What's that? What is it time for? Picspam, you say? PICSPAM?
I appear to be involved with a new film project! This time, not acting, but designing!
Soon after Norepinephrin and the rest of the one-act festival wrapped, a friend of mine through theater, Glen, contacted me. He was very impressed with the Machine James and I built:
Although James did pretty much all the work based on my vague suggestions, Glen wants me to design (and build?) some steampunk stuff for his steampunk video series. Certainly will let me stretch my creative muscles some without forcing me to stick to someone else's schedule. I need to reread the script and figure out what exactly I need to draw.
Anyway, ask and you shall receive: picspam!
I've been to the Udvar-Hazy Museum, which is a branch of the Air and Space Museum in DC. Last time I had gone, it had been with my friend Rory, visiting from England. This time I went with James, because it was his birthday and he wanted to go, darnit. What is it with guys and airplanes, anyway?
Turns out James was more excited about the space stuff, but he definitely enjoyed the plane stuff too.
Trying to take the perfect picture of this monument was the first time I had ever really felt like a DC resident. People kept walking in front of my camera. Fat people, talking in out-of-town accents, trying to figure out where they were going next and muttering about how expensive everything is. "Bah," I said. "Fucking tourists."
The next picture I took turned out to be too blurry. It was a picture of a pilot's license for a guy named Engen, a career pilot, who retired from military flying and became head of the FAA, which placed him in the unique position of having to approve his own private piloting license.
In the basement, there was an elevator to the top of the tower, which gave a nice panorama view of the Dulles region, including the airport.
3D Harry Potter poster outside the IMAX theater. I geeked out at James for a minute or two, before he nodded vaguely in pretend understanding and went to go look at the airplanes.
SR-71 Blackbird. Best spy plane the US ever built. Difficult to get in one camera frame.
The Enterprise's door is...open?
Still my favorite space vehicle, although it slips my mind what exactly it is.
<3
The Enterprise's funnel thingies are so big that I could probably live in it, although I'd request a separate bathroom.
LEONARDO DICAPRIO, ETERNAL SPACE DUDE.
I took these pictures because of the colors. The second one is not the Bat Missile; I don't know what it is (I can't read the sign on the left) but the Bat Missile was black and hanging above us.
The greebles on the Close Encounters of the Third Kind mothership included R2-D2, a mailbox, a graveyard, and a VW van.
Some Mars Rover. Starting at the Close Encounters of the Third Kind model I started fiddling with the settings on my camera, which is why I took a picture of this. The exhibit on Martian Rovers at the original Air and Space museum is way cooler, maybe I'll check it out as long as I'm in the area on Monday.
James and the Enterprise. It's why we were there!
Space dudes like R2-D2.
Not interesting enough to warrant a description, but good enough to include in the album.
High up on my to-do list is learning how to hang-glide, as it's the closest we will ever get to human-powered flight. I went hang-gliding for a week once, I'm now a Level 1 hang-glider (if you've never hang-glided you're Level 0). What this means is that I can hold onto a hang-glider and jump off from a sand dune, fly for about three seconds, and not die.
Big wheels. BIG wheels.
The Concorde, I believe. James took this picture as well, since he had the reach for it.
I'M ON A BOAT!
I'M ON A BOAT!
HEY EVERYBODY LOOK AT ME
BECAUSE I'M BALLOONING IN A BOAT IN CASE WE LOSE AIR OVER THE WATER!
So somewhere around here I read about Jerrie Mock and the Spirit of Columbus. Some background: in 1937, Amelia Earhart tried to become the first woman to pilot an airplane around the world. She failed, probably crash-landing somewhere in the Pacific. Jerrie Mock is the first woman to actually fly around the world; she did it in 1964.
Sorry it's blurry.
Nineteen Hundred and Sixty-Four. It took women 27 years to go from Amelia Earhart to Jerrie Mock; what's worse, Earhart, who failed, is more well-known than Mock, who succeeded. Humans love a mystery, we don't know if Earhart and Noonan died or if they ran off together or were kidnapped by aliens or what, but the point is...27 years? Really, women? Really?
I spent the rest of the afternoon going on incredibly random feminist rants. James mentioned a few minutes after my first one that test pilots needed to be smaller and lighter than most men.
"You know what's lighter and smaller than most men?" I asked.
"No," said James.
"Women."
And then I launched into another rant. I think I had one or two others.
The Enola Gay (the plane that blew up Hiroshima and Nagasaki).
And now my favorite plane! James can go gaga for space all he wants, but give me some pre-World War II planes any day!
An early attempt at piloting, with multiple attempts at flying, the last one about a week before the Wright Brothers took off at Kitty Hawk. The plan was to launch the plane by throwing it catapult-style from a river barge. If you look carefully at the pilot's seat, it's underneath the floaters; if the plane crashed, the pilot might drown.
RG Fowler? Who is RG Fowler? IT'S A MYSTERY!
A respectable destroyed plane. I salute you.
"James! That plane is made of wood!"
"They're all made of wood."
"Yes but that one is particularly wooden!"
James laughed so hard.
We are brave pioneers! In a boat. And a plane.
I bathed Sonny on Sunday night. I wanted to give him a nice, relaxing bath, maybe work off the last of his shedding skin, before his big day. I knew the next few days were going to be hard on him. He didn't know it, but I did.
And now a nice relaxing sleep before his big day.
And then he was in the car! Sonny loves the car. He loves exploring the car.
There was a period, when he was riding on my left shin, where, I don't know. The lighting was just right or something. I ended up taking about twice as many pictures as I've included here, but I think they're all really good, strong pictures.
And then he explored the backseat.
A girl's gotta keep her hair looking good! Even when she's not a girl...or a mammal...I don't know.
But finally, we reached our destination.
Where Sonny met...
SLINKY.
Did I hear something?
...
No. No I must have been imagining it.
I think I'll just lay here and put on my grumpface.
But then the Large Male brings out...
SLINKY.
Slinky was triumphant.
Sonny was protected in his ten-gallon temporary home. But the blow to his ego was assured. "Let me at him! Let me at him!"
A compromise is reached. As long as both lizards are on their owner's laps, there is no fighting. They want to, but the other is too well-protected.
James sits with them for a little while, Slinky on his lap and Sonny in his tank. He feeds them both superworms, one to Sonny, one to Slinky, several times, so that both understands that Sonny and Slinky have enough food and they don't have to fight.
Over the course of the evening, Slinky's beard fades from black to its usual grayish. Sonny continues to innocently demand out, he's too big for such a small tank.
In the morning, I let him out, so he can run around and stretch his legs after being stuck in a small tank all night. Sonny runs out immediately. Then, about halfway across the living room, he stops.
He lifts up one arm, and lets it down slowly.
"Is he --"
James and I look at each other.
Sonny again lifts up one arm, and lets it down slowly.
"He's waving!"
Sonny does it several times, sometimes bowing. Over in his tank, Slinky watches. His beard is black, but not all of it. After Sonny finishes his display, Slinky headbobs, but not with that edge of desperation from last night. He leans casually against a rock, looking superior. Message received. Slinky is the dominant dragon. Sonny may pass.
Sonny did a great job during the speech! Everyone said what a handsome lizard he is. I'm so proud.
Soon after Norepinephrin and the rest of the one-act festival wrapped, a friend of mine through theater, Glen, contacted me. He was very impressed with the Machine James and I built:
Although James did pretty much all the work based on my vague suggestions, Glen wants me to design (and build?) some steampunk stuff for his steampunk video series. Certainly will let me stretch my creative muscles some without forcing me to stick to someone else's schedule. I need to reread the script and figure out what exactly I need to draw.
Anyway, ask and you shall receive: picspam!
I've been to the Udvar-Hazy Museum, which is a branch of the Air and Space Museum in DC. Last time I had gone, it had been with my friend Rory, visiting from England. This time I went with James, because it was his birthday and he wanted to go, darnit. What is it with guys and airplanes, anyway?
Turns out James was more excited about the space stuff, but he definitely enjoyed the plane stuff too.
Trying to take the perfect picture of this monument was the first time I had ever really felt like a DC resident. People kept walking in front of my camera. Fat people, talking in out-of-town accents, trying to figure out where they were going next and muttering about how expensive everything is. "Bah," I said. "Fucking tourists."
The next picture I took turned out to be too blurry. It was a picture of a pilot's license for a guy named Engen, a career pilot, who retired from military flying and became head of the FAA, which placed him in the unique position of having to approve his own private piloting license.
In the basement, there was an elevator to the top of the tower, which gave a nice panorama view of the Dulles region, including the airport.
3D Harry Potter poster outside the IMAX theater. I geeked out at James for a minute or two, before he nodded vaguely in pretend understanding and went to go look at the airplanes.
SR-71 Blackbird. Best spy plane the US ever built. Difficult to get in one camera frame.
The Enterprise's door is...open?
Still my favorite space vehicle, although it slips my mind what exactly it is.
<3
The Enterprise's funnel thingies are so big that I could probably live in it, although I'd request a separate bathroom.
LEONARDO DICAPRIO, ETERNAL SPACE DUDE.
I took these pictures because of the colors. The second one is not the Bat Missile; I don't know what it is (I can't read the sign on the left) but the Bat Missile was black and hanging above us.
The greebles on the Close Encounters of the Third Kind mothership included R2-D2, a mailbox, a graveyard, and a VW van.
Some Mars Rover. Starting at the Close Encounters of the Third Kind model I started fiddling with the settings on my camera, which is why I took a picture of this. The exhibit on Martian Rovers at the original Air and Space museum is way cooler, maybe I'll check it out as long as I'm in the area on Monday.
James and the Enterprise. It's why we were there!
Space dudes like R2-D2.
Not interesting enough to warrant a description, but good enough to include in the album.
High up on my to-do list is learning how to hang-glide, as it's the closest we will ever get to human-powered flight. I went hang-gliding for a week once, I'm now a Level 1 hang-glider (if you've never hang-glided you're Level 0). What this means is that I can hold onto a hang-glider and jump off from a sand dune, fly for about three seconds, and not die.
Big wheels. BIG wheels.
The Concorde, I believe. James took this picture as well, since he had the reach for it.
I'M ON A BOAT!
I'M ON A BOAT!
HEY EVERYBODY LOOK AT ME
BECAUSE I'M BALLOONING IN A BOAT IN CASE WE LOSE AIR OVER THE WATER!
So somewhere around here I read about Jerrie Mock and the Spirit of Columbus. Some background: in 1937, Amelia Earhart tried to become the first woman to pilot an airplane around the world. She failed, probably crash-landing somewhere in the Pacific. Jerrie Mock is the first woman to actually fly around the world; she did it in 1964.
Sorry it's blurry.
Nineteen Hundred and Sixty-Four. It took women 27 years to go from Amelia Earhart to Jerrie Mock; what's worse, Earhart, who failed, is more well-known than Mock, who succeeded. Humans love a mystery, we don't know if Earhart and Noonan died or if they ran off together or were kidnapped by aliens or what, but the point is...27 years? Really, women? Really?
I spent the rest of the afternoon going on incredibly random feminist rants. James mentioned a few minutes after my first one that test pilots needed to be smaller and lighter than most men.
"You know what's lighter and smaller than most men?" I asked.
"No," said James.
"Women."
And then I launched into another rant. I think I had one or two others.
The Enola Gay (the plane that blew up Hiroshima and Nagasaki).
And now my favorite plane! James can go gaga for space all he wants, but give me some pre-World War II planes any day!
An early attempt at piloting, with multiple attempts at flying, the last one about a week before the Wright Brothers took off at Kitty Hawk. The plan was to launch the plane by throwing it catapult-style from a river barge. If you look carefully at the pilot's seat, it's underneath the floaters; if the plane crashed, the pilot might drown.
RG Fowler? Who is RG Fowler? IT'S A MYSTERY!
A respectable destroyed plane. I salute you.
"James! That plane is made of wood!"
"They're all made of wood."
"Yes but that one is particularly wooden!"
James laughed so hard.
We are brave pioneers! In a boat. And a plane.
I bathed Sonny on Sunday night. I wanted to give him a nice, relaxing bath, maybe work off the last of his shedding skin, before his big day. I knew the next few days were going to be hard on him. He didn't know it, but I did.
And now a nice relaxing sleep before his big day.
And then he was in the car! Sonny loves the car. He loves exploring the car.
There was a period, when he was riding on my left shin, where, I don't know. The lighting was just right or something. I ended up taking about twice as many pictures as I've included here, but I think they're all really good, strong pictures.
And then he explored the backseat.
A girl's gotta keep her hair looking good! Even when she's not a girl...or a mammal...I don't know.
But finally, we reached our destination.
Where Sonny met...
SLINKY.
Did I hear something?
...
No. No I must have been imagining it.
I think I'll just lay here and put on my grumpface.
But then the Large Male brings out...
SLINKY.
Click to viewSlinky was triumphant.
Sonny was protected in his ten-gallon temporary home. But the blow to his ego was assured. "Let me at him! Let me at him!"
A compromise is reached. As long as both lizards are on their owner's laps, there is no fighting. They want to, but the other is too well-protected.
James sits with them for a little while, Slinky on his lap and Sonny in his tank. He feeds them both superworms, one to Sonny, one to Slinky, several times, so that both understands that Sonny and Slinky have enough food and they don't have to fight.
Over the course of the evening, Slinky's beard fades from black to its usual grayish. Sonny continues to innocently demand out, he's too big for such a small tank.
In the morning, I let him out, so he can run around and stretch his legs after being stuck in a small tank all night. Sonny runs out immediately. Then, about halfway across the living room, he stops.
He lifts up one arm, and lets it down slowly.
"Is he --"
James and I look at each other.
Sonny again lifts up one arm, and lets it down slowly.
"He's waving!"
Sonny does it several times, sometimes bowing. Over in his tank, Slinky watches. His beard is black, but not all of it. After Sonny finishes his display, Slinky headbobs, but not with that edge of desperation from last night. He leans casually against a rock, looking superior. Message received. Slinky is the dominant dragon. Sonny may pass.
Sonny did a great job during the speech! Everyone said what a handsome lizard he is. I'm so proud.