dan.mindfill.com | A pile of things

Academy of Sciences

2011-11-11T00:00:00-06:00

Great museum, with nifty planetarium (needs more stars though), tropical jungle butterfly-o-sphere, and aquarium.

Oh, and the rolling rooftop garden: also excellent.

Some frogs and insects in the tropicosphere.

Then we lurked in the underwater.

Not everything in the aquarium was sea life.

But most of it was, and it was amazing to watch.

Did Herzog shoot the weird end of that cave documentary here?

Chatting with the penguins!

And one final snap of Dr. T-Rex on the way out.

Big Basin

2011-11-10T00:00:00-06:00

Hiking in Big Basin. A definite must to get out in the redwoods. Hiking with Missi, Aaron, and Clint was so gloriously great.

BEGIN HIKING ACTION!

Purdy river.

We had fun spotting banana slugs after the rain.

Possibly TOO much fun!

Treehuggers n’ kissers, we do all love dem trees.

I had some fun with my camera trying to get neat light/fog shots.

It was overwhelming, and revitalizing. There is a weird energy in those giant old forests, a reminder that we are tiny.

We ended the evening with a walk down the Santa Cruz beach.

San Francisco

2011-11-09T00:00:00-06:00

San Francisco, such a great time. Here comes a pile of photos from TOURIST MAN!

The major side trips are in different chunks, for the Big Basin hike and the Academy of Sciences.

FIRSTLY: the one picture I grabbed of the awful awful TSA line in Milwaukee on a Friday morning. Missed our flight due to the joy. At this point we were finally getting close to seeing the end of it.

The view from the hotel in Oakland, unfortunately not towards the bay side:

SHELLMOUND DRIVE, part of our Accidental Metal Tour.

CAMERA PHONNNNNE

This is where the venue was at. Afternoon show + black metal people = fun vibe.

So, we wandered over to Dolores Park and all over the Mission.

Some of the local art was pretty funny.

Shots from the shows:

The teeny bunks at the hostel were funny.

Walkin’ around San Fran at night was weirdly alien.

There was a HUGE line at the downtown gamestop for CALL OF DUTYYYYYYYYYY FOURTEEEEEEEN or whatever they’re up to.

Then the next day we went hiking in Big Basin. Walkin’ around during the day in SF on the Monday after that was pretty excellent too.

After we wandered some through Golden Gate Park and found an awesome Korean BBQ for lunch, we hit the Academy of Sciences.

I failed to get a good representative shot of the nice thai ladies running this restaurant, and how lively it was when we came in - we definitely shut it down that night and ate waaaaay too much, as was our trip tradition.

Then Aaron drove us up to the bridge for the full tourist effect.

The last morning we were in town, we walked the bay around up to Fort Mason.

Past the Occupy movement:

Up Embarcadero past some scenery:

And around back down into Chinatown, aww yeah.

The Best dim sum was had.

We hit Aquarius over on Valencia on the first day, and Amoeba Records on the last day, for pretty much the entire afternoon.

The only record both Clint and I purchased? Agalloch - Marrow of the Spirit.

Here are some pics of the ridiculous haul:

Final subway station on the way to the airport:

Miscellaneous photo bin

2011-10-01T00:00:00-05:00

Some photos I was too lazy to take off my camera for a while…

Summer brunch on the deck:

The gourd patch at its start: (Somehow I seem to have failed to capture it in its final terrifying glory)

Willy Street construction was pretty much all summer.

The little free library, neighborhood functional art fun.

Weird metal birds of course too

Sewing is difficult:

Stencils are fun:

Various projects are started

A few shots of my hair over the end of summer

Apparently I grew the kind of pumkpins that squirrels just LOOOOVE to eat.

I couldn’t quite get a shot of them in full-on action.

Back to Milwaukee

2011-08-16T00:00:00-05:00

Down by the river…

Someone’s farmin’ logs I guess.

Since I never have pictures of ME, Rebecca manned the camera for a bit and here are some.

We jammed some Beatles songs. Here are some pictures of me NOT playing the accordion because I can’t figure out how to keep my hand on the right button.

Blurry night fotos!

We went to a free black metal show where FALSE from Minneapolis played. It was weird and I didn’t take any pictures because I kind of hate being That Guy With The Camera at shows. Plus I guess I prefer remembering music without the exactitudes of photos or videos?

Then, the next day some park and architecture adventures were had.

I’m a very poor tree climber, and I don’t think these photos quite capture that.

Chillin once I’m up there. (Like a cat afraid to jump down?)

Round the little pond by the lake.

Down to the actual lakeshore pilings…

A neat art installation that we got to mess with by throwing rocks at it and banging on wooden benches with mallets (the directions said to, ok sheesh!)

This gecko is dreaming of something:

Near the Museum of Art:

Actual Security for the grounds where Summerfest is:

A sad deserted rack of where pay phones used to be. This may be the saddest wood paneling and particle board gets.

Random remainders

Stool safety is very important you guys, did you know stools can cause injury or death if improperly used???

Jason was quite proud of his weird little tea table:

Gourds from the mad garden:

Around the house

2011-08-01T00:00:00-05:00

Restriction:

Crazy black cello that I can’t play!

New shiny hihats!

Trying to resolder the pots in an electric mandolin!

The garden is growing:

The house got restained.

Before:

After:

Doing some rearrangement in the basement as well:

…to make more room for rock.

Asphyxiation

2011-07-06T00:00:00-05:00

Something for the Machine of Death 2 compilation.

Asphyxiation (One Year)

Leaving the soot-encrusted municipal building, crushed hat in hand, Josef heaved a sigh and rolled his eyes at the clouds. The city thrummed, mostly silent autotransports; no pedestrians out in the smog to see him staring up without a rebreather on. It was not anguish on his face. It was not relief. It couldn’t really be called acceptance.

Josef had been predicted first when he was eleven. His dad found it prudent. Mom and Dad both got simple “Lung Cancer” – the most common, and it stuck with them. His prediction wouldn’t settle on an exact phrasing; as the machines got upgraded, the cards jumped from “Cerebral Hypoxia”, to “Global Cerebral Ischemia” in high school, and eventually settled on “Asphyxiation” with the current tech. Hypoxia had sounded magical when he was in school; some distant destination, perhaps, where the glaciers were pure white, and the sky was an endless blue.

He pulled a well-worn pamphlet out of his back pocket and stared at the type running smoothly over the giant, gleaming ship: “EUROPA NEEDS MINERS”. Little speckled spiders climbed over the ship, barely visible, tiny humans doing tiny maintenance on a grand plowrig making its way to the new frontier. He grinned, with a gritting of teeth that kept the confused tears at bay.

He yearned to ride one of those ships, soaring off past those grey layers of clouds and pollution, creeping slowly through the vacuum to make good on a distant moon. He knew this updated reading was going to put that finally out of reach. Nobody wants an astronaut with an expiration date that early. The pen-pushing Mongol hordes at the insurance office would laugh him out. Josef rubbed at his watering eyes; it was probably the pollution.

He pulled out his cell and messaged Karim the news.

Rummaging around in the crumpled seams of his hat, he found the paper and read it again. He wasn’t all that surprised by it. It was just a strange sort of confirmation. “Asphyxiation (One Year).”

It might as well read “Don’t Let This Guy Work a Ship (Ever)”.

Josef jolted from the reverie when his cell blipped, and started home through the piling dust clouds. He read Karim’s sarcastic response, “DIE YOUNG AND LEAVE A PRETTY BLUE CORPSE :)” and shook his head. He knew he had to pass the news on to his therapist, so he sighed and squeezed the cell.

“Hey Exy, it’s Josef.” Cough. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, just walking home to clear my head.” He listened, and shook his head. “Yeah, guy, of course I’m wearing the re-bee. Don’t need a headache on top of this.” He covered his earbud and coughed violently.

He half-listened for a bit. “What? Yeah, it worked just like they said.” Holding the card up and firing a grin at it, he read: “Same cause, one year. Yep, they definitely won’t let me on the plow now. They were leery enough before. Eh?” He passed through an empty, cracked intersection in silence. “Yeah. Yeah yeah, I’ll be fine.”

Clicking off, he mumbled “Fluxing robots.” Exy’s tonal deadpan and intentionally calming platitudes were not the root problem. He should really be cursing the judge who’d mandated the therabot treatment ever since the teenage incident. He barely remembered it – he sure didn’t feel like the same kid who had attempted suicide by cop back then. But now he was lashed to his fake robot friend for life, unless he wanted to get thrown in revi.

After the insurance industry flipped upside-down, therapy was the next service to get accidentally restructured by the machines, for the middle-and-lowering class at least. You couldn’t pay psychotherapists enough to listen to the whining that came along with the predictions. The college grads with psychiatry degrees all got excited to finally have a job market explosion, but it was much less exciting to hear the same existential stumbling over and over. The therapy bots some enterprising inventor had released were good enough to give small pieces of advice, steer people away from obsessing, and listen without getting angry.

Josef squinted at a garbage bin as he passed, and crumpled the reading into it. He coughed and hummed his way home, eyes on the ground.

He had too much time to think between mind-numbing shifts in the bowels of the multi-global insurance company that kept him employed. Day after day, Josef listened to spliced up one-sided conversations, transcribing sections and translating idioms that the computers didn’t know how to deal with yet. Which meant he was stuck in the belly of the English language, in the basement of a skyscraper, six hundred million kilometers from the moons of Jupiter, buried under ignorant and angry consumers.

Nights, he argued with Karim over beers. They sat, sometimes watching whatever passed for popular sports, sometimes just watching the synthetic fireflies flicker.

Karim spoke up into the silence that had been growing. “I just don’t think it really affects me. Now, I mean. I was pissed when I got it, but I’m alright with it now, I guess,” He scratched at his beard. “I mean, uhh, at least I got something cool. I’m one of the last people with a gun card!”

Annoyed, Josef replied, “Well, it stuck with me, and not in a good way. I don’t feel like I can change it. It matters, but it doesn’t…”

Karim laughed, sipping on a beer. “Yeah, you would mumble some zen dust, Jiminy. You’re a freak. The rest of us try to–”

“Well, I guess I’m not the rest of you!” said Josef. ”I’m never getting out there…” He trailed off. “Pointless.”

“We’re all stuck in ruts of our own choosin’, man, doesn’t matter if you know the time or not.” Karim paused. “You know those nerds weren’t gonna give up until hell or revi’d, right? I heard the UNA had to step in and stop them from putting the exact damn time on there.”

“Crud, you think can they do that?”

Karim shook his head. “I bet it’s true, man, right up there, in the parentheses, ‘Nonahol poisoning, New Years Day at 2:30AM’, you know? I was talking to some coworkers the other day, guessin’ how the UNA did the dirt in the negotiations. Bet they got some secret stuff kept for themselves.”

“‘Ending Correct, Tee Em’, just like in the ads from way back, right?” Karim nodded. “They’re probably hard at work making simulated pictures of the scene at death.” Josef chuckled.

“Computer: ENHANCE!” They laughed.

Josef drank the dregs of his beer. “Talk about simulated failure, this beer is terrible.”

Karim nodded. “Nothing what it used to be. Nothing what it seems with those machines, either. All kind of crazy plans going on behind the scenes, you know it. They want it all the way down to causation, listing ‘responsible parties’” – he threw his hands up in the air at invisible forces – “and doing the tests without needing a blood sample. Predictions at a distance. Readings for people’s future children.”

“Future death cards for the imaginary future kids.”

“Damn, right. Whatever they do have, they just don’t want everybody running around with that info, dude.”

Josef nodded. “Yeah. Look what good the bloody partial knowledge has done to us, anyway. Maybe they’re like the obsessives…”

“People get it in their head they can change that stuff, guy. What a load. They think they’re gonna understand the whole flippin’ deal. Pffff.” Karim stuck his tongue out and mimed yanking it out of his head. “The corporations? Just like the people. They wanna believe. Not all of them want to turn around and ignore the readings like it never happen, like normal people.”

“Snrk – normal. Well, I still want know how it works. Can you believe people sign contracts to never have to see it?”

“What? The reading? Yeah, I guess it don’t surprise me, man, but is that any better? Your HMO gets it and you don’t?”

“Who the hell knows. The corporations are going to keep fluxing things, right?”

“Yeah, right. Better or worse?” Karim glanced at his cell and shook his head. “Man, I gotta be out. Early meeting tomorrow.”

“Thanks for stopping. For better or worse… it isn’t like ‘better’ or ‘worse’ meant much before.”

“You definitely right. Night.”

They clasped hands, and Josef sat back down, staring into space. He picked up his reader, tried not to think, and started to drift off.

Six months of gray days passed. As he rode the AT home from work, Josef stared out into the smog and remembered when there were seasons that changed. Then, his cell buzzed him with a high priority message. DMP? They wanted him back at the prediction lab again. Why now? The message didn’t actually say why; it just burbled with mealy-mouthed lawyer-speak and ended with a rather ominous clause, explaining that it would be a felony under UNAC 450.012 to not file for an appointment within the week.

He sighed and squeezed the cell as he stared out the window. “Yo, J!” squawked Karim’s voice in his ear.

“Hey man, they got me coming in again.”

“What? Who? Oh, sheez… the new provisions, right? Yeah, I heard around the office, some people gettin’ called back in close to their… uhh… time.” Karim paused. “How you been?”

“Not great, man. Hey, wait, did you get called too?”

“Nah man, you know, I’m still two years out…”

Silence fell over the line.

Karim piped back up. “You know, I heard some rumors that someone high up been leakin’ memos, saying people be getting dealt fake cards to ease their minds because the actual predictions are all poppin’ out with some junk about an alien invasion.”

“Yeah, right.” Josef shook his head, unamused. ”I’ll catch you after I find out what the hell is going on.”

Seated in the little white room again with the machine and a bubbly young operator who probably wasn’t even alive when the thing was invented, Josef thought back to Karim’s conspiracy theory, and had to chuckle a bit. As if the powers-that-be were competent enough to manage that.

“So, it was one year in May?” she asked, priming the machine with his blood sample.

Josef snapped out of his reverie. “Yep. Guess it’s coming up on my final checkup, doc.” He grinned without smiling, and she laughed nervously.

His fake grin faded when the operator’s eyes bulged at the paper, and it turned to confusion when her hands started shaking and she rushed from the room without a word.

A balding tech ran back into the room with her, out of breath, and turned to stare at Josef for a moment before rushing over to the machine, cracking a panel open, and prodding some of the innards.

“You double checked the DB? He was at approx six months?” he asked her abruptly.

“Yes, yes! I double checked it–”

“Err, sorry to intrude, but–” said Josef, as the man rolled away from the machine and gestured at the lab tech. She held up the card to him. It read “Asphyxiation (Two Years).”

“Congratulations. You’re the first to have your tee oh dee go up.” she said, with an absurd smile.

Josef was the toast of the town at the prediction labs after that. He quit his data entry job to become a well-paid lab rat; after signing a stack of NDAs, he got to see one of the rumored exact-time machines for himself. With that in action, he and the crowds of engineers could all marvel as his time of death ticked upwards on test after test in a slow asymptotic curve. July 5th, at 15:02 GMT. An hour later, July 5th at 18:22 GMT. The next day, July 16. Ticking forward instead of staying stable like everyone else.

Josef got ever-so-slightly famous for being “the man who broke the machines”, and went on a few talk shows, but the hosts were quickly bored with him. “What do you think caused it?” He didn’t know anything. “Well, Dave…” He wasn’t exciting to listen to. “What are you going to do now?” Nobody really cared about his story. “What advice do you have for kids out there?” Most people could barely look past their own cards, and someone who had gotten lucky and broken the system put a bad taste in their mouth. “So you’ve got no idea what it could be? Or how someone else could…?” He even disappointed the obsessive believers who thought they could disprove the machines.

The engineers still didn’t fully understand how their machine worked, and had no explanation. The physicists came up with crazy theories at least: perhaps he would somehow get trapped in a black hole – or a white hole – or a closed timelike curve – or some other barely-understood theoretical structure nobody had seen, let alone fell into.

“Man, what?” Karim had asked, confused.

“I don’t even know, guy. Can’t keep up with the eggheads. I don’t even know.” Josef sat there, shaking his head. “You get called in for your… errr, checkup?”

“Yeah. Tomorrow.” They fell back into their usual silence, listening to the music mix with the humming from outside.

The next night, Karim was furious. “I can’t believe I thought it would be different. Nobody like you, man. Nobody like you.” He slammed his beer on the table.

“So… it’s still…?”

“Yeah. Go to hell, man. Don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Maybe it’ll be… maybe you’ll get a… reprieve?”

“Flux that. Screw you, J. Seriously. You know it’s gonna happen.”

“But–”

“You best make some good outta this. Don’t call me, alright? I don’t want to talk to you. I want to fade normal.” Karim glared at him, mouth tight.

Josef nodded once, opened his mouth to say something, and then closed it. As the door clicked shut, he realized there was nothing keeping him here.

He sold his q-dominium and dumped his huge stack of useless readings right along with the rest of his accumulated junk. After more than twenty years of choking, a strange pressure had lifted.

He was still going to die, but nobody knew when. To people back here on Earth, Josef was going to somehow live forever, with his last breath infinitely long.

That was going to be just fine with him.

It was time to see Europa and leave this oxygen-wrapped rock behind.

Glacial Drumlin Trail

2011-06-17T00:00:00-05:00

I hiked from outside Waukesha (Sullivan) to Cottage Grove along the Glacial Drumlin Trail.

My ankles are still sore, 4 days later.

These photos got way out of order, so I tried to reconstruct the trip as best I could…

Day 1

Walking by mint fields, the fresh scent of spring.

The first chunk of the trail was close to highways, and it was Sunday. That meant everybody and their Mom was out on a Harley making really loud fart noises in the face of Nature. Awesome.

The whole length of the trail is used to run various conduits, like fiber.

I’m guessing… server farm in the middle of nowhere?

Already starting to get exhausted.

For a brief period, the trail takes a detour onto highways.

When I was crossing this highway portion, a fella yelled at me from his porch: “How many high adventures you been on?”

What?

I replied that not much was going on today, but he meant how many backpacking adventures I had been on. Got regaled with his tales of various hikes, and then took my leave when he started ranting about politics.

What was it called when something is joined to itself again?

Had enough shots of a trail receding into the distance? DON’T WORRY THERE’S LOTS MORE

Watched a beaver building his dam from this bridge. Impossible to get a good photo of, though.

NEW FASHIONABLE HAT DISCOVERED ON TRAIL!

HATS MAKE ME WORRIED! OR MAYBE TIRED?

What’re you lookin’ at?!?

Failed to get a shot of my tent apparently, although I could swear I took one. The trail delirium: definitely setting in. I chilled in the tent reading Sartre, and the rain was barely a smattering of drops.

Day 2

Let the hiking… CONTINUE

Giant storage somethings stand outside Lake Mills.

Lake Mills, in the early morning hours.

Stared at a pair of starlings chasing each other, hardly inches apart, whirling and flicking directions together with precision.

Saw otters frolicking in the marsh… I’m not quick enough on the draw to have a photo of that.

Did you know that apparently serious (?) hikers give themselves “trail names”? Some guy walked up to me, started asking where I was hiking from, and then asked my trail name. “Mine’s Nimblefoot, but you can call me Ned.” Okay, alright…

I ran across a couple climbing around underneath one of the old wooden bridges. They were geocaching; a “hard one”.

Old signs from the long-gone railroad dot the trail.

For some reason in Cottage Grove a giant circus was packing up.

Also there were still deer running around being silly.

At the end, collapsing in the grass under a shady tree… my ankles, hips, and shoulders hate me, but my back is alright – so the new pack worked great!

NAP TIME

Context-Free

2011-06-17T00:00:00-05:00

Milwaukee Art Museum + Utech Drone Fest

2011-06-13T00:00:00-05:00

Museum

Love that architecture.

Even the parking garage is cool lookin’.

Here’s where they’re busily offloading the ark of the covenant or whatever…

Now, I guess I’m not supposed to take photos of exhibits. Sorry, I couldn’t help it…

The shanshui temporary collection was unbelievable and my pictures can’t really capture it, but I really liked the modern ones.

Some of my favorites: Gu Mei, Feng Zhongrui, Liu Guosong, and Chen Chengqiu.

Chen Chengqiu:

Feng Zhongrui:

Ate at Sven’s European Cafe (strange name, good food) and they had a surprising little garden.

Drones

More explication on these photos later, maybe… the festival was amazing.

Ithi: “ALL WE HAVE IS NOW” read a sticker on the flight case.

RM74: Kalimba into galactic whalesong.

Ural Umbo: Power from repetition, power from what is not there.

William Fowler Collins: Gently brushing waves from his guitar using the same brush the Chinese shanshui guys did.

Gog: Unmerciful piles of delay and looper pedals, spiralling riffs.

James Plotkin and Jon Mueller: It was bright. The music was unremarkable to me.

House of Low Culture: Unnecessary screams and jarring riffage.

Mamiffer: Shaking rocks and harmonic voices.

Locrian: Setting up the atmosphere…

…fog and darkness…

…until the explosion.

Horseback: Perfect rock towers to close the night, finishing with an intense cover of TV Eye.

Florida

2011-06-05T00:00:00-05:00

Some photos from Florida.

Taking the convertible out:

Out in the wind!

Daytona Beach:

I have no idea what this dude’s diggin’ up.

But we dug some reading in the waves…

Problems with folding the chair occured and for some reason Ben felt the need to document it.

Takin’ the back roads.

You won’t “sink”, but you might wince!

Warning:

I’m no nature photographer, and did not take a camera on the super awesome kayak trip, but here is a crane at least.

The power

And turning around

Some classic Florida weirdness:

Art

2011-06-02T00:00:00-05:00

I fell off the every-single-day part of the 365 project. Will probably return to it in winter. Until then here are some of the random bits…

Summarize

2011-06-01T00:00:00-05:00

MAN. I have been lazy on updating my crud.

Here are some photos from around town.

The hobo marathon?

At some point there was a hail storm.

I had a ponytail.

Then it got purple.

SEEEEED MADNESSSSSSSS

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh….

Words

2011-03-23T00:00:00-05:00

Restriction: Work with words. Make an image with just words and letters.

Working on some flyer tests for a local show:

And M has been busy as well:

…

Eraser moon

2011-03-22T00:00:00-05:00

Restriction: Create something from erasers.

Turns out you can make neat striations in a kneaded eraser by erasing wet ink and stretching/squishing it.

Dying

2011-03-21T00:00:00-05:00

Restriction: Try dyeing. Use fabric or food dye.

Shredded spider

2011-03-20T00:00:00-05:00

Restriction: Work with shredded paper.

Compassfork

2011-03-19T00:00:00-05:00

Restriction: Create a new utensil.

For when you need to eat your food in perfect circles.

Steven Suils

2011-03-18T00:00:00-05:00

Restriction: Make up a name and write a back story for a stranger you see today.

He trudges to work, not really hung over but in that fuzz of the barfly, grudging every step up the hill. That’s all I see, is the grudge.

He works in the kitchen at a terrible gyro shop, soaking in the lamb and mustache wax. The kind of guy who wishes he had enough money and irony to be a hipster, but he’s really just a blue collar dude.

He’ll spend his evening tonight at the usual bar, sitting in the usual seat, getting incomprehensibly drunk before 9pm arrives. Anyone accidentally sitting next to him (“Oh, I was just waiting for a friend”; “Is this your bag?”) will get treated to his droning take on current politics. Somehow it manages to be charming, sometimes. Mostly he settles into the contours of the wood and listens to the infernal metronome in his head tick back and forth. If someone shows a genuine interest in conversation, he lights up briefly, a burning filament, before the drink fizzles him out. He stumbles home under the moon to collapse on the stained futon. His high school friends used to call him Awesome Steve.

GMF continued

2011-03-17T00:00:00-05:00

M sent some more photos from the first few expeditions.

Breaths are being taken.

Also some random show photos I took…