting to turn cold at night. It was 34 this morning. I realize it’s been a while since I wrote. Things have been really busy with work, projects and everything else. I just passed a big deadline at work, so I’ll do a catching up post soon. Meanwhile here’s some pictures of carved vegetables to hold you over.

Origami Walrus and Elephant Seal

I just completed a new set of models for this year’s origami tree at the American Museum of Natural History. I’ve been working in the space of arctic marine animals, and designed a Walrus and an Elephant Seal. These animals are featured in dioramas in the museum. Both are new designs and I’m pleased with how they turned out. They’re relatively easy to fold too: less than hour and maybe 20 or 30 steps. I’ve been striving lately to create less complex models that still capture some sculptural essence of the subject and think these are pretty successful in the regard. As a bonus I folded a Rocketship and a UFO. All the models were folded out of 12” (30cm) paper, the marine animals out of Canson and the space vehicles out of Tant. While a was taking photos I also included a balloon I folded recently, also of 12” tant. Next up: origami narwhal.

Buzzy Tonic on iTunes

Face The Heat, the new album from Buzzy Tonic is now on sale on iTunes:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/face-the-heat/id398782886

My friend John already wrote an excellent review, which includes song-by-song commentary. I’ve never heard Jeannie described as “non-Yoko” before. Ha! Just for the record, on the Who Can Fool Me, the opening riff is stolen from Thelonious Monk and the main groove is inspired by Duke Ellington’s East St. Loius Toodle-oo, but in 7/8 and with a flat 9 in there.

So go over there and buy yourself a copy, and a few to give to your friends. Write some more reviews and help build the buzz. While your at it, go ahead and pick up a copy of Buzzy Tonic’s first disc, The Brothers Zing.

Indian Summer

It’s fall in New York, and Indian summer is upon us. The weather’s been very nice so far, generally warm in the days and cool at night, with a few stormy days. The kids are back in the school groove, and after finishing my record, I’ve been able to start planning the next music project, as well as get back into my origami book. Diagramming the frog this week.

My work situation continues to improve. We got our release finished off a few weeks ago, and it was met with enthusiasm from our customers and managers. Now we’re sort of back to normal as far as the level of pressure and the general vibe. We have a follow-on release coming up in November. Finally getting tot he point where all the well-structured, modular, reusable code I’ve been writing is starting to pay off by actually getting reused. In related news, our corporate overlords did some shuffling of chairs recently. My team lost our nice corner shared office, as it’s going to be converted into a conference room. I got my own office right next door, which is a reasonable tradeoff. View of the Marriott wall, but at least it’s a window. The other guy in the room got sent to cubicle purgatory.

We did get a Prius a few weeks ago after all, and so far we think it’s pretty neat. Good roomy size, good futuristic looks, good handling, reasonable power and of course the hybrid synergy drive is a radical, cool technology. It takes a bit of getting used to. The controls are all electronic. Instead of a gearshift it has a videogame joystick. The car is black and completely silent at low speed, so my friend Erik nicknamed it the Stealth Car. Meanwhile the kids have dubbed it Princess Priia. So far we seem to be getting about 47 mpg. We’re gonna take it on a drive out to country sometime soon for some hiking and pumpkin picking.

Eric Joisel

International origami master Eric Joisel passed away over the weekend. I was a big admirer of his work, truly some of the most detailed and expressive origami ever created. Eric came to paperfolding from a background as a sculptor in clay and wood, had a highly developed style both thematically and aesthetically, and was particularly adept at human figures, faces and characters. You can see some of the best of his work at: ericjoisel.com.

Buzzy Tonic on CD Baby

Face The Heat, the new CD from Buzzy Tonic is now on sale at CD Baby at (http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/buzzytonic) So go over there and buy yourself a copy, and a few to give to your friends. If you already have a copy, do me a favor and review the album and help me get some word of mouth going. While your at it, go ahead and pick up a copy of Buzzy Tonic’s first disc, The Brothers Zing (http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/brotherszing).

I also update my music pages to link to teaser versions of the songs, just the first minute or too, to give all y’all further incentive to go and buy the CD.

Site Update: Music Pages

I got my CD’s back from the manufacturer the other day and am in the process of getting it set up for internet sale on CD Baby and iTunes. To prepare for my forthcoming album release I updated a few of my web pages:

http://buzzytonic.com – the new home page for Buzzy Tonic, my once and future group.

http://zingman.com/music/facetheheat.php – page for Face the Heat, the new album by Buzzy Tonic

http://zingman.com/music – main music page.

http://zingman.com – main home page.

Check ‘em out. This will be your last chance to listen to the full versions of the songs before they are behind a paywall.

Colored Lights Can Hypnotize

My friend Leo Villareal is an artist who works in the medium of flashing LED’s. I’ve known him since grad school when he was just getting started with this stuff, and I did some programming on one of his light shows a while back. Yesterday CNET ran an article about him and his work, including an new exhibit at the San Jose Museum of Art. Leo’s a brilliant and kind guy, and it’s good to see him getting to this level of success and recognition.