Category: General

A Little Thaw

It’s been up above freezing the last few days, a big relief and a tease that spring is not far off. Still plenty of big piles of snow on the ground though, even in midtown Manhattan. Even if it keeps on melting at this rate it’ll be another month before I see my lawn again.

Have an Ice Day

You’d think that by now I’d have something else to talk about besides the bad weather. And I do, I swear. Origami and music stuff, but it’s all work in progress.

The bad weather is neverending. But even so it hasn’t run out of nasty new surprises yet. Today it was freezing and everything iced up bad. In my driveway an 18” high icicle formed sticking straight up like a stalagmite, from water dripping from the power line above. I went out to shovel, which meant mainly breaking up the ice, but left the icicle. Jeannie ran it over with her car.

For some reason Michelle was really excited about Ground Hog’s day. She woke up before daylight and brought her stuffed animals out to the couch to camp out and wait for it, like it was Xmas morning or a space shuttle launch or something. As I was getting up she’d already woken up Jeannie and the two of them were finding the feed from Punxsutawney, PA. So I witnessed the rodent prognosticate an early spring. Oy. Wait until she finds out the rodent doesn’t know jack.

Let It Snow

Yep you guessed it, more complaining about the weather. We had a good 2 feet of snow over 24 hours earlier this week. I worked at home Wednesday and went out about 4 in the afternoon shoveled out about 6 – 8″. It was pretty fluffy and took about 20 min with the snowblower, and another 20 so shovel the steps and clean up. It started snowing again after dark and by Thursday morning we had another 15-18″. Jeannie and the kids had the day off, and I worked from home again. Jeannie and the girls went out around 10:30 and I joined them around 11:30. This snow was much heavier. Even with the snowblower we didn’t get done until after 1:30.

The good news is it’s all cleared now. The temperature got above freezing this afternoon, and I’ll take snow over extreme cold any day. I guess I’ve adjusted to the cold. And I definitely picked the right year to buy a snowblower. The bad news is we’re not even halfway thru the winter. Already it’s the 5th snowiest winter on record for NYC, and the snowiest January by a factor of 50%. The last winter that came close was ’96 and that was one big storm and two moderate ones. It’s already snowed 5 or 6 times down here. And more snow in the forecast. Also this year January has five Mondays, which is cruel and unusual. If I were King of America I’d make the fifth Monday of every month an automatic day off.

Deep Freeze

This is the time of year when it starts to get hard to cope with the weather. It’s been a month since I’ve seen my lawn. The weather has gotten really cold the last few days, down into the single digits at night and only up into the teens in the daytime. My level of energy is really low these days. All I want to do is lie on the couch under a blanket and nap. I’ve fallen asleep pretty much right after dinner the last 3 nights. I guess it’s a natural reaction as a living creature. The instinct to hibernate so as to fast forward to spring. The good news my back is feeling better with all this lying around. The bad news we’re only halfway thru winter and tomorrow it’s back to the ol’ grind.

Ski Season

Got a chance to go skiing this weekend up in the Catskills. Combined it with a trip up to see Martin, which was most excellent. My mind was totally blown by a thing called Dinosaur Train.

The skiing itself was pretty good. It was my first time since I hurt my back last year, so I was really taking it easy. It was pretty cold and the mountain was way crowded, cuz like everyone else we picked a long weekend to go skiing. Jeannie, the kids and I all skied together as a family, staying mainly on green trails. After a few runs we found lift G, a detachable quad which can only be reached from above, not from the base lodge. So the line was much shorter there and the lift faster. This serviced the longest run in the place, the slow way down from the summit. The snow was great but there was one really windy stretch. We just did run that a few times until it was time to go. The good news I can still ski and the next day my back felt fine. The other good news is my new ski jacket is really warm.

List night we had more snow but by the morning it had turned to rain, and everything was covered with a thick crust of ice over a few inches of wet heavy snow. Like crème broulee. By the time we were done cleaning of the cars and driveway, it had turned to rain. By the time I got out of the train station in Manhattan it was windy and raining hard, and as I hit the street my umbrella tore right apart.

At least the days are starting to get longer.

Up To Eleven

Been on winter break. Time off work and lots of adventures. Rewinding a few weeks, Lizzy had a flute solo at the school Christmas concert. Frosty the Snowman. Nailed it. Also, I took the kids to the American Museum of Natural History one day when they were off from school. The museum people gave me comp passes as thank-you for my contributions to the holiday tree. It was a very cool outing. It’s been a couple of years since we really did the museum. We got to see the iMax movie about repairing the Hubble space telescope, and the planetarium show about the big bang and life, the universe and everything. The kids loved the butterfly house too. Stopped for a a look at the tree too, and convince the guard to let me adjust one of models. The exhibit that really resonated with me was about the race to the South Pole between Amundsen and Scott 100 years ago. Just amazing what a cold and remote place. It’s been a cold December (although the last couple of days things have thawed a bit) and the thought of freezing to death out there just gives me chills.

I spent the first couple days off doing random tasks like defragging the house. I’ve been trying get some shopping done. One of the big ironies of modern capitalism is that there’s pretty much an inverse correlation between how easy it to buy something and how much you need it. I needed new, comfortable winter boots, a new ski jacket and new ski pants. The boots weren’t too hard to find but I struck out on the other stuff. I eventually found that Columbia has tall sizes, and ordered from them online. It turns a triple-extra-large-tall is the best fit. Of course when something is big enough to fit in the shoulders it’s like a circus tent around the waist. It’s a good jacket, though and had drawstrings at the bottom for both the shell and the liner, so I’m happy about that. I finally did get my new mBox too. More on that later.

We had Christmas at our house this year, and Mary’s and Jeannie parents came over. This was a first. In years past we’ve done visiting on xmas eve but this year Mary’s kids were singing in the choir on xmas eve so everyone came over on xmas day. It was very nice.

On boxing day we lit out for a trip upstate to visit family. Got the Jeep all loaded up and ready to go. Only problem was it wouldn’t start. Funny cuz I had a bad vibe out it the day before when I was loading up the skis. Since we got the Prius, the Jeep has only been to the train station and back, and had been driven only once at all the last couple weeks; otherwise it just sat out in the cold. So the battery was dead. I tried to replace it but the bolt was rusted on, and besides it was starting to snow pretty heavily. So we punted on that and took Prius. Had to leave all the ski stuff home, as well as a huge pile of gifts (sorry, they’re on their way) but other than that it turns out the Prius is big enough road trip car for a family of four and handles well in the snow. We just barely got out of town in time. NYC got two feet of snow and was totally shut down for two days.

Upstate was nice. Got to see my parents, Martin and Kathleen, Barb and Al, Larry and Jackie, and Denis and Sara and their families. Caught a Sabres game on TV and a Nova about Antarctica in the 21st century. I’ve still been trying to find a nice warm pair of pants, wool or something. I’d looked online but couldn’t find any in tall sizes. I was telling my dad about this, and it turns out one time he ordered a bunch of woolen pants to wear hunting from an East German army surplus catalog. They came in packs of three in random sizes, so he ordered 2 packs, and of those three of them fit him (ah the joy of being medium). So he gave me an extra pair in tall size. Most random gift ever but much appreciated.

Got home, shoveled out, broke in the new show blower and it proved its worth. Got fixed the Jeep. Watched the ball drop with Nick and his family. Got the kids to pick up their rooms. Finished off a freelance music software project (more on that later), and have been getting going on an origami eBook (more on that later too), and continued with the studio. Which brings us up to eleven.

Again With the Turkeys

Let’s see … a few things. Yesterday was our big deadline at work, the release of v2.2 of out software. We almost made it, but our QA guy was hung up by our server going down all the time the last few days. Meanwhile the last bunch o’ weeks of working extra hours while trying to keep everything else going have caught up to me and I was kinda under the weather yesterday. I’ve been watching some Galactica to unwind a few nights over the last few weeks, TV as a sedative. Everyone says BSG is awesome, but I’m not so sure. For one thing, it’s very dark, gloomy and humorless. Not very entertaining in the sense of providing entertainment. Second, EJO is great as Adama, but the only character with any personality in the whole show is Starbuck. Everyone else is just in the situation, and pretty dark and gloomy and humorless about it. Third the pacing is very slow, like a soap opera. A lot of inconsequential stuff happens every episode, and some of it moves the Big Plot forward a degree or two. Lastly, the genius scientist and his imaginary Cylon girlfriend are just too much! Still the thing is strangely compelling, and I expect I’ll be making my way thru the series just to see what happens.

The big thing we accomplished around the house last week was to paint the ceilings downstairs. They kinda did a crappy job when they built the house and it always bothered me, but it sometimes takes a while to get around to things. It’s a big room that includes my studio and our family room and Jeannie’s office (the size of all 3 bedrooms plus the hall and bathrooms and part of the kitchen), and it was a big job. We started Friday night and did most of the rest Saturday night, and finished Sunday afternoon. It’s the only way to fit in a big job like that. And of course that’s probably part of the reason I’m so burnt out right now. Still, we’ve been meaning to get around to it for a long time, and it’s much better than it was before. Cross another item off our hydra-headed todo list.

But you came here to read about turkeys, and by that I mean origami turkeys. In between everything else, I taught my Turkey at the Origami USA Special Sessions Saturday at the museum. I get a lot of great feedback on this model. I taught it last spring, but decided to it again this fall because of the tie-in with Thanksgiving. And I’m happy to say it went over quite well. It was a good group and they all did great at the model. Including one kid about Lizzy’s age. Wow.

I hadn’t folded the model in about a year couldn’t really remember how it went. It’s a pretty complex model (probably over 100 steps once I diagram it). As luck would have it, Friday at work our servers crapped out so I had some downtime and was able to fold a few attempts and get as far as the base. When I taught the class they were all advanced folders and got the idea of free-form sculpting the details from the base, so that wasn’t a problem. Still it’s good to work it out and take it to the next level. Absolutely necessary for diagramming for a book. Along the way I got some of the previously improvised parts a bit more formalized too, particularly in the tail, so I feel a lot better about this model then I did before. The only thing left to work out now is the head. Now if I can only find the right paper I can make an exhibit quality version.

I had some time a the end of my session so I taught my Walrus. (I usually bring whatever new models I have to these things to see what people think of them, and there were some requests to teach this one.) This is the kind of model I really like. It’s only 20 or 30 steps, but communicates so much, and not being so hard, a much wider range of people respond to it. This one will definitely get into my book. The slate is already pretty full for my first book and most of the diagrams are drawn, but I guess there’s the potential for a follow up. I only wish diagramming didn’t take so long. Recently people have been sending me email asking to make youtube videos teaching my models. I guess I should be grateful they ask, but I have to tell them no. Boy, why doesn’t some one volunteer to help diagram for my book? I guess that’s why we need diagramming software. And so the circle of futility is complete.

Here’s a crease pattern for the Turkey Base. Probably not enough detail to figure out how to fold the final model, but enough for the basic layout. Hint: it’s a modified bird base.