Salida, CO

Last weekend I headed down to Salida with some Roller Derby folks, to ref a bout between RMRG Kill Scouts and Ark Vally.
It was both a fun and horrible trip. Coming off of a cold, I found that congestion + altitude change = complete deafness. it was a bit scary, and I was with a group of quiet talkers who just didn't really "get it." I also suffered my first ever migraine following the bout. My friend Amy came to the rescue with Excedrin and good company. But I had fun sardined into a car with 4 other people for the road trip, meeting new people and having some amazing green chili at the Boat House in Salida.

Looking South over Salida from the "S"

Looking West over Salida from the "S"

A cute blue house with a yellow roof

Stiff Peg Pete with with a Party Boat sized drink

A pretty window box, still in full bloom outside Amica's Wood Fired Pizza

hello fall!

Its been a hot summer here in Denver. September 2nd the temp dropped to the 70s and its been heavenly ever since. Today we had some of my absolute favorite weather- 55, cloudy and rain. I'm spending the evening snuggled on the couch with my kitties, laptop and watching You've Got Mail.
I'm so happy my favorite season is here!

WANT aka: New from Wacom aka fucking amazing

Coming mid-September
Inkling by Wacom
$200



 I am thinking this might be a really cool thing to carry in the art store. I am not otherwise planning to carry software.

Technology here we come!

Big news on my end- I've been approved for new hearing aids! This is a really big deal, new aids can cost between $3,000 to $6,000 a pair- and insurance doesn't usually cover them for adults.
So how is it happening? I'm working through DVR- I originally went through them for help getting my business up and running, and while they may help with that, they are starting off by getting me some new hearing aids.
My old ones, at this point are over 8 years old- usually aids are replaced every 3 to 5 years if possible. So, long story short, with my non job having status we are in the income bracket to have aids covered completely. I am happy that they also allow me to keep working through my current audiologist, who is also deaf, and entirely awesome.
I will probably test a couple different pairs, just to see what works best.

First up: Phonak Solana

 

Features:

ZoomControl

When you cannot easily face the speaker, e.g. in a car, ZoomControl can be selected to zoom to either side, the back or the front for effortless understanding.

UltraZoom Advanced

In noisy situations with several people talking around you, UltraZoom automatically zooms to the voices coming from the front. Noise from the side and back is cut out.

• SoundRecover - Awareness of the sound environment and listening pleasure
  
• WhistleBlock - Feedback free hearing
• SoundFlow - Continuous and instant optimization to all environments
  
• Real Ear Sound - Natural sound orientation
  
• NoiseBlock Advanced - Comfort in background noise
  
• WindBlock - Suppresses wind noise
  
• SoundRelax - Eliminating annoying sounds
  
• Acoustically Optimized Vent (AOV) - Minimum occlusion
• QuickSync - Control both instruments with one touch

I have some questions about this model, of course- like how does it handle on the phone and so forth. But I am excited to try it out.

Sylvan Lake Campground

Some photos from our trip to Sylvan Lake Campground, and hike near Fulford Cave.

The winner....

The winner doesn't remotely reflect the voting choice.

Super Good Art Stuff looks like the way I'm going. Why? Because I like the logo best.. I have had an incredibly hard time deciding and it may still change at this point, but for now, that's the decision.

Help me choose a name!

What name do you like best for an art supply store?

• The Painting Goat
• Super Good Art Stuff
• Artcore
• Artomic Bomb
• Pigment Alchemy

View Results
Create a Blog Poll

Please vote for your favorite. I am trying to choose a name for my art supply store. The poll will only let you vote once, if you have a second choice, please leave a comment, and i will add it to the results.

Thanks!

4th of July 2011

Whelp, Tim and I had a pretty gosh darn good 4th of July weekend this year.

Thursday: Dollar bowling with friends
Friday: We hit up Santa Fe for First Friday. After I got claustrophobic we went over to Pirate art gallery, where, in true Pirate fashion, some of the art was taxidermy animals.
Saturday: Tim and I headed to Boulder to find him a new pair of shoes and wander around. We lunched at the Tea House, where we enjoyed tea picked by trained monkeys and delicious food stuffs, and had a terrible waiter. Then we headed over to a big back yard bbq, hung out and chatted and ate and ate and ate.
Sunday: I went to roller derby, Tim went to his current RPG and then we headed to Slones Lake for a picnic with friends and to watch the Edgewater fireworks.
Monday: Lazed around the house watching X Files before going down to the horse races at Arapaho Park. The horses run every 15 minets or so, so it's quite fun. Once we were too hot to enjoy the races any longer we wandered over to my parents house for dinner, drinks and a round of Bocci.

And that was that. 5 days of friends, family and food.

Gypsy Bowtop Caravans

Someone posted this on FB this morning, and my heat went pitter patter.

Greg's Gypsy Bowtop Caravans are beautiful, to say the least. Screw the tear drop camper, I want one of these!

Apparently they can be rented or bought in Europe.... now I search for an American version.

Found a page with numerous links showing home made and commercial made and for sale caravans. Check it out!

Following follow up

Following follow up

DVR refuses to schedule appointment by email, despite my telling them I cannot hear over the phone. Yes Tim could call them for me, or I could try again, but it's the princible of the thing. I don't think requesting to do business over email is unreasonable.

A Follow Up to Last Weeks Rant

So, apparently there is a cohesive website that both answers questions and has an email address. You know how I found it? Looking for the location that it was insisted I would be closer to [I'm not. at all. but traffic might be better.] Clicking on the location link took me to an entirely different web site- one that does not appear just under google search. This strikes me as odd. Also, that they would not give me an email contact after I repeatedly asked for one, when clearly one is available. We'll see if they are more helpful in person.

A Rant: Disability Services Discrimination

I needed someplace to rant, so here I am.

I'm trying to start a small retail store in my neighborhood shopping district. I have been taking business classes through SCORE. To my luck, there happened to be another Deaf woman in the class who had an interpreter with her. They both encouraged me to contact Disabled Vocational Rehab. SCORE also links to DVR as someone to contact for both business help and grants.
So I look up DVR.. they have a terrible website that does not include much of anything. Today I cant even get it to load. I believe there was a phone number. But no email to ask questions, no information on how to contact them or for what for what, no list of the steps that need to be taken. In fact it gives me the impression that if I were to go through them for a job they would help me find the most menial task possible. For some people that is great. For me- well, I attend college, held a corporate job for almost 5 years- one that included a lot of responsibility and communicating with venders all over the world. I was fine. And I refuse to believe that being HOH means I cant do what ever I want. I will admit that I am uncomfortable applying for jobs I feel I can not do: answering phones, loud environments, anywhere where lots of information is exchanged quickly.
ANYWAY. I broke down and called [shudder] the phone number listed through SCORE. Its a different person now, who is apparently unaware that SCORE is giving out his number, and he has nothing to do with business stuff. He passes me on to someone else who, apparently does. That guy passed me on to one of their locations to set up an appointment and do the orientation. That office decided I was too far away [I'm not really, I'm happy to drive down there], and passed me on to a different location [equally far away], where a woman with a heavy accent that I would place as German, maybe, answered, and have a very confusing conversation with me, and now apparently I am showing up for an orientation next week. I didn't get an address. If their web site will load, maybe I can find it.
Every person, I asked "can I do this online? is there an e-mail address I can communicate through?" They seemed to be confused why I though that that would be an option, and then skipped past the question as fast as possible and gave me a new number to call. Somehow I successfully wrote down 3 different numbers. I'm impressed.

Why? Why in this day and age is there not an e-mail contact given. E-mail is FREE. Why am I expected to call them, multiple people, at the DISABILITY office. The first person I talked to should have taken my email, e-mailed me the pass on information, for who to email next.
OR
They should have the steps to take to get in touch with them listed on their completely non helpful website.

RAWRRR

Hero Quest

We've started playing Hero Quest on Tuesday nights. A board game Tim acquired for his birthday in the early 90's.
The original game has 14 dungeon crawls [with back stories], and of course, we have 4 expansion packs... or something.

Anyway, we are actively playing through. It's kind of like Clue. Only fun.

not updating

so, I've been crap about updating lately.

It seems most often, that I am waiting to get photos off my camera/ phone, whatever so i can do a long an proper update.

I am having problems getting photos off my phone with out emailing them to my self. long story short. i'm annoyed and missing a number of trip pictures because of it.

I hit up McKinnleyville/ Arcata/ Eureka and San Francisco a couple weeks ago. Spent a week with my aunt, just hanging out. It was a great vacation, way relaxing- probably because of horrendous allergies making me lazy.

Have I mentioned? I'M SICK OF ALLERGIES. Yes. They followed me back to Denver.

Had a short sto0p in San Fran, where I attended/ reffed the RMRG vs B.A.D.Girls roller derby bout. The bout was held at the Craneway Pavilion in Richmond. A beautiful old warehouse that has been cleaned up and is available for events. It looks out over the bay, with a view of San Fran.

The job I apparently have, still has not started. Annoyed, but it sounds like cash flow problems on the owners end. So I am applying for jobs and working on my own projects.

We built a standing desk for the office. A nice replacement for the one we had that has been falling apart.

That's it for now. going to try to get some pictures posted soon.

um....

I'm so confused....

I posted a few days ago. I know I did, because I was looking at stats the next day... but.. where did it go? And why is it gone?

Deaf/ HOH?

I recently stumbled across something I have been looking for for a long time. A forum aimed at people who are Deaf or HOH.

There are other of course. But often they focus on only hearing aids, or only parents with small children.

But this one could be really great. If people start posting.

How could it be that there are not other people looking for the social outlet of talking to, sharing frustrations with and encouragement that could be found in a community like this?

The forum is http://www.outerdialog.com/ . There is also a Wednesday night chat offered a la 1999, as a large room of people responding randomly to several different conversations.

In theory, there is a topic of discussion each week. Sometimes we get near that topic, but mostly its like a book club. We're there for everything but the book. And thats fine. It appears that most people who show up are looking for something like I am- a social group that understands the everyday frustrations with hearing- or lack there of.

So pass the word. I need this. And probably a lot of other people do too.

Goat and Bee

Goat and Bee has been reactivated.
Do you need a woodland crown for Renaissance Festival, or another summer event? Stop by and take a look.

Miniatures

I have wanted to try my hand at painting miniatures for quiet sometime. Recently I had the chance to paint a few for our Pathfinder game.
We have a Necromancer, Boom Mage and Druid.

Miniatures were purchased from Reaper Miniatures, I used MSP Core and HD series paints form Reaper along with Liquatex acrylics that I have laying around.

I attempted to layer thin coats, shade, highlight etc. some things worked better than others. I found that while the MSP paint applied beautifully, when i went to layer on the washes I was often pulling up the colors I had previously put down. It seems that these paints are designed to re liquefy to some degree once they have dried. Something acrylics will never do.

Here's how they turned out:

DruidThough I tried to work on all three at once, I ended up concentrating on the Mage first and Druid last. My thinking was that I could figure it out as I went and be able to put the most detail into the Druid. But after my problems with the paint- having to walk away from the project to let things completely dry, I found that by the time of got to the Druid I was tired of this project and thus, didn't spend as much time on her as I intended.
Why is her hair turquoise? Because in game I am playing a gnome druid and yes this min is actually Seoni, but its make believe, so we're makebelievin' she's a gnome druid. Under that assumption, her skin was supposed to be more pinkish too, but I did the skin first, and then had to touch things up several times and didn't want to keep trying to match the pinkish skin tones.
I might go back and add some detail. But I'm not sure I have small enough brush or steady enough hand to achieve the kind of detail shown here:In fact it took me about 20 tries to give her 2 eyes.

Necromancer

officially listed as Bledsoe, Evil Cleric, I tried really hard not to paint everything black. His pants are actually green and hist shirt a bluish gray. I forgot to paint his ring.
Here is a version someone else did. someone who, once again has smaller brushes than I do.
He was really quiet fun to paint, I spent a long time on the cape.

Boom Mage


Reaper lists this dude as "Halmer, young wizard"
He was actually harder to paint than the other two. The cast surface seamed to be less smooth, I had particular problems with his face. The facial features were not as crisp as they looked in the photo on Reaper and seemed to look blobby when painted, though I used the same paint and did it at the same time as the other two. After 6 attempts I am still not terribly happy with his face.
Looking at other people's miniatures always make me want to go back and adjust my own. I admit, I had no idea what to do with the items on his belt. In real life they are so small they are just slightly different shaped blobs.


I now know why everyone is so obsessed with matte paint. When photographing, the satin topcoat I used looks far more glossy than it actually appears.

As always, click on any of the photos for a larger view.

Alexa Meade, may she inspire you.

I was posting so much for a while there...

Today's awesomeness: truth + fairy tales has a blog post on 24 year old artist ALEXA MEADE.
A few images below, check out the original blog post, and Alexa's web site, portfolio, flicker page and online interview with Juxtapoz magazine.

I feel like I have seen this concept before, but where, I don't know. Alexa's work is beautiful. I cant wait to see where her career goes.

Artist Statement:

Growing up in Washington, D.C., I had the opportunity to work as a press intern on Capitol Hill throughout high school and college. Later, I worked as a press staffer on the Obama Campaign. Spending my formative years immersed in the world of politicians and PR led to a fascination with the possibilities of repackaging source texts and adding superficial modifications that would profoundly alter perception. What the audience ultimately unpackaged was a personal interpretation of an already mediated re-presentation.

In my current work, I construct and then photograph ephemeral installation sets that feature an assemblage of found objects and live models, which I have covered in layers of acrylic paint. I paint the surfaces of the human subjects, the material objects, and the architecture of the installations so as to collapse the subject, foreground, and background into one continuous plane. I present my ephemeral portrait/performances as both live, interactive installations as well as permanent photographic indices of these experiences.

By using paint as a mask that mimics the surface attributes of my source materials, I repurpose the common codes of painting and create a reciprocal self-referentiality in which the reference envelops its referent. The time-based portrait/performance installation is mediated through still photography, providing a record of the performative act in which the codes for representation/painting and indexicality/photography converge.

All images are copyright Alexa Meade.

Happy Place!

Cover Tune Grab Bag - "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da"



Really. I loved this. It took me to my happy place, and gave me that blat of energy to get things done and be enthusiastically happy doing so.

have a great day. xoxo