Being in Space

Get Your Panorama On

Sat, 29 Sep 2007 07:54 GMT

User-submitted geopositioned panoramic views of the world at ViewAt. Don't you just love maps?

Toy Boat

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 08:05 GMT

DSC02436.JPG, originally uploaded by Todd Everett.

Cycle to Work without Smelling like it

Wed, 20 Jun 2007 20:35 GMT

Ride your bike to work without stinking up the office @ Carfree Ann Arbor. Wash cloths, baby wipes, rocket showers and armpit diapers.

What will Space People Look Like?

Fri, 15 Jun 2007 10:49 GMT

Space people described by Science Digest, 1958. “He eats both plants and meat. A strict plant-eater spends too much time stuffing himself with unconcentrated food to build the kind of civilization which is necessary to produce a spaceship.”

Source: What will Space People Look Like (http://www.beinginspace.com) by me

How to Cure Olives

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 14:52 GMT

Learn how to cure olives @ WikiHow. Takes about a month.

Suds in a Wine Glass

Wed, 13 Jun 2007 11:22 GMT

What American Accent do You Have?

Wed, 13 Jun 2007 10:31 GMT

Take a quiz to find out what American accent you have. Do you talk like where you hail from?

Deja Vu is a Memory Problem

Sat, 09 Jun 2007 08:45 GMT

Deja vu explained as a memory problem. You haven't read this before. You're comparing it to something very similar that you don't remember well.

Listen to a melting glacier by calling 07758 225698

Sat, 09 Jun 2007 08:05 GMT

Listen to a melting glacier by phoning 07758225698. The glacier, in Iceland, will only accept one call at a time so good luck.

Small Boats on the Hidden Shore - Allendale, MI

Tue, 05 Jun 2007 20:19 GMT

Tandoori Chicken

Wed, 30 May 2007 18:34 GMT

Huron River at E Delhi Road Bridge

Wed, 30 May 2007 18:28 GMT

Wynton Likes to Watch the Chipmunks

Fri, 18 May 2007 23:51 GMT

Going greener

Thu, 17 May 2007 04:33 GMT

It wasn't until the canvas grocery bags showed up in the house two days ago that I really woke up to what's happening around here. Monica has us going greener. We have always had a mutual disgust for the American dream of entitled excess, and I have to thank Monica for making us less hypocritical and doing something about it. Here's what we've got. Cloth napkins in, paper towels out. Organic milk, half-and-half, coffee, cereal, vegetables, hair products, dish soap, and cleaning products. Canvas grocery bags. Recycled everything. Truthfully, I'm not even sure what else. I've been talking about composting, so maybe a compost pile will also magically appear. Love you, Monica!

Air-Drying Cloth Napkins

Wed, 16 May 2007 21:31 GMT

Lemony Moroccan-Style Chicken Kebabs

Fri, 11 May 2007 16:35 GMT

Lower Lake - May 8

Tue, 08 May 2007 17:39 GMT

Oat Grass

Mon, 07 May 2007 04:51 GMT

East Loch Alpine Dr - May 6

Mon, 07 May 2007 04:43 GMT

Lower Lake Trail - May 6

Sun, 06 May 2007 18:32 GMT

Graphic Art by Laura Esparza

Sun, 06 May 2007 06:04 GMT

Pencil on paper works from Laura Esparza's “My Everything” series.

Solarium on Jan 15

Sat, 05 May 2007 09:53 GMT

Solarium on Cinco de Mayo

Sat, 05 May 2007 09:44 GMT

Two Daydreams

Sat, 05 May 2007 05:20 GMT

I'm remembering two distinct images of what I thought adult life would be about — two of the hundreds of scenarios I played through while lying awake in the summertime, having been sent to bed before dusk.

One: I'm living in a penthouse in the city. I'm sitting leisurely at a breakfast table in a corner room with lots of windows. I read the newspaper, drink coffee, eat fruit and cereal and enjoy the view of the city below. I feel like I am on top of the world. This happens every single morning.

Two: The wind is always present and, therefore, my large wooden sailboat always moving. I'm travelling around the world. For a few hours each day, I have the boat on autopilot so I can write my novel. This never seems boring.

Ann Arbor Ice Storm

Fri, 04 May 2007 21:04 GMT

More Rhymes, Reggae Style, Hardly Worth Reading

Sun, 15 Apr 2007 14:49 GMT

Rasta Man, Rasta Man
Don't you overcook the pasta, man

Rasta Rastafarian
Eating pasta in the bar again

Everybody Rasta now
Don't you overcook the pasta now

Rasta Rastafari
Please tip your pasta bar guy

Cleveland

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 15:35 GMT

Last weekend Monica and I drove to Cleveland for a Reggae concert and to check out the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. I think I finally have the Marley's figured out. Damian and Junior Gong are the same guy. And I still think that guy sounds like a Jamaican auctionere. It was actually a Stephen Marley show, but Junior Gong did some songs with him. Another guy, name unknown, waved Jamaica's flag over his head for the entire show, switching hands every three passes or so.

The next day we visited the hall of fame. Jerry Garcia had the best looking electric guitars. John Lennon had the worst report cards. One note from a head master said something like, “I have never seen such a poor and slovenly performance.” That was in science. He got an 8%.

If you must go to Cleveland, I recommend the Hyatt Regency in the Arcade. There's ample headroom for jumping on beds, and it's an easy walk to the House of Blues and, probably, some good restaurants. Our dinner was a huge waste of money. Cabbage with filet mignon? I can't recommend dining at Pickwick & Frolic. The comedy might be good though.

Put Poem in Air

Thu, 08 Mar 2007 13:58 GMT

I just made a change to Monica's poetry journal to fix a problem that made poems look double-spaced within stanzas. To test this, I jotted down the following ~~poem~~ ~~drivel~~ excrement of my own. It rhymes.

This poem
has no sound,
does not live loud.

Your mouth
does not do the reading,
does not really do the feeding.

Your eyes
do not run your brain,
do not make the rain.

The wind
is only waves of space,
blows gently across your face.

The Deer Family

Sun, 04 Mar 2007 06:53 GMT

The Deer's live in a house on Wagner Road out here near the Huron River in the Ann Arbor countryside. They spend the majority of their days hanging out in their 2-acre front yard, eating weeds and playing games in the trees. They have a late model Ford Explorer, which almost never leaves their carport. A SUV is appropriate for a deer family, as they require extra leg room.

Little Sophia Deer, all grown up now, is shopping around for a home in the Loch Alpine neighborhood with her new husband, Bob Whitetail. They have spent considerable time right here in our backyard, either munching on our winter garden or napping beneath our coniferous trees on a bed of snow and needles. Monica and I have observed their behavior through our solarium windows. And Sophia and Bob have observed us.

While it is flattering to think that these newlyweds find our home appealing, I have to wonder what this means for us. I can't help but think that somebody else may have occupied that home on Wagner Road before the Deer's moved in. Where did the people go, and why didn't they take their Ford Explorer with them? Will the Whitetail's decide to make an offer on our home? If so, are we allowed to counter?

All I Want for Christmas is 77 Million Brian Eno Paintings

Wed, 22 Nov 2006 09:20 GMT

An old basement bandmate once called me Owt after hearing one of my Brian Eno influenced solo recordings. FYI, that's meant to be ‘Two' to Brian's ‘One'. I don't deserve the name for one minute. I don't even play keyboard any more, though I am casually looking for wall space for an upright piano now that Monica and I have a more permanent residence.

Anyway, Eno handed over more than 300 of his paintings to be digitized, translucentized and randomized to create the best screen-saver ever produced: 77 Million Paintings. It's actually a lot more than a screen-saver. It has a generative music track as well. So if you are clueless about what to get me for Christmas, this is a great idea. Just please make sure to get the US encoded version of the dvd. It comes with a dvd.

Wines that Suck

Tue, 21 Nov 2006 11:48 GMT

I have an idea. Somebody who knows more about wine (and is funnier) than me should create a publication that only covers repulsive wine. I'm not talking about defects like corked or refermented bottles. Rather, the site would focus on wines that are the worst even when at their best, like Two-Buck Chuck and 1983 DRC La Tˆche. The 50's rankings by Wine Spectator could be a good starting point, though many of those are simply way past their prime. MD 20/20, Boonesfarm, Wild Irish Rose and Yellow-Tail are (in my opinion) low-hanging fruit for this genre. Anybody know of a resource like this?

Why Can't We Have Unique Wine Labels?

Fri, 17 Nov 2006 19:03 GMT

St. Francis prints up 12 separate labels per case for the wine they call, Red. The variable in the labels is a background of red splatter paint. What would it take to make each label completely unique? This could be a good way to repurpose a ‘broken' printing press that can't seem to stamp out the consistency any more.

The wine itself? I am enjoying it. It has a good pow for the money with a little spice in the finish. Not my favorite, but recommended.

Old Friends, Old Fitness Equipment

Fri, 17 Nov 2006 13:00 GMT

Now that the Michigan weather has become too cold and soggy for cycling (I know cyclists go year-round, but I'm not there yet), I have been nordic tracking. My parents had a NordicTrack during my college years, and I remember coming home for the holidays and building up a good sweat while listening to a Phish cd. I grew up in Northern Michigan where cross-country skiing was occasionally one of the only ways to get around the neighborhood in the winter. The others were snowshoeing and snowmobiling.

Anyway, I bought a NordicTrack on eBay from a seller in Maine. I like the simplicity of it and the fact that it is made of hardwood and the fact that it came from Maine. Then, a couple days ago, I'm reading blogs and come across a post from my old friend Zach which points to a travel blog that my old friend Peter is just finishing up. I knew Peter was a serious cyclist (It takes more than a little rain to stop his bike. Though the post I linked to above is called ‘Mother Nature Wins Again', his definition of bad weather includes a chance of tornados.) but I see that he has also been x-country skiing to keep fit over the Northern Michigan winters. It's excellent to know that Peter is still making travel a high priority. Also, I agree with Zach that it's damned good to see a shot of Sarge.

I guess I'm feeling old today, looking back at my college self, thin and working out to Phish, compared to my present self, up to my desk job fighting-weight and working out to Avishai Cohen. My NordicTrack has a ‘built in 1994' sticker on it. Do you remember what music you were working out to in 1994?

Ann Arbor: 1000 New Jobs, 800 New Condos

Wed, 15 Nov 2006 23:35 GMT

Luxury condos are popping up in downtown Ann Arbor. Of course they are urban, copying the style of overhauled loft spaces found in New York and Chicago, but the vast majority of these Ann Arbor structures are new builds, not renewals. The three current projects (Liberty Lofts, Ashley Terrace and Kingsley Lane) will bring 800 new residences to the several closest city blocks to my office. Liberty Lofts was recently completed and, I believe, is now occupied.

Speaking of my office, Google moved in a few doors down. Judging by the size of their space, two floors of old Ann Arbor office building above Infotrieve's happy hour bar, Vinology, they can't have many more than 20 employees. But supposedly this space is temporary.

There was little fanfare when Google moved in, but the large blue, red, yellow and green fabric panels, serving as treatment for their four Main Street facing windows, subtly announce their presence, even if you can't find Google Ann Arbor on Google Maps. One of their sales managers stopped by to introduce himself, drop off some tchotchkes, offer to add our office to the map and see if he could sell us some AdWords. Their mapping tool provides a natural ice-breaker for real world, hit-the-streets sales and marketing.

The Arb

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 13:22 GMT

Soon after my claim that Monica and I would be walking the Nichols Arboretum every day, we instead began shopping for houses every day. This isn't to say we won't be taking advantage of the Arb in the future, but our new neighborhood is also by the Huron River and, to us anyway, every bit as worthy of exploration as the Arb, which is no longer in our backyard. The photo journal is now called ‘Shots'. It will contain snapshots and, possibly, some quick movies. The first such shot is a picture of the Solarium in our house.

Walks in the...

Sat, 04 Nov 2006 10:13 GMT

I haven't posted anything here since my birthday. Lots of changes since then, which I'll just go ahead and list and move on:

In August, Monica and I bought a house in the woods out on West Huron River Drive 6.5 miles from downtown Ann Arbor.
My parents moved into a condo in Allendale, MI at the end of October.
My sister just moved into a new house they built themselves in Allendale, MI.
I haven't smoked a cigarette since February and plan to keep on not smoking them. Monica has also quit.
I'm back in the office now, but thankfully, the office is now in the Goodrich building on Main St in Ann Arbor.
I started biking to work a few times a week and have discovered I'm a fair weather biker and won't pick it up again until the snow melts.

So those are the big things. Please drop me a comment or an email if you're an old friend reading this in your news reader. And go ahead and sweep the cobwebs off the feed. It will be more active now.

Walks in the Arb

Thu, 04 May 2006 05:57 GMT

Monica and I are trying to do daily walks in and around Nichols Arboretum, a lush 123-acre piece of Ann Arbor landscape carved out by glaciers some 700 million years ago and preserved through a joint effort of The University of Michigan and the City of Ann Arbor beginning in 1906. The Arb is across the river from our apartment building but is accessible by foot bridge. It is too big to wrap my arms around from this distance so we're going in on foot as often as possible and will bring back pictures. You can view them in the Walks in Nichols Arboretum journal. I also need to post an audio recording of the unbelievable amount of bird song, which I can hear presently in my office with the windows closed. According to this bird checklist the Arb contains about 188 species. Drives our cat bonkers from dawn until his deep sleep in the early afternoon. Yesterday, he spent several hours scaring sparrows away from the bread crumbs on our balcony. I wonder if he feels like he's living in a tree house in the jungle. Doubtful, since he has no concept of jungle. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the pictures as much as we're enjoying the walks.

Hannah and Todd on Bookmaking

Mon, 10 Apr 2006 18:58 GMT

1st grader Hannah talks with Todd about her book publishing ambitions.

First Ever Happy Spring Greeting Card

Wed, 22 Mar 2006 05:45 GMT

Thanks, Jill & Adam. It arrived on the 20th!

The Business

Sun, 19 Feb 2006 10:14 GMT

Poems — they just
wake up
in the middle of the night
and dance their
wooden shoe ways
across the page
and in the morning
smile up
from your coffee cup.

Actually,
that wouldn't be
too bad.
I should send a note
to the Poet Laureate
on that one.
Perhaps
there's money
available.

(This poem is an example of the Smart Ass form — New Post Millenium Saginaw School)

About Love (For Valentine's Day, 2006)

Sun, 19 Feb 2006 10:05 GMT

Ya know, the Cyclops
wasn't an unrequited lover
for lack of personality.
Shit, man,
he only had one eye …

in the middle of his forehead.

It's a chick thing.

The Adventures of Wynton the Cat and His Evil Twin

Sun, 12 Feb 2006 12:35 GMT

A little comic strip by Lupe Bryan.

Al Hellus Responds To Bill Carlos Bill

Fri, 02 Dec 2005 14:16 GMT

so much
depends upon

a red
chicken
with

its head
cut off
beside

the freeloader
glazed

with
dishwater

so much
depends upon

a glazed
chicken
doused

with
dishwater
beside

the red
freeloader
uh huh

who
the hell
gives

a rat's
ass
about

a goddamned
chicken
picking

shit
in the
barnyard

during
a fucking
downpour

anyway
?

no really
I'm not
kidding

what's this
obsession
with

chickens
all about
anyway
?

there's
nothing particularly
interesting

about
chickens
right?

you can
eat ‘em
chase ‘em

ring their
little
chicken

necks
but they're
still

just
dumb-ass
fucking

birds
in
the end

so
?

As an
example
I

would think
that say
a woodpecker

glazed
with
rainwater

beside
a large
pile

of
bear
shit would

be
a lot
more

interesting
all the
way

around
or perhaps
a great

horned
owl
beside

a steaming
pool
of elk

vomit
on
a hot

sunny
July
afternoon

now that
is goddamned
interesting

I mean
chickens
can't

even
fly
fer chrissakes

at least
write
about a

fucking
bird
that can

fly
damnit!

buzzards
are
damn

ugly
sonofabitchin
birds

but they
can soar around
and

pounce
on
shit

(well
they actually
pretty

much
pounce
on dead

shit
for the
most

part)
(really
rotting

gross
disgusting
stinky

dead shit
at
that)

(forget
about
the buzzards

then)

(seen a
show
once on

PBS
about
buzzards

& let
me tell
ya

man
I just
about

hurled
no
shit)

and there
ain't
nothing

poetic
about
chickens

either
whether
they're fried

baked
fricaseed
barbecued

boiled
sauteed
shot

with a
30.6
blowed

up
stomped
on

drowned
kicked
hacked up

with a
weed
wacker

skewered
with
a pitch

fork
run over
by a

bull
dozer
hammered

nailed
to
the floor

drunk
looney
(redundent)

or
eaten
live

and
flappin
like hell

okay
damnit
enough of

this
goddamned
chicken

shit
it's
starting

to drive
me
bug-nuts

looney
(well
more

than
usual
anyway)

Keystone Studio Jewelry Exhibit

Sat, 05 Nov 2005 08:26 GMT

A presentation of original jewelry by Kristin Baldeschwiler.

Plastic Einstein

Sat, 05 Nov 2005 08:19 GMT

Posed pictures of an Einstein action figure, by Monica Rico.

El Estilo Del Gato De Garaje

Sat, 05 Nov 2005 08:01 GMT

Music video in which Wynton the cat looses his car keys, gives up, falls asleep on a kitchen table and dreams about playing with a straw.

Paving Ohio: Is it Legal?

Sat, 05 Nov 2005 07:52 GMT

Todd and Lara on asphalt, starbucks, sloths and changing a state motto.

Hands

Thu, 11 Aug 2005 13:44 GMT

There are two trees in my backyard

that every night meet, shake hands
and clean underneath each others’ fingernails
flicking out stars
turning dirt into something other than build up.
I filled the bathtub with rain water
it’s like floating in a giant hand.

The moon spins out of control.
A streetlight has saved.
The world isn’t an oyster
but I do own three pearls.
I peel back the legs of my pants
and want to be more than a pair of hands.

The Vacation Everyone But Me Went To

Thu, 11 Aug 2005 13:43 GMT

Every one I know is sitting in the sun.

I’m in another cold day,
sun bleaching out brick buildings
and the never ending sound of semis waiting on my street.
It’s Wednesday and the girl next door
is playing piano through the walls
and into the roots of my teeth.
The clock I’ve had for four years is ticking,
moments moving away.
I take the battery out.
There is a mysterious smell in my kitchen,
it’s origin unknown.
The cat and I smell for it, moving the stove,
the garbage can and find nothing.
Each individual brick stares at me.
I don’t know what they want me to do.
Perhaps I’ll throw my clock at them.
I have no use for it.
It tells me nothing of the dog shit on my street,
or why I sleep at night with closed hands.
No pigeon sits on my window sill
while I wait for a phone call to ring sun in this apartment,
a seashell to jump out of my bathtub,
or a hand to curl my hair into dragonflies.

Rent

Thu, 11 Aug 2005 13:40 GMT

Every morning

I wake up in my apartment
that looks like a hotel,
to remind me that nothing
is permanent
or more precisely
that I own nothing.
At night
I put my notebook
under my pillow.
Something has to come out of me
besides all this talk and shit.
Thinking of death at night
is the worst
because everything is so quiet
so still in its darkness
that one can hear the heart
change its tone.